ucal crown by the Imperial Settlement of 1530, that the city would
elect her liberator for her ruler? Alfieri and Niccolini, having
taken, as it were, a brief in favour of tyrannicide, praised Lorenzino
as a hero. De Musset, who wrote a considerable drama on his story,
painted him as a _roue_ corrupted by society, enfeebled by
circumstance, soured by commerce with an uncongenial world, who hides
at the bottom of his mixed nature enough of real nobility to make him
the leader of a forlorn hope for the liberties of Florence. This is
the most favourable construction we can put upon Lorenzo's conduct.
Yet some facts of the case warn us to suspend our judgment. He seems
to have formed no plan for the liberation of his fellow-citizens. He
gave no pledge of self-devotion by avowing his deed and abiding by its
issues. He showed none of the qualities of a leader, whether in the
cause of freedom or of his own dynastic interests, after the murder.
He escaped as soon as he was able, as secretly as he could manage,
leaving the city in confusion, and exposing himself to the obvious
charge of abominable treason. So far as the Florentines knew, his
assassination of their Duke was but a piece of private spite, executed
with infernal craft. It is true that when he seized the pen in exile,
he did his best to claim the guerdon of a patriot, and to throw the
blame of failure on the Florentines. In his Apology, and in a letter
written to Francesco de' Medici, he taunts them with lacking the
spirit to extinguish tyranny when he had slain the tyrant. He summons
plausible excuses to his aid--the impossibility of taking persons of
importance into his confidence, the loss of blood he suffered from
his wound, the uselessness of rousing citizens whom events proved
over-indolent for action. He declares that he has nothing to regret.
Having proved by deeds his will to serve his country, he has saved
his life in order to spend it for her when occasion offered. But these
arguments, invented after the catastrophe, these words, so bravely
penned when action ought to have confirmed his resolution, do not
meet the case. It was no deed of a true hero to assassinate a despot,
knowing or half knowing that the despot's subjects would immediately
elect another. Their languor could not, except rhetorically, be
advanced in defence of his own flight.

The historian is driven to seek both the explanation and palliation of
Lorenzo's failure in the temper of his time