.

GIAN MARIA MAKES A VOW.
In a measure the events that followed would almost tend to show that the fool was right.

For even if the notion of besieging Valentina and reducing her by force of arms was not Guidobaldo's own in the first place, yet he lent a very willing ear to the counsel that they should thus proceed, when angrily urged two days thereafter by the Duke of Babbiano.
Upon hearing the news Gian Maria had abandoned himself to such a licence of rage as made those about him tremble from the highest to the meanest.
The disappointment of his passion was in itself justification enough for this; but, in addition, Gian Maria beheld in the flight of Valentina the frustration of those bold schemes of which had talked so loudly to his councillors and his mother.

It was his confidence in those same schemes that had induced him to send that defiant answer to Caesar Borgia.

As a consequence of this there was haste--most desperate haste--that he should wed, since wedding was to lend him the power to carry out his brave promises of protecting his crown from the Duke of Valentinois, not to speak of the utter routing of the Borgia which he had wildly undertaken to accomplish.
That the destinies of States should be tossed to the winds of Heaven by a slip of a girl was to him something as insufferable as it had been unexpected.
"She must be brought back!" he had screeched, in his towering passion.
"She must be brought back at once." "True!" answered Guidobaldo, in his serene way; "she must be brought back.