and gunpowder; and on this last day of the festival, at
evening, the pile of vanities was to be set ablaze to the sound of
trumpets, and the ugly old Carnival was to tumble into the flames amid
the songs of reforming triumph.

This crowning act of the new festivities could hardly have been prepared
but for a peculiar organisation which had been started by Savonarola two
years before. The mass of the Florentine boyhood and youth was no
longer left to its own genial promptings towards street mischief and
crude dissoluteness. Under the training of Fra Domenico, a sort of
lieutenant to Savonarola, lads and striplings, the hope of Florence,
were to have none but pure words on their lips, were to have a zeal for
Unseen Good that should put to shame the lukewarmness of their elders,
and were to know no pleasures save of an angelic sort--singing divine
praises and walking in white robes. It was for them that the ranges of
seats had been raised high against the walls of the Duomo; and they had
been used to hear Savonarola appeal to them as the future glory of a
city specially appointed to do the work of God.

These fresh-cheeked troops were the chief agents in the regenerated
merriment of the new Carnival, which was a sort of sacred parody of the
old. Had there been bonfires in the old time? There was to be a
bonfire now, consuming impurity from off the earth. Had there been
symbolic processions? There were to be processions now, but the symbols
were to be white robes and red crosses and olive wreaths--emblems of
peace and innocent gladness--and the banners and images held aloft were
to tell the triumphs of goodness. Had there been dancing in a ring
under the open sky of the Piazza, to the sound of choral voices chanting
loose songs? There was to be dancing in a ring now, but dancing of
monks and laity in fraternal love and divine joy, and the music was to
be the music of hymns. As for the collections from street passengers,
they were to be greater than ever--not for gross and superfluous:
suppers, but--for the benefit of the hungry and needy; and, besides,
there was the collecting of the _Anathema_, or the Vanities to be laid
on the great pyramidal bonfire.

Troops of young inquisitors went from house to house on this exciting
business of asking that the Anathema should be given up to them.
Perhaps, after the more avowed vanities had been surrendered, Madonna,
at the head of the household, had still certain little