nd 10,000 horse it was--and after a little, while
Castruccio was busy with Pisa, they seized Lastra, Signa, Montelupo,
Empoli, and laid siege to S. Miniato: this in May 1328. Castruccio, in
no wise discomposed, thought at last Tuscany was in his grasp; therefore
he went to Fucecchio and entrenched himself with 20,000 foot and 4000
horse, leaving 5000 foot in Pisa with Guinigi. Fucecchio is a walled
city on the other side of Arno opposite S. Miniato. There Castruccio
waited; nor could he have chosen better, for the Florentines could not
attack him without fording the river from S. Miniato, which they had
taken, and dividing their forces. This they were compelled to do, and
Castruccio fell upon and beat them, leaving some 20,000 of them dead in
the field, while he lost but fifteen hundred. Nevertheless, that proved
to be his last fight, for death found him at the top of his fortune;
riding into Fucecchio after the battle, he waited a-horseback to greet
his men at the great gate of the place which is still called after him.
Heated as he was with the fight, it was the evening wind that slew him;
for he fell into an ague, and, neglecting it, believing himself
sufficiently hardened, it presently killed him, and Pagolo Guinigi ruled
in his stead, but without his fortune.

Following that strangely successful career, that for Macchiavelli at any
rate seemed like a promise of the Deliverer that was to come, the first
of modern historians gives us many of Castruccio's sayings set down at
haphazard, which bring the man vividly before us. Thus when a friend of
his, seeing him engaged in an amour with a very pretty lass, blamed him
that he suffered himself to be so taken by a woman--"You are deceived,
signore," says Castruccio, "she is taken by me." Another desiring a
favour of him with a thousand impertinent and superfluous words--"Hark
you, friend," says Castruccio, "when you would have anything of me, for
the future send another man to ask it." Something of his dream of
dominion may be found in that saying of his when one asked him, seeing
his ambition, how Caesar died, and he answered, "Would I might die like
him!" Blamed for his severity, perhaps over the Poggi affair, one said
to him that he dealt severely with an old friend--"No," says he, "you
are mistaken; it was with a new foe." Something of his love for
Uguccione--who certainly hated him, but whom he held in great
veneration--may be found in his answer to that man who asked