Bologna was lost on the night of the 21st of May, and, beyond all question, it fell from the Legate's fool-hardiness or treason. The catastrophe which followed it called forth a bitterness of feeling fatal to impartial judgment, and the historians whom we have chiefly followed were friendly to the Duke of Urbino, and consequently prejudiced against the Cardinal.[244] Yet, after full allowance for this circumstance, there seems no reasonable doubt that the latter secretly favoured the French interests, and neutralised those measures by which Francesco Maria would have saved the city. He placed the gates in charge of noted partisans of the exiled family, by whom they were opened after nightfall to receive the Bentivoglii, followed by the main body of the French army. It was even alleged that he had previously sent away his most valuable effects; at all events, he wanted courage to share the success which had crowned his treason, and, in real or pretended panic, escaped upon a mule, disguised in a lay habit, and attended by only two followers. Nothing could palliate his flight without an attempt to warn the Duke of his danger, or to concert measures for the preservation of his army; and his whole behaviour lays him open to the suspicion of an intention to sacrifice both. Against such a combination of untoward events the friends of the Church could not struggle, and the mass of the Bolognese, smarting under recent oppression, welcomed their former rulers with joy, and vented their insensate fury in smashing the bronze statue of the Pope, which Michael Angelo had executed in the short period of fifteen months, and which was afterwards cast into a cannon bearing the Pontiff's name. [Footnote 244: Not only Leoni and Reposati, but the MSS. in the Urbino library, which refer to these transactions, must be so regarded. We have compared all of these, especially Baldi's life of this Duke, and the defence of him against Guicciardini, which he left prepared for the press in No. 906 of the Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 924 contains the pleading of the younger Beroaldo in favour of the Duke, when charged with the Cardinal of Pavia's murder. No. 1023, art. v., and No. 819, fol. 335, the former by Monsignor Paolo Maria Bishop of Cagli, the latter anonymous, have supplied us with some new facts. Guicciardini, admitting in other passages the Legate's bad faith and his antipathy to Francesco Maria, blames his deficiency of courage or judgment in the Bologna affair, and lashes the aggravated vices of his character. Roscoe has not here exercised his usual acumen.]