Then followed the announcement of the gabelle.

The Proclamation was set up in the public thoroughfares.  Round one of the placards a crowd assembled.  Their gestures were vehement and unguarded—­their eyes sparkled—­they conversed low, but eagerly.

“He dares to tax us, then!  Why, the Barons or the Pope could not do more than that!”

“Shame! shame!” cried a gaunt female; “we, who were his friends!  How are our little ones to get bread?”

“He should have seized the Pope’s money!” quoth an honest wine-vender.

“Ah!  Pandulfo di Guido would have maintained an army at his own cost.  He was a rich man.  What insolence in the innkeeper’s son to be a Senator!”

“We are not Romans if we suffer this!” said a deserter from Palestrina.

“Fellow-citizens!” exclaimed gruffly a tall man, who had hitherto been making a clerk read to him the particulars of the tax imposed, and whose heavy brain at length understood that wine was to be made dearer—­“Fellow-citizens, we must have a new revolution!  This is indeed gratitude!  What have we benefited by restoring this man!  Are we always to be ground to the dust?  To pay—­pay—­pay!  Is that all we are fit for?”

“Hark to Cecco del Vecchio!”

“No, no; not now,” growled the smith.  “Tonight the artificers have a special meeting.  We’ll see—­we’ll see!”

A young man, muffled in a cloak, who had not been before observed, touched the smith.

“Whoever storms the Capitol the day after tomorrow at the dawn,” he whispered, “shall find the guards absent!”

He was gone before the smith could look round.

The same night Rienzi, retiring to rest, said to Angelo Villani—­“A bold but necessary measure this of mine!  How do the people take it?”

“They murmur a little, but seem to recognise the necessity.  Cecco del Vecchio was the loudest grumbler, but is now the loudest approver.”

“The man is rough; he once deserted me;—­but then that fatal excommunication!  He and the Romans learned a bitter lesson in that desertion, and experience has, I trust, taught them to be honest.  Well, if this tax be raised quietly, in two years Rome will be again the Queen of Italy;—­her army manned—­her Republic formed; and then—­then—­”

“Then what, Senator?”

“Why then, my Angelo, Cola di Rienzi may die in peace!  There is a want which a profound experience of power and pomp brings at last to us—­a want gnawing as that of hunger, wearing as that of sleep!—­my Angelo, it is the want to die!”

“My Lord, I would give this right hand,” cried Villani, earnestly, “to hear you say you were attached to life!”

“You are a good youth, Angelo!” said Rienzi, as he passed to Nina’s chamber; and in her smile and wistful tenderness, forgot for a while—­that he was a great man!

Chapter 10.VIII.  The Threshold of the Event.