fulfil the
mission of liberator entrusted to him by God, he was threatened with
a great misfortune as a punishment, and Charles was dead; lastly,
Savonarola had prophesied his own fall like the man who paced around the
holy city for eight days, crying, "Woe to Jerusalem!" and on the ninth
day, "Woe be on my own head!" None the less, the Florentine reformer,
who could not recoil from any danger, was determined to attack the
colossal abomination that was seated on St. Peter's holy throne; each
debauch, each fresh crime that lifted up its brazen face to the light of
day or tried to hide its shameful head beneath the veil of night, he had
never failed to paint out to the people, denouncing it as the off
spring of the pope's luxurious living and lust of power. Thus had he
stigmatised Alexander's new amour with the beautiful Giulia Farnese, who
in the preceding April a added another son to the pope's family; thus
had he cursed the Duke of Gandia's murderer, the lustful, jealous
fratricide; lastly, he had pointed out to the Florentines, who were
excluded from the league then forming, what sort of future was in store
far them when the Borgias should have made themselves masters of
the small principalities and should come to attack the duchies and
republics. It was clear that in Savonarola, the pope had an enemy at
once temporal and spiritual, whose importunate and threatening voice
must be silenced at any cost.

But mighty as the pope's power was, to accomplish a design like this was
no easy matter. Savonarola, preaching the stern principles of liberty,
had united to his cause, even in the midst of rich, pleasure-loving
Florence, a party of some size, known as the 'Piagnoni', or the
Penitents: this band was composed of citizens who were anxious for
reform in Church and State, who accused the Medici of enslaving the
fatherland and the Borgias of upsetting the faith, who demanded two
things, that the republic should return to her democratic principles,
and religion to a primitive simplicity. Towards the first of
these projects considerable progress had been made, since they
had successively obtained, first, an amnesty for all crimes and
delinquencies committed under other governments; secondly, the abolition
of the 'balia', which was an aristocratic magistracy; thirdly, the
establishment of a sovereign council, composed of 1800 citizens; and
lastly, the substitution of popular elections for drawing by lot and for
oligarchical no