And again he himself lived on, dreaming, still enthusiastically believing in a splendid future, overflowing with boundless hope, seeing Rome double her population, grow and spread with a wild vegetation of new districts, and once more, in his loving enraptured eyes, become the queen of the world.
But all at once came a thunderbolt.

One morning, as he was going downstairs, Orlando was stricken with paralysis.

Both his legs suddenly became lifeless, as heavy as lead.

It was necessary to carry him up again, and never since had he set foot on the street pavement.

At that time he had just completed his fifty-sixth year, and for fourteen years since he had remained in his arm-chair, as motionless as stone, he who had so impetuously trod every battlefield of Italy.