nds," said a cobbler, with wan cheeks and a hungry
air; "I have been obliged to give up mending shoes, and do you know
why? It was because my children have eaten the last piece of leather
that there was left in the house."

"Leather! why, that's food for a king," interrupted another speaker.
"We eat things that I won't name! We must all die, miserably, of
hunger, if the gates are not soon opened to the besiegers."

"Certainly we must!" cried a third. "If our consuls were as hungry as
we are, they would soon stop talking about courage, and patriotic
devotion, and heroic patience, and other beautiful things of the sort.
However, they can say what they please, comrades, for they have plenty
to eat and drink."

"Consul Boriso's red nose, and Grillo's big belly, have made me reflect
very seriously for some time past," said a butcher. "We all look
awfully, as if we were going to die of starvation to-day. A man can't
live on liberty and patriotism; for we have not got cellars and wine
vaults as well filled as our consuls."

"Barbarossa will not treat us as badly as the famine will," added
another. "What is the use of freedom, if we are to perish with hunger?"

"It is all folly! Look, if you please, to what this freedom has brought
us? If we taste its sweets ten days longer, we will all be in the
grave-digger's hands."

"Hurrah for bread! Down with liberty!" screamed a thousand voices, as
they caught sight of the consuls. Oberto ascended the tribune, and the
yells and murmurs gradually subsided as they looked upon the old man,
who, sad and dejected, gazed upon the crowd, and thought of the time
when he used to speak to the Milanese, once so brave and valiant.

"Fellow-citizens," he said, "it is now a year that you have borne, with
a courage and a patience worthy of your ancient renown, all the rigors
of a siege. Barbarossa hems us in more closely every day. He desires
the destruction of our free institutions; his aim is to humble our
noble city, and reduce her citizens to vassalage."

A succession of savage yells interrupted the orator.

"Bread! Bread!" was cried on all sides.

"Open the gates! Down with the ranter!"

"Brothers, fellow-countrymen," resumed Oberto, "think of the glories of
the past! Are you willing to wear the yoke of slavery?"

"Ah! our past glories. We are too wretched and humble now; it will do
to talk of that when we are in prosperity. Give us food!"

"Fellow-citizens, do not torture me with y