Then Pope Boniface remembered that the most victorious and ruthless leader of the day, Guido de Montefeltro, was down on his knees in a convent at Ancona, praying to be forgiven some of his deeds of blood before death should call him to judgment. He commanded him to leave his retreat and come to give his advice as to the reduction of Palestrina. Very unwillingly the old soldier obeyed, and returned to that world which he had left just in time to save his wicked soul. He went and looked at the Colonna fortress, examined the defences with the eye of an expert, and returned to the Pope, who was at Rieti. He told him that there was no hope of taking Palestrina by force of arms. “What, then, am I to do?” cried Boniface. Guido knew, but was unwilling to say. The Pope insisted on his giving his opinion, and the crafty old fighter proffered the counsel for which Dante, with some justice, put him in Malebolge—“Prometter lungo e tenere corto!” “Promise much—fulfil little,” it would run in English. Boniface instantly acted on the advice. The Colonnas were promised full forgiveness. They thought it wise to accept and submit. In all the habiliments of mourning repentance they issued from the stronghold they were never to see again, and came in a body to Rieti. The Pope received them, pronounced their crimes against himself forgiven, and kept them at Rieti as his guests. But prudence, as he apprehended it, forbade that he should leave that eyrie and refuge of rebellion standing for them to fly to the next time they picked a quarrel with him. So, while they were sunning themselves in his favour in the mountain city of the south, he secretly dispatched a faithful friend, Ranieri, the Bishop of Pisa, to wipe Palestrina off the face of the earth. Nothing was to be spared except the cathedral. And very thoroughly did Ranieri do his work. Every vestige of the fortress and palace and the big town which had grown up with them was destroyed, “a plough was driven over the ruins, the ground was sown with salt, and even the famous marble staircase of a hundred steps, up which people could ride their horses into the palace,” was swept away. Then the Colonnas, landless, homeless, penniless, understood how much the Pope’s forgiveness was worth, and they fled from his domains to nurse their wrongs and wait for revenge. That came in good, or rather, very evil time, and Boniface paid in full during the awful days at Anagni, days so dreadful that one quarrels with Dante for not regarding them as sufficient expiation for the harassed Pontiff’s one great sin. He was driven into a quarrel with Philippe le Bel, the King of France, and Sciarra Colonna, the head of the proscribed house, caught at the chance, and offered his services to the French. In company with their leader, William de Nogaret, he broke into Anagni, Boniface’s own city where he had taken refuge, and, but for the opposition of Nogaret, he would, apparently, have murdered his great enemy on the spot.