CHAPTER 1.VIII.The Enthusiastic Man Judged by the Discreet Man.
"Thou wrongest me," said Rienzi, warmly, to Adrian, as they sat alone, towards the close of a long conference; "I do not play the part of a mere demagogue; I wish not to stir the great deeps in order that my lees of fortune may rise to the surface.

So long have I brooded over the past, that it seems to me as if I had become a part of it--as if I had no separate existence.

I have coined my whole soul into one master passion,--and its end is the restoration of Rome." "But by what means ?" "My Lord! my Lord! there is but one way to restore the greatness of a people--it is an appeal to the people themselves.

It is not in the power of princes and barons to make a state permanently glorious; they raise themselves, but they raise not the people with them.

All great regenerations are the universal movement of the mass." "Nay," answered Adrian, "then have we read history differently.