These were that Cesare should engage to protect the States of all his allied condottieri, and they to serve him and the Church in return.

A special convention was to follow, to decide the matter of the Bentivogli, which should be resolved by Cesare, Cardinal Orsini, and Pandolfo Petrucci in consultation, their judgment to be binding upon all.
Cesare's contempt for the Orsini and the rest of the shifty men who formed that confederacy--that "diet of bankrupts," as he had termed it--was expressed plainly enough to Macchiavelli.
"To-day," said he, "Messer Paolo is to visit me, and to-morrow there will be the cardinal; and thus they think to befool me, at their pleasure.

But I, on my side, am only dallying with them.

I listen to all they have to say and bide my own time." Later, Macchiavelli was to remember those words, which meanwhile afforded him matter for reflection.
As Paolo Orsini rode away from Imola, the duke's secretary, Gherardi, followed and overtook him to say that Cesare desired to add to the treaty another clause--one relating to the King of France.

To this Paolo Orsini refused to consent, but, upon being pressed in the matter by Gherardi, went so far as to promise to submit the clause to the others.
On October 30 Cesare published a notice in the Romagna, intimating the return to obedience on the part of his captains.
Macchiavelli was mystified by this, and apprehensive--as men will be of the things they cannot fathom--of what might be reserved in it for Florence.