the-prince

death. Meanwhile the Florentines had recovered San Miniato,
whereupon it seemed advisable to Castruccio to make
peace, as it did not appear to him that he was sufficiently secure
at Lucca to leave him. He approached the Florentines
with the proposal of a truce, which they readily entertained,
for they were weary of the war, and desirous of getting rid of
the expenses of it. A treaty was concluded with them for two
years, by which both parties agreed to keep the conquests
they had made. Castruccio thus released from this trouble,
turned his attention to affairs in Lucca, and in order that
he should not again be subject to the perils from which he
had just escaped, he, under various pretences and reasons,
first wiped out all those who by their ambition might aspire
to the principality; not sparing one of them, but depriving
them of country and property, and those whom he had in
his hands of life also, stating that he had found by experience
that none of them were to be trusted. Then for his
further security he raised a fortress in Lucca with the stones
of the towers of those whom he had killed or hunted out of
the state.
Whilst Castruccio made peace with the Florentines, and
strengthened his position in Lucca, he neglected no opportunity,
short of open war, of increasing his importance
elsewhere. It appeared to him that if he could get possession
of Pistoia, he would have one foot in Florence, which was
his great desire. He, therefore, in various ways made friends
with the mountaineers, and worked matters so in Pistoia
that both parties confided their secrets to him. Pistoia was
divided, as it always had been, into the Bianchi and Neri
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