²⁹¹ “About this time, 1512, says Flecher, pope Julius piqued against France and her allies, abusing the power which God had given him, and making religion subservient to his own particular passions, went to such lengths as to excommunicate kings and strip them of their kingdoms. The greatness of Louis XII. secured him from these exactions, and France, supported by her internal force, feared neither the violence of the pope, nor the ambition of those who would have taken ad-vantage of it to attack this crown. The evil fell on John d’Albret, king of Navarre, who, not being sufficiently provident to secure himself from surprise, nor powerful enough to defend himself against an armed neighbour, watchful of every opportunity to aggrandize his kingdom, had been ex-communicated because he had united with the king of France, and was finally driven from his states, under the pretence that he had contributed to the convocation and continuance of the council held at Pisa against the Holy See. Ferdinand, in virtue of this bull of excommunication, which it is believed the pope had secretly conveyed to him before he had fulminated it, caused his troops to advance quietly, and put himself in a position to attack the king of Navarre, with whom he was living on good terms, and who suspected nothing. He knew in his conscience he was about committing " an injustice, and doubted not he would be reproached with his invasion: on this account he sent to desire Cardinal Ximenes might come to him in Logrogne, where he was, in order to sanction by his presence, at least in the eyes of his subjects, a war which in other respects had no just grounds.” Life of Cardinal Ximenes, pa. 358, 359. Ed. of 1693. To crush France, overthrow Florence, such were the designs of Julius when he died in 1513, the tenth year of his pontificate. Medals, struck by his order, represent him with the tiara on his head, a scourge in his hand, pursuing the French, and trampling under his feet the crown of France. Julius II. was so much of a temporal prince, that it would be hard to discover the bishop in him; he attended too little to even the forms of the Apostolat; this was the principal deficiency in his policy.²⁹² It was nevertheless in his pontificate that the doctrine of the infallibility of the pope was established. Julius II. according to Guicciardini,²⁹³ did not merit the title of a great man; and he obtains it from those only who, incapable of appreciating the value of words, imagine that a sovereign pontiff becomes less illustrious by setting an example of the pacific virtues, than in extending the domains of the church by the effusion of Christian blood. He was detested even in Italy. Before his death, the inhabitants of Bologna, threw down his statue, the work of Michael Angelo.