aloud--"Friends and Romans! tomorrow, at dawn of day, let each man find
himself unarmed before the Church of St. Angelo. Cola di Rienzi convenes
the Romans to provide for the good state of Rome." A shout, that seemed
to shake the bases of the seven hills, broke forth at the end of
this brief exhortation; the horseman rode slowly on, and the crowd
followed.--This was the commencement of the Revolution!



Chapter 2.VI. The Conspirator Becomes the Magistrate.

At midnight, when the rest of the city seemed hushed in rest, lights
were streaming from the windows of the Church of St. Angelo. Breaking
from its echoing aisles, the long and solemn notes of sacred music
stole at frequent intervals upon the air. Rienzi was praying within the
church; thirty masses consumed the hours from night till morn, and all
the sanction of religion was invoked to consecrate the enterprise of
liberty. (In fact, I apprehend that if ever the life of Cola di Rienzi
shall be written by a hand worthy of the task, it will be shown that a
strong religious feeling was blended with the political enthusiasm of
the people,--the religious feeling of a premature and crude reformation,
the legacy of Arnold of Brescia. It was not, however, one excited
against the priests, but favoured by them. The principal conventual
orders declared for the Revolution.) The sun had long risen, and the
crowd had long been assembled before the church door, and in vast
streams along every street that led to it,--when the bell of the
church tolled out long and merrily; and as it ceased, the voices of the
choristers within chanted the following hymn, in which were somewhat
strikingly, though barbarously, blended, the spirit of the classic
patriotism with the fervour of religious zeal:--