hip of Mantua fell to his famous
daughter, Matilda, of whom most have heard. She was a woman of strong
will and strong mind; she held her own, and rent from others with a
mighty hand, till she had united nearly all Lombardy under her
rule. She was not much given to the domestic affections; she had two
husbands (successively), and, if the truth must be told, divorced them
both: one because he wished to share her sovereignty, perhaps usurp
it; and the other because he was not warm enough friend of religion.
She had no children, and, indeed, in her last marriage contract it was
expressly provided that the spouses were to live in chastity together,
and as much asunder as possible, Matilda having scruples. She was
a great friend to learning,--founded libraries, established the
law schools at Bologna, caused the codification of the canon law,
corresponded with distant nations, and spoke all the different
languages of her soldiers. More than literature, however, she loved
the Church; and fought on the side of Pope Gregory VII in his wars
with the Emperor Henry IV. Henry therefore took Mantua from her in
1091, and up to the year 1111 the city enjoyed a kind of republican
government under his protection. In that year Henry made peace with
Matilda, and appointed her his vice-regent in Italy; but the Mantuans,
after twenty years of freedom, were in no humor to feel the weight of
the mailed hand of this strong-minded lady. She was then, moreover,
nigh to her death; and, hearing that her physicians had given her up,
the Mantuans refused submission. The great Countess rose irefully from
her deathbed, and, gathering her army, led it in person, as she always
did, laid siege to Mantua by land and water, entered the city in 1114,
and did not die till a year after. Such is female resolution.

The Mantuans now founded a republican government, having unlimited
immunities and privileges from the Emperor, whose power over them
extended merely to the investure of their consuls. Their republic was
democratic, the legislative council of nine rectors and three curators
being elective by the whole people. This government, or something like
it, endured for more than a century, during which period the Mantuans
seem to have done nothing but war with their neighbors in every
direction,--with the Veronese chiefly, with the Cremonese a good
deal, with the Paduans, with the Ferrarese, with the Modenese and the
Bolognese: indeed, we count up twelve of the