During the campaign which followed, Leo wavered according to the news he received. When the French took Milan, he made peace with them; they were to respect the position of the Medici at Florence, and Leo was to renounce the Papal claim to Parma and Piacenza. He had, however, a more creditable object in view than the interest of his family. He met Francis at Bologna, and there can be no doubt that they then agreed to substitute a Concordat for the Pragmatic Sanction of 1438. For the promise of a tithe on his clergy, Francis surrendered their Gallican privileges, and became, as he thought, the real ally of the Pope. Leo ordered the Swiss to refrain from attacking the French in Milan, and listened approvingly to the King's designs on Naples. Within three months, however, the Emperor Maximilian led a body of Swiss troops, in the pay of Henry VIII., to an attack on Milan, and Leo was summoned by Francis to dispatch troops in accordance with their agreement. Carefully retarding the levy of his troops so that they should not arrive in time, and keeping a legate by the side of Maximilian, Leo awaited the result. The expedition failed, and he sought favour with the exasperated Francis by revealing to him that Henry VIII. had secretly paid the Swiss, and by sending once more an insincere command that the Swiss must not dare to attack an ally of the Papacy. He sought to retain the favour of Maximilian by reminding him that he had sent him two hundred Papal horse under Mark Antonio Colonna; and to Francis he protested that Colonna had acted without permission. He then assured Francis that he had sent a legate to induce Maximilian to make peace with France, and he gave secret instructions to the legate that such a peace would not be to the interest of the Papacy.
This is the admitted framework of that diplomacy which Roscoe contrives to dress in such opulent phrases, and it was a policy that Leo never altered. His next step was to seize the duchy of Urbino for his nephew Lorenzo: a step which, after all his apologies, Dr. Pastor admits to have "something repulsive about it." The Duke of Urbino (nephew of Julius II.) had, in spite of his feudal obligations, refused to attack the French at the command of the Pope, and seems to have discussed with Francis the duplicity of the Pope's procedure. Yet his liberality to the Medici in the days of misfortune had been such that Giuliano earnestly joined with Francis I. in imploring Leo to overlook his conduct. Leo harshly refused, and, to the disgust of many, the duchy was subdued and given to Lorenzo. I may conclude this matter by recounting that in 1517 the exiled Duke recovered his territory, and the long struggle for his ejection cost the Papal treasury, according to Guicciardini, 800,000 ducats.