“Yes,” said Rienzi, breaking suddenly from his revery, “yes, the day is at hand when Rome shall rise again from her ashes; Justice shall dethrone Oppression; men shall walk safe in their ancient Forum.  We will rouse from his forgotten tomb the indomitable soul of Cato!  There shall be a people once more in Rome!  And I—­I shall be the instrument of that triumph—­the restorer of my race! mine shall be the first voice to swell the battle-cry of freedom—­mine the first hand to rear her banner—­yes, from the height of my own soul as from a mountain, I see already rising the liberties and the grandeur of the New Rome; and on the corner-stone of the mighty fabric posterity shall read my name.”

Uttering these lofty boasts, the whole person of the speaker seemed instinct with his ambition.  He strode the gloomy chamber with light and rapid steps, as if on air; his breast heaved, his eyes glowed.  He felt that love itself can scarcely bestow a rapture equal to that which is felt, in his first virgin enthusiasm, by a patriot who knows himself sincere!

There was a slight knock at the door, and a servitor, in the rich liveries worn by the pope’s officials, (Not the present hideous habiliments, which are said to have been the invention of Michael Angelo.) presented himself.

“Signor,” said he, “my Lord, the Bishop of Orvietto, is without.”

“Ha! that is fortunate.  Lights there!—­My Lord, this is an honour which I can estimate better than express.”

“Tut, tut! my good friend,” said the Bishop, entering, and seating himself familiarly, “no ceremonies between the servants of the Church; and never, I ween well, had she greater need of true friends than now.  These unholy tumults, these licentious contentions, in the very shrines and city of St. Peter, are sufficient to scandalize all Christendom.”

“And so will it be,” said Rienzi, “until his Holiness himself shall be graciously persuaded to fix his residence in the seat of his predecessors, and curb with a strong arm the excesses of the nobles.”

“Alas, man!” said the Bishop, “thou knowest that these words are but as wind; for were the Pope to fulfil thy wishes, and remove from Avignon to Rome, by the blood of St. Peter! he would not curb the nobles, but the nobles would curb him.  Thou knowest well that until his blessed predecessor, of pious memory, conceived the wise design of escaping to Avignon, the Father of the Christian world was but like many other fathers in their old age, controlled and guarded by his rebellious children.  Recollectest thou not how the noble Boniface himself, a man of great heart, and nerves of iron, was kept in thraldom by the ancestors of the Orsini—­his entrances and exits made but at their will—­so that, like a caged eagle, he beat himself against his bars and died?  Verily, thou talkest of the memories of Rome—­these are not the memories that are very attractive to popes.”

“Well,” said Rienzi, laughing gently, and drawing his seat nearer to the Bishop’s, “my Lord has certainly the best of the argument at present; and I must own, that strong, licentious, and unhallowed as the order of nobility was then, it is yet more so now.”