The break-up was complete: a panic terror had fallen upon the soldiers. The roads, the plain, the mountain paths were crowded with fugitives. The motives that induced Medici to retire were doubtless unknown to his troops; but there is another explanation, a moral explanation, of their disorderly flight. The Italian bands had crossed the Alps because their captains had promised to deliver up to them Geneva, whose wealth rumor had greatly exaggerated. It was a very different motive that animated the Swiss: they had left their mountains and their valleys to secure national independence and liberty of faith in Geneva in opposition to the pope, the bishop, and the duke. The Genevese themselves, in the obstinate struggle they had maintained for so many years, were impelled by the noblest motives. But moral principles give to an army a moral energy which bands of pillagers cannot resist. There is no doubt that Medici's condottieri were in many respects better soldiers than the shepherds of the Alps or the shopkeepers of the little city; but the latter had a holy cause to defend. Their glance sufficed to scare the bandits, who, renouncing the plunder of the hostile city, pillaged the towns of their allies and fled as fast as oars or legs could carry them. On the 30th of January the Council of Geneva were able to enter the following words on their minutes: 'Four thousand Italian and other foreigners, who had made preparations at Morges for the defence of the country (Vaud), made no resistance and fled like cowards without striking a blow.'