The fight upon the smoking ruins was fierce and determined on both sides, the duke's men pressing forward gallantly under showers of scalding pitch and a storm of boulders, launched upon them by the defenders, who used the very ruins of the wall for ammunition.

For four hours was that assault maintained; nor did it cease until the deepening dusk compelled Cesare to order the retreat, since to continue in the failing light was but to sacrifice men to no purpose.
Cesare's appreciation of the valour of the garrison ran high.

It inspired him with a respect which shows his dispassionate breadth of mind, and he is reported to have declared that with an army of such men as those who held Faenza against him he would have conquered all Italy.
He did not attempt a second assault, but confined himself during the three days that followed to continuing the bombardment.
Within Faenza men were by now in desperate case.

Weariness and hunger were so exhausting their endurance, so sapping their high valour that nightly there were desertions to the duke's camp of men who could bear no more.

The fugitives from the town were well received, all save one--a man named Grammante, a dyer by trade--who, in deserting to the duke, came in to inform him that at a certain point of the citadel the defences were so weak that an assault delivered there could not fail to carry it.
This man afforded Cesare an opportunity of marking his contempt for traitors and his respect for the gallant defenders of Faenza.