The foreign Podestà, unattended and unchecked by the former councillor-consuls, as they might be called, has now become a settled institution; and, save for their brief re-establishment during 1211 and 1212, the Consuls, as already related, have vanished for ever. This was undeniably a triumph for the patricians, to whom the working people had bent for the nonce, in order to secure their co-operation in the difficult task of reducing the _contado_ to submission. The achievement of this conquest gave an extraordinary impulse to trade, and by opening an increasingly wide field for commercial enterprise, induced the desire to develop it still more. Hence, it was not to be expected that a republic whose prosperity and strength were wholly based on its industry and commerce, could or would be satisfied, in the long run, with a government suited to nobles, whose constant tendency was to grow stronger, haughtier, and more overbearing. From this moment, therefore, a struggle between the people and the patricians (_grandi_) was inevitable. The long series of civil wars, lacerating the city and staining its stones with blood, is in fact on the point of beginning. [Illustration] CHAPTER IV. _STATE OF PARTIES--CONSTITUTION OF THE FIRST POPULAR GOVERNMENT AND OF THE GREATER GUILDS IN FLORENCE._[234] I. After the office of Podestà had been permanently established in 1207, its main favourers and promoters, the aristocrats, became more daring, and forming a military organisation, of which the Podestà was the head, took a more active part in all wars abroad. Everything seemed progressing rapidly and well, when the Buondelmonti affair in 1215 caused an outbreak of civil war. Dissension was already lurking among certain of the nobles, and particularly between the Buondelmonti on the one hand, the Uberti and Fifanti on the other, either side numbering many adherents. Accordingly, in the hope of pacifying the dispute, a marriage was arranged between Bundelmonte Buondelmonti and a maiden of the Amidei house. But when all the preliminaries were concluded, the wife of Forese Donati called Buondelmonti to her and said: "Oh! shameful knight, to take to wife a woman of the Uberti and Fifanti. 'Twere better and worthier to choose this bride." So saying, she pointed to her own daughter. Buondelmonti accepted the offer, and, forsaking his betrothed, speedily married the girl. Thereupon the kinsfolk and friends of the deserted maiden assembled in the Amidei palace and vowed to avenge her wrongs. It was then that Mosca Lamberti turned to those charged to execute revenge, saying, "Whoever deals a light blow or wound, may prepare for his own grave." And then, to show that the quarrel was to the death, he added the memorable words: "Once done, 'tis done with" ("_Cosa fatta, capo ha_"). So bloodshed was ordained.