nd explain his case.

The preparations for the invasion of Pesaro were complete, and it was
determined that on January 22 the army should march out of Forli; but on
the night of the 21st a disturbance occurred. The Swiss under the
Bailie of Dijon became mutinous--they appear throughout to have been an
ill-conditioned lot--and they clamoured now for higher pay if they were
to go on to Pesaro, urging that already they had served the Duke of
Valentinois as far as they had pledged themselves to the King of France.

Towards the third hour of the night the Bailie himself, with these
mutineers at his heels, presented himself at the Nomaglie Palace to
demand that the Countess Sforza-Riario should be delivered into his
hands. His claim was that she was his prisoner, since she had been
arrested by a soldier of his own, and that her surrender was to France,
to which he added--a thought inconsequently, it seems--that the French
law forbade that women should be made prisoners. Valentinois, taken
utterly by surprise, and without the force at hand to resist the Bailie
and his Swiss, was compelled to submit and to allow the latter to carry
the countess off to his own lodging; but he dispatched a messenger to
Forlimpopoli with orders for the immediate return of Allegre and his
horse, and in the morning, after Mass, he had the army drawn up in the
market-place; and so, backed by his Spanish, French, and Italian troops,
he faced the threatening Swiss.

The citizens were in a panic, expecting to see battle blaze out at any
moment, and apprehensive of the consequences that might ensue for the
town.

The Swiss had grown more mutinous than ever overnight, and they now
refused to march until they were paid. It was Cesare's to quell and
restore them to obedience. He informed them that they should be paid
when they reached Cesena, and that, if they were retained thereafter
in his employ, their pay should be on the improved scale which they
demanded. Beyond that he made no concessions. The remainder of his
harangue was matter to cow them into submission, for he threatened to
order the ringing of the alarm-bells, and to have them cut to pieces by
the people of Forli whom their gross and predatory habits had already
deeply offended.

Order was at last restored, and the Bailie of Dijon was compelled to
surrender back the countess to Cesare. But their departure was postponed
until the morrow. On that day, January 23, after receiving the oath
of