as a popular preacher. Let us first consider him in his
secular aspect, as a revolutionist and statesman,--for the admirable
constitution he had a principal hand in framing entitles him to the
dignity of statesman rather than politician. If his cause had not been
good, and if he had not appealed to both enlightened and patriotic
sentiments, he would have been a demagogue; for a demagogue and a mere
politician are synonymous, and a clerical demagogue is hideous.

Savonarola began his political career with terrible denunciations, from
his cathedral pulpit, of the political evils of his day, not merely in
Florence but throughout Italy. He detested tyrants and usurpers, and
sought to conserve such liberties as the Florentines had once enjoyed.
He was not only the preacher, he was also the patriot. Things temporal
were mixed up with things spiritual in his discourses. In his
detestation of the tyranny of the Medici, and his zeal to recover for
the Florentines their lost liberties, he even hailed the French armies
of Charles VIII. as deliverers, although they had crossed the Alps to
invade and conquer Italy. If the gates of Florence were open to them,
they would expel the Medici. So he stimulated the people to league with
foreign enemies in order to recover their liberties. This would have
been high treason in Richelieu's time,--as when the Huguenots encouraged
the invasion of the English on the soil of France. Savonarola was a
zealot, and carried the same spirit into politics that he did into
religion,--such as when he made a bonfire of what he called vanities. He
had an end to carry: he would use any means. There is apt to be a spirit
of Jesuitism in all men consumed with zeal, determined on success. To
the eye of the Florentine reformer, the expulsion of the Medici seemed
the supremest necessity; and if it could be done in no other way than by
opening the gates of his city to the French invaders, he would open the
gates. Whatever he commanded from the pulpit was done by the people, for
he seemed to have supreme control over them, gained by his eloquence as
a preacher. But he did not abuse his power. When the Medici were
expelled, he prevented violence; blood did not flow in the streets;
order and law were preserved. The people looked up to him as their
leader, temporal as well as spiritual. So he assembled them in the
great hall of the city, where they formally held a _parlemento_, and
reinstated the ancient magistrates. B