His presence of mind, which had failed him in the
terrible crisis of the morning, had been a ready instrument this time.
It was an excellent livery servant that never forsook him when danger
was not visible. But when he was complimented on his opportune service,
he laughed it off as a thing of no moment, and to those who had not
witnessed it, let Gaddi have the credit of the improvised welcome. No
wonder Tito was popular: the touchstone by which men try us is most
often their own vanity.

Other things besides the oratorical welcome had turned out rather worse
than had been expected. If everything had happened according to
ingenious preconceptions, the Florentine procession of clergy and laity
would not have found their way choked up and been obliged to take a
makeshift course through the back streets, so as to meet the king at the
Cathedral only. Also, if the young monarch under the canopy, seated on
his charger with his lance upon his thigh, had looked more like a
Charlemagne and less like a hastily modelled grotesque, the imagination
of his admirers would have been much assisted. It might have been
wished that the scourge of Italian wickedness and "Champion of the
honour of women" had had a less miserable leg, and only the normal sum
of toes; that his mouth had been of a less reptilian width of slit, his
nose and head of a less exorbitant outline. But the thin leg rested on
cloth of gold and pearls, and the face was only an interruption of a few
square inches in the midst of black velvet and gold, and the blaze of
rubies, and the brilliant tints of the embroidered and bepearled
canopy,--"_fu gran magnificenza_."

And the people had cried _Francia, Francia_! with an enthusiasm
proportioned to the splendour of the canopy which they had torn to
pieces as their spoil, according to immemorial custom; royal lips had
duly kissed the altar; and after all mischances the royal person and
retinue were lodged in the Palace of the Via Larga, the rest of the
nobles and gentry were dispersed among the great houses of Florence, and
the terrible soldiery were encamped in the Prato and other open
quarters. The business of the day was ended.

But the streets still presented a surprising aspect, such as Florentines
had not seen before under the November stars. Instead of a gloom
unbroken except by a lamp burning feebly here and there before a saintly
image at the street-corners, or by a stream of redder light from an open
doo