ianity,
Venus retained her ancient empire, where Love made the prime business of
life, and to be beautiful was to be of power; the Signora Cesarini had
scarcely appeared in public before she saw at her feet half the rank and
gallantry of Avignon. Her female attendants were beset with bribes
and billets; and nightly, beneath her lattice, was heard the plaintive
serenade. She entered largely into the gay dissipation of the town, and
her charms shared the celebrity of the hour with the verse of Petrarch.
But though she frowned on none, none could claim the monopoly of her
smiles. Her fair fame was as yet unblemished; but if any might presume
beyond the rest, she seemed to have selected rather from ambition than
love, and Giles, the warlike Cardinal d'Albornoz, all powerful at the
sacred court, already foreboded the hour of his triumph.

It was late noon, and in the ante-chamber of the fair Signora waited
two of that fraternity of pages, fair and richly clad, who, at that day,
furnished the favourite attendants to rank of either sex.

"By my troth," cried one of these young servitors, pushing from him the
dice with which himself and his companion had sought to beguile their
leisure, "this is but dull work! and the best part of the day is gone.
Our lady is late."

"And I have donned my new velvet mantle," replied the other,
compassionately eyeing his finery.

"Chut, Giacomo," said his comrade, yawning; "a truce with thy
conceit.--What news abroad, I wonder? Has his Holiness come to his
senses yet?"

"His senses! what, is he mad then?" quoth Giacomo, in a serious and
astonished whisper.

"I think he is; if, being Pope, he does not discover that he may at
length lay aside mask and hood. 'Continent Cardinal--lewd Pope,' is the
old motto, you know; something must be the matter with the good man's
brain if he continue to live like a hermit."

"Oh, I have you! but faith, his Holiness has proxies eno'. The bishops
take care to prevent women, Heaven bless them! going out of fashion; and
Albornoz does not maintain your proverb, touching the Cardinals."

"True, but Giles is a warrior,--a cardinal in the church, but a soldier
in the city."

"Will he carry the fort here, think you, Angelo?"

"Why, fort is female, but--"

"But what?"

"The Signora's brow is made for power, rather than love, fair as it is.
She sees in Albornoz the prince, and not the lover. With what a step she
sweeps the floor! it disdains even the cloth