The next day, in fact, Charles, who fancied himself already prince of the city, wishing to enter upon his new career, requested the city to hand over to him the jurisdiction in criminal matters, which was refused. Nor was this the only check; the procurator-fiscal having, by his Highness’s orders, sent from house to house to collect votes against the alliance with the Swiss, many flatly refused to give them. At this moment the duke appeared as if he were stunned. He had matters on his mind which troubled and disturbed him; they made him mistrustful and anxious. The assembled people had just taken the oath of obedience to him ... and to his first two requests (such legitimate requests as he thought them) they had replied by a No! After having given an example of his extreme violence, Charles gave another of his extreme weakness. He thought Geneva crushed; but Geneva, even when crushed, alarmed him. He pressed his foot upon her neck, but he felt the corpse moving under him. Even the mamelukes he began to consider as obstinate republicans, secretly defending their independence. His head began to reel, his heart to fail him. The essential trait of his character, it will be remembered, was to begin everything and finish nothing. This union of violence and folly, of which several Roman emperors have furnished examples, was found also in Charles. At the moment he had gained an important victory, and just as it was necessary for him to remain on the field of battle to profit by it, he turned his back and fled precipitately into Piedmont. It was asserted that Beatrice had recalled him. ‘Venus overcame Pallas,’ says Bonivard. The prior of St. Victor is always inclined to be sarcastic. But if (as is possible) it was the desire to join the duchess which induced Charles III. to let that city of Geneva slip from his hands, which the house of Savoy had coveted for ages, it is a proof that if he was violent enough to take it, he was too weak to keep it. However that may be, on the 12th of December, 1525, the duke quitted the city, and from that day neither he nor his successors entered it again. If Charles had remained, and followed the advice of his ministers, he would probably have established his authority, and bound Geneva to Rome. The triumph of the power of Savoy at the extremity of Lake Leman would have had serious consequences. But the victory he was about to win--which he had even gained ... was lost by his cowardly desertion, and lost for ever.[387]