THE CITIZENS.
Long live our podesta, Pietro Folchi! Long live the Republic of Perugia!
ANDREA VALORI.
Fellow-citizens! Let there be no precipitate haste at this hour! It is necessary to strengthen so the power we have won that they cannot prevail against us as long as we live. Would we succeed if we made Umbria a republic? Under the shelter of republican liberty, the sons of the banished nobles would use the vanity of our daughters to bind us again in chains while we slept unsuspectingly at night! Look at Florence! Look at Siena! Is not liberty in those states only the cloak of the most dissolute despotism, which is turning their citizens to beggars? Perugia grew in power and prosperity under her kings, until the sceptre passed into the hands of a fool and a wastrel. Let us raise the worthiest of us up to his throne. Then we who stand here exhausted from the conflict, will become the future aristocracy and the lords of the land; only then can we enjoy in lasting peace our hard won prerogatives.
THE CITIZENS.
Long live the king! Long live Pietro Folchi!
A FEW VOICES.
Long live Freedom!
THE CITIZENS.
(Louder.) Long live our king, Pietro Folchi! Long live King Pietro!