The Bishop of Orvietto smiled, and bowed approvingly; the people, the citizens, the inferior nobles, noted well those signs of encouragement; and, to their minds, the Pope himself, in the person of his Vicar, looked benignly on the daring of Rienzi.

“The Jubilee approaches,—­the eyes of all Christendom will be directed hither.  Here, where, from all quarters of the globe, men come for peace, shall they find discord?—­seeking absolution, shall they perceive but crime?  In the centre of God’s dominion, shall they weep at your weakness?—­in the seat of the martyred saints, shall they shudder at your vices?—­in the fountain and source of Christ’s law, shall they find all law unknown?  You were the glory of the world—­will you be its by-word?  You were its example—­will you be its warning?  Rise, while it is yet time!—­clear your roads from the bandits that infest them!—­your walls from the hirelings that they harbour!  Banish these civil discords, or the men—­how proud, how great, soever—­who maintain them!  Pluck the scales from the hand of Fraud!—­the sword from the hand of Violence!—­the balance and the sword are the ancient attributes of Justice!—­restore them to her again!  This be your high task,—­these be your great ends!  Deem any man who opposes them a traitor to his country.  Gain a victory greater than those of the Caesars—­a victory over yourselves!  Let the pilgrims of the world behold the resurrection of Rome!  Make one epoch of the Jubilee of Religion and the Restoration of Law!  Lay the sacrifice of your vanquished passions—­the first-fruits of your renovated liberties—­upon the very altar that these walls contain! and never! oh, never! since the world began, shall men have made a more grateful offering to their God!”

So intense was the sensation these words created in the audience—­so breathless and overpowered did they leave the souls with they took by storm—­that Rienzi had descended the scaffold, and already disappeared behind the curtain from which he had emerged, ere the crowd were fully aware that he had ceased.

The singularity of this sudden apparition—­robed in mysterious splendour, and vanishing the moment its errand was fulfilled—­gave additional effect to the words it had uttered.  The whole character of that bold address became invested with a something preternatural and inspired; to the minds of the vulgar, the mortal was converted into the oracle; and, marvelling at the unhesitating courage with which their idol had rebuked and conjured the haughty barons,—­each of whom they regarded in the light of sanctioned executioners, whose anger could be made manifest at once by the gibbet or the axe,—­the people could not but superstitiously imagine that nothing less than authority from above could have gifted their leader with such hardihood, and preserved him from the danger it incurred.  In fact, it was in this very courage of Rienzi that his safety consisted; he was placed in those circumstances where audacity is prudence.