Rienzi, The Last of the Roman Tribunes
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"TREMBLE! RIENZI SHALL RETURN!"
"How! what means this mummery!" cried the Legate, trembling already, and
looking round to the nobles.
"Please your Eminence," said one of the councillors, who had come from the
Capitol to meet the Legate, "we saw it at daybreak, the ink yet moist, as
we entered the Hall. We deemed it best to leave it for your Eminence to
deal with."
"You deemed! Who are you, then?"
"One of the members of the Council, your Eminence, and a stanch opponent of
the Tribune, as is well known, when he wanted the new tax - "
"Council - trash! No more councils now! Order is restored at last. The
Orsini and the Colonna will look to you in future. Resist a tax, did you?
Well, that was right when proposed by a tyrant; but I warn you, friend, to
take care how you resist the tax we shall impose. Happy if your city can
buy its peace with the Church on any terms: - and his Holiness is short of
the florins."
The discomfited councillor shrank back.
"Tear off yon insolent placard. Nay, hold! fix over it our proclamation of
ten thousand florins for the heretic's head! Ten thousand? methinks that
is too much now - we will alter the cipher. Meanwhile Rinaldo Orsini, Lord
Senator, march thy soldiers to St. Angelo; let us see if the heretic can
stand a siege."
"It needs not, your Eminence," said the councillor, again officiously
bustling up; "St. Angelo is surrendered. The Tribune, his wife, and one
page, escaped last night, it is said, in disguise."
"Ha!" said the old Colonna, whose dulled sense had at length arrived at the
conclusion that something extraordinary arrested the progress of his
friends. "What is the matter? What is that placard? Will no one tell me
the words? My old eyes are dim."
As he uttered the questions, in the shrill and piercing treble of age, a
voice replied in a loud and deep tone - none knew whence it came; the crowd
was reduced to a few stragglers, chiefly friars in cowl and serge, whose
curiosity nought could daunt, and whose garb ensured them safety - the
soldiers closed the rear: a voice, I say, came, startling the colour from
many a cheek - in answer to the Colonna, saying:
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