ons in the Via Larga were themselves in
danger of dispersion. French agents had already begun to see that such
very fine antique gems as Lorenzo had collected belonged by right to the
first nation in Europe; and the Florentine State, which had got
possession of the Medicean library, was likely to be glad of a customer
for it. With a war to recover Pisa hanging over it, and with the
certainty of having to pay large subsidies to the French king, the State
was likely to prefer money to manuscripts.

To Romola these grave political changes had gathered their chief
interest from their bearing on the fulfilment of her father's wish. She
had been brought up in learned seclusion from the interests of actual
life, and had been accustomed to think of heroic deeds and great
principles as something antithetic to the vulgar present, of the Pnyx
and the Forum as something more worthy of attention than the councils of
living Florentine men. And now the expulsion of the Medici meant little
more for her than the extinction of her best hope about her father's
library. The times, she knew, were unpleasant for friends of the
Medici, like her godfather and Tito: superstitious shopkeepers and the
stupid rabble were full of suspicions; but her new keen interest in
public events, in the outbreak of war, in the issue of the French king's
visit, in the changes that were likely to happen in the State, was
kindled solely by the sense of love and duty to her father's memory.
All Romola's ardour had been concentrated in her affections. Her share
in her father's learned pursuits had been for her little more than a
toil which was borne for his sake; and Tito's airy brilliant faculty had
no attraction for her that was not merged in the deeper sympathies that
belong to young love and trust. Romola had had contact with no mind
that could stir the larger possibilities of her nature; they lay folded
and crushed like embryonic wings, making no element in her consciousness
beyond an occasional vague uneasiness.

But this new personal interest of hers in public affairs had made her
care at last to understand precisely what influence Fra Girolamo's
preaching was likely to have on the turn of events. Changes in the form
of the State were talked of, and all she could learn from Tito, whose
secretaryship and serviceable talents carried him into the heart of
public business, made her only the more eager to fill out her lonely day
by going to hear for hers