The Blacks now made a move. The “captains of the Guelf party,” who, though holding no official position, seem to have exercised a sort of _imperium in imperio_, were on their side; and a meeting was held in Holy Trinity Church, at which it was resolved to send a deputation to Boniface, requesting him to take once again what seems to us--and indeed was--the fatal step of calling in French aid. The stern prophecy which Dante puts into the mouth of Hugh Capet in Purgatory was to be fulfilled:-- “I see the time at hand That forth from France invites another Charles To make himself and kindred better known. Unarm’d he issues, saving with that lance Which the arch-traitor tilted with; and that He carries with so home a thrust, as rives The bowels of poor Florence.” We may probably date from this Dante’s final severance from the Guelf party; and, at any rate, we may judge from it the real value of Guelf patriotism. It must be remembered that the Black faction was still but a faction. The conspiracy leaked out, and popular indignation was aroused. The _Signoria_ that is, the Priors, took action. Corso Donati and the other leaders were heavily fined, and this time the fines were paid. Probably they did not wish to taste Ser Neri degli Abati’s cookery a second time. A good many of the junior members of the party were banished to Castello della Pieve; and at the same time, “to remove all jealousy,” several of the White leaders were sent to Serezzano (which we now call Sarzana)--a weak and unlucky attempt at compromise. They were, indeed, soon allowed to return, their place of exile being unhealthy; so much so that one of them, Dante’s most intimate friend, Guido Cavalcanti, died in the course of the winter from illness contracted there. Cardinal Matthew seems not to have actually left Florence till after the beginning of 1301. We are told that among his other demands (probably made on this occasion), was one to the effect that Florence should furnish a hundred men-at-arms for the Pope’s service; and that Dante, who, after his term of office as Prior, remained a member of the council, moved that nothing should be done in the matter. Indeed, in the scanty notices which we have of his doings in this critical period, he appears as the steady opponent of all outside interference in the affairs of Florence, whether by Pope or Frenchman. In the face of this it is hard to understand how the famous story of his having gone on an embassy to Rome--“If I stay, who goes? If I go, who stays?”--can ever have obtained credence. Some words like those he may well have used, in the magnificent self-consciousness which elsewhere made him boast of having formed a party by himself; but we cannot suppose that he would at any time in the course of 1301 have thus put his head into the lion’s mouth. That Boniface was at the time of the supposed mission not at Rome but at Anagni is a minor detail.