Had he been less bold, the nobles would have been more severe; but so great a license of speech in an officer of the Holy See, they naturally imagined, was not unauthorised by the assent of the Pope, as well as by the approbation of the people.  Those who did not (like Stephen Colonna) despise words as wind, shrank back from the task of punishing one whose voice might be the mere echo of the wishes of the pontiff.  The dissensions of the nobles among each other, were no less favourable to Rienzi.  He attacked a body, the members of which had no union.

“It is not my duty to slay him!” said one.

“I am not the representative of the barons!” said another.

“If Stephen Colonna heeds him not, it would be absurd, as well as dangerous, in a meaner man to make himself the champion of the order!” said a third.

The Colonna smiled approval, when Rienzi denounced an Orsini—­an Orsini laughed aloud, when the eloquence burst over a Colonna.  The lesser nobles were well pleased to hear attacks upon both:  while, on the other hand, the Bishop, by the long impunity of Rienzi, had taken courage to sanction the conduct of his fellow-officer.  He affected, indeed, at times, to blame the excess of his fervour, but it was always accompanied by the praises of his honesty; and the approbation of the Pope’s Vicar confirmed the impression of the nobles as to the approbation of the Pope.  Thus, from the very rashness of his enthusiasm had grown his security and success.

Still, however, when the barons had a little recovered from the stupor into which Rienzi had cast them, they looked round to each other; and their looks confessed their sense of the insolence of the orator, and the affront offered to themselves.

“Per fede!” quoth Reginaldo di Orsini, “this is past bearing,—­the plebeian has gone too far!”

“Look at the populace below! how they murmur and gape,—­and how their eyes sparkle—­and what looks they bend at us!” said Luca di Savelli to his mortal enemy, Castruccio Malatesta:  the sense of a common danger united in one moment, but only for a moment, the enmity of years.

“Diavolo!” muttered Raselli (Nina’s father) to a baron, equally poor, “but the clerk has truth in his lips.  ’Tis a pity he is not noble.”

“What a clever brain marred!” said a Florentine merchant.  “That man might be something, if he were sufficiently rich.”

Adrian and Montreal were silent:  the first seemed lost in thought,—­the last was watching the various effects produced upon the audience.

“Silence!” proclaimed the officers.  “Silence, for my Lord Vicar.”

At this announcement, every eye turned to Raimond, who, rising with much clerical importance, thus addressed the assembly:—­