But many difficulties impeded completion of the remaining conditions. The amount of ransom seems under various pretexts to have been considerably advanced, and is set down by most writers at 400,000 scudi. In order to raise this sum, all the church-plate, which had been saved in the fortress, was hastily coined into specie, and three scarlet hats were set up to sale. Two of them were at once secured for 160,000 scudi by the Venetians, ambitious of influence in the conclave. The third was bought for a creature of Pompeo Colonna, whose personal hostility to Clement had become somewhat mitigated by grief for the sufferings he had brought upon the city, and who, in a pathetic audience with his master, obtained his forgiveness and benediction. Still, a large balance of the besiegers' demands remained undischarged, and the stipulation regarding the fortresses was nullified, Civita Castellana being in the hands of the allies, and Ostia occupied by Andrea Doria, neither of whom would acknowledge the capitulation. Parma and Piacenza were also held for the Church, in consequence, as was suspected, of instructions secretly transmitted by Clement. In the hope of obtaining better terms, his Holiness successively directed more than one member of the Sacred College to proceed as legate to Charles, among whom was Cardinal Farnese, his successor on the papal throne; but none of them would execute the commission. Meanwhile the miseries of the city were fearfully aggravated. The terrified peasantry having ceased to carry supplies where they were sure of misusage, scarcity was succeeded by famine; and the sewers, choked with bodies and abandoned to neglect, engendered a deadly epidemic, called by Muratori, the murrain, which spared neither friend nor foe. In August, the pestilence increased to a terrific degree; and the invading army being reduced by long licence to an undisciplined horde, portions of it rushed in masses from the city of the plague. Some of these bands, after attempting to hang the Pope's hostages, fled towards Terni and Spoleto, sacking the towns on their way, until cut to pieces by the confederates. Nor was the Pontiff exempt from scenes of suffering. Asses' flesh was served at his table; and a greengrocer's wife was hanged before S. Angelo, for dropping into the trenches a few salad leaves for his use. The contagion spread so rapidly in the castle, that the invaders, fearing their prey might slip from their grasp by death, removed his Holiness for some weeks to the Vatican Belvidere, until the scourge had abated.