So when Rienzi, on a latter occasion, placed the Prefect John di Vico in prison, this Jesuit says, “To put a gloss upon this action before the eyes of the people, Rienzi gave out that the Governor, John di Vico, keeping a correspondence with the conspirators, came with no other view than to betray the Romans.”  And if this scribbler, who pretends to have consulted the Vatican MSS., had looked at the most ordinary authorities, he would have seen that John di Vico did come with that view. (See for Di Vico’s secret correspondence with the Barons, La Cron.  Bologn. page 406; and La Cron.  Est. page 444.)

Again, in the battle between the Barons and the Romans at the gates, Du Cerceau thus describes the conduct of the Tribune:—­“The Tribune, amidst his troops, knew so little of what had passed, that seeing at a distance one of his standards fall, he looked upon all as lost, and, casting up his eyes to heaven full of despair, cried out, ’O God, will you then forsake me?’ But no sooner was he informed of the entire defeat of his enemies, than his dread and cowardice even turned to boldness and arrogance.”

Now in the original all that is said of this is, “That it is true that the standard of the Tribune fell—­the Tribune astonished, (or if you please, dismayed, sbigottio,) stood with his eyes raised to heaven, and could find no other words than, ‘O God hast thou betrayed me?’” This evinced, perhaps, alarm or consternation at the fall of his standard—­a consternation natural, not to a coward, but a fanatic, at such an event.  But not a word is said about Rienzi’s cowardice in the action itself; it is not stated when the accident happened—­nothing bears out the implication that the Tribune was remote from the contest, and knew little of what passed.  And if this ignorant Frenchman had consulted any other contemporaneous historian whatever, he would have found it asserted by them all, that the fight was conducted with great valour, both by the Roman populace and their leader on the one side, and the Barons on the other.—­G.  Vill. lib. xii. cap. 105; Cron.  Sen. tom. xv.  Murat. page 119; Cron.  Est. page 444.  Yet Gibbon rests his own sarcasm on the Tribune’s courage solely on the baseless exaggeration of this Pere Du Cerceau.

So little, indeed, did this French pretender know of the history of the time and place he treats of, that he imagines the Stephen Colonna who was killed in the battle above-mentioned was the old Stephen Colonna, and is very pathetic about his “venerable appearance,” &c.  This error, with regard to a man so eminent as Stephen Colonna the elder, is inexcusable:  for, had the priest turned over the other pages of the very collection in which he found the biography he deforms, he would have learned that old Stephen Colonna was alive some time after that battle.—­(Cron.  Sen.  Murat. tom. xv. page 121.)

Again, just before Rienzi’s expulsion from the office of Tribune, Du Cerceau, translating in his headlong way the old biographer’s account of the causes of Rienzi’s loss of popularity, says, “He shut himself up in his palace, and his presence was known only by the rigorous punishments which he caused his agents to inflict upon the innocent.”  Not a word of this in the original!