To you, noble Stephen, I have come, as your rank demands,--alone, of all the barons of Rome,--to propose to you this honourable union.

Observe what advantages it proffers to your house.

The popes have abandoned Rome for ever; there is no counterpoise to your ambition,--there need be none to your power.

You see before you the examples of Visconti and Taddeo di Pepoli.

You may found in Rome, the first city of Italy, a supreme and uncontrolled principality, subjugate utterly your weaker rivals,--the Savelli, the Malatesta, the Orsini,--and leave to your sons' sons an hereditary kingdom that may aspire once more, perhaps, to the empire of the world." Stephen shaded his face with his hand as he answered: "But this, noble Montreal, requires means:--money and men." "Of the last, you can command from me enow--my small company, the best disciplined, can (whenever I please) swell to the most numerous in Italy: in the first, noble Baron, the rich House of Colonna cannot fail; and even a mortgage on its vast estates may be well repaid when you have possessed yourselves of the whole revenues of Rome.