Francesco Maria accordingly found his movements hampered at every turn by the scarcity of supplies, and, in answer to unceasing remonstrances, had from the Legate abundance of fair words and sounding promises leading to no result whatever. This was the more provoking, as sound policy required a speedy conclusion to operations carried on in a province that, though in hostile hands for the time, was eventually destined to remain under the papal sway, towards which it was therefore of importance to conciliate the population, rather than to oppress them by military exactions. Notwithstanding these difficulties, the Duke reduced the castles of Granaruolo and Roscio, Faenza surrendered, and the siege of Ravenna seemed approaching a favourable conclusion, when the Venetians, panic-stricken by the French successes in Lombardy, and especially by the rout they had sustained on the 14th of May, at Vaila in the Ghiaradadda, sued for peace. They hoped, by offering to the Pope, the Emperor, and the Spaniard, all the places occupied on their respective territories, to conciliate these powers, and so be enabled to maintain themselves against French aggression. Their envoy addressed himself to arrange with the Legate a suspension of arms, whilst he should forward to the Pope a formal renunciation of the disputed towns in Romagna; but the wily Cardinal, who, whether from inherent dishonesty, or with some selfish end in view, seems to have acted with invariable bad faith, urged him to resign these places directly into his own hands, and, when the agent persisted in adhering to his instructions, he was thrown into irons and threatened with a halter. Nor was this the only manifest instance of the Legate's treachery; for besides thwarting the Duke on every occasion, and keeping him in the dark as to most important arrangements, he sent some of his own adherents to attack and pillage the garrison of Faenza, as it quitted the city upon a capitulation accorded by himself. Francesco Maria, disgusted with his duplicity, of his own authority liberated the envoy, and so was brought into angry collision with the Cardinal, thus aggravating a quarrel ere long to end in blood. [Illustration: _Brogi_ DUCHESS OF URBINO, EITHER ELEONORA OR GIULIA VARANA _After the picture by Titian in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence_]