. Less than a quarter of
an hour afterwards the ruins had become once more silent and deserted.

_CHAPTER LI_.

_THE TRIBUNE_.

Whilst the deputies of the Lombard cities were travelling through the
province and working at the organization of the league, Frederic and
his army were encamped before the walls of Rome. Informed of the storm
which threatened from the North, he would have raised the siege and
marched at once against the rebels, but Dassel dissuaded him. It was
first necessary, the statesman urged, to expel Alexander from Rome, and
place Pascal upon the throne of Saint Peter.

Henry the Lion, the Duke of Austria, and nearly all the princes of note
had refused to send their contingents against Rome, and remained
quietly in their homes, for they had begun to foresee the designs of
the Emperor.

The German and Italian bishops, however, eagerly took part in the
siege, and, clothed in armor, prepared to use the sword and lance to
overthrow the successor of St. Peter. For the monarch had at last
humbled the pride of the prelates, who, for the most part, were his
mere tools, whose consciences were fettered with golden shackles. Rich
and powerful, their ambition urged them to further the projects of the
Emperor, which in abasing the Papacy lessened the power of the temporal
princes.

Frederic's army was numerous, brave, and accustomed to victory. A
division commanded by the Archbishop of Mayence and Cologne, had
already achieved some successes, but Rome still held out, and her fall
seemed yet uncertain. Everything presaged a long struggle, much to the
dissatisfaction of the Emperor, who had just learned the increasing
development of the Lombard league and the advance of William of Naples,
who was marching to the assistance of the eternal city.

"Your advice is replete with danger," said Barbarossa to his
Chancellor; "the Lombards are rising _en masse_; they have decapitated
or hung my lieutenants, and are working diligently upon the
fortifications of Milan, whilst we stand here idle. It is a mistake, an
evident mistake."

Rinaldo merely smiled with the air of one who feels certain of success.

"When we can strike at the heart of our enemy it would be folly to try
only to wound his foot," said he. "Rome is the heart; Alexander is the
life of the confederation. Let Alexander fall, the rest must die of
necessity."

"Your arguments are good, but