Smedley, in connection with what now happened, quotes the following remarkable passage from the twelfth chapter of Macchiavelli’s _Principe_: ‘Perceiving that Carmagnola had become cold in their service, they yet neither wished nor dared to dismiss him, from a fear of losing that which he had acquired for them; for their own security, therefore, they were compelled to put him to death.’ The condottiero now received a message from the Signory, requesting him ‘to give himself the trouble’ of coming to Venice to discuss a new plan of campaign. Completely taken off his guard, he at once left his camp and repaired to the capital, where he was met by eight nobles, who accompanied him to the ducal palace, telling him that the Doge expected him to dinner. His own small escort was dismissed at the door, and he was ushered into a hall where he waited a few moments. Then came Leonardo Mocenigo and said that the Doge was indisposed, and begged that he would come again on the following day. Carmagnola left the room, followed by the eight nobles. In the courtyard he was about to take the direction which would have led him to the canal where he had left his boat, when the nobles suddenly came up with him and pointed towards the small porch under which was the outer entrance to the prisons. ‘This way, Sir Count,’ they said. ‘But that is not my way,’ he answered. ‘You are mistaken,’ they said, ‘this is the best way.’ At the same moment, certain gaolers appeared and pushed him through the door of the Pozzi. ‘I am lost!’ he cried, as he went in. This was on the seventh of April. The manner of [Illustration: RAMO CORTE DELLA VIDA, S. FRANCESCO DELLA VIDA] the general’s arrest may be excused for its lack of dignity by the necessities of the situation. The man was most undoubtedly a traitor and a villain, but it would have been impossible to seize him in the midst of his own men-at-arms, and the most prudent manner of getting possession of his person was to draw him into an ambush. The wise and merciful fathers of the Republic would assuredly not have hesitated at much worse things; only a few days earlier they had offered twenty-five thousand ducats to a man called Muazzo, employed in Visconti’s household, to poison the Duke. The Republic had already fully adopted the progressive methods of its day. Carmagnola’s trial occupied some time, and was conducted on the whole in a regular and legal manner. It began on the ninth of April, and on the eleventh the once all-powerful captain, to whom those who were now his judges had offered the dukedom of Milan, was put to the torture like any other criminal. On the fifth of May the Council of Ten gave its verdict as follows:-- [Sidenote: _Rom. iv. 160._]