resent when he received tidings of the storming of
Anagni, and bears witness to the composure with which he went through
the official business of the morning, as if nothing had happened.[148]
This was in public; but the shock was sufficiently strong to strike out
some sparkles of his fiery temper, as those found who met him that day
in private. To the Venetian agent who had come to Rome to mediate a
peace, and who had pressed him to enter into some terms of accommodation
with the Spaniards, he haughtily replied, that Alva must first recross
the frontier, and then, if he had aught to solicit, prefer his petition
like a dutiful son of the Church. This course was not one very likely to
be adopted by the victorious general[149]

In an interview with two French gentlemen, who, as he had reason to
suppose, were interesting themselves in the affair of a peace, he
exclaimed: "Whoever would bring me into a peace with heretics is a
servant of the Devil. Heaven will take vengeance on him. I will pray
that God's curse may fall on him. If I find that you intermeddle in any
such matter, I will cut your heads off your shoulders. Do not think this
an empty threat. I have an eye in my back on you,"--quoting an Italian
proverb,--"and if I find you playing me false, or attempting to entangle
me a second time in an accursed truce, I swear to you by the eternal
God, I will make your heads fly from your shoulders, come what may come
of it!" "In this way," concludes the narrator, one of the parties, "his
holiness continued for nearly an hour, walking up and down the
apartment, and talking all the while of his own grievances and of
cutting off our heads, until he had talked himself quite out of
breath."[150]

But the valor of the pope did not expend itself in words. He instantly
set about putting the capital in the best state of defence. He taxed the
people to raise funds for his troops, drew in the garrisons from the
neighboring places, formed a body-guard of six or seven hundred horse,
and soon had the satisfaction of seeing his Roman levies, amounting to
six thousand infantry, well equipped for the war. They made a brave
show, with their handsome uniforms and their banners richly emblazoned
with the pontifical arms. As they passed in review before his holiness,
who stood at one of the windows of his palace, he gave them his
benediction. But the edge of the Roman sword, according to an old
proverb, was apt to be blunt; and these holiday tro