e
received tidings of the fall of Segni. That strong place, after a
gallant defence, had been taken by storm. All the usual atrocities were
perpetrated by the brutal soldiery. Even the sanctity of the convents
did not save them from pollution. It was in vain that Colonna interfered
to prevent these excesses. The voice of authority was little heeded in
the tempest of passion.--It mattered little, in that age, into whose
hands a captured city fell; Germans, French, Italians, it was all the
same. The wretched town, so lately flourishing, it might be, in all the
pride of luxury and wealth, was claimed as the fair spoil of the
victors. It was their prize-money, which served in default of payment of
their long arrears,--usually long in those days; and it was a mode of
payment as convenient for the general as for his soldiers.[168]

The fall of Segni caused the greatest consternation in the capital. The
next thing, it was said, would be to assault the capital itself. Paul
the Fourth, incapable of fear, was filled with impotent fury. "They have
taken Segni," he said in a conclave of the cardinals; "they have
murdered the people, destroyed their property, fired their dwellings.
Worse than this, they will next pillage Palliano. Even this will not
fill up the measure of their cruelty. They will sack the city of Rome
itself; nor will they respect even my person. But, for myself, I long to
be with Christ, and await without fear the crown of martyrdom."[169]
Paul the Fourth, after having brought this tempest upon Italy, began to
consider himself a martyr!

Yet even in this extremity, though urged on all sides to make
concessions, he would abate nothing of his haughty tone. He insisted, as
a _sine qua non_, that Alva should forthwith leave the Roman territory
and restore his conquests. When these conditions were reported to the
duke, he coolly remarked, that "his holiness seemed to be under the
mistake of supposing that his own army was before Naples, instead of the
Spanish army being at the gates of Rome."[170]

After the surrender of Segni, Alva effected a junction with the Italian
forces, and marched to the town of Colona, in the Campagna, where for
the present he quartered his army. Here he formed the plan of an
enterprise, the adventurous character of which it seems difficult to
reconcile with his habitual caution. This was a night assault on Rome.
He did not communicate his whole purpose to his officers, but simply
ordered th