Thus terminated this enterprise of Charles VIII., which at first was pretended to be a holy war, which was directed by a short-sighted policy, and the consequences of which became so fatal to France and Italy. Whilst the preparations for this war were going on, there appeared, as we have said above, several writings in prose and verse, in which great victories were predicted. The aim of these predictions was not only to excite the enthusiasm of the people, but to strengthen a weak and irresolute prince in his undertaking. When we read the prophetic songs and hymns of the poets, we may fancy we see the French setting out for the conquest of the holy places. But the scene changes when we turn our eyes to the pages of history. Everything leads us to conclude, that on this occasion religious opinions and sentiments of chivalry were but the auxiliaries of unfortunate ambition. It is particularly to this expedition that we may apply what J. J. Rousseau somewhere says of the crusades: “The intrigues of cabinets embroiled affairs, and religion was the pretext.” The policy of Venice did not preserve her from the anger of Bajazet, who declared war against her. Alexander VI. published a jubilate, and demanded tenths of the clergy of Europe for the preparations for a crusade against the Turks. The emperor Maximilian, Louis XII., and the kings of Castile, Portugal, and Hungary, appeared to listen for a moment to the propositions of the pope. But reciprocal mistrust speedily dissolved this Christian league: in vain the preachers of the crusade repeated in their discourses the menaces of Bajazet; they could not overcome the indifference of the people; and the sovereign pontiff found everywhere equal obstacles to the levying of the tenths and the distribution of indulgences. The French clergy on this occasion braved ecclesiastical censures; and what shows the decline of the pontifical power, at least as far as regards the crusades, a simple decision of the Faculty of Theology of Paris was at that time sufficient to stand against all the terrible array of the menaces and thunders of Rome.