Cheerfully broke the winter sun over the streets of Rome, as the army of the Barons swept along them.  The Cardinal Legate at the head; the old Colonna (no longer haughty and erect, but bowed, and broken-hearted at the loss of his sons) at his right hand;—­the sleek smile of Luca Savelli—­the black frown of Rinaldo Orsini, were seen close behind.  A long but barbarous array it was; made up chiefly of foreign hirelings; nor did the procession resemble the return of exiled citizens, but the march of invading foes.

“My Lord Colonna,” said the Cardinal Legate, a small withered man, by birth a Frenchman, and full of the bitterest prejudices against the Romans, who had in a former mission very ill received him, as was their wont with foreign ecclesiastics; “this Pepin, whom Montreal has deputed at your orders, hath done us indeed good service.”

The old Lord bowed, but made no answer.  His strong intellect was already broken, and there was dotage in his glassy eye.  The Cardinal muttered, “He hears me not; sorrow hath brought him to second childhood!” and looking back, motioned to Luca Savelli to approach.

“Luca,” said the Legate, “it was fortunate that the Hungarian’s black banner detained the Provencal at Aversa.  Had he entered Rome, we might have found Rienzi’s successor worse than the Tribune himself.  Montreal,” he added, with a slight emphasis and a curled lip, “is a gentleman, and a Frenchman.  This Pepin, who is his delegate, we must bribe, or menace to our will.”

“Assuredly,” answered Savelli, “it is not a difficult task:  for Montreal calculated on a more stubborn contest, which he himself would have found leisure to close—­”

“As Podesta, or Prince of Rome! the modest man!  We Frenchmen have a due sense of our own merits; but this sudden victory surprises him as it doth us, Luca; and we shall wrest the prey from Pepin, ere Montreal can come to his help!  But Rienzi must die.  He is still, I hear, shut up in St. Angelo.  The Orsini shall storm him there ere the day be much older.  Today we possess the Capitol—­annul all the rebel’s laws—­break up his ridiculous parliament, and put all the government of the city under three senators—­Rinaldo Orsini, Colonna, and myself; you, my Lord, I trust, we shall fitly provide for.”

“Oh!  I am rewarded enough by returning to my palace; and a descent on the Jewellers’ quarter will soon build up its fortifications.  Luca Savelli is not an ambitious man.  He wants but to live in peace.”

The Cardinal smiled sourly, and took the turn towards the Capitol.

In the front space the usual gapers were assembled.  “Make way! make way! knaves!” cried the guards, trampling on either side the crowd, who, accustomed to the sedate and courteous order of Rienzi’s guard, fell back too slowly for many of them to escape severe injury from the pikes of the soldiers and the hoofs of the horses.  Our friend, Luigi, the butcher, was one of these, and the surliness of the Roman blood was past boiling heat when he received in his ample stomach the blunt end of a German’s pike.  “There, Roman,” said the rude mercenary, in his barbarous attempt at Italian, “make way for your betters; you have had enough crowds and shows of late, in all conscience.”