ve pair who
had planted the antlers upon the brow of the Venetian captain.

Lastly, Cesare's attitude towards women may be worth considering, that
we may judge whether such an act as was imputed to him is consistent
with it. Women play no part whatever in his history. Not once shall
you find a woman's influence swaying him; not once shall you see
him permitting dalliance to retard his advancement or jeopardize his
chances. With him, as with egotists of his type, governed by cold will
and cold intellect, the sentimental side of the relation of the sexes
has no place. With him one woman was as another woman; as he
craved women, so he took women, but with an almost contemptuous
undiscrimination. For all his needs concerning them the lupanaria
sufficed.

Is this mere speculation, think you? Is there no evidence to support
it, do you say? Consider, pray, in all its bearings the treatise on
pudendagra dedicated to a man of Cesare Borgia's rank by the physician
Torella, written to meet his needs, and see what inference you draw
from that. Surely such an inference as will invest with the ring of
truth--expressing as it does his intimate nature, and confirming further
what has here been said--that answer of his to the Venetian envoy, "that
he had not found the ladies of Romagna so difficult that he should be
driven to such rude and violent measures."

CHAPTER VIII. ASTORRE MANFREDI

On March 29 Cesare Borgia departed from Cesena--whither, meanwhile, he
had returned--to march upon Faenza, resume the attack, and make an end
of the city's stubborn resistance.

During the past months, however, and notwithstanding the presence of the
Borgia troops in the territory, the people of Faenza had been able to
increase their fortifications by the erection of out-works and a stout
bastion in the neighbourhood of the Osservanza Hospital, well beyond the
walls. This bastion claimed Cesare's first attention, and it was carried
by assault on April 12. Thither he now fetched his guns, mounted them,
and proceeded to a steady bombardment of the citadel. But the resistance
continued with unabated determination--a determination amounting to
heroism, considering the hopelessness of their case and the straits to
which the Faentini were reduced by now. Victuals and other necessaries
of life had long since been running low. Still the men of Faenza
tightened their belts, looked to their defences, and flung defiance
at the Borgia. The wealthie