He enjoyed a loyalty from the people he had subjected which was almost unprecedented in Italy.

The very officers he placed in command of the troops of his levying were, for the most part, natives of the Romagna.

Is there no inference concerning him to be drawn from that! For every man in his service Cesare ordered a back-and-breast and headpiece of steel, and the armourers' shops of Brescia rang busily that summer with the clang of metal upon metal, as that defensive armour for Cesare's troops was being forged.

At the same time the foundries were turning out fresh cannon in that season which saw Cesare at the very height and zenith of his power, although he himself may not have accounted that, as yet, he was further than at the beginning.
But the catastrophe that was to hurl him irretrievably from the eminence to which in three short years he had climbed was approaching with stealthy, relentless foot, and was even now upon him..