rewn with yellow sand
and box leaves and myrtle that made the air fragrant, and from every
window and balcony gorgeous silks and tapestries were hung, and even
ornaments of gold and silver and jewels. Before the procession rode
standard-bearers, four for each Region, on horses most richly
caparisoned. There rode Sciarra Colonna, and beside him, for once in
history, Orsino Orsini, and others, all dressed in cloth of gold, and
Castruccio Castracane, wearing that famous sword which in our own times
was offered by Italy to King Victor Emmanuel; and many other Barons rode
there in splendid array, and there was great concourse of the people. So
they came to Saint Peter's; and because the Count of the Lateran should
by right have been the Emperor's sponsor at the anointing, and had left
Rome in anger and disdain, Lewis made Castruccio a knight of the Empire
and Count of the Lateran in his stead, and sponsor; and two
excommunicated Bishops consecrated the Emperor, and anointed him, and
Sciarra Colonna crowned him and his queen. After which they feasted in
the evening at the Aracoeli, and slept in the Capitol, because they
were all weary with the long ceremony, and it was too late to go home.
The chronicler's comment is curious. 'Note,' he says, 'what presumption
was this, of the aforesaid damned Bavarian, such as thou shalt not find
in any ancient or recent history; for never did any Christian Emperor
cause himself to be crowned save by the Pope or his legate, even though
opposed to the Church, neither before then nor since, except this
Bavarian.' But Sciarra and Castruccio had their way, and Lewis did what
even Napoleon, master of the world by violent chance, would not do. And
twenty years later, in the same chronicle, it is told how 'Lewis of
Bavaria, who called himself Emperor, fell with his horse, and was killed
suddenly, without penitence, excommunicated and damned by Holy Church.'
It is a curious coincidence that Boniface the Eighth, Sciarra's
prisoner, and Lewis the Bavarian, whom he crowned Emperor, both died on
the eleventh of October, according to most authorities.

The Senate of Rome had dwindled to a pitiable office, held by one man.
At or about this time, the Colonna and the Orsini agreed by a compromise
that there should be two, chosen from their two houses. The Popes were
in Avignon, and men who could make Emperors were more than able to do as
they pleased with a town of twenty or thirty thousand inhabitants, so