of the period. So, after he had reconnoitred, he at
once began the siege, pitching his camp between the two rivers, Amana
and Marziano, placing his artillery on the side which faces on Forli, at
which point the besieged party had erected a powerful bastion.

At the end of a few days busy with entrenchments, the breach became
practicable, and the Duke of Valentinois ordered an assault, and gave
the example to his soldiers by being the first to march against the
enemy. But in spite of his courage and that of his captains beside him,
Astor Manfredi made so good a defence that the besiegers were repulsed
with great loss of men, while one of their bravest leaders, Honario
Savella; was left behind in the trenches.

But Faenza, in spite of the courage and devotion of her defenders, could
not have held out long against so formidable an army, had not winter
come to her aid. Surprised by the rigour of the season, with no houses
for protection and no trees for fuel, as the peasants had destroyed both
beforehand, the Duke of Valentinois was forced to raise the siege and
take up his winter quarters in the neighbouring towns, in order to be
quite ready for a return next spring; for Caesar could not forgive the
insult of being held in check by a little town which had enjoyed a long
time of peace, was governed by a mere boy, and deprived of all outside
aid, and had sworn to take his revenge. He therefore broke up his army
into three sections, sent one-third to Imola, the second to Forli, and
himself took the third to Cesena, a third-rate town, which was thus
suddenly transformed into a city of pleasure and luxury.

Indeed, for Caesar's active spirit there must needs be no cessation of
warfare or festivities. So, when war was interrupted, fetes began, as
magnificent and as exciting as he knew how to make them: the days were
passed in games and displays of horsemanship, the nights in dancing and
gallantry; for the loveliest women of the Romagna--and that is to say of
the whole world had come hither to make a seraglio for the victor
which might have been envied by the Sultan of Egypt or the Emperor of
Constantinople.

While the Duke of Valentinois was making one of his excursions in the
neighbourhood of the town with his retinue of flattering nobles and
titled courtesans, who were always about him, he noticed a cortege an
the Rimini road so numerous that it must surely indicate the approach of
someone of importance. Caesar, soon perce