pture
would convert the disorder of the Lombards into a rout. On pushed the
Germans until the sacred standard was reached, and its decorations torn
down before the eyes of its sworn defenders.

This indignity to the treasured emblem of their liberties gave renewed
courage to the disordered band. Their ranks re-established, they charged
upon the Germans with such furious valor as to drive them back in
disorder, cut through their lines to the emperor's station, kill his
standard-bearer by his side, and capture the imperial standard.
Frederick, clad in a splendid suit of armor, rushed against them at the
head of a band of chosen knights. But suddenly he was seen to fall from
his horse and vanish under the hot press of struggling warriors that
surged back and forth around the standard.

This dire event spread instant terror through the German ranks. They
broke and fled in disorder, followed by the death-phalanx of the
Carocium, who cut them down in multitudes, and drove them back in
complete disorder and defeat. For two days the emperor was mourned as
slain, his unhappy wife even assuming the robes of widowhood, when
suddenly he reappeared, and all was joy again. He had not been seriously
hurt in his fall, and had with a few friends escaped in the tumult of
the defeat, and, under the protection of night, made his way with
difficulty back to Pavia.

This defeat ended the efforts of Frederick against Milan, which had,
through its triumph over the great emperor, regained all its old proud
position and supremacy among the Lombard cities. The war ended with the
battle of Lignano, a truce of six years being concluded between the
hostile parties. For the ensuing eight years Frederick was fully
occupied in Germany, in wars with Henry the Lion, of the Guelph faction.
At the end of that time he returned to Italy, where Milan, which he had
sought so strenuously to humiliate and ruin, now became the seat of the
greatest honor he could bestow. The occasion was that of the marriage of
his son Henry to Constanza, the last heiress of Naples and Sicily of the
royal Norman race. This ceremony took place in Milan, in which city the
emperor caused the iron crown of the Lombards to be placed upon the head
of his son and heir, and gave him away in marriage with the utmost pomp
and festivity. Milan had won in its great contest for life and death.

We may fitly conclude with the story of the death of the great
Frederick, who, in accordance wit