CHAPTER 2.VI.The Conspirator Becomes the Magistrate.
At midnight, when the rest of the city seemed hushed in rest, lights were streaming from the windows of the Church of St.Angelo.

Breaking from its echoing aisles, the long and solemn notes of sacred music stole at frequent intervals upon the air.

Rienzi was praying within the church; thirty masses consumed the hours from night till morn, and all the sanction of religion was invoked to consecrate the enterprise of liberty.

(In fact, I apprehend that if ever the life of Cola di Rienzi shall be written by a hand worthy of the task, it will be shown that a strong religious feeling was blended with the political enthusiasm of the people,--the religious feeling of a premature and crude reformation, the legacy of Arnold of Brescia.

It was not, however, one excited against the priests, but favoured by them.