"Pardon me, my Lords, and you, reverend Father, if I, inexperienced in
years and of little mark or dignity amongst you, presume to be the first
to embrace the proposal we have just heard. Willingly do I renounce all
ancient cause of enmity with any of my compeers. Fortunately for me,
my long absence from Rome has swept from my remembrance the feuds and
rivalries familiar to my early youth; and in this noble conclave I see
but one man (glancing at Martino di Porto, who sat sullenly looking
down) against whom I have, at any time, deemed it a duty to draw my
sword; the gage that I once cast to that noble is yet, I rejoice to
think, unredeemed. I withdraw it. Henceforth my only foes shall be the
foes of Rome!"

"Nobly spoken!" said the Bishop, aloud.

"And," continued Adrian, casting down his glove amongst the nobles, "I
throw, my Lords, the gage, thus resumed, amongst you all, in challenge
to a wider rivalry, and a more noble field. I invite any man to vie with
me in the zeal that he shall show to restore tranquillity to our roads,
and order to our state. It is a contest in which, if I be vanquished
with reluctance, I will yield the prize without envy. In ten days from
this time, reverend Father, I will raise forty horsemen-at-arms, ready
to obey whatever orders shall be agreed upon for the security of the
Roman state. And you, O Romans, dismiss, I pray you, from your minds,
those eloquent invectives against your fellow-citizens which ye have
lately heard. All of us, of what rank soever, may have shared in the
excesses of these unhappy times; let us endeavour, not to avenge nor to
imitate, but to reform and to unite. And may the people hereafter find,
that the true boast of a patrician is, that his power the better enables
him to serve his country."