oemakers, and stonemasons, who together formed a Great Council known
as the _Mount of the Reformers_. They were a plebeian band, rough and
hard as the bronze She-Wolf, emblem of their city, which they loved with
an affection at once filial and formidable. But the People, which had
set them up over the Commonwealth, had suffered another body to continue
in existence, though subordinate to them, the Twelve to wit, who came
from the class of Bankers and wealthy Merchants. These men were in
conspiracy with the Nobles, at the Emperor's instigation, to sell the
City to the Pope of Rome.

The German Kaiser was the life and soul of the plot, promising the aid
of his landsknechts to guarantee success. He was in the utmost haste to
have the affair ended, hoping with the price of the bargain, he might be
able to redeem the Crown of Charlemagne, pledged for sixteen hundred
florins with the Florentine Bankers.

Meantime, they of the _Reformers' Mount_, who formed the Signory, held
firm the rod of government and watched heedfully over the safety of the
Republic. These artisans, officers of a free People, had refused the
Emperor, when he came within their walls, bread, water, salt and fire;
they had driven him forth the city groaning and trembling, and they now
condemned the conspirators to death. Guardians of the town founded by
Remus long ago, they copied the sternness of the first Consuls of Rome.
But their city, which went clad in silk and cloth-of-gold, was ever
ready to slip betwixt their fingers, like a lascivious, false-hearted
wanton; and fear and anxiety made them implacable.

In the year 1370 they discovered that a nobleman of Perugia, Ser Niccola
Tuldo, had been sent by the Pope to stir up the Siennese, in connivance
with the Kaiser, to deliver up the city to the Holy Father. The young
Lord in question was in the prime of manly beauty, and had learned in
the company of fair ladies those arts of flattery and seductive
compliment he now proceeded to practise in the Palace of the Salimbeni
and the shops of the money-changers. And, for all his light heart and
empty head, he gained over to the Pope's side many burghers and some
artisans. Informed of his intrigues, the Magistrates of the _Mount of
the Reformers_ had him brought before their august Council, and after
questioning him underneath the gonfalon of the Republic, which shows a
Lion rampant for device, they declared him guilty of attempted outrage
against the liberties