turies seemed to have re-entered the breasts of Florentines. The
great bell in the palace tower had rung out the hammer-sound of alarm,
and the people had mustered with their rusty arms, their tools and
impromptu cudgels, to drive out the Medici. The gate of San Gallo had
been fairly shut on the arrogant, exasperating Piero, galloping away
towards Bologna with his hired horsemen frightened behind him, and shut
on his keener young brother, the cardinal, escaping in the disguise of a
Franciscan monk: a price had been set on both their heads. After that,
there had been some sacking of houses, according to old precedent; the
ignominious images, painted on the public buildings, of the men who had
conspired against the Medici in days gone by, were effaced; the exiled
enemies of the Medici were invited home. The half-fledged tyrants were
fairly out of their splendid nest in the Via Larga, and the Republic had
recovered the use of its will again.

But now, a week later, the great palace in the Via Larga had been
prepared for the reception of another tenant; and if drapery roofing the
streets with unwonted colour, if banners and hangings pouring out of the
windows, if carpets and tapestry stretched over all steps and pavement
on which exceptional feet might tread, were an unquestionable proof of
joy, Florence was very joyful in the expectation of its new guest. The
stream of colour flowed from the palace in the Via Larga round by the
Cathedral, then by the great Piazza della Signoria, and across the Ponte
Vecchio to the Porta San Frediano--the gate that looks towards Pisa.
There, near the gate, a platform and canopy had been erected for the
Signoria; and Messer Luca Corsini, doctor of law, felt his heart
palpitating a little with the sense that he had a Latin oration to read;
and every chief elder in Florence had to make himself ready, with smooth
chin and well-lined silk lucco, to walk in procession; and the well-born
youths were looking at their rich new tunics after the French mode which
was to impress the stranger as having a peculiar grace when worn by
Florentines; and a large body of the clergy, from the archbishop in his
effulgence to the train of monks, black, white, and grey, were
consulting betimes in the morning how they should marshal themselves,
with their burden of relics and sacred banners and consecrated jewels,
that their movements might be adjusted to the expected arrival of the
illustrious visitor, at thre