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"Will not this string of swords serve the turn?" he said, and pointed with a dirty, well-shaped hand to the six long rapiers that hung against the wall behind them. The Italian, Faenza, began to laugh a little, quiet, teasing laugh; the sullen Biscayan, Pinto, patted el Matador on the back; Joel de Jurgan the Breton, stared stolidly; and Saldagno the Portuguese, refreshed himself with a drink.
A big jug, an Apostel-Krug, of Kruessen, was solemnly dancing a minuet with a plump Faenza jar; a tall Dutch clock was going through a gavotte with a spindle-legged ancient chair; a very droll porcelain figure of Zitzenhausen was bowing to a very stiff soldier in terre cuite of Ulm; an old violin of Cremona was playing itself, and a queer little shrill plaintive music that thought itself merry came from a painted spinet covered with faded roses; some gilt Spanish leather had got up on the wall and laughed; a Dresden mirror was tripping about, crowned with flowers, and a Japanese bonze was riding along on a griffin; a slim Venetian rapier had come to blows with a stout Ferrara sabre, all about a little pale-faced chit of a damsel in white Nymphenburg china; and a portly Franconian pitcher in grès gris was calling aloud, "Oh, these Italians! always at feud!"
It seemed an age of battle, it seemed an instant of battle. Then the baffled assassins recoiled, leaving two of the smugglers for dead, while Saldagno and Faenza were both badly wounded, and cursing hideously in Portuguese and Italian. Behind the intrenchments, Lagardere chuckled as he heard. He turned to Nevers. "Are you wounded?" he asked, anxiously.
Fortune, however, caused the Florentines to obtain by their loss, what, perhaps, they would have failed to acquire by victory; for Niccolo so prevailed with the lord of Faenza and his mother, that they became friends of the Florentines.
The terms proposed were that the people of Faenza should have immunity for themselves and their property; that Astorre should have freedom to depart and to take with him his moveable possessions, his immoveables remaining at the mercy of the Pope. By all the laws of war Cesare was entitled to a heavy indemnity for the losses he had sustained through the resistance opposed to him.
It inspired him with a respect which shows his dispassionate breadth of mind, and he is reported to have declared that with an army of such men as those who held Faenza against him he would have conquered all Italy. He did not attempt a second assault, but confined himself during the three days that followed to continuing the bombardment. Within Faenza men were by now in desperate case.
Venice, in the spring of the same year, had signed a treaty of peace with the Turks: thus set free from her eternal enemy, she had just led her forces to the Romagna, which she had always coveted: these troops had been led towards Ravenna, the farthermost limit of the Papal estates, and put under the command of Giacopo Venieri, who had failed to capture Cesena, and had only failed through the courage of its inhabitants; but this check had been amply compensated by the surrender of the fortresses of Val di Lamane and Faenza, by the capture of Farlimpopoli, and the surrender of Rimini, which Pandolfo Malatesta, its lard, exchanged for the seigniory of Cittadella, in the State of Padua, and far the rank of gentleman of Venice.
When the gloomy news of their tragical end reached the Holy Father, the answer returned to the governor of that city, as to what he should do in such a case, as the true perpetrators could not be found, was, "Arrest all the young men of Faenza!" and more than a hundred youths were immediately snatched away from the bosom of their families, handcuffed and chained, thrown into the city prisons, and distributed afterwards among the gangs of malefactors, whose lives had been a continual series of robberies and murders!
Astorre, now seeing the citadel in ruins and the possibility of further resistance utterly exhausted, assembled the Council of Faenza to determine upon their course of action, and, as a result of their deliberations, the young tyrant sent his ambassadors to the duke to propose terms of surrender. It was a belated proposal, for there was no longer on Cesare's part the necessity to make terms.
He was a man of some fifty years of age, violent and domineering, feared by all, and the dispenser of a harsh justice which had at least the merit of an impartiality that took no account of persons. Bernardi gives us an instance of the man's stern, uncompromising, pitiless nature. On January 29, 1502, two malefactors were hanged in Faenza.
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