se.

But Cesare, though forced to submit, was not fooled by Soderini's
smooth, evasive methods. He too--having private sources of information
in France--was advised of the French advance and of the imminence of
danger to himself in consequence of the affairs of Florence. And it
occasioned him no surprise to see Soderini come on July 19 to take his
leave of him, advised by the Signory that the French vanguard was at
hand, and that, consequently, the negotiations might now with safety be
abandoned.

To console him, he had news on the morrow of the conquest of Camerino.

The septuagenarian Giulio Cesare Varano had opposed to the Borgia forces
a stout resistance, what time he sent his two sons Pietro and Gianmaria
to Venice for help. It was in the hope of this solicited assistance that
he determined to defend his tyranny, and the war opened by a cavalry
skirmish in which Venanzio Varano routed the Borgia horse under the
command of the Duke of Gravina. Thereafter, however, the Varani had to
endure a siege; and the old story of the Romagna sieges was repeated.
Varano had given his subjects too much offence in the past, and it was
for his subjects now to call the reckoning.

A strong faction, led by a patrician youth of Camerino, demanded the
surrender of the State, and, upon being resisted, took arms and opened
the gates to the troops of Valentinois. The three Varani were taken
prisoners. Old Giulio Cesare was shut up in the Castle of Pergola, where
he shortly afterwards died--which was not wonderful or unnatural at his
time of life, and does not warrant Guicciardini for stating, without
authority, that he was strangled. Venanzio and Annibale were imprisoned
in the fortress of Cattolica.

In connection with this surrender of Camerino, Cesare wrote the
following affectionate letter to his sister Lucrezia--who was
dangerously ill at Ferrara in consequence of her delivery of a
still-born child:

"Most Illustrious and most Excellent Lady, our very dear
Sister,--Confident of the circumstance that there can be no more
efficacious and salutary medicine for the indisposition from which you
are at present suffering than the announcement of good and happy news,
we advise you that at this very moment we have received sure tidings of
the capture of Camerino. We beg that you will do honour to this message
by an immediate improvement, and inform us of it, because, tormented as
we are to know you so ill, nothing, not even this felici