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. In order to get Paolo
Orsino to treat with him at Imola, Caesar sent Cardinal Borgia to the
confederates as a hostage; and on this Paolo Orsino hesitated no longer,
and on the 25th of October, 1502, arrived at Imola.

Caesar received him as an old friend from whom one might have been
estranged a few days because of some slight passing differences; he
frankly avowed that all the fault was no doubt on his side, since he had
contrived to alienate men who were such loyal lords and also such brave
captains; but with men of their nature, he added, an honest, honourable
explanation such as he would give must put everything once more in statu
quo. To prove that it was goodwill, not fear, that brought him back to
them, he showed Orsino the letters from Cardinal Amboise which announced
the speedy arrival of Frenc