“What! the Senator is turned wine-bibber!” said Montreal, quaffing a vast goblet full; “that must unfit him for business—­’tis a pity.”

“Verily, yes,” said Pandulfo; “a man at the head of a state should be temperate—­I never drink wine unmixed.”

“Ah,” whispered Montreal, “if your calm good sense ruled Rome, then, indeed, the metropolis of Italy might taste of peace.  Signor Vivaldi,”—­and the host turned towards a wealthy draper,—­“these disturbances are bad for trade.”

“Very, very!” groaned the draper.

“The Barons are your best customers,” quoth the minor noble.

“Much, much!” said the draper.

“’Tis a pity that they are thus roughly expelled,” said Montreal, in a melancholy tone.  “Would it not be possible, if the Senator (I drink his health) were less rash—­less zealous, rather,—­to unite free institutions with the return of the Barons?—­such should be the task of a truly wise statesman!”

“It surely might be possible,” returned Vivaldi; “the Savelli alone spend more with me than all the rest of Rome.”

“I know not if it be possible,” said Bruttini; “but I do know that it is an outrage to all decorum that an innkeeper’s son should be enabled to make a solitude of the palaces of Rome.”

“It certainly seems to indicate too vulgar a desire of mob favour,” said Montreal.  “However, I trust we shall harmonize all these differences.  Rienzi, perhaps,—­nay, doubtless, means well!”

“I would,” said Vivaldi, who had received his cue, “that we might form a mixed constitution—­Plebeians and Patricians, each in their separate order.”

“But,” said Montreal, gravely, “so new an experiment would demand great physical force.”

“Why, true; but we might call in an umpire—­a foreigner who had no interest in either faction—­who might protect the new Buono Stato; a Podesta, as we have done before—­Brancaleone, for instance.  How well and wisely he ruled! that was a golden age for Rome.  A Podesta for ever!—­that’s my theory.”

“You need not seek far for the president of your council,” said Montreal, smiling at Pandulfo; “a citizen at once popular, well-born, and wealthy, may be found at my right hand.”

Pandulfo hemmed, and coloured.

Montreal proceeded.  “A committee of trades might furnish an honourable employment to Signor Vivaldi; and the treatment of all foreign affairs—­the employment of armies, &c., might be left to the Barons, with a more open competition, Signor di Bruttini, to the Barons of the second order than has hitherto been conceded to their birth and importance.  Sirs, will you taste the Malvoisie?”

“Still,” said Vivaldi, after a pause—­(Vivaldi anticipated at least the supplying with cloth the whole of the Grand Company)—­“still, such a moderate and well-digested constitution would never be acceded to by Rienzi.”

“Why should it? what need of Rienzi?” exclaimed Bruttini.  “Rienzi may take another trip to Bohemia.”