t drove him into exile in Campania for more than
ten months. But when the Count had been murdered by one of the
Crescenzi,'--in whose house Rienzi afterwards lived,--'the Pope was
released and returned to his See.'

Back came Otto the Great, Saxon Emperor, at Christmas time, as he came
more than once, to put down revolution with a strong hand and avenge the
wrongs of Pope John by executing all but one of the Captains of the
Regions. Twelve of them he hanged. Peter the Prefect, or Prior, was
bound naked upon an ass with an earthen jar over his head, flogged
through the city, and cruelly put to death; and at last his torn body
was hung by the hair to the head of the bronze horse whereon the stately
figure of Marcus Aurelius sat in triumph before the door of the Pope's
house, as it sits today on the Capitol before the Palace of the Senator.
And Otto caused the body of murdered Roffredo to be dragged from its
grave and quartered by the hangman and scattered abroad, a warning to
the Regions and their leaders. They left Pope John in peace after that,
and he lived five years and held a council in the Lateran, and died in
his bed. Possibly after his rough experience, his rule was more gentle,
and when he was dead he was spoken of as 'that most worthy Pontiff.' Who
Count Roffredo was no one can tell surely, but his name belongs to the
great house of Caetani.

[Illustration: BASILICA OF ST JOHN LATERAN]

It is hard to see past terror in present peace; it is not easy to fancy
the rough rabble of Rome in those days, strangely clad, more strangely
armed, far out in the waste fields about the Lateran, surging up like
demons in the lurid torchlight before the house of the Pope, pressing
upon the mailed Count's stout horse, and thronging upon the heels of the
Captains and the Prefect, pounding down the heavy doors with stones, and
with deep shouts for every heavy blow, while white-robed John and his
frightened priests cower together within, expecting death. Down goes the
oak with a crash like artillery, that booms along the empty corridors; a
moment's pause, and silence, and then the rush, headed by the Knight and
the leaders who mean no murder, but mean to have their way, once and for
ever, and buffet back their furious followers when they have reached the
Pope's room, lest he should be torn in pieces. Then, the subsidence of
the din, and the old man and his priests bound and dragged out and
forced to go on foot by all the long dark