When reassured of pacific and equitable measures, Francesco Maria dissolved a defensive league for mutual maintenance, which he had formed on the 4th of March with the Baglioni, Sigismondo, and the Orsini, to which the Cardinal de' Medici was a party. The strongholds of S. Leo and Maiuolo, however, remained till 1527 in the hands of the Florentines, mortgaged for their advances to Leo in the late war. During these complex negotiations, an offer from Lautrec of service under the lilies of France was declined by the Duke, on a plea of reserving himself for the disposal of his ecclesiastical overlord. Nor was the opportunity he looked for long delayed. Pandolfo Malatesta, on ceding to Venice his pretensions upon Rimini, after being expelled therefrom by Duke Valentino, had accepted from that republic the castle of Cittadella near Padua, with large pay in their service. His son Sigismondo availed himself of the Pope's absence, and the unsettled ecclesiastical policy, to surprise Rimini and its fortress towards the end of May. The consistory hastily mustered all their means to meet the emergency, and called upon the Duke of Urbino as their vassal to take the field. His answer was that without money he could do nothing. About the beginning of August the _rocca_ was retaken by Giovanni Gonzaga for the Church; but the place was not finally recovered till Adrian sent thither some Spanish troops, when the people at length rose, and drove out the interloper, whose cruelties had alienated all his supporters. In this paltry fray the Duke appears to have lent some trifling aid, which the Pontiff gratefully acknowledged in writing to Leonora on the 24th of December. When it was over, he turned to the internal affairs of his duchy, disorganised by the long and severe struggle of which it had been the scene. In the spring of 1523 he brought home the ladies of his family "Into their wished haven"; but of their once lively court we have little to record. Much had occurred to chasten the naturally staid temperament of Duchess Leonora. Retrenchment was imperatively imposed by accumulated debts and dilapidated finances: the brilliant assemblage which had frequented the saloons of Urbino seventeen years before was thinned by death, scattered by dire events, alienated by ingratitude, or seduced by newer attractions.