Gianluigi was not so short-sighted as not to know the temper of the Genoese, or to forget the lesson of then recent examples. He sought not to usurp the government and become the oppressor of the people, but to confer on his native land the blessings of its ancient order. Though writers in the pay of Spain accused him of corrupt ambition, lust of gold and thirst for blood, it is time to render him the tardy justice of saying that no document can be quoted which proves that he cherished such infamous projects--projects alien to his gentle and humane character, to the traditions of his family, and to the spirit of the Guelph party then supported by the most sound and cultivated intellects of Italy. Sismondi alone, of all historians, seems to us to have comprehended the real object of Fieschi. “Andrea Doria,” he writes, “had restored the name of Republic to his country, but not liberty nor independence. He called to the government a strict aristocracy, of whom Gianettino was the master. He bound the fate of his country to that of Austria, by bonds which humiliated the best part of the Genoese. Fieschi planned his conspiracy in order to deliver the country from the yoke of Spain and the Dorias.”[33] The events we proceed to describe set the seal of truth upon the words of this illustrious historian. Some tell us that Gianluigi plotted, so early as 1537, with Cesare Fregoso, to place the Republic in the hands of the French king; for which, Bonfadio adds,[34] he would have lost his head, if Andrea Doria had not saved him from the rigours of the law. This report was set on foot by the marquis Vasto, governor of Milan, who, after the assassination of Cesare Fregoso and Antonio Rancone, the messengers of King Francis to Soliman, endeavoured to justify his treachery by declaring, among other things, that he had found in commentaries of Fregoso, (which he never had in his hands) proofs that Fieschi took part in that plot. But these pretended conspiracies with the King of France are now destroyed by very authoritative testimony. If Bonfadio had remembered that, in 1537, Fieschi was still a lad, he would have hesitated to adopt that slander. It is known, too, that personal enmity existed between the families Fregoso and Fieschi of so bitter a character as to forbid all possibility of common political views and intimate secret negotiations. The memory of the day, when Doge Giano Fregoso and his brother Fregosino, encountering Gerolamo Fieschi, killed him with many blows, was not effaced; nor was it forgotten that the Fieschi retired to their castles to plan their revenge, collected three thousand soldiers and besieged the city from the valley of Bisagno, where the Fregosi were entrenched. A battle was fought, in which the Doge was defeated. The Fieschi entered the city as victors, killed Zaccaria Fregoso, dragged his corpse through the populous streets, and elevated Antoniotto Adorno to the office of Doge. From