corrupting means of his
enormous wealth, to form a third party in support of his own ulterior
designs. Wealth, indeed, in that age and in that land, was scarcely less
the purchaser of diadems than it had been in the later days of the
Roman Empire. And in many a city torn by hereditary feuds, the hatred of
faction rose to that extent, that a foreign tyrant, willing and able to
expel one party, might obtain at least the temporary submission of
the other. His after-success was greatly in proportion to his power to
maintain his state by a force which was independent of the citizens,
and by a treasury which did not require the odious recruit of taxes. But
more avaricious than ambitious, more cruel than firm, it was by griping
exaction, or unnecessary bloodshed, that such usurpers usually fell.

Montreal, who had scanned the frequent revolutions of the time with a
calm and investigating eye, trusted that he should be enabled to avoid
both these errors: and, as the reader has already seen, he had formed
the profound and sagacious project of consolidating his usurpation by an
utterly new race of nobles, who, serving him by the feudal tenure of the
North, and ever ready to protect him, because in so doing they protected
their own interests, should assist to erect, not the rotten and
unsupported fabric of a single tyranny, but the strong fortress of a
new, hardy, and compact Aristocratic State. Thus had the great dynasties
of the North been founded; in which a King, though seemingly curbed
by the Barons, was in reality supported by a common interest, whether
against a subdued population or a foreign invasion.

Such were the vast schemes--extending into yet wider fields of glory and
conquest, bounded only by the Alps--with which the Captain of the Grand
Company beheld the columns and arches of the Seven-hilled City.

No fear disturbed the long current of his thoughts. His brothers were
the leaders of Rienzi's hireling army--that army were his creatures.
Over Rienzi himself he assumed the right of a creditor. Thus against
one party he deemed himself secure. For the friends of the Pope, he had
supported himself with private, though cautious, letters from Albornoz,
who desired only to make use of him for the return of the Roman
Barons; and with the heads of the latter we have already witnessed his
negotiations. Thus was he fitted, as he thought, to examine, to tamper
with all parties, and to select from each the materials necessary