oment a cry was heard, and was repeated by everybody
present:

"To San Marco, to San Marco!" The rioters, few at first, were recruited
by all the populace as they swept along the streets, and at last reached
the convent, dashing like an angry sea against the wall.

The doors, closed on Savonarala's entrance, soon crashed before the
vehement onset of the powerful multitude, which struck down on the
instant every obstacle it met: the whole convent was quickly flooded with
people, and Savonarola, with his two confederates, Domenico Bonvicini and
Silvestro Maruffi, was arrested in his cell, and conducted to prison amid
the insults of the crowd, who, always in extremes, whether of enthusiasm
or hatred, would have liked to tear them to pieces, and would not be
quieted till they had exacted a promise that the prisoners should be
forcibly compelled to make the trial of fire which they had refused to
make of their own free will.

Alexander VI, as we may suppose, had not been without influence in
bringing about this sudden and astonishing reaction, although he was not
present in person; and had scarcely learned the news of Savonarola's fall
and arrest when he claimed him as subject to ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
But in spite of the grant of indulgences wherewith this demand was
accompanied, the Signoria insisted that Savonarola's trial should take
place at Florence, adding a request so as not to appear to withdraw the
accused completely from the pontifical authority--that the pope would
send two ecclesiastical judges to sit in the Florentine tribunal.
Alexander, seeing that he would get nothing better from the magnificent
republic, sent as deputies Gioacchino Turriano of Venice, General of the
Dominicans, and Francesco Ramolini, doctor in law: they practically
brought the sentence with them, declaring Savonarola and his accomplices
heretics, schismatics, persecutors of the Church and seducers of the
people.

The firmness shown by the Florentines in claiming their rights of
jurisdiction were nothing but an empty show to save appearances; the
tribunal, as a fact, was composed of eight members, all known to be
fervent haters of Savonarola, whose trial began with the torture. The
result was that, feeble in body constitutionally nervous and irritable,
he had not been able to endure the rack, and, overcome by agony just at
the moment when the executioner had lifted him up by the wrists and then
dropped him a distance of two feet