Thus from the early spring of 1499, things wore a stormy and troubled appearance at Forlì. Not that it is to be imagined that Catherine for an instant dreamed of submitting to the sentence pronounced against her. Such a course would have been unheard of in her day. Holy Father might say what he pleased, hail bulls, and do his worst. The Countess of Forlì would hold her son's sceptre for him, as long as the walls of the city and fortress would hold together!
And besides, this old debauchee of a Pope might die any fine morning. He was well stricken in years, and his life said to be none of the best. And then there would be a fresh shuffle of the cards, and a new deal, with who knows what new fortunes, and Borgias nowhere in the race.
Meantime it was very desirable to keep on good terms of friendship with Florence, and Madama accordingly set about preparing the body of troops desired by the Republic. But symptoms unpleasant enough of Rome's ban having already begun to produce dangerous effects were not slow to manifest themselves.
DISAFFECTION.
Two deputies were appointed for each ward of the city to make out lists of all the men capable of bearing arms; and the roll having been duly sent in to the castle, all those named in it were ordered to present themselves in the space in front of the citadel at a given hour, to receive, as they were bound to do, their sovereign's orders.[137] Catherine and her officers were there to receive their brave lieges. But time came—time went—and not a man appeared. The lady was angered to a degree she rarely suffered herself to appear; and issued orders that officers should that night go round to every house in Forlì at midnight, when the inmates were sure to be found there, and warn each enrolled man severally, that if he did not appear at the appointed hour on the morrow, he should be dangling from a gallows before the next nightfall. But the result of this vigorous measure by no means tended to mend matters. For the threatened men, almost to a man, used the remaining hours of that night to escape from the city; a contingency against which no provision had been made; as it had never entered into the head of Catherine or her counsellors that the daring disaffection of her subjects could proceed to such lengths. The anger of the baffled sovereign may be imagined. But it was still worse to find, from the unusually loud mutterings of the citizens, that public opinion was in favour of the deserters. One said that citizens unaccustomed to soldiership could be of no use in war; another, that it was hard for men with families to be called on to abandon them for Madama's affairs, and merely because she willed it; while others, more daringly meddling with matters of state policy, maintained, that it was against all reason that Forlì should unite herself with Florence, which could be of no use to her, against the Venetians, with whom was the principal commerce of the city.
The incident was assuredly an ominous one. But Catherine was not to be easily frightened or diverted from her intent; and for this time the required levies were obtained from the apparently more docile and more long-suffering peasants of the territory.
A little later in July of this year 1499, we find the Florentines again negotiating with Catherine, and no less a man than Niccolò Macchiavelli was the agent sent to her by the Republic. The written instructions received by him from the Signory on the occasion of this embassy, and seven letters from him to the Gonfolonière and council, giving an account of his proceedings, have been printed from the originals preserved in the Archives at Florence.[138]
The business in hand was the signing of a new engagement for another year with the Count Ottaviano, as general in the army of the Republic. The young count was now just twenty years old. But he does not appear to have taken any part in the matter, leaving his mother to make the best bargain for his services that she could. But Florence wanted to reduce his pay from the twelve thousand ducats it had been fixed at the previous year, to ten thousand; and this was the point which Macchiavelli was urged to use all his state-craft and subtilty in gaining. The arguments used, the considerations put forward, and the weighing of the probabilities as to the opposite party yielding or holding out, are very amusingly similar in tone and turn of mind, to those of any Florentine driving a hard bargain at the present day; and show us the learned and profound Secretary of the Republic almost a match for any chafferer of the Mercato nuovo.
He alleges the exhausted condition of the Florentine treasury for the moment; enlarges much on the advantages to be drawn from the friendship of Florence, and speaks largely of her well-known gratitude to her supporters. At the same time he points out, that the present proposition of the Republic is solely motived by its wish to continue a connexion honourable to both parties, as, for the present, it has absolutely no need of the noble Count's services.
MACCHIAVELLI AT FORLÌ.