“Rodolph of Saxony goes ever to the highest bidder,” returned the miscreant, with a horrid grin.  “You gave me gold, and I would have slain your foe; your foe defeated me; he gives me life, and life is a greater boon than gold!”

“Ye confess your crime, my Lords!  Silent! dumb!  Where is your wit, Savelli?  Where your pride, Rinaldo di Orsini?  Gianni Colonna, is your chivalry come to this?”

“Oh!” continued Rienzi, with deep and passionate bitterness; “oh, my Lords, will nothing conciliate you—­not to me, but to Rome?  What hath been my sin against you and yours?  Disbanded ruffians (such as your accuser)—­dismantled fortresses—­impartial law—­what man, in all the wild revolutions of Italy, sprung from the people, ever yielded less to their licence?  Not a coin of your coffers touched by wanton power,—­not a hair of your heads harmed by private revenge.  You, Gianni Colonna, loaded with honours, intrusted with command—­you, Alphonso di Frangipani, endowed with new principalities,—­did the Tribune remember one insult he received from you as the Plebeian?  You accuse my pride;—­was it my fault that ye cringed and fawned upon my power,—­flattery on your lips, poison at your hearts?  No, I have not offended you; let the world know, that in me you aimed at liberty, justice, law, order, the restored grandeur, the renovated rights of Rome!  At these, the Abstract and the Immortal—­not at this frail form, ye struck;—­by the divinity of these ye are defeated;—­for the outraged majesty of these,—­criminals and victims,—­ye must die!”

With these words, uttered with the tone and air that would have become the loftiest spirit of the ancient city, Rienzi, with a majestic step, swept from the chamber into the Hall of Council. (The guilt of the Barons in their designed assassination of Rienzi, though hastily slurred over by Gibbon, and other modern writers, is clearly attested by Muratori, the Bolognese Chronicle &c.—­They even confessed the crime.  (See Cron.  Estens:  Muratori, tom. xviii. page 442.))

All that night the conspirators remained within that room, the doors locked and guarded; the banquet unremoved, and its splendour strangely contrasting the mood of the guests.

The utter prostration and despair of these dastard criminals—­so unlike the knightly nobles of France and England, has been painted by the historian in odious and withering colours.  The old Colonna alone sustained his impetuous and imperious character.  He strode to and fro the room like a lion in his cage, uttering loud threats of resentment and defiance; and beating at the door with his clenched hands, demanding egress, and proclaiming the vengeance of the Pontiff.