n vain. It is heaven which is in combat. The
saints of Italy, the angels, are leagued with the barbarians. Those who
called them in have put the saddles to the horses. Italy is in
confusion, saith the Lord; this time she shall be yours. And the Lord
cometh above his saints, above the blessed ones who march in
battle-array, who are drawn up in squadrons. Whither are they bound? S.
Peter is for Rome, crying: To Rome, to Rome! and S. Paul and S. Gregory
march, crying: To Rome! And behind them go the sword, the pestilence,
the famine. S. John cries: Up, up, to Florence! And the plague follows
him. S. Anthony cries: Ho for Lombardy! S. Mark cries: Haste we to the
city that is throned upon the waters! And all the angels of heaven,
sword in hand, and all the celestial consistory, march on unto this
war.'

Then he speaks of his own fate: 'What shall be the end of our war, you
ask? If this be a general question, I shall answer Victory! If you ask
it of myself in particular, I answer, Death, or to be hewn in pieces.
This is our faith, this is our guerdon, this is our reward! We ask for
no more than this. But when you see me dead, be not then troubled. All
those who have prophesied have suffered and been slain. To make my word
prevail, there is needed the blood of many.'

These are the prophecies with which Savonarola anticipated the coming of
a foreign conqueror. It is interesting to trace in his apostrophes the
double feeling of the prophet. Desire for the advent of Charles as a
Messiah, liberator, and purifier of the Church, contends with an
instinctive horror of the barbarian. Savonarola, like Dante, like all
Italian patriots, except only Machiavelli, who too late had been
lessoned by bitter experience to put no trust in foreign princes, could
not refrain from hoping even against hope that good might come from
beyond the Alps. Yet when the foreigners appeared, he trembled at the
violence they wrought upon the ancient liberties of Italy. Savonarola's
chief shortcoming as a patriot consisted in this, that he strengthened
the old folly of the Florentines in leaning upon strangers.[1] Had he
taught the Italians to work out their self-regeneration from within,
instead of preparing them to accept an alien's yoke, he would have won a
far more lasting meed of fame. As it was, together with the passion for
liberty which became a religion with his followers, he strove to revive
the obsolete tactics of an earlier age, and bequeathed to