rders he had been unable to retain there. Growing uneasy at
their position, and finding it impossible either to advance or to
retreat, being threatened on the one side by the Baglioni and on the
other by the Orsini, these troops had steadily deserted; whilst most
of Cesare's Spanish captains and their followers had gone to the aid of
their compatriots under Gonzalo de Cordoba in response to that captain's
summons of every Spaniard in the peninsula.

Thus did it come about that Cesare had no force to afford his Romagna
subjects. His commissioners in the north did what was possible to repair
the damage effected by the allies, and they sent Dionigio di Naldo with
six hundred of his foot, and, further, a condotta of two hundred horse,
against Rimini. This was captured by them in one day and almost without
resistance, Pandolfaccio flying for his life to Pesaro.

Next the allies, by attempting to avenge the rout they had suffered
at Cesena, afforded the ducal troops an opportunity of scoring another
victory. They prepared a second attack against Cesare's capital, and
with an army of considerable strength they advanced to the very walls of
the stronghold, laying the aqueduct in ruins and dismantling what other
buildings they found in their way. But in Cesena the gallant Pedro
Ramires lay in wait for them. Issuing to meet them, he not only put them
to flight and drove them for shelter into the fortress of Montebello,
but laid siege to them there and broke them utterly, with a loss, as was
reputed, of some three hundred men in slain alone.

The news of this came to cheer Valentinois, who, moreover, had now
the Pope and France to depend upon. Further, and in view of that
same protection, the Orsini were already treating with him for a
reconciliation, despite the fact that the Orsini blood was scarce dry
upon his hands. But he had a resolute, sly, and desperate enemy in
Venice, and on October 10 there arrived in Rome Bartolomeo d'Alviano and
Gianpaolo Baglioni, who repaired to the Venetian ambassador and informed
him that they were come in quest of the person of Valentinois, intending
his death.

To achieve their ends they united themselves to the Orsini, who were
now in arms in Rome, their attempted reconciliation with Cesare having
aborted. Valentinois's peril became imminent, and from the Vatican he
withdrew for shelter to the Castle of Sant' Angelo, going by way of the
underground passage built by his father.

Thence he s