An interview was, therefore, held at the monastery of La Colonella, between the Duke, Cardinal Bibbiena, and the French captain. A guarantee of 10,000 ducats of income in any residence he should select was offered to Francesco Maria, if he would resign his state. But he declared himself ready to die rather than so to sell it and his honour, avowing, however, that if the Pope were resolved to deprive him of his sovereignty on account of the Cardinal's slaughter, he would abdicate in favour of his infant son, and carry his army to Greece, to fight for the recovery of Constantinople. When negotiations had been thus broken off, as described by Giraldi, the smooth-tongued churchman, nothing abashed by the contrast of their early familiarity with their present circumstances, invited him to partake of a splendid collation. This he courteously declined, and retired to breakfast with l'Escu, answering the Cardinal's remonstrances by a jesting but pungent remark, that "priests kill with wine-cups, soldiers with the sword." The Duke making somewhat minute inquiries as to the Swiss reinforcements, the Legate laughingly asked, "if he destined for them such a supper as he provided for the Germans and Spaniards at the Imperiale"; to which he rejoined, "And why not, if they are my foes?"[279] Nor was the taunt lost upon him. Next night he led his men through the Marecchia, and surprised the Swiss levies who were quartered in S. Giuliano, a suburb of Rimini beyond that river. Notwithstanding a gallant resistance, they were driven into the stream, with severe loss on both sides, whilst Francesco Maria, after receiving a ball in his cuirass, dexterously withdrew from his perilous position, under cover of the smoke raised by a vast funeral pile, on which he left the bodies of four hundred slain, amid a mass of combustibles. He now resumed his projects of carrying fire and sword into Tuscany, and reached the Upper Vale of the Tiber at Borgo S. Sepolcro, but, for want of artillery, was unable to do anything against the fortified places. The Duke's whole policy in this protracted and inconclusive warfare has been severely blamed by Roscoe, and there can be no doubt that, in his circumstances, rapid and aggressive tactics were most likely to succeed. Had he, by a series of uninterrupted advantages, maintained the impression made at his first onset, or had he risked all in one engagement when his enemies had been daunted by Lorenzo's severe wound, it is clear, from the Minio despatches, that Leo might have been frightened into fair terms, at a moment when treason was rife even within the Sacred College. The like result would, perhaps, have been attained with greater certainty, had he, instead of harassing his own territory and La Marca with an exhausting civil war, carried his arms at once across the Apennines, and, by threatening Siena or Florence, made it a question whether the Medici were to lose Tuscany or gain Urbino. But we shall have ample reason,