De Sade powerfully and
incontrovertibly refutes this addition to the daring or the
extravagance of Rienzi. Gibbon, however, who has rendered
the rest of the citation in terms more abrupt and
discourteous than he was warranted by any authority, copies
the biographer's blunder, and sneers at De Sade, as using
arguments "rather of decency than of weight." Without
wearying the reader with all the arguments of the learned
Abbe, it may be sufficient to give the first two.

1st. All the other contemporaneous historians that have
treated of this event, G. Villani, Hocsemius, the Vatican
MSS. and other chroniclers, relating the citation of the
Emperor and Electors, say nothing of that of the Pope and
Cardinals; and the Pope (Clement VI.), in his subsequent
accusations of Rienzi, while very bitter against his
citation of the Emperor, is wholly silent on what would have
been to the Pontiff the much greater offence of citing
himself and the Cardinals.)

2. The literal act of this citation, as published formally
in the Lateran, is extant in Hocsemius, (whence is borrowed,
though not at all its length, the speech in the text of our
present tale;) and in this document the Pope and his
Cardinals are not named in the summons.

Gibbon's whole account of Rienzi is superficial and unfair.
To the cold and sneering scepticism, which so often deforms
the gigantic work of that great writer, allowing nothing for
that sincere and urgent enthusiasm which, whether of liberty
or religion, is the most common parent of daring action, the
great Roman seems but an ambitious and fantastic madman. In
Gibbon's hands what would Cromwell have been? what Vane?
what Hampden? The pedant, Julian, with his dirty person and
pompous affectation, was Gibbon's ideal of a great man.)

As Rienzi concluded this bold proclamation of the liberties of Italy,
the Tuscan ambassadors, and those of some other of the free states,
murmured low approbation. The ambassadors of those States that affected
the party of the Emperor looked at each other in silent amaze and
consternation. The Roman Barons remained with mute lips and downcast
eyes; only over the aged face of Stephen Colonna settled a smile, half
of scorn, half of exultation. But the great mass of the citizens were
caught by words that opened so grand a prospect