"I wished to give your Ladyship all these particulars, that you may share with me the encouragement they afford us. The favour which God has this morning vouchsafed us, and for which our gratitude is due, gives me hope that the justice of my cause will be daily advanced by new successes; and so to your Ladyship do I commend myself: from my joyous camp near Genestreto, 6 May, 1517. "_Consors_, FRANCISCUS MARIA DUX URBINI, &c. _ac Alme Urbis Prefectus._"[275] [Footnote 275: Vat. Urb. MSS., No. 1023, art. vi.] To this spirited despatch little remains to be added. The assailants ascended from the Rimini side, leaving below a strong body of horse to cut off the fugitives. The troops being discouraged by the absence of Maldonato's Spaniards, who had straggled behind, and by the late hour at which, owing to blunders of their guides, they reached the mountain, the Duke encouraged them with assurances that the chances of success were greatest after daybreak, as the sentinels would be less on the alert; and for an omen of victory, and a badge to distinguish them from the enemy, he desired them to twine oak twigs, emblematic of his name, round their headgear. He led their file in person; and after a complete victory was left with eight hundred prisoners on his hands, besides the entire camp equipage and much booty. Next day the Gascons, who had not shared in the rout, came over in a body to Francesco Maria, headed by Monsieur d'Ambras, who returned to the court of Francis I., after publicly declaring that he would no longer permit his men to be sacrificed by officers that could neither protect them nor annoy their enemy, but would leave them under a prince whose tactics and discipline were a pattern even to his foes. This secession did not, however, prevent his master bolstering up the papal policy by loans of 100,000 livres Tournois to Lorenzo, and half that sum to the Pontiff, a course condemned by Sismondi in his French history. CHAPTER XXXVI Continuation of the ruinous contest--The Duke finally abandons it--Death of Lorenzo de' Medici--Charles V. elected Emperor.