effects of patriotic zeal, his pay as the tribute of national
gratitude. To betray the power which employs him, to be even
remiss in its service, are in his eyes the most atrocious and
degrading of crimes.

When the princes and commonwealths of Italy began to use hired
troops, their wisest course would have been to form separate
military establishments. Unhappily this was not done. The
mercenary warriors of the Peninsula, instead of being attached to
the service of different powers, were regarded as the common
property of all. The connection between the State and its
defenders was reduced to the most simple and naked traffic. The
adventurer brought his horse, his weapons, his strength, and his
experience, into the market. Whether the King of Naples or the
Duke of Milan, the Pope or the Signory of Florence, struck the
bargain, was to him a matter of perfect indifference. He was for
the highest wages and the longest term. When the campaign for
which he had contracted was finished, there was neither law nor
punctilio to prevent him from instantly turning his arms against
his late masters. The soldier was altogether disjoined from the
citizen and from the subject.

The natural consequences followed. Left to the conduct of men who
neither loved those whom they defended, nor hated those whom they
opposed, who were often bound by stronger ties to the army
against which they fought than to the State which they served,
who lost by the termination of the conflict, and gained by its
prolongation, war completely changed its character. Every man
came into the field of battle impressed with the knowledge that,
in a few days, he might be taking the pay of the power against