hour had perhaps came for suppressing them also, and
in the usurpation of their private possessions striking a blow at
Florence, who always escaped him at the very moment when he thought to
take her. It was indeed an annoying thing to have these fortresses and
towns displaying another banner than his own in the midst of the
beautiful Romagna which he desired far his own kingdom. For Vitellozzo
possessed Citta di Castello, Bentivoglio Bologna, Gian Paolo Baglioni was
in command of Perugia, Oliverotto had just taken Fermo, and Pandolfo
Petrucci was lord of Siena; it was high time that all these returned:
into his own hands. The lieutenants of the Duke of Valentinois, like
Alexander's, were becoming too powerful, and Borgia must inherit from
them, unless he were willing to let them become his own heirs. He
obtained from Louis XII three hundred lances wherewith to march against
them. As soon as Vitellozzo Vitelli received Caesar's letter he
perceived that he was being sacrificed to the fear that the King of
France inspired; but he was not one of those victims who suffer their
throats to be cut in the expiation of a mistake: he was a buffalo of
Romagna who opposed his horns to the knife of the butcher; besides, he
had the example of Varano and the Manfredi before him, and, death for
death, he preferred to perish in arms.

So Vitellozzo convoked at Maggione all whose lives or lands were
threatened by this new reversal of Caesar's policy. These were Paolo
Orsino, Gian Paolo Baglioni, Hermes Bentivoglio, representing his father
Gian, Antonio di Venafro, the envoy of Pandolfo Petrucci, Olivertoxo da
Fermo, and the Duke of Urbino: the first six had everything to lose, and
the last had already lost everything.

A treaty of alliance was signed between the confederates: they engaged to
resist whether he attacked them severally or all together.

Caesar learned the existence of this league by its first effects: the
Duke of Urbino, who was adored by his subjects, had come with a handful
of soldiers to the fortress of San Leone, and it had yielded at once. In
less than a week towns and fortresses followed this example, and all the
duchy was once more in the hands of the Duke of Urbino.

At the same time, each member of the confederacy openly proclaimed his
revolt against the common enemy, and took up a hostile attitude.

Caesar was at Imola, awaiting the French troops, but with scarcely any
men; so that Bentivoglio, who held