nd infantry.

Still, in spite of this formidable company, he entered Tuscany declaring
that his intentions were only pacific, protesting that he only desired to
pass through the territories of the republic on his way to Rome, and
offering to pay in ready money for any victual his army might require.
But when he had passed the defiles of the mountains and arrived at
Barberino, feeling that the town was in his power and nothing could now
hinder his approach, he began to put a price on the friendship he had at
first offered freely, and to impose his own conditions instead of
accepting those of others. These were that Piero dei Medici, kinsman and
ally of the Orsini, should be reinstated in his ancient power; that six
Florentine citizens, to be chosen by Vitellozzo, should be put into his
hands that they might by their death expiate that of Paolo Vitelli,
unjustly executed by the Florentines; that the Signoria should engage to
give no aid to the lord of Piombino, whom Caesar intended to dispossess
of his estates without delay; and further, that he himself should be
taken into the service of the republic, for a pay proportionate to his
deserts. But just as Caesar had reached this point in his negotiations
with Florence, he received orders from Louis XII to get ready, so soon as
he conveniently could, to follow him with his army and help in the
conquest of Naples, which he was at last in a position to undertake.
Caesar dared not break his word to so powerful an ally; he therefore
replied that he was at the king's orders, and as the Florentines were not
aware that he was quitting them on compulsion, he sold his retreat for
the sum of 36,000 ducats per annum, in exchange for which sum he was to
hold three hundred men-at-arms always in readiness to go to the aid of
the republic at her earliest call and in any circumstances of need.

But, hurried as he was, Caesar still hoped that he might find time to
conquer the territory of Piombino as he went by, and take the capital by
a single vigorous stroke; so he made his entry into the lands of Jacopo
IV of Appiano. The latter, he found, however, had been beforehand with
him, and, to rob him of all resource, had laid waste his own country,
burned his fodder, felled his trees, torn down his vines, and destroyed a
few fountains that produced salubrious waters. This did not hinder Caesar
from seizing in the space of a few days Severeto, Scarlino, the isle of
Elba, and La Pianosa; but he