That night Valentino, at the head of his Gascons, attacked six thousand of these captains' troops, which had not dispersed on hearing the capture of their leaders, slaughtering and plundering them with the same barbarity they had themselves used towards the citizens. The greater portion were cut to pieces, and those who escaped reached their homes naked, having only straw tied round their legs. Fabio Orsini was saved by his accidental absence from Borgia's levee; Petrucci and Baglioni, suspicious of treachery, had avoided their fate by previously retiring home. Against the last of these, Borgia marched in a few days, carrying with him the remaining chiefs, of whom he reserved the Orsini until he should hear his father's intentions; but each night after supper he is said to have had one of the others brought out, and put to a cruel death before him. Thus did he, by a dexterous stroke of the most refined duplicity, turn the tools of his ambition into victims of his vengeance, and at the same time ridded himself of faithless adherents, whom any change in his fortune would have again converted into overt and implacable foes.[1] [Footnote 1: Our chief authorities for this tragic scene are Machiavelli's despatches and separate narrative, with the Diaries of Burchard, Buonaccorsi, and Sanuto. Some details are taken from the Ricordi of Padre Gratio, guardian of the Monastery delle Grazie at Sinigaglia, a contemporary, and probably an eye-witness to many of them. Vat. Urb. MSS. 1023, art. 17.[*A]] [Footnote *A: Cf. MADIAI, _Diario delle Cose di Urbino_, in _Arch. St. per le Marche e per l'Umbria_, tom. III., p. 437. Machiavelli, who was with Cesare at the time, describes the massacre of Sinigaglia as "il bellissimo inganno di Sinigaglia." Cesare wrote an account of it to Isabella d'Este. Cf. her letter to her husband (D'ARCO, _Notizie di Isabella Estense_, in _Arch. St. Ital._, ser. i., App., vol. I., No. II. (1845), p. 262).] Vermiglioli, in his life of Malatesta Baglioni, has printed, from the archives of Perugia, a letter from Borgia to the magistrates of that city, which, in consideration of the comparative obscurity of that interesting volume, we shall here translate. It is, perhaps, the only known document fully stating the case of the writer, and so may be regarded as his defence from the charges we have brought against him: the style and orthography are remarkably rude; and the matter abounds in that common expedient, whereby bold and bad men seek to evade merited accusations, by throwing them upon those they have outraged.[2] [Footnote 2: Our version is from the original letter. Nearly similar in purport, but much shorter, is a despatch written by him to the Doge of Venice on the very night of the raid, so anxious was he to conciliate the Signory.] "Magnificent and potent Lords, my special Friends and Brothers;