I ask the nobles to dismantle their fortresses; to disband their armed retainers; to acknowledge no impunity for crime in high lineage; to claim no protection save in the courts of the common law." "Vain desire!" said Adrian.

"Ask what may yet be granted." "Ha--ha!" replied Rienzi, laughing bitterly, "did I not tell you it was a vain dream to ask for law and justice at the hands of the great?
Can you blame me, then, that I ask it elsewhere ?" Then, suddenly changing his tone and manner, he added with great solemnity--"Waking life hath false and vain dreams; but sleep is sometimes a mighty prophet.

By sleep it is that Heaven mysteriously communes with its creatures, and guides and sustains its earthly agents in the path to which its providence leads them on." Adrian made no reply.

This was not the first time he had noted that Rienzi's strong intellect was strangely conjoined with a deep and mystical superstition.

And this yet more inclined the young noble, who, though sufficiently devout, yielded but little to the wilder credulities of the time, to doubt the success of the schemer's projects.