What had been threatened against the ambassador actually happened to the other Florentines in Rome. Many of the merchants and bankers were taken to the Castle and had their property confiscated in order to prevent them leaving the city with it, according to a summons which they had received from home. A migration like that would have excited public attention and brought serious loss to many persons of the Pope’s court, who had deposited considerable sums in their banks. Scarcely, however, had they been shut up when the matter was reconsidered, and the prisoners set at liberty again, on their promising not to leave Rome. Thus four weeks slipped by without either party arriving at a decision, one way or the other, while they naturally irritated each other more and more. On May 24 the bishop of Perugia was sent to Florence to fetch the cardinal and accompany him to Rome, and he delivered a letter addressed to Lorenzo by the Cardinal Camerlengo Guillaume d’Estouteville, Archbishop of Rouen, who knew Florence and the Medici well, since Cosimo’s time, and had gone in person to Castle Sant’Angelo to effect the liberation of the prisoners. The letter announced that the Pope and College of Cardinals had determined to proceed to measures against the Republic if the cardinal of San Giorgio (Riario) were not immediately set at liberty, and a commission consisting of five cardinals had already been appointed to commence legal proceedings. Lorenzo might thus, in order to avoid anger and injury, use his influence to a conciliatory purpose. The imprisonment and liberation of the Florentine merchants were explained by the circumstance mentioned above, and would, it was said, give the Republic no cause to complain.[240]