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. [Sidenote: MACCHIAVELLI AT FORLÌ.] But the astute Secretary had met with a match for his diplomacy. Catherine said, that she had ever found the Florentines, as now, abounding in most satisfactory assurances and courteous words, but that their acts matched badly with them. She thought she merited better treatment at their hands, having exposed her State to the inroads of the Venetians by her faithful adherence to them. She wished nothing but to continue on the good and friendly terms they had hitherto been on. And as for this matter of the reduction of the salary, it pained her, because it was seeming to cast a slight upon her son to diminish his appointments, while those of other generals were maintained by the Republic at the old amount. Besides, there was the Duke of Milan, her relative, now offering to engage Ottaviano at twelve thousand ducats: and what excuse could she make to him, if she refused his offer, and accepted a worse one from Florence? Then again, the stipend due for last year had not been paid yet; and really she wished to see that settled before entering on new engagements.