It was a frank contest of wills, in which each opponent conscientiously
believed himself in the right; but it was, nevertheless, not an equal
contest; for Paul, conceiving that his duty in the exalted position of
head of the Church which had been so unexpectedly thrust upon him, lay
in its mere temporal aggrandizement, while consciously turning all his
powers in that direction, misnamed the struggle a _spiritual_ one. But
Venice not only believed but confessed it to be merely a question of
civil rights of rulers, and, strong in the sense of the justice of her
cause, used every grace of trained diplomacy in asserting it--upon an
understanding of civil law which was beyond the attainment of the lawyer
Camillo Borghese, and with the aid of specialists whose knowledge of
canon law equaled that of his Holiness.
Among the important matters touched upon in those days in the Senate the
question had been broached, not without anxiety, as to whether Rome
would have recourse to force of a less spiritual nature, and a secret
commission had been appointed to examine and report from the frontiers
any accession of papal troops, while envoys were sent to Ferrara on the
same furtive errand: and the more serious Venetians were already
discussing the possibility of war as one of the aspects of this quarrel
with the Holy See.
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