d their residence in Rome, Liberty and Law would again
seek their natural shelter beneath the resuscitated majesty of the Roman
people.

The absence of the pope and the papal court served greatly to impoverish
the citizens; and they had suffered yet more visibly by the depredations
of hordes of robbers, numerous and unsparing, who infested Romagna,
obstructing all the public ways, and were, sometimes secretly,
sometimes, openly, protected by the barons, who often recruited their
banditti garrisons by banditti soldiers.

But besides the lesser and ignobler robbers, there had risen in Italy
a far more formidable description of freebooters. A German, who assumed
the lofty title of the Duke Werner, had, a few years prior to the period
we approach, enlisted and organised a considerable force, styled "The
Great Company," with which he besieged cities and invaded states,
without any object less shameless than that of pillage. His example was
soon imitated: numerous "Companies," similarly constituted, devastated
the distracted and divided land. They appeared, suddenly raised, as if
by magic, before the walls of a city, and demanded immense sums as the
purchase of peace. Neither tyrant nor common wealth maintained a force
sufficient to resist them; and if other northern mercenaries were
engaged to oppose them, it was only to recruit the standards of the
freebooters with deserters. Mercenary fought not mercenary--nor German,
German: and greater pay, and more unbridled rapine, made the tents of
the "Companies" far more attractive than the regulated stipends of a
city, or the dull fortress and impoverished coffers of a chief. Werner,
the most implacable and ferocious of all these adventurers, and who had
so openly gloried in his enormities as to wear upon his breast a silver
plate, engraved with the words, "Enemy to God, to Pity, and to Mercy,"
had not long since ravaged Romagna with fire and sword. But, whether
induced by money, or unable to control the fierce spirits he had
raised, he afterwards led the bulk of his company back to Germany. Small
detachments, however, remained, scattered throughout the land, waiting
only an able leader once more to re-unite them: amongst those who
appeared most fitted for that destiny was Walter de Montreal, a Knight
of St. John, and gentleman of Provence, whose valour and military genius
had already, though yet young, raised his name into dreaded celebrity;
and whose ambition, experience, and sa