CHAPTER XII.

TUSCANY AND SAVOY.

The elder Medici had prided themselves on their extension of the Florentine frontiers, but Cosimo by conquering Siena had surpassed them. The two most natural complements of his territory were Lucca and the principality of the Appiani, comprising the headland of Piombino and Elba. Lucca was almost an enclave, and hindered access to the coast north of Pisa. Cosimo, however, failed to annex the republic, as had both Medici and Albizzi before him. The city was rich; the country people were warlike and patriotic. Cosimo saw his chance when the Lucchese Gonfalonier Burlamacchi formed his quixotic conspiracy for Italian liberation ; but the nationalist suffered death without inculpating his State, which put itself under the protection of the Infant Philip (1546). The only result was the formation at Lucca of a close and competent oligarchy which was to survive till the end of the eighteenth century.

Disappointment was greater in the case of Piombino, for twice it was actually in Cosimo's grasp. In hostile hands it would be a serious menace to Florentine commerce, of which Leghorn had become the principal outlet. Cosimo claimed it as being originally part of Pisan territory, and as devolving therefore to Florence with its ruling city. Its cession, however, to the Appiani by Gian Galeazzo Visconti preceded the Florentine conquest of Pisa by seven years. The young ruler Jacopo VI, Cosimo's first cousin on the mother's side, was little able to defend himself. Cosimo garrisoned Piombino against Barbarossa in 1543, and in 1548 Charles V gave him the investiture, but after a few weeks withdrew it. In 1553 Cosimo again had actual possession, but by the arrangement of 1557 he only retained the north-western part of Elba with Porto Ferraio, which became the chief protection of the Tuscan littoral, and the model naval port of southern Europe. Piombino itself passed by marriage from House to House until its annexation to Tuscany in 1814.

Once lord of Siena, Cosimo did his utmost to heal its wounds, granting amnesty and restitution of property to all who would return. Siena was spared the humiliation of submission to a rival city; she remained a distinct State, with her elective sovereign magistracy, her rule over subject towns, her original custom lines. Her union with Florence, like her former union with Milan, was personal only ; for Florentines and Sienese were equally Cosimo's servants. Nor was the Sienese constitution ostensibly much altered. Cosimo himself gave it, during a long visit, its permanent form. He did not suppress the Monti-parties which, without having any formal place in the constitution, had nevertheless by usage become the groundwork of the fabric ; but he struck from the several party registers families whose poverty might favour corruption or disable them from public service. The Great Council was abolished; but each of the four Monti henceforth elected a quarter of the Council of a Hundred, and was represented in the same proportion in the curious Sienese institution called the Balia, a permanent committee of government elected from the Council. The Signoria and the office of Captain of the People were retained. Thus, as at Florence, the more democratic Council disappeared ; but the ï/otal change was less, for the old sovereign magistracy remained. The form of the constitution, however, mattered little; for all real power was vested in the ducal Governor, who presided in councils and committees, but did his effective work through a bureaucracy dependent on himself, leaving to the native magistracies the less important patronage and non-political jurisdiction. The first Governor was Cosimo's intimate friend Agnolo Niccolini. Partly, perhaps, in consequence of this good beginning, Siena never hereafter gave trouble to the Medici, but became so welded to their House as later always to claim a member of it for Governor.

Duke of Tuscany. The Emperor declared against the creation, and drew Philip II to his side. Foreign Courts hesitated, with the exception of England, while the Dukes of Ferrara and Mantua, and later the Duke of Savoy, clamorously protested. When, nevertheless, Çosimo was solemnly crowned at Rome, the Emperor's ambassador ostentatiously left the hall during the ceremony. His master ordered the German Princes not to recognise the title, but he was not generally obeyed ; and his hopes of a reversal were disappointed, when Gregory XIII confirmed his predecessor's action.

The withdrawal of the French from Tuscany in 1559 relieved Cosimo from all fear of exiles without and malcontents within. Hitherto, he had ruled by terrorism : now, he could afford to slacken the reins and reduce the taxes. Yet it is impossible to divide his administration by this date; and this must be the justification of a wider survey of its character.

Cosimo's election after Alessandro's murder in 1537 was in accordance with Charles V's act of settlement of 1532 ; for he was the nearest legitimate agnate of the House after the murderer Lorenzino, who was debarred by public decree. On the father's side he was descended from the brother of the elder Cosimo, pater patriae, while his mother was grand-daughter of Lorenzo. His father, Giovanni délie Bande Nere, son of Caterina Sforza, may have inherited through her the military genius which had cast lustre upon Florence. This made Cosimo's election popular, though no one knew the capacity of the handsome athletic youth of eighteen, who had been well brought up on slender means. Very characteristic of the Italian despotism was the combination of hereditary right and election by the Council of Forty-eight, which now represented the Commune. Cosimo was the choice of the Moderates, headed by Guicciardini, against the extreme Mediceans, who preferred a bastard infant of Alessandro's, and against the republican aristocracy. The new ruler was not styled Duke, but head and chief of the Republic; the appointment to important magistracies was vested in the Forty-eight; and his income was limited to a fixed sum. The Emperor had a better security, for his general, Alessandro Vitelli, had on Duke Alessandro's murder seized the fortresses of Florence, Pisa, and Leghorn.

The supposed functions of the changing Privy Council were soon usurped by the Pratica sécréta, an informal committee of experts whom Cosimo might think fit to summon. From the nucleus inherited from Alessandro he developed his own bureaucracy. In this he took Lorenzo as his model, preferring men of lowly station, not Florentines but shrewd Tuscans from the provinces. Thus Campana came from Colle close to the Sienese border ; Lelio Torelli, who succeeded him, was a foreigner, a Romagnol ; Bartolommeo Concini, the trusted minister of later days, was of Terranova on the Arno. Lorenzo's hated secretary, Piero da Bibbiena, found a counterpart in Bernardo, of the same clever Casentino stock. Agnolo Niccolini, Archbishop of Pisa, the only noble to whom Cosimo gave high administrative office, recalled his namesake driven from Florence on the fall of Piero II. The old committees still did the executive and judicial routine work ; but the permanent secretaries advised with authority on important cases, while measures receiving the Duke's approval after discussion in the Pratica passed for laws.

To Cosimo's intelligent and incorrupt magistracy his efficient police and elaborate system of espionage were invaluable adjuncts. His spies were everywhere, it was believed-in every household, in every church. Wherever Florentines congregated abroad, secret agents were in their midst. Each night the chief of police sent in a list of all men met in the streets, armed or unarmed, with lanterns or without. If a shot were fired or a knife thrust home, the gates were closed till the criminal was found. Cosimo's first act on rising was to scan the list of cases in the Courts. The envoy Fedeli, accustomed to the severity of Venetian justice, yet wrote with awe of the secret prisons from which news never issued.

A prince, said Cosimo, should be strong alike by sea and land. At Pisa he built docks, and he made Porto Ferraio a fine naval harbour. The immediate difficulty was the total lack of a national marine. The Republic of 1494-1512 had not owned a single galley, and could only blockade Pisa by hiring Genoese pirates. To remedy this, Cosimo introduced a seafaring element, especially into Elba, from Greece, Sicily, and the Levant. Very successful also was his new naval Order of St Stephen, whose members were pledged to war against the infidel. This Order was confined to the nobility, and intended to interest them in State service, to attach them to the dynasty, to wean them away from faction and the pursuit of wealth. The Knights were endowed with Commanderies founded by the State or by wealthy private families. They won distinction at Penon de Vêlez in 1564, and at Lepanto in 1571. But the little fleet never reached its intended number of twenty galleys, and could scarcely keep the sea when the Barbaresques appeared in force. On the other hand it paid its way, for Cosimo used it for his private commerce ; while his successor extended its functions to piracy which brought him into trouble with Venice.

Cosimo was no mere fiscalist ; he not only tapped but filled the reservoirs of revenue. He revived the decaying silk and woollen trades, and could boast of an unprecedented production of cloth. The smaller towns and villages, to which Florence had jealously forbidden manufacture, now plied their looms. By disobeying Charles V's orders to the Italian cities to eschew the fairs of Lyons, Cosimo drew trade from Genoa and Lucca, while he captured the lucrative trade in brocades with Sicily and Spain. Mercantilist as he was, he sympathised with the physiocratic leanings of the Florentine gentry, who had made the scientific development of their estates their chief interest. War had annihilated their efforts, but peace of itself did much to redress the balance ; and Cosimo, like the earlier Medici, set a personal example in scientific farming and fruit-growing. He took a lively interest in the silver mines of Pietra Santa, the marble quarries near Carrara, and the anthracite discoveries on the Upper Arno; concessions were obtained for working the alum of Piombino and the iron of Elba. He endeavoured, as did the early Medici, to bribe Pisa to loyalty by material prosperity. The city was made quite healthy by good drainage ; building materials were admitted free; and ships built there paid no harbour dues in Tuscan ports. Manufactures of glass and coral were introduced ; Portuguese Jews and Greeks were tempted to settle by the promise of toleration. In 1543 the University of Pisa was reopened. Italy was ransacked for distinguished professors, and Tuscans were forbidden to take degrees elsewhere. Pisa became both an intellectual and social centre, for the fashionable Order of St Stephen had its headquarters there, and the Grand Dukes from Cosimo downwards made it a favourite residence. Nothing, indeed, could tempt the old nobility back to Pisa, and the river-port was too near the seaport of Leghorn to recover the commerce of the past ; but at least her stateliness and brightness were restored.

There were, of course, drawbacks to this beneficent economic autocracy. It was calamitous, wrote Fedeli, that all the rich and noble families of Florence should be enslaved by one Prince who had in his power all private and public wealth-even though they believed that it served them right. Cosimo was not above contemporary prejudices or personal interests. He would make a revenue and a reserve at almost any cost. Before his death the industries which he had stimulated were somewhat waning, and trade was slipping away to the cheaper papal port of Ancona. He became a banker like his forefathers ; and the banker's interest was not always coincident with the State's. Speculation in grain became almost a monopoly. Popular prejudice, indeed, had prevented free export from the Maremma, which might have made its colonisation a greater success ; but the Duke himself, while liberally supplying the very poor, hampered production by restrictions on the market. His dealings in the woollen trade were in unfair competition with his subjects ; he was suspected of elbowing the wealthier families out of trade, lest wealth should make them politically dangerous. On the other hand, he paid off from his private resources the debt of the Sienese war; and, while greater monarchs left their States in bankruptcy, Cosimo bequeathed a well-filled treasury.

Artistic and literary appreciation was a heritage from both lines of Medici ; and, as with Cosimo the Elder and Lorenzo, it was politically valuable. Cosimo's new historical school comprised Varchi, Adriani, and Ammirato, while Paolo Giovio printed his histories under his auspices. The supremacy of Tuscan speech was all in favour of the ambitious Tuscan ruler. Thus to the amateur Accademia degli Umidi he gave the national title and official position of the Accademia Fiorent'ma, enjoining the duty of establishing rules which should give Tuscany a permanent classical prestige. Of this the Accademia detta Crusca was the outcome in the immediate future, while Varchi and Gelli by their lectures on Dante and Petrarch refreshed the memories of the past; and the restored Cathedral once more echoed the tones of the medieval religious poet. Firenzuola and il Lasca contributed dimple and smile to the more serious aspect of literature. In Cellini and Vasari Cosimo can boast the auto-biographer and biographer who of all Italians have, perhaps, the most enduring fame ; and it is characteristic of Medicean versatility that in their persons Cosimo linked the art and letters of his reign. His eager interest in Cellini, his close friendship with Vasari, his friendly correspondence with other leading artists, prove at the same time a love for art above that of the princely patron and collector. He did his utmost to woo Michelangelo back to Florence, consulting him on all artistic enterprises, promising him any official honours that he might choose, visiting him with sympathetic reverence at Rome. The Academy of the Fine Arts, the Arte del Disegno, was the embodiment of his monarchical, organising spirit, giving social unity and collaboration to painters, sculptors, and architects. From Cosimo date the characteristically Florentine arts of mosaic and work in porphyry. His were the collections which formed the nucleus of the Uffizi gallery; he completed and opened the Laurentian Library. Yet nature, perhaps, appealed more to his practical turn of mind than even art or literature. He founded the School of Botany at Pisa, where the Botanical Garden (1544) is only just junior to that of Padua. Among his chief delights were his herbarium and his Physic Garden by San Marco ; nor were the pleasure-gardens of the Pitti and the family villa at Castello without their scientific uses. At Pisa too Vesalius taught; while at Florence doctors and chemists underwent reforms as drastic as their antiquated remedies. A few years more life, and Cosimo would have been the lord of Galileo ; but this honour was reserved for Ferdinand. This record of art, literature, history, and science would prove the steps of intellectual decadence to be at least extremely slow.

This incomplete and unsatisfactory regency of ten years opened a period of social demoralisation, which culminated during Francis1 reign. Florence was permeated by an atmosphere of adultery, violence, and pecuniary corruption. As under Alessandro, she experienced the worst side of the Italian despotism. Moreover, Francis, born of a Spanish mother, and partly brought up in Spain, had no Tuscan geniality or simplicity. Either he withdrew himself to his studies in natural science and his amours, or in his magnificent and extravagant Court, formed on the Spanish model, surrounded himself with titled nobility. The consideration declined in which the untitled Florentine gentry and the higher magistrates had been held ; and the craze for titles, from which Florence had been comparatively free, set in. Justice was excessively severe without being deterrent. Taxation reduced itself to fiscalism, and trading to a system of monopolies for the disreputable group surrounding the throne. Francis' passion for the Venetian runaway Bianca Cappello, and his mean and heartless treatment of his Austrian wife, disgusted the people of Florence and the Court of Vienna ; nor did his marriage with his mistress immediately after his wife's death improve the situation. To increase the roll of family scandals, his sister was murdered by her brutal husband, Paolo Giordano Orsini; while his brother Piero assassinated his wife, who was also his first cousin. Francis was on bad terms with the Cardinal Ferdinand ; but the latter visited his brother at Poggio à Caiano, and was reconciled. During the visit Francis died (October 19, 1587), and on the following day Bianca. Though it is certain that both died a natural death, the coincidence caused yet another scandal. The sole political fact of the reign had been the recognition of the Grand-ducal title by Maximilian II.

It was no time to quarrel with France, for in the autumn of 1597 Alfonso II of Ferrara had died; and Clement VIII refused to invest Cesare d'Esté, also brother-in-law of Ferdinand, who zealously supported his claim. The Spanish party in Italy was urging the Pope to employ his large forces in a partition of Tuscany ; and, to propitiate him, the newly-converted Henry IV had abandoned Ferrara, the faithful ally of a century and a half. Ferdinand feared that he might also sacrifice the Medici to the Aldobrandini Clement VIII, son of a Florentine exile of 1530.

They destroyed the Barbaresque ships under the guns of Algiers, stormed Prevesa, burnt Bona, and attempted Famagosta. With a little more support Ferdinand might have wrested from the Turk Cyprus and Jerusalem itself, for Christian piracy in the Levant had suddenly assumed formidable proportions.

At home in Tuscany Ferdinand was tireless in promoting agricultural and mineral development. The drainage of the Chiana valley and the Maremma were above the hydraulic experience of those days ; and the former led to a brush with the Papacy, for it was believed that Rome was flooded by the operations on the upper Tiber. They had the indirect effect of making agriculture and gardening fashionable among the nobility, and of so reviving their taste for the fresh Tuscan life. Cosimo and Francis had encouraged the growth of the olive ; but to Ferdinand was mainly due the extension of the mulberry, which provided the Tuscan silk-trade with its raw material. Yet of all his bequests the greatest was Leghorn ; for it was he who really made the modern town, for which Cosimo and Francis had laid foundations. Leghorn became a home for all nations and all creeds, a shining example of despotic tolerance for free trade and free religion. Justly famous for the material blessings of his reign, the Tuscan Prince had shown himself no coward. He had bearded the Sultan, and confronted Spain ; he had interchanged blows with the Pope, and with the King of France.

The antecedents of Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy differed widely from those of Cosimo de' Medici. The latter, an unknown youth whose only claim to distinction was his father's military talent, was suddenly preferred to power by the assassination of a very distant cousin. The Savoyard, son of a most unmartial sire, was thirty years of age and the hero of Europe at the time of his restoration, which he owed to the blow struck by his own arm at Saint-Quentin. Nevertheless, the capacity of either for reconstruction and administration was almost equally unknown, and Emmanuel Philibert's task was the harder.

Apart from reconstruction or revolution-for the conversion of the feudal state into a modern monarchy was little less-the Prince must look to a process of recovery, and even of expansion. He could not be master while French and Spaniards held seven of his chief positions. He could not ignore the losses inflicted by the Swiss, the men of the Valais, and the citizens of Geneva. Charles V had broken his mother's heart by conferring the long-coveted Montferrat, the geographical complement of Piedmont to the east, on the rival House of Mantua. The rights of Savoy were, indeed, reserved ; but reservation was only another word for repudiation. The question whether the Marquisate of Saluzzo, or any of it, were a fief of Piedmont or of Dauphiné had been merely academic, so long as there was a line of Marquises ; but it was now all-important that its passes and fortresses should not furnish France with an inlet and a base, exposing the plain of Piedmont, and endangering the connexion with the sea-board and with Nice. The recovery of the occupied cities ; that of the southern and northern shores of Lake Leman ; the re-establishment of Savoyard rights over Geneva ; the realisation of claims upon Saluzzo and the Montferrat ; the extension of the narrow strip of Riviera sea-board-such were the aims which must go to make the history of Emmanuel Philibert and his heirs.

The Piedmontese haunts of the Vaudois were the valleys of the Pellice and Chisone, two rivers which feed the Upper Po, and their smaller affluents, such as the Agrogna. These valleys run down between ridges projecting eastwards from the backbone of the mountains which lies north and south. The population might number 15,000; but Catholics and Vaudois were interspersed. Neither the Duke nor his subjects desired the rupture which the Pope and the foreign ministers of the Vaudois were forcing. The mountaineers had powerful intercessors in the Duchess and the Counts of Racconigi and Luserna. If they would only have expelled their foreign ministers, the government would probably have been content. But the preachers urged armed resistance, persuading their flocks that they could never be reached among their snows. Meanwhile the Pope scornfully rejected the Vaudois Confession, promising, if instruction failed-and the Jesuit Possevin did egregiously fail-to grant a year's ecclesiastical revenue in Piedmont for the suppression of heresy.

An opportunist policy was also followed in dealing with ordinary dissent. The early drastic measures resulted in the flight of a considerable portion of the inhabitants in some Piedmontese towns to Saluzzo and Dauphiné. Depopulation was the last thing which the Duke desired. He recalled the fugitives, quashed most of the sentences, restored confiscated property, and henceforth connived at liberty of conscience at the least. In some cases he refused to surrender heretics to the Pope, or released them from the Inquisition. He gave refuge to fugitive Huguenots, even to those flying from the provincial massacres which followed St Bartholomew's Eve. While in Piedmont the Decrees of Trent were published, in Savoy, where heresy was more dominant, publication was withheld. Toleration might have been more complete but for the provocation given by native and foreign heretics, who formed plots against different places in turn, and who actually occupied the strong strategic position of Exilles.

The three years within which the French Crown had to substantiate its claims slipped rapidly by amid excuses, delays, and the revival of ridiculous pretensions. Should Emmanuel Philibert have no heir, as was thought probable, his Gallicised cousin, the Duke of Nemours, would succeed under totally different conditions. But on January 12, 1562, Margaret gave birth to Charles Emmanuel. The civil wars in France had now begun, enabling the Duke to press harder. He won the King of Navarre, the Constable, and Nemours, while Margaret secretly corresponded with the Queen-Mother. France was still too strong to abandon her hold on Italy ; and the Duke saw that he must compromise. One proposal was an exchange of the fertile province of Bresse for Saluzzo and the five Piedmontese towns ; but finally the French retained Pinerolo, receiving Savigliano and the valley of Perosa in return for the other cities. This gave them better access to Saluzzo, while it freed the centre of Piedmont from their annoying presence. Such was the growing demoralisation in France that the Crown's engagement found no acquiescence from its officers in Piedmont. Under great provocation the Duke had kept his temper for three years; he now with consummate judgment lost it. Accusing the French commandants of stirring his Protestant subjects to revolt, he threatened an appeal to Spain as guarantor of the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis. This brought the Cardinal of Lorraine himself to Piedmont with peremptory orders for evacuation. The garrisons sulkily withdrew to their less comfortable quarters. On December 12,1562, the Duke rode into Turin, henceforth the capital of a new European Power.

Through these weary negotiations Spain and the Pope had given Emmanuel Philibert no aid ; the victory was all his own. He felt that his fortunes must depend mainly on the power of France and thus on the issue of the civil wars. Their continuance was to his interest ; and, when trouble began for Spain in the Netherlands, his old intimacy with its promoters is said to have added force to this diversion.

In addition to the recovered cities, Emmanuel Philibert made some useful acquisitions by purchasing Tenda with the valleys of Prelà and Maro. The former was of much importance, as commanding the pass to Nice, while the Prelà opened a way to Oneglia, which was bought from one of the Doria. Thus was won yet another access to that much disputed Riviera, where France and Spain, Genoa and Savoy, each had a foothold. The Duke was suspected of designs upon Finale, already coveted by the Spanish King, and also upon Savona, which would gladly have revolted from Genoa, who was deliberately ruining its once thriving trade. His chief failure was Montferrat. In vain he appealed for a revision of his claim, visiting Augsburg in 1566 to press it. He found the Emperor so intent upon a Turkish campaign that delicacy held him back, though he thought it judicious to contribute a serviceable cavalry contingent. A less cautious statesman might have found his opportunity in the rising of Casale, virtually a free town, against the absolutism of the first Mantuan Marquis. After giving some encouragement he finally, from fear of Spain, left the rebellion alone, even expelling the refugees to whom he had given shelter.

The Estates of Piedmont would never have granted the taxes which the Duke extracted, but they had almost ceased to exist during the French occupation ; and he made no effort to revive them, although he continued to summon the several provincial Estates of his Savoyard territories, where the question of subsidies was less important. In Piedmont he negotiated with the communes separately, and with committees of contributories in the country districts. He would listen to suggestions and remonstrances, and vary the methods and incidence of taxation, but on the sum total of revenue to be derived he was immovable. Much discontent there was. The Venetian envoy Boldu in his report of 1561 states that the Piedmontese longed for war again and cursed the peace, that in the towns still occupied by France they had no wish for evacuation, and that French officials fanned the flames. But there was no rising against taxation. The Duke had gained his object ; towards the close his budgets balanced, while he had a large sum of gold in the treasury for emergencies. Few European rulers could boast as much

In the armament of the recovered State, curiously enough, the Duke's fleet took precedence of his army. The first year of his actual reign he spent at Nice, the home of his childhood. Here with Andrea Provana's help he constructed his little fleet. As the lord of Nice and Villafranca, he was a valuable ally to the rulers of Barcelona or Marseilles. He was probably infected with Charles Vs enthusiasm for a naval .crusade, but apart from this a squadron seemed essential for coast defence. The Riviera was annually harried by the Barbaresques ; the Duke himself was surprised at Villafranca and for a moment left alone among the enemy. In 1560 Provana could command ten galleys, and though this number was reduced his squadron remained a model of efficiency. The galleys were faster than the Genoese ; their crews better fed and more humanely treated ; the Duke himself invented an improved carbine for his marines. At Lepanto Provana and his three ships fought almost to their own destruction. To make naval service fashionable the Duke later obtained the Pope's consent to vest the Grand-mastership of the old and now corrupt Order of San Lazzaro in the dynasty on condition of creating and fusing with it the Order of San Maurizio. He gave the Knights two galleys and a training base at Nice ; but, though Savoyard nobles were attracted by the commanderies of San Lazzaro scattered throughout Europe, they scarcely increased the efficiency of the fleet.

To support his scheme of fortresses the Duke created a militia of 25,000 men. In Piedmont these soon improved under a system of parochial, district, and provincial training, but all Venetian envoys agreed that in Savoy there was not a tolerable soldier ; the people were poor-spirited and used their helmets, breast-plates, swords and lances as kitchen utensils. The small force of 700 yeomanry consisted mainly of gentry well mounted and of excellent quality. In case of invasion the Duke could fall back upon a feudal levy of 7000 horse who had the potentialities of a serviceable cavalry. Yet, after all, this was an age of professionalism; and every would-be military power must be in touch with the mercenary market. The Duke's distinguished service gave him a great advantage ; he retained in his pay nine Italian condottieri of high repute, named " the Colonels," who at any crisis could find him as many seasoned troops as he could pay. Finally, his treaty with the Catholic Cantons and the Valais gave him a lien on a definite number of stalwart foot, while proportionately reducing the forces available by France or Spain.

It is remarkable that the victor of Saint-Quentin never fought again. Nor did he ever employ in active service the little army which he created, except in small numbers as mere auxiliaries of the Emperor or the French King, and this for political ends unconnected with the actual campaigns. The military resources of the new State were adapted rather for defence than offence. The militia was not sufficiently trained for conquest ; the Swiss, though deeply interested in the preservation of Savoy, would not have fought for its expansion. Emmanuel Philibert would go to the very edge of an aggressive policy, but would never overstep it, however passionate were his desires. This may be illustrated from his attitude towards Genoa and Geneva, and from the self-control with which he kept his itching palms from Saluzzo and the Montferrat. He had the gift of measuring his possibilities.

Emmanuel Philibert's physical energy was marvellous. Most of his business he conducted standing or walking ; he craved for fresh air, and hard exercise in blazing sun, vowing that fog was more wholesome than crowded rooms. After a nine hours' run which had brought stag, field and pack to a stand-still, he would split the logs to cook his supper, play quoits till dark, and rustic games till midnight. Naturally he was all bone and muscle ; but he did not escape an hereditary touch of gout.

Personally religious, the Duke was regular at mass, and knew the service as well as the priest ; sparing in all else, he was generous to the Church, especially to the newer and more active fraternities. Men kept their religion and their morals in separate compartments of their characters. From first to last the Duke was an unfaithful husband, though he treated his wife with playfulness, tenderness, and respect. No indecent jests ever passed his lips; and, in spite of service in Flanders, he never acquired the soldierlike habit of swearing. He plumed himself on truthfulness and observance of his promises.

No ruler ever carried further the principles of absolute monarchy. He regarded himself as having conquered his country, lance in rest, and felt no obligation to respect the liberties of nobles or communes. The duchy must be a new creation, his own handiwork, and the Duke as near a King as might be. The desire for a royal title, exaggerated in his son, was not the outcome of mere vanity, but an integral part of his political scheme. This explains his pride and exclusiveness, for by nature he was gracious and sociable. At church and at table he sat under a canopy. This contrast between his exclusiveness and his father's easy manners was far from popular; but some outward symbol of the new relation was perhaps necessary. On all grounds the Duke was resolved to keep his nobles in their place. There was nothing, he said, that a Prince should so carefully avoid as the grant of fiefs, for it was the creation of potential enemies. Until his power was firmly established he controlled the two parties, Guelf and Ghibelline, through the agency of their chiefs, the Counts of Racconigi and Masino. Later, however, he decided everything for himself, not even always consulting the most intimate of his friends, Andrea Provana. Men naturally regretted the old, easy times, but the day was past for the reconstruction of an old-fashioned and haphazard feudal State.

Charles Emmanuel must obviously marry. Thé natural alternatives were a French and a Spanish match, but each was subdivided. Catharine de' Medici longed to give him her well-loved granddaughter, Christine of Lorraine. This would entail a close union with the Crown, and strengthen the old friendship with the Guises. Montmorency-Damville, governor of Languedoc, his father's friend, would have linked him to the opposition by marriage with Navarre's sister, Catharine. This was the Duke's own preference, but he was too Catholic and too prudent to wed a heretic in the Pope's despite. The Spanish nobility, hating closer connexion with the Habsburgs, would gladly have seen the elder Infanta, Isabella, marry the Savoyard, and so tighten the Spanish hold on Italy. Philip, however, reserved her for an Austrian marriage; so the Duke must be content with the second daughter, Catharine. As a sequel to the marriage he hoped for Geneva, Saluzzo, Montferrat; but in spite of lavish expenditure in Spain, he brought nothing home with his bride but promises of aid which always failed, and the contract for a dowry never paid in full.

The Spanish marriage might seem to decide Savoyard policy. Yet, though Philip often hampered or thwarted his son-in-law, he never gave a lead. The very marriage had been finally determined by Alençon's death; and Savoyard history, until Philip's decease, followed the fortunes of religious war in France. The Swiss were, indeed, often an important factor ; but French politics controlled also the action of the Cantons.

Saluzzo was the first and last substantial success of this adventurous reign. The Duke's elation was increased by a campaign against Geneva, in which his own generalship forced her Bernese allies to abandon her, while she was bridled by the fortress of Sainte-Catherine, built just outside her borders. He believed now that he could safely turn on France. The King's murder in August, 1589, offered him a complexity of chances too tempting for his speculative spirit. His father had known how to propitiate all French parties, and play on all ; the son intrigued with all, and offended all. He offered aid and congratulations to Navarre. To Philip II he proposed to hold Provence for the Cardinal Bourbon, elect of the League. He promised Mayenne to employ all his strength in the national Catholic cause. Lesdiguières was tempted to yield him Dauphiné by the offer of a Savoyard bride. To gain a free hand in Provence, Montmorency was industriously cajoled. Why should not Charles Emmanuel be King himself? Was he not born of a French King's daughter ? Could not his wife inherit her mother's claim, since her elder sister was so likely to succeed to the Spanish Crown that the French would never suffer her ? More definite, however, were his views on a more modest kingdom-a revival of that of Aries, or an Allobrogian kingdom, comprising Savoy, Dauphiné, Provence, and the Lyonnais. He had long prepared his ground. In Dauphiné, indeed, his overtures to the Parliament of Grenoble met with rebuff; the Catholics, hard pressed by Lesdiguières, were urged by Mayenne to submit rather to the heretic than the Savoyard. Provence was more favourable ; for here a small Savoyard force was already fighting for the League against the Royalist governor Bertrand de la Valette. The Duke received a formal invitation from the Parliament of Aix to hold the province for the Crown and the Catholic religion.

As a last resource the Duke determined on a personal appeal to Philip; and at this conjuncture the irreconcilable virulence of the factions at Marseilles gave him the opportunity. Early in 1591 the Leaguers expelled the Royalists ; and the Comtesse de Saulx gained access for the Duke, who persuaded the city to elect deputies to accompany him to Spain. Philip gave his son-in-law a cold reception, but Charles Emmanuel tempted him with the prospect of Toulon, and extorted a small military and naval force with which he sailed for Marseilles. Meanwhile La Valette and the Grand Duke of Tuscany had suborned his commandant ; and the city refused admittance. The Comtesse de Saulx herself deserted him ; but he forced his way into Aix and took her prisoner. This capture of his quondam devotee was his last success in his imaginary Allobrogian kingdom. General politics were now setting against Savoyard pretensions. The new Pope, Clement VIII, graciously received a deputation from Marseilles, offering him the Protectorate, and complaining that Charles Emmanuel had tried to betray the town to Spain. Parma's retreat from Rouen rendered possible a concentration of royalist forces in the south. In April the Duke retired to Nice, leaving a few garrisons to facilitate the return for which he always hoped.

Vaudois, and began the systematic conquest of Saluzzo. Charles Emmanuel showed that he was still to be reckoned with, by dragging his guns up the heights overlooking Exilles and pounding the fortress into surrender (May, 1593). The Truce of Suresnes, which followed Henry IV's abjuration, was welcomed by Savoyards and Piedmontese, exhausted by Huguenot raids and war taxation, and disturbed by the Spanish auxiliaries from Lombardy, who were annexing the Eastern fortresses as in the disastrous days of Charles IIL

In January, 1594, the Truce expired; in February Lyons declared for Henry IV-a source of great danger to Savoy; in March the King entered Paris. Charles Emmanuel was urged by his envoy at Madrid to make peace with France, for the action of " that old tree " Philip II was as weak, slow, and ill-regulated in France and Flanders as in Savoy. The Governor of Milan in genuine alarm urged Philip to give his son-in-law substantial aid. Philip then consented to the Duke's repeated petitions that he should command the Spanish troops in Piedmont, but he must confine himself to the capture of Bricherasio and Cavour. Thus decided, Charles Emmanuel fell upon Bricherasio, fought a drawn battle with Lesdiguières for the relief of Exilles, which he could not save, and then forced Cavour to surrender by his impenetrable cordon of blockhouses. Piedmont was thus relieved ; but Savoy was surrounded by hostile provinces, and had no adequate means of defence. The Duke's sympathies were becoming French; he convinced his wife that she should prefer her husband's and sons' interests to her father's. The papal Nuncio at Turin wrote that the Duke was by nature much of a Frenchman ; while the Spanish Constable declared that he had French lilies planted in his breast.

"The King made peace like a huckster and the Duke like a prince," said Lesdiguières, who had his own reasons for preferring war. The Duke lost his richest territories and his most industrious subjects. The revenue of the ceded territories was tenfold that of Saluzzo, and the population probably a higher multiple. In a remarkable memorial Charles Emmanuel justified his policy or disguised his chagrin. One consolidated State, he said, was better than two separate territories; but he forgot that the bulk of Savoy was still his, and as impossible to defend as ever. It would be harder, he added, for the French to enter Italy, which would conduce to peace ; with war in Italy Piedmont became the gaming-table ; the policy for his House was neutrality between France and Spain, and this was found impossible in war. Here he, perhaps, correctly gauged the situation. The King had made the passage of Spanish troops to Flanders far more dangerous, and it was in Flanders rather than in Lombardy that he meant to attack Spain. Yet, whenever they so wished the French troops could pour from Dauphiné into Savoy, though in Saluzzo they had lost a permanent base of supply. Nevertheless, the Italian Powers naturally regarded the treaty of Lyons with consternation, as leaving them at Spain's mercy. Italy for the moment actually became more Spanish. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, mistrusting France, veered towards Madrid. Charles Emmanuel himself later sent his sons to be educated, or watched as hostages, in Spain. From the treaty of Lyons has sometimes been dated the Duke's championship of Italian independence ; but it was not till a later period, when he was in arms against Spain, that he became the hero of an Italian patriotic and poetic revival.

Geneva hitherto had owed her safety to Catholic France. Now, she could truthfully thank Providence, and the handful of her own gallant citizens and mercenaries. The Bernese at once despatched troops to defend the city, and Henry IV allowed his subjects to volunteer ; subscriptions were raised in England, Germany, and Languedoc. The Genevese and Bernese issued from the town, ravaged and occupied part of Savoy. The Duke's ill-executed raid might well have stirred a general European conflict. But Henry IV was unwilling to provoke a foreign war, when faced by growing disaffection at home. Philip III showed unwonted resolution. Sancho de Luna, who after the fiasco had kept his troops in quarters with great self-restraint, warned the Genevese that, if they did not come to terms, he knew how to make them. The Catholic Cantons and the Valais were outspoken in their resolve to defend the Catholic and Savoyard cause. All this explains the Duke's lofty attitude during the negotiations, skilfully conducted by the Pope, which led to the treaty of Saint-Julien (July, 1603) and practically restored the status quo ante. Charles Emmanuel did not abandon his ambitions ; but Geneva henceforth was not in the forefront of his plan.

Here we must leave Charles Emmanuel, with resources exhausted, but hopes inexhaustible. Taxation had alienated his subjects ; his father's treasure had given place to debt. Justice had deteriorated, for all offices were sold, and criminals could buy beforehand indemnity for crimes. Capable ambassadors there were, but no trusted counsellors or administrators ; the Duke would consult now one man, now another, " changing them as he would his pictures, just for ornament." He could rely neither on France nor Spain, he was disliked by Medici and Gonzaga, and dreaded by Venice, not for his power but his spirit of disturbance. Misfortune had taught him nothing. Sanguine and without sense of measure, in his feverish dreams of conquest he had visions, almost prophetic, of the future greatness of his House. His name has, indeed, been stamped on history, not by his achievements, his personal courage, his endurance of reverse, but by the imaginative exaltation of his fevered brain, a startling contrast to the somnolence or apathy into which Europe, and especially Italy, seemed to be settling down. At least he was no decadent.