The opening of Chapter XXXIX
Causes which led to the sack of Rome--The assault--Death of Bourbon--Atrocities of his soldiery--The Duke of Urbino's fatal delays--The Pontiff's capitulation and escape--Policy of the Emperor.
Our narrative of little interesting campaigns has now brought us to an event unparalleled in the horrors of modern warfare, by which the laws of nature, the dictates of humanity, the principles of civilisation were alike outraged. The sack of Rome inflicted a dire retribution for the restless shuffling that had disgraced the temporal policy of recent pontiffs; it was the crowning mischief to a long agony of ultramontane aggression; and in it was spent one of the last mighty waves of barbarian aggression that broke upon the Italian Peninsula.
Such are the difficulties in the way of a just and satisfactory judgment as to the causes which led to this outrage, that it may be well to review these, even at the risk of some recapitulation.