Julius, satisfied with this success, retired to Ravenna: whilst his nephew, who about this time was warned by the Doge of Venice of a plan concerted by the Cardinal of Rouen for poisoning him, led the army towards Ferrara. As the best means of relieving that town, and perhaps in concert with the treacherous Legate, Trivulzio, who since Chaumont's death, commanded the French troops, amounting to fifteen thousand lances, and seven thousand infantry, now marched upon Bologna, avoiding a battle, which the Duke of Urbino would gladly have hazarded. The latter, however, by forced marches arrived there before him, and encamped at Casalecchio, three miles south of the city. The French army was by this time at Ponte Laino, about five miles north-west from the gate; and the Duke lost no time in advising the Legate of the position of affairs, offering to throw two or three thousand men and some artillery into Bologna. After losing much valuable time in consultation with some of the citizens, the Cardinal declined these as unnecessary. This answer appears to have converted into certainty the suspicions which Francesco Maria had long entertained of his coadjutor's good faith. He knew the garrison, consisting of about twelve hundred troops, to be utterly inadequate to resist the French; he was also aware that the exiled Bentivoglii, then hovering about at the head of a strong band of adherents, were eagerly looked for by their numerous partisans within the walls, to whom the Cardinal had rendered his ecclesiastical authority doubly odious, by a series of oppressive measures totally inconsistent with its usual mild sway, and intended, no doubt, to promote his own treasonable ends, by alienating the inhabitants from the established order of things. Strongly impressed with the urgency of the crisis, the young Duke persisted in his intention of reinforcing the garrison, but some older officers, persuaded by renewed assurances from the Cardinal, overruled him in council, and their march was postponed until morning,--a delay fatal to the cause, and pregnant with complicated evils.