Over Rome itself impended ruin-- as when God Will o'er some high-viced city hang his poison In the sick air.[2] At last the crash came.

Clement by a series of treaties, treacheries, and tergiversations had deprived himself of every friend and exasperated every foe.

Italy was so worn out with warfare, so accustomed to the anarchy of aimless revolutions and to the trampling to and fro of stranger squadrons on her shores, that the news of a Lutheran troop, levied with the express object of pillaging Rome, and reinforced with Spanish ruffians and the scum of every nation, scarcely roused her apathy.

The so-called army of Frundsberg--a horde of robbers held together by the hope of plunder--marched without difficulty to the gates of Rome.

So low had the honor of Italian princes fallen that the Duke of Ferrara, by direct aid given, and the Duke of Urbino, by counter-force withheld, opened the passes of the Po and of the Apennines to these marauders.