"Out of the speech of peace that bears such grace
Into the harsh and boisterous tongue of war,"

he sent a summary threat to his Venetian allies, and to the Marquis of Mantua, that unless their promised contingents instantly marched to his support, he would arrange matters with the French King for their extermination.

The moral influence of this indomitable courage retrieved his affairs. The Venetian, Mantuan, and Neapolitan succours successfully and quickly arrived; many small free companies flocked to his standard; and the Bolognese factions postponed their movement till a fitter moment. Breaking off all negotiations, he thundered censures against Chaumont and the Duke of Ferrara, and ordered his now ample army to assume offensive operations. His physical energy was at the same time restored, and the threatened eclipse proved but a passing cloud, from which his indomitable genius burst forth with renewed brilliancy.

[CHAPTER XXXIII]

The Duke routed at Bologna from the Cardinal of Pavia’s treason, whom he assassinates—He is prosecuted, but finally absolved and reconciled to the Pope—He reduces Bologna—Is invested with Pesaro—Death of Julius II.

IN December the Duke of Urbino returned the challenge to a general engagement, which Chaumont had boastfully given him a few months before, and, after carrying some places of minor importance, encamped before Mirandola. To the surprise and no small scandal of all, the Pontiff, scarcely recovered from a dangerous malady, and braving the unusual rigours of the season, repaired to head-quarters. In reply to representations of his advisers against a step hazardous to his health, and unusual, if not unbecoming, in the head of the Christian Church, he urged the necessity of vigorously, and at any personal risks, meeting the disgraceful and schismatic proposal for a council at Pisa,[*240] by proving himself both able and willing to perform the duties of his high office, in wielding its temporal and spiritual arms against all enemies and perturbators of the Church, as well as in maintaining its doctrines, and supporting its friends. This ill-judged decision is said to have been strongly prompted by his evil genius the Cardinal of Pavia, who, speculating upon the chance of its cutting short his master's life, made sure of, at all events, turning to the advantage of his French friends the command at Bologna, which upon the Pope's departure would once more devolve upon him as legate. Guicciardini further charges him with promoting the bootless demonstration against Mirandola, in order to divert the army from Ferrara, whose inadequate defences might have rendered it an easy as well as important conquest. In the first days of the year, Julius reached the camp, attended by three cardinals, and took up his quarters in a cottage exposed to the fire of the walls. It is stated in an old chronicle, that a cannon ball having fallen close to his pavilion, the enraged Pontiff ordered it to be sent to Loreto as an ex voto offering, and threatened to deliver over the place to a sack. Severe cold and deep snow in nowise daunted him, and his presence alarming the garrison, whilst the besiegers were stimulated to exertion by his persuasions, the town was soon reduced, but, by extraordinary exertions on the part of Francesco Maria, was saved from pillage.[*241] Its garrison had been commanded by a natural daughter of Gian Giacomo Trivulzio,[*242] who, on being rudely asked by the Legate, in presence of Julius, if she were the woman who would hold the place against the Pontiff, replied, "Against you I could easily have defended it, but not against him."

Julius, satisfied with this success, retired to Ravenna: whilst his nephew, who about this time was warned by the Doge of Venice of a plan concerted by the Cardinal of Rouen for poisoning him, led the army towards Ferrara. As the best means of relieving that town, and perhaps in concert with the treacherous Legate, Trivulzio, who since Chaumont's death, commanded the French troops, amounting to fifteen thousand lances, and seven thousand infantry, now marched upon Bologna, avoiding a battle, which the Duke of Urbino would gladly have hazarded. The latter, however, by forced marches arrived there before him, and encamped at Casalecchio, three miles south of the city. The French army was by this time at Ponte Laino, about five miles north-west from the gate; and the Duke lost no time in advising the Legate of the position of affairs, offering to throw two or three thousand men and some artillery into Bologna. After losing much valuable time in consultation with some of the citizens, the Cardinal declined these as unnecessary. This answer appears to have converted into certainty the suspicions which Francesco Maria had long entertained of his coadjutor's good faith. He knew the garrison, consisting of about twelve hundred troops, to be utterly inadequate to resist the French; he was also aware that the exiled Bentivoglii, then hovering about at the head of a strong band of adherents, were eagerly looked for by their numerous partisans within the walls, to whom the Cardinal had rendered his ecclesiastical authority doubly odious, by a series of oppressive measures totally inconsistent with its usual mild sway, and intended, no doubt, to promote his own treasonable ends, by alienating the inhabitants from the established order of things. Strongly impressed with the urgency of the crisis, the young Duke persisted in his intention of reinforcing the garrison, but some older officers, persuaded by renewed assurances from the Cardinal, overruled him in council, and their march was postponed until morning,—a delay fatal to the cause, and pregnant with complicated evils.

So little was the Duke of Urbino satisfied with this resolution, that he posted videttes under the walls, and spent the night in reconnoitring with his staff. Midnight had just passed when a confused murmur from the city attracted his attention. The word Chiesa! or church, seeming to prevail amid the din, he had hope that the Legate's authority was maintained; but presently the watchword being heard more distinctly, it proved to be Sega! Sega! signifying "The saw! the saw!" a badge and war-cry of the Bentivoglii. After some time lost in painful suspense, it was ascertained from the sentinels that the French and the Bentivoglii were masters of the place. Aware of his critical situation, but retaining his presence of mind, Francesco Maria gave instant orders for a retreat, fixing a point of rendezvous five miles on the road towards Romagna. Thither he marched his cavalry in perfect order, by the level country, and was followed by the Venetian and other infantry along the high ground. The latter, being set upon at once by the enemy and the country people, fell into confusion, and, but for the Duke's strenuous persuasions, and a successful charge which he made with his cavalry upon their assailants, their officers would have given way to a general panic, and the army must have been annihilated. The coolness of their juvenile commander so far reassured them that the retiring army encamped on the morrow between Forlì and Cesena, without much further loss than their artillery and baggage.[243] The vast quantity of booty obtained for this misconducted affair the nick-name of "donkey-day."