They would have died for it because it had given them hope.
Now, under the Presidency of Theodore Formose, there lived in a peaceable suburb of Alca a monk called Agaric, who kept a school and assisted in arranging marriages.

In his school he taught fencing and riding to the sons of old families, illustrious by their birth, but now as destitute of wealth as of privilege.

And as soon as they were old enough he married them to the daughters of the opulent and despised caste of financiers.
Tall, thin, and dark, Agaric used to walk in deep thought, with his breviary in his hand and his brow loaded with care, through the corridors of the school and the alleys of the garden.

His care was not limited to inculcating in his pupils abstruse doctrines and mechanical precepts and to endowing them afterwards with legitimate and rich wives.

He entertained political designs and pursued the realisation of a gigantic plan.