EXPEDITION OF CHARLES VIII. 291 the Roman see. A large force, amounting in all to chapter thirty-four thousand horse and twenty thousand '. — foot, was to be assessed in stipulated proportions on each of the contracting parties. The secret articles of the treaty, however, went much further, providing a formidable plan of offensive operations. It was agreed in these, that King Ferdinand should employ the Spanish armament, now arrived in Sici- ly, in reestablishing his kinsman on the throne of Naples ; that a Venetian fleet, of forty galleys, should attack the French positions on the Neapoli- tan coasts ; that the duke of Milan should expel the French from Asti, and blockade the passes of the Alps, so as to intercept the passage of further reinforcements ; and that the emperor and the Jiing of Spain should invade the .'^^rench frontiers, and their expenses be defrayed by subsidies from the allies. *^ Such were the terms of this treaty, which may be regarded as forming an era in modern po- litical history, since it exhibits the first example of those extensive combinations among European princes, for mutual defence, which afterwards be- came so frequent. It shared the fate of many other coalitions, where the name and authority of the whole have been made subservient to the inter- ests of some one of the parties, more powerful, or more cunning, than the rest. The intelligence of the new treaty diffiised general joy throughout Italy. In Venice, in par- "W Guicciardini, Istoria, torn. i. 122,123. — Daru, Hist, de Yenise, lib. 2, p. 88. — Comines, Me- torn. iii. pp. 255, 256. — Zurita, moires, liv. 7, chap. 20. — Bembo, Hist, del Rey Hernando, lib. 2, Istoria Viniziana, torn. i. lib. 2, pp. cap. 5.
