But at the time we write, Florence had passed through her ages of primitive religions and republican simplicity, and was fast hastening to her downfall.  The genius, energy, and prophetic enthusiasm of Savonarola had made, it is true, a desperate rally on the verge of the precipice; but no one man has ever power to turn back the downward slide of a whole generation.

When Father Antonio left Sorrento in company with the cavalier, it was the intention of the latter to go with him only so far as their respective routes should lie together.  The band under the command of Agostino was posted in a ruined fortress in one of those airily perched old mountain-towns which form so picturesque and characteristic a feature of the Italian landscape.  But before they reached this spot, the simple, poetic, guileless monk, with his fresh artistic nature, had so won upon his travelling companion that a most enthusiastic friendship had sprung up between them, and Agostino could not find it in his heart at once to separate from him.  Tempest-tossed and homeless, burning with a sense of wrong, alienated from the faith of his fathers through his intellect and moral sense, yet clinging to it with his memory and imagination, he found in the tender devotional fervor of the artist monk a reconciling and healing power.  He shared, too, in no small degree, the feelings which now possessed the breast of his companion for the great reformer whose purpose seemed to meditate nothing less than the restoration of the Church of Italy to the primitive apostolic simplicity.  He longed to see him,—­to listen to the eloquence of which he had heard so much.  Then, too, he had thoughts that but vaguely shaped themselves in his mind.  This noble man, so brave and courageous, menaced by the forces of a cruel tyranny, might he not need the protection of a good sword?  He recollected, too, that he had an uncle high in the favor of the King of France, to whom he had written a full account of his own situation.  Might he not be of use in urging this uncle to induce the French King to throw before Savonarola the shield of his protection?  At all events, he entered Florence this evening with the burning zeal of a young neophyte who hopes to effect something himself for a glorious and sacred cause embodied in a leader who commands his deepest veneration.

“My son,” said Father Antonio, as they raised their heads after the evening prayer, “I am at this time like a man who, having long been, away from his home, fears, on returning, that he shall hear some evil tidings of those he hath left.  I long, yet dread, to go to my dear Father Girolamo and the beloved brothers in our house.  There is a presage that lies heavy on my heart, so that I cannot shake it off.  Look at our glorious old Duomo;—­doth she not sit there among the houses and palaces as a queen-mother among nations,—­worthy, in her greatness and beauty, to represent the Church of the New Jerusalem, the Bride of the Lord?  Ah, I have seen it thronged and pressed with the multitude who came to crave the bread of life from our master!”