The bravest, and most favoured of the soldiers of the Duke of Athens had been Walter de Montreal; he had shared the rise and the downfall of his chief.

Amongst popular commotions, the acute and observant mind of the Knight of St.
John had learned no mean civil experience; he had learned to sound a people--to know how far they would endure--to construe the signs of revolution--to be a reader of the times.

After the downfall of the Duke of Athens, as a Free Companion, in other words a Freebooter, Montreal had augmented under the fierce Werner his riches and his renown.

At present without employment worthy his spirit of enterprise and intrigue, the disordered and chiefless state of Rome had attracted him thither.

In the league he had proposed to Colonna--in the suggestions he had made to the vanity of that Signor--his own object was to render his services indispensable--to constitute himself the head of the soldiery whom his proposed designs would render necessary to the ambition of the Colonna, could it be excited--and, in the vastness of his hardy genius for enterprise, he probably foresaw that the command of such a force would be, in reality, the command of Rome;--a counter-revolution might easily unseat the Colonna and elect himself to the principality.