The orator confesses that the Pope’s mind is “ambiguous” to him--_me ambigua_--but he promptly discovered that he wanted to crush the Duke, and this view was confirmed by many of those in the Pope’s confidence; some, however, maintained that he was well disposed toward Valentino. November 19th occurred the event to which all had been eagerly looking forward--Caesar’s departure from Rome. He went to Ostia, where he was met by Mottino with two galleys to take him to Tuscany. There were various rumours regarding the place where he intended to disembark; the Venetian orator was told that Viareggio, a town belonging to the Duke of Ferrara, was his destination. He had with him about 160 horse. Valentino was greatly changed when Machiavelli saw him in Rome, and both he and Giustinian regarded Caesar as lost; the latter saw him “fearful and terrified,” while Machiavelli wrote: “The Duke allows himself to be carried away by his confident mind”; he also said Valentino was “changeable, irresolute, and suspicious.” Worn out by his reverses, he had at first thought of going to Romagna. But when he embarked he had decided to go either to Livorno or Genoa and thence to Ferrara. Machiavelli, who had assured him that Florence would grant him a safe conduct, said that if the Signory failed him “Caesar would make a compact with the Venetians and the devil and would go to Pisa and devote all the money, forces, and allies that remained to him to injuring the Republic.” The 18th, the very day that Caesar left the Palace, Julius II. dispatched briefs to Romagna in which he said he had disapproved of the bestowal of the vicariate upon Valentino by Alexander VI., and he exhorted the people to raise the standard of the Church, in whose possession he intended Romagna should remain. A few days later he told Cardinal Soderini that it would have been wiser, he thought, to have placed the strongholds of Romagna under Caesar’s command, as it would be better for him than for the Venetians to have them. Soderini went to Ostia and made certain proposals to Caesar, which were rejected. November 24th the Pope ordered Mottino to hold Valentino, and at the same time he arranged with Soderini to impede the progress of Michelotto, who had started forward with the Duke’s cavalry. The same day he appointed the Bishop of Ragusa, Giovanni Sacchi, Governor of Romagna and Bologna, and directed him to take possession of the province in the name of the Church, and he again called upon the cities to raise the papal standard. The general opinion in Rome was that Julius II. was only waiting for a more favourable opportunity to give Caesar the final blow, and the joy felt at his departure was wellnigh universal. Agapito and Romolino, his two closest friends, men whose names had been connected with some of his most atrocious crimes, had refused to accompany him and remained in Rome.