The whole character of that bold address became invested with a something preternatural and inspired; to the minds of the vulgar, the mortal was converted into the oracle; and, marvelling at the unhesitating courage with which their idol had rebuked and conjured the haughty barons,--each of whom they regarded in the light of sanctioned executioners, whose anger could be made manifest at once by the gibbet or the axe,--the people could not but superstitiously imagine that nothing less than authority from above could have gifted their leader with such hardihood, and preserved him from the danger it incurred.

In fact, it was in this very courage of Rienzi that his safety consisted; he was placed in those circumstances where audacity is prudence.

Had he been less bold, the nobles would have been more severe; but so great a license of speech in an officer of the Holy See, they naturally imagined, was not unauthorised by the assent of the Pope, as well as by the approbation of the people.

Those who did not (like Stephen Colonna) despise words as wind, shrank back from the task of punishing one whose voice might be the mere echo of the wishes of the pontiff.

The dissensions of the nobles among each other, were no less favourable to Rienzi.