While at Florence, they paid short visits to Pisa, Lucca, and Leghorn, and early in November left the Tuscan city and took the road to Bologna, whence they travelled by way of Faenza, Forli, and Ancona to Loretto. At Loretto, where they arrived on Christmas Eve, they were invited by Cardinal Gallio to stay at the Palazzo Santa-Casa. They spent the night in devotions in the chapel, and on Christmas Day the cardinal appointed the elder Bassompierre one of the witnesses to the opening of the alms-boxes, “which amounted to six thousand crowns for the last quarter of the year.” At Loretto our young travellers, inspired doubtless by their visit to that famous shrine with the desire to do and dare something for the sake of Holy Church, embarked in a strange adventure:-- “There were a great many other French gentlemen at Loretto, besides ourselves, and we all took the resolution to go together into Hungary to the wars before we returned home. Having mutually promised this, on the day after Christmas we all set out in a body, to wit: MM. de Bourlemont and d’Amolis, brothers; MM. de Foncaude and de Chasneuil, brothers; the Baron de Crapados and my brother and I. But, since the nature of Frenchmen is fickle, at the end of three days’ journey some of us, who had not our purses sufficiently well-lined for a long journey or who had a stronger desire to return to our homes than the rest, began to say that it was useless to go so far in search of fighting when we had it near at hand; that we were in the midst of the Papal army, marching to the conquest of Ferrara, which had devolved on the Pope by the death of Duke Alphonso; that Don Cesare d’Este retained possession of it, contrary to all right;[6] that this was not less just and holy a war than that of Hungary, and that in a week we should be face to face with the enemy; whereas, if we went to Hungary, the armies would not take the field for four months. “These persuasions prevailed on our minds, and we resolved that we would all go next day to Forli, to offer our services to Cardinal Aldobrandini,[7] legate of the army, and that I should speak in the name of us all, which I did, to the best of my ability. But the legate received us so coolly, and gave us so poor a welcome, that in the evening, at our lodging, we did not know how sufficiently to express the resentment and anger with which his indifference had inspired us. * * * * *