The seats were covered with cloth and rich tapestry.  In the rear of the church was drawn a purple curtain.  Around the amphitheatre were the officers of the Church, in the party-coloured liveries of the Pope.  To the right of the scaffold sate Raimond, Bishop of Orvietto, in his robes of state.  On the benches round him you saw all the marked personages of Rome—­the judges, the men of letters, the nobles, from the lofty rank of the Savelli to the inferior grade of a Raselli.  The space beyond the amphitheatre was filled with the people, who now poured fast in, stream after stream:  all the while rang, clear and loud, the great bell of the church.

At length, as Adrian and Montreal seated themselves at a little distance from Raimond, the bell suddenly ceased—­the murmurs of the people were stilled—­the purple curtain was withdrawn, and Rienzi came forth with slow and majestic steps.  He came—­but not in his usual sombre and plain attire.  Over his broad breast he wore a vest of dazzling whiteness—­a long robe, in the ample fashion of the toga, descended to his feet and swept the floor.  On his head he wore a fold of white cloth, in the centre of which shone a golden crown.  But the crown was divided, or cloven, as it were, by the mystic ornament of a silver sword, which, attracting the universal attention, testified at once that this strange garb was worn, not from the vanity of display, but for the sake of presenting to the concourse—­in the person of the citizen—­a type and emblem of that state of the city on which he was about to descant.

“Faith,” whispered one of the old nobles to his neighbour, “the plebeian assumes it bravely.”

“It will be rare sport,” said a second.  “I trust the good man will put some jests in his discourse.”

“What showman’s tricks are these?” said a third.

“He is certainly crazed!” said a fourth.

“How handsome he is!” said the women, mixed with the populace.

“This is a man who has learned the people by heart,” observed Montreal to Adrian.  “He knows he must speak to the eye, in order to win the mind:  a knave,—­a wise knave!”

And now Rienzi had ascended the scaffold; and as he looked long and steadfastly around the meeting, the high and thoughtful repose of his majestic countenance, its deep and solemn gravity, hushed all the murmurs, and made its effect equally felt by the sneering nobles as the impatient populace.

“Signors of Rome,” said he, at length, “and ye, friends, and citizens, you have heard why we are met together this day; and you, my Lord Bishop of Orvietto,—­and ye, fellow labourers with me in the field of letters,—­ye, too, are aware that it is upon some matter relative to that ancient Rome, the rise and the decline of whose past power and glories we have spent our youth in endeavouring to comprehend.  But this, believe me, is no vain enigma of erudition, useful but to the studious,—­referring but to the dead.