e
still held, and promised his help in recovering those he had lost.

The day when this treaty was made known, Gonzalvo di Cordovo proclaimed
to the sound of a trumpet in all the streets of Rome that every Spanish
subject serving in a foreign army was at once to break his engagement on
pain of being found guilty of high treason.

This measure robbed Caesar of ten or twelve of his best officers and of
nearly 300 men.

Then the Orsini, seeing his army thus reduced, entered Rome, supported by
the Spanish ambassador, and summoned Caesar to appear before the pope and
the Sacred College and give an account of his crimes.

Faithful to his engagements, Pius III replied that in his quality of
sovereign prince the duke in his temporal administration was quite
independent and was answerable for his actions to God alone.

But as the pope felt he could not much longer support Caesar against his
enemies for all his goodwill, he advised him to try to join the French
army, which was still advancing on Naples, in the midst of which he would
alone find safety. Caesar resolved to retire to Bracciano, where Gian
Giordano Orsino, who had once gone with him to France, and who was the
only member of the family who had not declared against him, offered him
an asylum in the name of Cardinal dumbest: so one morning he ordered his
troops to march for this town, and, taking his place in their midst, he
left Rome.

But though Caesar had kept his intentions quiet, the Orsini had been
forewarned, and, taking out all the troops they had by the gate of San
Pancracio, they had made along detour and blocked Caesar's way; so, when
the latter arrived at Storta, he found the Orsini's army drawn up
awaiting him in numbers exceeding his own by at least one-half.

Caesar saw that to come to blows in his then feeble state was to rush on
certain destruction; so he ordered his troops to retire, and, being a
first-rate strategist, echelonned his retreat so skilfully that his
enemies, though they followed, dared not attack him, and he re-entered
the pontifical town without the loss of a single man.

This time Caesar went straight to the Vatican, to put himself more
directly under the pope's protection; he distributed his soldiers about
the palace, so as to guard all its exits. Now the Orsini, resolved to
make an end of Caesar, had determined to attack him wheresoever he might
be, with no regard to the sanctity of the place: this they attempted, but
witho