“You hear, Adrian, how wicked those last are,” quoth Stephen.

“Now it seems to me,” continued Montreal, “that this contest must end some time or other.  All Italy must become republican or monarchical.  It is easy to predict which will be the result.”

“Yes, Liberty must conquer in the end!” said Adrian, warmly.

“Pardon me, young Lord; my opinion is entirely the reverse.  You perceive that these republics are commercial,—­are traders; they esteem wealth, they despise valour, they cultivate all trades save that of the armourer.  Accordingly, how do they maintain themselves in war:  by their own citizens?  Not a whit of it!  Either they send to some foreign chief, and promise, if he grant them his protection, the principality of the city for five or ten years in return; or else they borrow from some hardy adventurer, like myself, as many troops as they can afford to pay for.  Is it not so, Lord Adrian?”

Adrian nodded his reluctant assent.

“Well, then, it is the fault of the foreign chief if he do not make his power permanent; as has been already done in States once free by the Visconti and the Scala:  or else it is the fault of the captain of the mercenaries if he do not convert his brigands into senators, and himself into a king.  These are events so natural, that one day or other they will occur throughout all Italy.  And all Italy will then become monarchical.  Now it seems to me the interest of all the powerful families—­your own, at Rome, as that of the Visconti, at Milan—­to expedite this epoch, and to check, while you yet may with ease, that rebellious contagion amongst the people which is now rapidly spreading, and which ends in the fever of licence to them, but in the corruption of death to you.  In these free States, the nobles are the first to suffer:  first your privileges, then your property, are swept away.  Nay, in Florence, as ye well know, my Lords, no noble is even capable of holding the meanest office in the State!”

“Villains!” said Colonna, “they violate the first law of nature!”

“At this moment,” resumed Montreal, who, engrossed with his subject, little heeded the interruptions he received from the holy indignation of the Baron:  “at this moment, there are many—­the wisest, perhaps, in the free States—­who desire to renew the old Lombard leagues, in defence of their common freedom everywhere, and against whosoever shall aspire to be prince.  Fortunately, the deadly jealousies between these merchant States—­the base plebeian jealousies—­more of trade than of glory—­interpose at present an irresistible obstacle to this design; and Florence, the most stirring and the most esteemed of all, is happily so reduced by reverses of commerce as to be utterly unable to follow out so great an undertaking.  Now, then, is the time for us, my Lords; while these obstacles are so great for our foes, now is the time for us to form and cement a counter-league between all the princes