Paul was addressed by the doge to the prelates and clergy; and the senate wrote on the same head to all the cities and communes of the state. These two pieces are distinguished for their calm energy, which mingles no insult, no indication of passion, with the expression of unshaken resolution. We have omitted nothing, say the senators, to open the eyes of his holiness; but he has closed his ear to our remonstrances, as well as to the lessons of Scripture, of the holy fathers and of councils; he perseveres in not acknowleging the secular authority which God has committed to us, the independence of our republic, and the rights of our fellow-citizens. Shall we appeal to a general council? our ancestors have done it in similar circumstances; but here the injustice is so palpable that a solemn appeal would be superfluous. Our cause is too immediately that of our subjects, of our allies, of our enemies themselves, that such an excommunication should disturb for a moment the external or internal peace of our republic. In fact, the anathema remained inefficacious within and without.³¹³ In vain did the pope employ the Jesuits to raise or indispose the European courts against the Venetians. In Spain even, where these Jesuitical intrigues were somewhat more successful than elsewhere, the Venetian ambassador was admitted to all the ecclesiastical ceremonies, in spite of the threats of the nuncio. The governor of Milan, the dukes of Mantua and Modena, the grand duke of Tuscany, the viceroy of Naples, openly espoused the interests of the excommunicated republic. Sigismund, king of Poland, also declared that it was the cause of his kingdom; and the duke of Savoy, that it was that of every sovereign in Christendom. The court of Vienna blamed the pope’s conduct, and invited Sorance, the Venetian ambassador, to a procession of the holy sacrament, in despite of the apostolic nuncio, who refused to be present at it. The nuncio Barberini did not succeed better in France when he required that entrance into the churches should be prohibited the Venetian ambassador. Priuli. Abandoned thus at all the courts, and reduced to his own spiritual and temporal resources, the sovereign pontiff resolved to levy troops against Venice: happily for this papal army, Henry IV. offered his mediation, and ended the dispute,³¹⁴ on terms more favourable than Paul could have hoped for, although he had formed a ‘board of war:’ it was in truth a committee of priests, and a perfectly novel application of sacerdotal functions. ³¹³ The court of Rome, says Dumarsais, fears only those who do not fear her, and concedes only to those who will not concede to her; she has no power but that derived from the weakness of those who are ignorant of their own rights, and who ascribe to her, what she would never have dared to attribute to herself but for their blind deference.—Exp. of the Doctrine of the Gallican Church, v. 228 of 7th vol. of Dumariais’ Works.