This tragic event, though hardly a part of the pious Emperor’s plans, made the last link in the chain which Spain was forging round Italy. Neither the Pope, nor Francis I., who had regained his liberty early in 1526, were able to offer any further serious resistance to the conqueror, though for some years yet the French continued to make desperate efforts to regain Milan, and the city had to endure both the tyranny of the Spanish governor, De Leyva, and the horrors of blockade. The Treaty of Barcelona between the Pope and the Emperor, and the peace signed by Charles and Francis at Cambrai—that _Paix des Dames_, arranged by the most famous ladies of France and Italy—followed by the Congress and Coronation of the Emperor at Bologna in 1530, secured peace at last for the tormented country by laying the destinies of Italy finally in the conqueror’s hands. Francesco Sforza, who threw himself on the Emperor’s mercy, was graciously pardoned and reinstated in his Dukedom. The return of this amiable prince inspired a faint joy in the exhausted people, and gradually, in spite of the enormous subsidies exacted by the Emperor, and the burdens imposed to drive off the attacks of the independent condottieri and pirates who ranged the disordered country, a certain amount of life and activity crept back into the cruelly-wronged city. Such consolation and remedy for her wounds as his fettered powers and grave embarrassments allowed, Francesco administered, introducing order into the wild confusion of the government, and reviving trade and industry by careful regulations. But what a changed Milan from that in which his father and mother had reigned gloriously, in beautiful stainless palaces, surrounded by the finest productions of art, was this wrecked, defiled and devastated city, in whose deserted streets and suburbs nettles grew rankly, and wolves, grown used to feed on human flesh, roamed at will, attacking armed men, and snatching children from their mothers’ arms! ‘What an incredible evidence of the change of fortune,’ writes Guicciardini, ‘to those who had seen her not long before overflowing with inhabitants, and not only full of all gaiety and delight from the natural inclination of her inhabitants to feasting and pleasure, but because of the wealth of her citizens, the infinite number of her shops and industries, the delicacy and abundance of all the things which form man’s food, the superb apparel and equipages and sumptuous adornments of both her women and her men, more flourishing and happy than any other city of Italy.’