of Liberty, Justice, and Concord, forth issued Rienzi, clad in complete
armour, the helmet alone excepted. His face was pale with watching and
intense excitement--but stern, grave, and solemnly composed; and its
expression so repelled any vociferous and vulgar burst of feeling, that
those who beheld it hushed the shout on their lips, and stilled, by a
simultaneous cry of reproof, the gratulations of the crowd behind.
Side by side with Rienzi moved Raimond, Bishop of Orvietto: and behind,
marching two by two, followed a hundred men-at-arms. In complete silence
the procession began its way, until, as it approached the Capitol, the
awe of the crowd gradually vanished, and thousands upon thousands of
voices rent the air with shouts of exultation and joy.

Arrived at the foot of the great staircase, which then made the
principal ascent to the square of the Capitol, the procession halted;
and as the crowd filled up that vast space in front--adorned and
hallowed by many of the most majestic columns of the temples of
old--Rienzi addressed the Populace, whom he had suddenly elevated into a
People.

He depicted forcibly the servitude and misery of the citizens--the
utter absence of all law--the want even of common security to life
and property. He declared that, undaunted by the peril he incurred, he
devoted his life to the regeneration of their common country; and he
solemnly appealed to the people to assist the enterprise, and at once
to sanction and consolidate the Revolution by an established code of law
and a Constitutional Assembly. He then ordered the chart and outline of
the Constitution he proposed, to be read by the Herald to the multitude.

It created,--or rather revived, with new privileges and powers,--a
Representative Assembly of Councillors. It proclaimed, as its first law,