for a thousand lances." And as with trembling
hands he twined the silk round his letters, he bade his pages invite to
his board, next day, all the signors who had been implicated with him on
the previous night.

The Barons came--far more enraged at the disgrace of pardon, than
grateful for the boon of mercy. Their fears combined with their pride;
and the shouts of the mob, the whine of the cordeliers, still ringing
in their ears, they deemed united resistance the only course left to
protect their lives, and avenge their affront.

To them the public pardon of the Tribune seemed only a disguise to
private revenge. All they believed was, that Rienzi did not dare to
destroy them in the face of day; forgetfulness and forgiveness appeared
to them as the means designed to lull their vigilance, while abasing
their pride: and the knowledge of crime detected forbade them all hope
of safety. The hand of their own assassin might be armed against
them, or they might be ruined singly, one by one, as was the common
tyrant-craft of that day. Singularly enough, Luca di Savelli was the
most urgent for immediate rebellion. The fear of death made the coward
brave.

Unable even to conceive the romantic generosity of the Tribune, the
Barons were yet more alarmed when, the next day, Rienzi, summoning them
one by one to a private audience, presented them with gifts, and bade
them forget the past: excused himself rather than them, and augmented
their offices and honours.

In the Quixotism of a heart to which royalty was natural, he thought
that there was no medium course; and that the enmity he would not
silence by death, he could crush by confidence and favours. Such conduct
from a born king to hereditary inferiors might have been successful; but
the generosity of one who has abruptly risen over his lords is but the
ostentation of insult. Rienzi in this, and, perhaps, in forgiveness
itself, committed a fatal error of policy, which the dark sagacity of a
Visconti, or, in later times, of a Borgia, would never have perpetrated.
But it was the error of a bright and a great mind.

Nina was seated in the grand saloon of the palace--it was the day of
reception for the Roman ladies.

The attendance was so much less numerous than usual that it startled
her, and she thought there was a coldness and restraint in the manner of
the visitors present, which somewhat stung her vanity.

"I trust we have not offended the Signora Colonna," she said to t