At this period there appeared at Avignon a lady of singular and matchless beauty.  She had come with a slender but well appointed retinue from Florence, but declared herself of Neapolitan birth; the widow of a noble of the brilliant court of the unfortunate Jane.  Her name was Cesarini.  Arrived at a place where, even in the citadel of Christianity, Venus retained her ancient empire, where Love made the prime business of life, and to be beautiful was to be of power; the Signora Cesarini had scarcely appeared in public before she saw at her feet half the rank and gallantry of Avignon.  Her female attendants were beset with bribes and billets; and nightly, beneath her lattice, was heard the plaintive serenade.  She entered largely into the gay dissipation of the town, and her charms shared the celebrity of the hour with the verse of Petrarch.  But though she frowned on none, none could claim the monopoly of her smiles.  Her fair fame was as yet unblemished; but if any might presume beyond the rest, she seemed to have selected rather from ambition than love, and Giles, the warlike Cardinal d’Albornoz, all powerful at the sacred court, already foreboded the hour of his triumph.

It was late noon, and in the ante-chamber of the fair Signora waited two of that fraternity of pages, fair and richly clad, who, at that day, furnished the favourite attendants to rank of either sex.

“By my troth,” cried one of these young servitors, pushing from him the dice with which himself and his companion had sought to beguile their leisure, “this is but dull work! and the best part of the day is gone.  Our lady is late.”

“And I have donned my new velvet mantle,” replied the other, compassionately eyeing his finery.

“Chut, Giacomo,” said his comrade, yawning; “a truce with thy conceit.—­What news abroad, I wonder?  Has his Holiness come to his senses yet?”

“His senses! what, is he mad then?” quoth Giacomo, in a serious and astonished whisper.

“I think he is; if, being Pope, he does not discover that he may at length lay aside mask and hood.  ‘Continent Cardinal—­lewd Pope,’ is the old motto, you know; something must be the matter with the good man’s brain if he continue to live like a hermit.”

“Oh, I have you! but faith, his Holiness has proxies eno’.  The bishops take care to prevent women, Heaven bless them! going out of fashion; and Albornoz does not maintain your proverb, touching the Cardinals.”

“True, but Giles is a warrior,—­a cardinal in the church, but a soldier in the city.”

“Will he carry the fort here, think you, Angelo?”

“Why, fort is female, but—­”

“But what?”

“The Signora’s brow is made for power, rather than love, fair as it is.  She sees in Albornoz the prince, and not the lover.  With what a step she sweeps the floor! it disdains even the cloth of gold!”

“Hark!” cried Giacomo, hastening to the lattice, “hear you the hoofs below?  Ah, a gallant company!”