tion for me I returned to Lombardy,
leaving the Marchesa, who still awaited her son's cardinalate, in the
security of a peace which at that time promised to be lasting.

No sooner, however, was Francis I. released from his Spanish captivity
than the Pope began again to intrigue with him, and the Emperor,
learning that Clement had broken faith, ordered the attack upon Rome.

Then, at last, the Pope, realising how much he needed the friendship of
the Gonzagas, sent the Marchesa Ercole's red hat.

That triumph achieved she would gladly have returned to Mantua but it
was now too late, for Bourbon had arrived before the city. The siege
had begun, and neither man nor woman might leave Rome.

At the Pope's own villa upon Mount Mario (the Villa Madama), without the
walls, I met Cardinal Pompeo Colonna and heard the news that his uncle
Vespasian had died, and that Giulia and Fenice were still at Palliano,
where I vowed soon to join them.

Of the sack of Rome which intervened I shall say nothing. Would God that
I could as easily dismiss its memory from my mind. I entered the city
with the youngest son of the Marchesa Isabella d'Este, Ferrante Gonzaga,
who commanded a division of Spaniards, and we made our way at once to
the Colonna palace which refuge the Marchesa had packed with her
friends. Their lives we saved and the palace from burning and
plundering. Cardinal Pompeo himself paid the ransoms of many of its
guests, and rescued from the Spanish soldiery upwards of five hundred
nuns. Far be it from me to extenuate the life of that profligate
prelate, but his brave and generous acts at this fearful time must be
counted to his credit.

After that horror of cruelty and wanton destruction abated I counted on
being free to seek Fenice and my sister, but greatly to my disgust, I
was constituted the warden of the Pope, who was confined a close
prisoner in the castle of St. Angelo.

Though this seemed to me at the time a great hardship it proved in the
end the best that could have happened, for so I came to know Clement
most intimately and even to feel a pity for one so beset. I well
remember his dismay when Ippolito de' Medici came to him with the
alarming news that the Orsini, who, under cover of their devotion to the
Pope embraced every opportunity to fight the Colonnas, had refused to
recognise that the war was ended and were now burning and pillaging the
castles of their rivals throughout the Campagna.

Ippolito reported