A wonderful thing would it have been to a more observant eye, to note the change which two or three short months of the stern but salutary and wise rule of the Tribune had effected in the streets of Rome.  You no longer beheld the gaunt and mail-clad forms of foreign mercenaries stalking through the vistas, or grouped in lazy insolence before the embattled porches of some gloomy palace.  The shops, that in many quarters had been closed for years, were again open, glittering with wares and bustling with trade.  The thoroughfares, formerly either silent as death, or crossed by some affrighted and solitary passenger with quick steps, and eyes that searched every corner,—­or resounding with the roar of a pauper rabble, or the open feuds of savage nobles, now exhibited the regular, and wholesome, and mingled streams of civilized life, whether bound to pleasure or to commerce.  Carts and waggons laden with goods which had passed in safety by the dismantled holds of the robbers of the Campagna, rattled cheerfully over the pathways.  “Never, perhaps,”—­to use the translation adapted from the Italian authorities, by a modern and by no means a partial historian (Gibbon.)—­“Never, perhaps, has the energy and effect of a single mind been more remarkably felt than in the sudden reformation of Rome by the Tribune Rienzi.  A den of robbers was converted to the discipline of a camp or convent.  ’In this time,’ says the historian, ("Vita di Cola di Rienzi”, lib. i. c. 9.) ’did the woods begin to rejoice that they were no longer infested with robbers; the oxen began to plough; the pilgrims visited the sanctuaries; (Gibbon:  the words in the original are “li pellegrini cominciaro a fere la cerca per la santuaria.”) the roads and inns were replenished with travellers:  trade, plenty, and good faith, were restored in the markets; and a purse of gold might be exposed without danger in the midst of the highways.’”

Amidst all these evidences of comfort and security to the people—­some dark and discontented countenances might be seen mingled in the crowd, and whenever one who wore the livery of the Colonna or the Orsini felt himself jostled by the throng, a fierce hand moved involuntarily to the sword-belt, and a half-suppressed oath was ended with an indignant sigh.  Here and there too,—­contrasting the redecorated, refurnished, and smiling shops—­heaps of rubbish before the gate of some haughty mansion testified the abasement of fortifications which the owner impotently resented as a sacrilege.  Through such streets and such throngs did the party we accompany wend their way, till they found themselves amidst crowds assembled before the entrance of the Capitol.  The officers there stationed kept, however, so discreet and dexterous an order, that they were not long detained; and now in the broad place or court of that memorable building, they saw the open doors of the great justice-hall, guarded but by a single sentinel, and in which, for six hours daily, did the Tribune hold his court, for “patient to hear, swift to redress, inexorable to punish, his tribunal was always accessible to the poor and stranger.” (Gibbon.)