To these demands Savelli replied, that for the children there was nothing to be feared: they were in perfect safety. As to the Countess, she was in perfect liberty as far as the city authorities were concerned; and all that was asked of her was to give up the citadel and depart in peace. But as for proclaiming the late Count's heir, sovereign of Forlì, that was wholly out of the question, even if the city wished to do so; inasmuch as they had already declared themselves the Pope's subjects, and had sent an embassy to Rome to lay their city and their fealty at the feet of his Holiness. With which answer the herald retired. [Sidenote: THE ORSI AFFAIR LOOKS BLUE.] But the mere appearance of this messenger from the Lord of Bologna had produced an effect upon several of the citizens, which must have warned the conspirators how little they could depend upon the steadiness or support of the people. Many began to murmur against those who, they already surmised, might be ultimately on the losing side; and Savelli and the Orsi had to send many suspected of adhering to the Riarii out of the city. Catherine's sister Stella was taken from the Gatehouse prison to the bedside of her betrothed husband Ricci, who was laid up by wounds he had received in the fighting that had occurred in the palace immediately after the murder; and having been there married to him, was permitted to depart to Cesena in company with her mother Lucretia. During this day, too, the Orsi, becoming more and more painfully anxious about the issue of their enterprise, sent a letter to Lorenzo de' Medici, asking his support against the family of his old enemy. But on the 19th, the messenger came back, bringing only a verbal answer from Lorenzo, to the effect that he had no surviving resentment on account of by-gone matters to gratify—that he had no inclination to meddle in such an affair as that proposed to him; and that he hoped and purposed to pass the remainder of his days in quiet. On the 20th, arrived two letters from the Duke of Milan, one to Savelli, and one to the Comunità of Forlì. In the first the Duke expressed his astonishment that the Cardinal should have ventured to take possession of Forlì, not merely without any commission from his Holiness, but, as there was every reason to believe, before any knowledge of the recent events had reached the Papal court. He admonished his Eminence, that he was acting in open disregard of all law and every principle of justice; and concluded by very pointedly advising him, as he would avoid further misfortunes, to return forthwith to his own affairs at Cesena. The letter to the Comunità in much the same terms advised the citizens, as the only means of confining the consequences of the late excesses to the immediate authors of them, to send away the Cardinal, and return at once to their allegiance.