Byways in southern Tuscany . ign with them. It meant defeat. He desper-ately rallied his men, and fought bravely till he had hadtwo horses killed under him and fell sorely wounded. Hewould still have remained upon the lost battle ground,but though he resisted he was borne away to safety byhis flying troops, and while his wounds were bound upby a Franciscan friar he heard the imperialist shouts ofvictory, and in his anguish was fain to die. Mercilessslaughter followed; the stream was choked with the deadand dying, the road toward Siena was strewn thick withthe corpses of Strozzis men and Lucign
Byways in southern Tuscany . ign with them. It meant defeat. He desper-ately rallied his men, and fought bravely till he had hadtwo horses killed under him and fell sorely wounded. Hewould still have remained upon the lost battle ground,but though he resisted he was borne away to safety byhis flying troops, and while his wounds were bound upby a Franciscan friar he heard the imperialist shouts ofvictory, and in his anguish was fain to die. Mercilessslaughter followed; the stream was choked with the deadand dying, the road toward Siena was strewn thick withthe corpses of Strozzis men and Lucignano which he hadtried to make secure was surrendered to the enemy withoutan attempt at defence. The news was carried to Siena and, with the first shockof it, despair seized upon the people; the city rang withsobs, screams, and curses. Crazed women ran ravingthrough the streets, they thronged about the votive chapelin the Campo, they crowded into the cathedral, and flungthemselves upon the pavement in agony for their lost 192. BYWAYS IN SOUTHERN TUSCANY legions and for the slavery that threatened them. But asthe bleeding stragglers from the battlefield began to comein they calmed themselves and turned to succor them andpitifully bind up their wounds. The city had already beenin a state of siege for five months, yet the women gener-ously brought of their slender stores of food and wine todistribute to the bleeding Germans and French as well asto their own people. After the first outbreak of terrorthe Sienese did not falter in their determination to holdout to the last against the hated Florentine yoke, and wehave already seen how unspeakable were the sufferingsthey endured for the following five months of the siegetill, starving and exhausted, the remnant of the populationleft alive was forced to surrender. Strozzi, when he had partly recovered from his wounds,had taken refuge in Montalcino where he was attemptingto collect his broken forces and send help and food toSiena, but be
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjecttuscany, bookyear1919
