“No, they have finished their sufferings, and the pious Emperor does not crucify the disciples of the Lord anew.”
“Yes, the Emperor! The Saxon! Neither the Goth, nor the Longobard, nor the Frank were to have Rome, but the Saxon—one of the cursed nation whom Charles the Great thought that he had extirpated. He sent ten thousand to Gaul, in order to make a present of these savages to the enemy, and he beheaded four thousand five hundred in a single day, without its costing him a sleepless night. Wonderful are the ways of the Lord!”
“The last are often the first.”
“O Lord Jesus, Redeemer of the world! there is something moving on the crosses! Do you see?”
“Yes, by heaven! No, I cannot look! They are crucified men!”
Two Romans stood by the strangers: “Hermann, you are avenged,” said one.
“Was Hermann a Saxon?” objected the other.
“Probably, since he lived in the Harz district.”
“A thousand years ago Thusnelda passed through the streets in the triumph-train of Germanicus, and carried the unborn Thumelicus under her heart! To think that a thousand years had to pass before she was avenged!”
“A thousand years are as a day! But are not these our Roman brothers on the cross martyrs for Rome’s freedom?”