erred them upon his nephews, but was in turn
often repulsed as the fighting ebbed and flowed during the four years of
his Pontificate, for the Colonna as usual had powerful allies in the
Emperor and in his kingdom of Naples. Changeable as the Roman people
always were, they had more often espoused the cause of Colonna than that
of the Pope and Orsini. Paul the Fourth fell ill in the summer, when the
heat makes a southern rabble dangerous, and the certain news of his
approaching end was a message of near deliverance. He lingered and died
hard, though he was eighty-four years old and afflicted with dropsy. But
the exasperated Romans were impatient for the end, and the nobles were
willing to take vengeance upon their oppressor before he breathed his
last. As the news that the Pope was dying ran through the city, the
spell of terror was broken, secret murmuring turned to open complaint,
complaint to clamour, clamour to riot. A vast and angry multitude
gathered together in the streets and open places, and hour by hour, as
the eager hope for news of death was ever disappointed, and the hard
old man lived on, the great concourse gathered strength within itself,
seething, waiting, listening for the solemn tolling of the great bell in
the Capitol to tell them that Paul the Fourth had passed away. Still it
came not. And in the streets and everywhere there were retainers and
men-at-arms of the great houses, ready of tongue and hand, but friendly
with the people, listening to tales of suffering and telling of their
lords' angry temper against the dying Pope. A word here, a word there,
like sparks amid sun-dried stubble, till the hot stuff was touched with
fire and all broke out in flame.

Then words were no longer exchanged between man and man, but a great cry
of rage went up from all the throng, and the people began to move, some
knowing what they meant to do and some not knowing, nor caring, but
moving with the rest, faster and faster, till many were trampled down in
the press, and they came to the prisons, to Corte Savella and Tor di
Nona, and even to Sant' Angelo, and as they battered at the great doors
from without, the prisoners shouted for freedom from within, and their
gaolers began to loose their chains, fearing for their own lives, and
drew back the bolts to let the stream of riot in. So on that day four
hundred condemned men were taken out and let loose, before the Pope was
dead.

[Illustration: THE RIPETTA

From a pri