s and wreak vengeance upon the tyrants of Italy. In 1494
Charles VIII of France invaded Italy, warred against Naples, and advanced
on Florence. Piero de' Medici, thoroughly frightened, surrendered his
strongholds and agreed to pay Charles two hundred thousand ducats.

Of Savonarola's career from this time, and the state of Florence up to
the day of his death, the two authors here selected give faithful and
vivid narratives. In _Romola_ George Eliot portrays the character and
acts of this great reformer with a legitimate intensifying, for artistic
purposes, of the certified facts of history.

PASQUALE VILLARI

The month of November, 1494, began under sinister auspices in Florence.
The unexpected, almost incredible news of the surrender of fortresses
which had cost the republic prolonged sieges and enormous expense, and
formed the key of the whole Tuscan territory, instantly raised a tumult
among the people, and the general fury was increased by letters received
from the French camp, and the accounts of the returned envoys. For they
told with what ease honorable terms might have been wrested from the
King; with what a mixture of cowardice and self-assertion Piero de'
Medici had placed the whole republic at the mercy of Charles VIII.

All gave free vent to their indignation, and the people began to gather
in the streets and squares. Some of the crowd were seen to be armed with
old weapons which had been hidden away for more than half a century; and
from the wool and silk manufactories strong, broad-set, dark-visaged men
poured forth. On that day it seemed as though the Florentines had leaped
back a century, and that, after patient endurance of sixty years'
tyranny, they were now decided to reconquer their liberty by violence and
bloodshed.

Nevertheless, in the midst of this general excitement, men's minds were
daunted by an equally general feeling of uncertainty and distrust. It
was true that the Medici had left no soldiers in Florence, and that the
people could at any moment make themselves masters of the whole city; but
they knew not whom to trust, nor whom to choose as their leader. The old
champions of liberty had nearly all perished during the last sixty years,
either at the block or in persecution and exile. The few men at all
familiar with state affairs were those who had always basked in the favor
of the Medici; and the multitude just freed from slavery would inevitably
recur to license if left to themselves.