as though by enchantment,
and the ploughshare had passed over where it stood; so that none could
say, what had become of her whom they sought, far those who had dwelt in
the house, and even the house itself, were there no longer.

Manenti and the French ambassador returned to Venice, and related what
the duke had said, what they had done, and how all search had been in
vain. No one doubted that Caesar was the culprit, but no one could prove
it. So the most serene republic, which could not, considering their war
with the Turks, be embroiled with the pope, forbade Caracciuala to take
any sort of private vengeance, and so the talk grew gradually less, and
at last the occurrence was no more mentioned.

But the pleasures of the winter had not diverted Caesar's mind from his
plans about Faenza. Scarcely did the spring season allow him to go into
the country than he marched anew upon the town, camped opposite the
castle, and making a new breach, ordered a general assault, himself going
up first of all; but in spite of the courage he personally displayed, and
the able seconding of his soldiers, they were repulsed by Astor, who, at
the head of his men, defended the breach, while even the women, at the
top of the rampart, rolled down stones and trunks of trees upon the
besiegers. After an hour's struggle man to man, Caesar was forced to
retire, leaving two thousand men in the trenches about the town, and
among the two thousand one of his bravest condottieri, Valentino Farnese.

Then, seeing that neither excommunications nor assaults could help him,
Caesar converted the siege into a blockade: all the roads leading to
Faenza were cut off, all communications stopped; and further, as various
signs of revolt had been remarked at Cesena, a governor was installed
there whose powerful will was well known to Caesar, Ramiro d'Orco, with
powers of life and death over the inhabitants; he then waited quietly
before Faenza, till hunger should drive out the citizens from those walls
they defended with such vehement enthusiasm. At the end of a month,
during which the people of Faenza had suffered all the horrors of famine,
delegates came out to parley with Caesar with a view to capitulation.
Caesar, who still had plenty to do in the Romagna, was less hard to
satisfy than might have been expected, and the town yielded an condition
that he should not touch either the persons or the belongings of the
inhabitants, that Astor Manfredi, the yout