The causes of the second fall and final murder of Rienzi are equally misstated by modern narrators.  It was from no fault of his—­no injustice, no cruelty, no extravagance—­it was not from the execution of Montreal, nor that of Pandulfo di Guido—–­it was from a gabelle on wine and salt that he fell.  To preserve Rome from the tyrants it was necessary to maintain an armed force; to pay the force a tax was necessary; the tax was imposed—­and the multitude joined with the tyrants, and their cry was, “Perish the traitor who has made the gabelle!” This was their only charge—­this the only crime that their passions and their fury could cite against him.

The faults of Rienzi are sufficiently visible, and I have not unsparingly shewn them; but we must judge men, not according as they approach perfection, but according as their good or bad qualities preponderate—­their talents or their weaknesses—­the benefits they effected, the evil they wrought.  For a man who rose to so great a power, Rienzi’s faults were singularly few—­crimes he committed none.  He is almost the only man who ever rose from the rank of a citizen to a power equal to that of monarchs without a single act of violence or treachery.  When in power, he was vain, ostentatious, and imprudent,—­always an enthusiast—­often a fanatic; but his very faults had greatness of soul, and his very fanaticism at once supported his enthusiastic daring, and proved his earnest honesty.  It is evident that no heinous charge could be brought against him even by his enemies, for all the accusations to which he was subjected, when excommunicated, exiled, fallen, were for two offences which Petrarch rightly deemed the proofs of his virtue and his glory:  first, for declaring Rome to be free; secondly, for pretending that the Romans had a right of choice in the election of the Roman Emperor. (The charge of heresy was dropped.) Stern, just, and inflexible, as he was when Tribune, his fault was never that of wanton cruelty.  The accusation against him, made by the gentle Petrarch, indeed, was that he was not determined enough—­that he did not consummate the revolution by exterminating the patrician tyrants.  When Senator, he was, without sufficient ground, accused of avarice in the otherwise just and necessary execution of Montreal. (Gibbon, in mentioning the execution of Montreal, omits to state that Montreal was more than suspected of conspiracy and treason to restore the Colonna.  Matthew Villani records it as a common belief that such truly was the offence of the Provencal.  The biographer of Rienzi gives additional evidence of the fact.  Gibbon’s knowledge of this time was superficial.  As one instance of this, he strangely enough represents Montreal as the head of the first Free Company that desolated Italy:  he took that error from the Pere du Cerceau.) It was natural enough that his enemies and the vulgar should suppose that he executed a creditor to get rid of a debt; but it was inexcusable in later, and wiser, and