rivers of blood were shed and men innumerable slaughtered--the soldiers destroyed all whom they found armed in the streets, or hiding in the houses--giving quarter to none--whatever his condition--so that down the streets in great streams ran the blood. I will not describe the groans and shrieks of despairing women who beheld their husbands murdered, or the cries of the children over their slaughtered fathers, or the grief of the old men who saw their homes robbed and their city destroyed--but I will say that besides the butchery of the men, many maidens and women were violated and forced, which is the culmination of the horrors of war. The foot-soldiers of the Duke of Valentino managed to secure thirty of the most beautiful women of the city, who were carried away prisoners to Rome.” The chronicler Jean d’Auton adds that to escape dishonour numerous women committed suicide; that many of the soldiers made themselves rich for life with the plunder, which caused them henceforth to be all the more eager for war. Between seven and eight thousand people were killed. Those of the men who were left, together with the women and priests, fled and hid in the belfries and towers of the churches, in the caves, and among the rocks, but the next day they were hunted out and held for ransom. Fabrizio Colonna was captured, and his enemy, Giangiordano Orsini, generously furnished his ransom. Rinuccio da Marciano, wounded in the fight, was taken prisoner by Valentino’s men and died two days later--Guicciardini maintains of poison. Giovio says Marciano’s wounds were poisoned by Vitellozzo in revenge for the death of his brother Paolo, who had been condemned by Rinuccio’s faction in Florence. [Illustration: FREDERIC II. OF NAPLES. _From a drawing by Boudan in the Bibliothèque Nationale_ To face p. 184.]