rdon me, young Lord; my opinion is entirely the reverse. You perceive
that these republics are commercial,--are traders; they esteem wealth,
they despise valour, they cultivate all trades save that of the
armourer. Accordingly, how do they maintain themselves in war: by their
own citizens? Not a whit of it! Either they send to some foreign chief,
and promise, if he grant them his protection, the principality of the
city for five or ten years in return; or else they borrow from some
hardy adventurer, like myself, as many troops as they can afford to pay
for. Is it not so, Lord Adrian?"

Adrian nodded his reluctant assent.

"Well, then, it is the fault of the foreign chief if he do not make his
power permanent; as has been already done in States once free by the
Visconti and the Scala: or else it is the fault of the captain of the
mercenaries if he do not convert his brigands into senators, and himself
into a king. These are events so natural, that one day or other
they will occur throughout all Italy. And all Italy will then become
monarchical. Now it seems to me the interest of all the powerful
families--your own, at Rome, as that of the Visconti, at Milan--to
expedite this epoch, and to check, while you yet may with ease, that
rebellious contagion amongst the people which is now rapidly spreading,
and which ends in the fever of licence to them, but in the corruption of
death to you. In these free States, the nobles are the first to suffer:
first your privileges, then your property, are swept away. Nay, in
Florence, as ye well know, my Lords, no noble is even capable of holding
the meanest office in the State!"

"Villains!" said Colonna, "they violate the first law of nature!"

"At this moment," resumed Montreal, who, engrossed with his subject,
little heeded the interruptions he received from the holy indignation of
the Baron: "at this moment, there are many--the wisest, perhaps, in the
free States--who desire to renew the old Lombard leagues, in defence of
their common freedom everywhere, and against whosoever shall aspire to
be prince. Fortunately, the deadly jealousies between these
merchant States--the base plebeian jealousies--more of trade than of
glory--interpose at present an irresistible obstacle to this design; and
Florence, the most stirring and the most esteemed of all, is happily so
reduced by reverses of commerce as to be utterly unable to follow out
so great an undertaking. Now, then, is the time for