Read "Bellarion the Fortunate" by Rafael Sabatini online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
A letter survives which the Prince of Valsassina wrote some little time after these events to Duke Filippo Maria, in which occurs the following criticism of the captains of his day: "They are stout fellows and great fighters, but rude, unlettered, and lacking culture. Their minds are fertile, vigorous soil, but unbroken by the plough of learning, so that the seeds of knowledge with which they are all too sparsely sown find little root there."
At Carpignano, when they came there three days after breaking camp, they found that all had fallen out as Bellarion calculated. A detachment of horse one hundred strong had been sent in haste with the necessary implements to destroy the bridge. That detachment Stoffel had surrounded, captured, disarmed, and disbanded.