old man: I saw him with great tears rolling down his cheeks,
as he looked and listened quite eagerly."

There was a slight pause before Tito spoke.

"I saw the man," he said,--"the prisoner. I was outside the Duomo with
Lorenzo Tornabuoni when he ran in. He had escaped from a French
soldier. Did you see him when you came out?"

"No, he went out with our good old Piero di Cosimo. I saw Piero come in
and cut off his rope, and take him out of the church. But you want
rest, Tito? You feel ill?"

"Yes," said Tito, rising. The horrible sense that he must live in
continual dread of what Baldassarre had said or done pressed upon him
like a cold weight.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

THE PAINTED RECORD.

Four days later, Romola was on her way to the house of Piero di Cosimo,
in the Via Gualfonda. Some of the streets through which she had to pass
were lined with Frenchmen who were gazing at Florence, and with
Florentines who were gazing at the French, and the gaze was not on
either side entirely friendly and admiring. The first nation in Europe,
of necessity finding itself, when out of its own country, in the
presence of general inferiority, naturally assumed an air of conscious
pre-eminence; and the Florentines, who had taken such pains to play the
host amiably, were getting into the worst humour with their too superior
guests.

For after the first smiling compliments and festivities were over--after
wondrous Mysteries with unrivalled machinery of floating clouds and
angels had been presented in churches--after the royal guest had
honoured Florentine dames with much of his Most Christian ogling at
balls and suppers, and business had begun to be talked of--it appeared
that the new Charlemagne regarded Florence as a conquered city, inasmuch
as he had entered it with his lance in rest, talked of leaving his
viceroy behind him, and had thoughts of bringing back the Medici.
Singular logic this appeared to be on the part of an elect instrument of
God! since the policy of Piero de' Medici, disowned by the people, had
been the only offence of Florence against the majesty of France. And
Florence was determined not to submit. The determination was being
expressed very strongly in consultations of citizens inside the Old
Palace, and it was beginning to show itself on the broad flags of the
streets and piazza wherever there was an opportunity of flouting an
insolent Frenchman. Under these circumstances the streets were no