The people, full of courage and fortitude, so long as they possessed an abundance of everything, began to murmur, when they became aware that their provisions were nearly exhausted, and even the Archdeacon Sala, once revered almost as a saint, lost his influence, and, with the Archbishop and the other ecclesiastics, was obliged to seek an asylum within the walls of Genoa. With them, all organization disappeared, and the angry crowd threatened to open the city gates to the enemy. Thousands of infuriated men and women assembled before the palaces of the consuls Nigri and Oberto, demanding food, and the magistrates were unwillingly obliged to yield, and on the last day of February, 1162, convoked an assembly of the people.
The multitude flocked together on the public square, in the centre of the town, their hollow eyes, pallid cheeks, and trembling limbs giving proof of the bitter pangs of hunger. One member alone had lost none of its energy; it was the tongue, which railed out violently against the consuls, who were accused of everything dishonorable and unjust. The boldest of the mob got as close as possible to the tribune, from which the magistrates were to harangue the people, in order that they might interrupt the speakers at their pleasure.
"Trust me, my friends," said a cobbler, with wan cheeks and a hungry air; "I have been obliged to give up mending shoes, and do you know why? It was because my children have eaten the last piece of leather that there was left in the house."
"Leather! why, that's food for a king," interrupted another speaker. "We eat things that I won't name! We must all die, miserably, of hunger, if the gates are not soon opened to the besiegers."
"Certainly we must!" cried a third. "If our consuls were as hungry as we are, they would soon stop talking about courage, and patriotic devotion, and heroic patience, and other beautiful things of the sort. However, they can say what they please, comrades, for they have plenty to eat and drink."
"Consul Boriso's red nose, and Grillo's big belly, have made me reflect very seriously for some time past," said a butcher. "We all look awfully, as if we were going to die of starvation to-day. A man can't live on liberty and patriotism; for we have not got cellars and wine vaults as well filled as our consuls."
"Barbarossa will not treat us as badly as the famine will," added another. "What is the use of freedom, if we are to perish with hunger?"
"It is all folly! Look, if you please, to what this freedom has brought us? If we taste its sweets ten days longer, we will all be in the grave-digger's hands."
"Hurrah for bread! Down with liberty!" screamed a thousand voices, as they caught sight of the consuls. Oberto ascended the tribune, and the yells and murmurs gradually subsided as they looked upon the old man, who, sad and dejected, gazed upon the crowd, and thought of the time when he used to speak to the Milanese, once so brave and valiant.
"Fellow-citizens," he said, "it is now a year that you have borne, with a courage and a patience worthy of your ancient renown, all the rigors of a siege. Barbarossa hems us in more closely every day. He desires the destruction of our free institutions; his aim is to humble our noble city, and reduce her citizens to vassalage."