Not so Florence. She is entirely resolved, in these years of victory,
to do justice to all men so far she understands it; and in this case it
will give her some trouble to do it, and worse,--cost her some of her
fine new florins. For her counter-mandate is quite powerless with
Guido Guerra. He has taken Arezzo mainly with his own men, and means to
stay there, thinking that the Florentines, if even they do not abet
him, will take no practical steps against him. But he does not know
this newly risen clan of military merchants, who quite clearly
understand what honesty means, and will put themselves out of their way
to keep their faith. Florence calls out her trades instantly, and with
gules, a dragon vert, and or, a bull sable, they march, themselves,
angrily up the Val d'Arno, replace the adverse Ghibellines in Arezzo,
and send Master Guido de' Conti Guido about his business. But the
prettiest and most curious part of the whole story is their equity even
to him, after he had given them all this trouble. They entirely
recognize the need he is under of getting meat, somehow, for the mouths
of these five hundred riders of his; also they hold him still their
friend, though an unmanageable one; and admit with praise what of more
or less patriotic and Guelphic principle may be at the root of his
disobedience.
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