berty, which in Italy at that period meant less the freedom of the
inhabitants to exercise self-government than the independence of the
city in relation to its neighbors. The Pisans on the other hand had been
reduced to subjection by Florence: their civic life had been stifled,
their pride wounded in the tenderest point of honor, their population
decimated by proscription and exile. The great sin of Florence was the
enslavement of Pisa: and Pisa in this moment of anarchy burned to
obliterate her shame with bloodshed. The French, understanding none of
the niceties of Italian politics, and ignorant that in giving freedom to
Pisa they were robbing Florence of her rights, looked on with wonder at
the citizens who tossed the lion of the tyrant town into the Arno and
took up arms against its officers. It is sad to witness this last spasm
of the long-suppressed passion for liberty in the Pisans, while we know
how soon they were reduced again to slavery by the selfish sister state,
herself too thoroughly corrupt for liberty. The part of Charles, who
espoused the cause of the Pisans with blundering carelessness,
pretended to protect the new republic, and then abandoned it a few
months later to its fate, provokes nothing but the languid contempt
which all his acts inspire.

After the flight of Piero and the proclamation of Pisan liberty the King
of France was hailed as saviour of the free Italian towns. Charles
received a magnificent address from Savonarola, who proceeded to Pisa,
and harangued him as the chosen vessel of the Lord and the deliverer of
the Church from anarchy. At the same time the friar conveyed to the
French king a courteous invitation from the Florentine republic to enter
their city and enjoy their hospitality. Charles, after upsetting Piero
de' Medici with the nonchalance of a horseman in the tilting yard, and
restoring the freedom of Pisa for a caprice, remained as devoid of
policy and indifferent to the part assigned him by the prophet as he was
before. He rode, armed at all points, into Florence on November 17, and
took up his residence in the palace of the Medici. Then he informed the
elders of the city that he had come as conqueror and not as guest, and
that he intended to reserve to himself the disposition of the state.

It was a dramatic moment. Florence, with the Arno flowing through her
midst, and the hills around her gray with olive-trees, was then even
more lovely than we see her now. The whole circu