with only one hundred and fifty men,
in the name of the Pope, without striking a blow, and the people would
not raise a hand to help their late idol as he was led away weeping to
the Castle of Sant' Angelo, while the nobles looked on in scornful
silence. Rienzi was allowed to depart in peace after a short captivity
and became a wanderer and an outcast in Europe.

In many disguises he went from place to place, and did not fear to
return to Rome in the travesty of a pilgrim. The story of his adventures
would fill many pages, but Rome is not concerned with them. In vain he
appealed to adventurers, to enthusiasts, and to fanatics to help in
regaining what he had lost. None would listen to him, no man would draw
the sword. He came to Prague at last, obtained an audience of the
Emperor Charles the Fourth, appealed to the whole court, with
impassioned eloquence, and declared himself to be Rienzi. The attempt
cost him his freedom, for the prudent emperor forthwith sent him a
captive to the Pope at Avignon, where he was at first loaded with chains
and thrown into prison. But Clement hesitated to bring him to trial, his
friend Petrarch spoke earnestly in his favour, and he was ultimately
relegated to an easy confinement, during which he once more gave himself
up to the study of his favourite classics in peaceful resignation.

Meanwhile in Rome his enactments had been abolished with sweeping
indifference to their character and importance, and the old misrule was
reestablished in its pristine barbarity. The feud between Orsini and
Colonna broke out again in the absence of a common danger. The plague
appeared in Europe and decimated a city already distracted by internal
discord. Rome was again a wilderness of injustice, as the chronicle
says; every one doing what seemed good in his own eyes, the Papal and
the public revenues devoured by marauders, the streets full of thieves,
and the country infested by outlaws. Clement died, and Innocent the
Sixth, another Frenchman, was elected in his stead, 'a personage of
great science, zeal, and justice,' who set about to reform abuses as
well as he could, but who saw that he could not hope to return to Rome
without long and careful preparation. He selected as his agent in the
attempt to regain possession of the States of the Church the Cardinal
Albornoz, a Spaniard of courage and experience.

[Illustration: PALAZZO FARNESE]

Meanwhile Rienzi enjoyed greater freedom, and assumed the charact