He pointed to the Gonfalon, wrought with the Republican motto and arms of Rome, and thus he began:—
“I too am a Roman and a Citizen; hear me!”
“Hear him not! hear him not! his false tongue can charm away our senses!” cried a voice louder than his own; and Rienzi recognised Cecco del Vecchio.
“Hear him not! down with the tyrant!” cried a more shrill and youthful tone; and by the side of the artisan stood Angelo Villani.
“Hear him not! death to the death-giver!” cried a voice close at hand, and from the grating of the neighbouring prison glared near upon him, as the eye of a tiger, the vengeful gaze of the brother of Montreal.
Then from Earth to Heaven rose the roar—“Down with the tyrant—down with him who taxed the people!”
A shower of stones rattled on the mail of the Senator,—still he stirred not. No changing muscle betokened fear. His persuasion of his own wonderful powers of eloquence, if he could but be heard, inspired him yet with hope; he stood collected in his own indignant, but determined thoughts;—but the knowledge of that very eloquence was now his deadliest foe. The leaders of the multitude trembled lest he should be heard; “and doubtless,” says the contemporaneous biographer, “had he but spoken he would have changed them all, and the work been marred.”
The soldiers of the Barons had already mixed themselves with the throng—more deadly weapons than stones aided the wrath of the multitude—darts and arrows darkened the air; and now a voice was heard shrieking, “Way for the torches!” And red in the sunlight the torches tossed and waved, and danced to and fro, above the heads of the crowd, as if the fiends were let loose amongst the mob! And what place in hell hath fiends like those a mad mob can furnish? Straw, and wood, and litter, were piled hastily round the great doors of the Capitol, and the smoke curled suddenly up, beating back the rush of the assailants.
Rienzi was no longer visible, an arrow had pierced his hand—the right hand that supported the flag of Rome—the right hand that had given a constitution to the Republic. He retired from the storm into the desolate hall.
He sat down;—and tears, springing from no weak and woman source, but tears from the loftiest fountain of emotion—tears that befit a warrior when his own troops desert him—a patriot when his countrymen rush to their own doom—a father when his children rebel against his love,—tears such as these forced themselves from his eyes and relieved,—but they changed, his heart!