part of the country, and the Duke of
Urbino, who had just reconquered the rest of it, could probably have
either taken him or forced him to fly and quit the Romagna, had they
marched against him; all the more since the two men on whom he counted,
viz., Don Ugo di Cardona, who had entered his service after Capua was
taken, and Michelotto had mistaken his intention, and were all at once
separated from him. He had really ordered them to fall back upon Rimini,
and bring 200 light horse and 500 infantry of which they had the command;
but, unaware of the urgency of his situation, at the very moment when
they were attempting to surprise La Pergola and Fossombrone, they were
surrounded by Orsino of Gravina and Vitellozzo. Ugo di Cardona and
Michelotto defended themselves like lions; but in spite of their utmost
efforts their little band was cut to pieces, and Ugo di Cardona taken
prisoner, while Michelotto only escaped the same fate by lying down among
the dead; when night came on, he escaped to Fano.

But even alone as he was, almost without troops at Imola, the
confederates dared attempt nothing against Caesar, whether because of the
personal fear he inspired, or because in him they respected the ally of
the King of France; they contented themselves with taking the towns and
fortresses in the neighbourhood. Vitellozzo had retaken the fortresses
of Fossombrone, Urbino, Cagli, and Aggobbio; Orsino of Gravina had
reconquered Fano and the whole province; while Gian Maria de Varano, the
same who by his absence had escaped being massacred with the rest of his
family, had re-entered Camerino, borne in triumph by his people. Not
even all this could destroy Caesar's confidence in his own good fortune,
and while he was on the one hand urging on the arrival of the French
troops and calling into his pay all those gentlemen known as "broken
lances," because they went about the country in parties of five or six
only, and attached themselves to anyone who wanted them, he had opened up
negotiations with his enemies, certain that from that very day when he
should persuade them to a conference they were undone. Indeed, Caesar
had the power of persuasion as a gift from heaven; and though they
perfectly well knew his duplicity, they had no power of resisting, not so
much his actual eloquence as that air of frank good-nature which
Macchiavelli so greatly admired, and which indeed more than once deceived
even him, wily politician as he was. I