Angelo had in the main correctly narrated the more recent adventures of Rienzi after his fall.  He had first with Nina and Angelo betaken himself to Naples, and found a fallacious and brief favour with Louis, king of Hungary; that harsh but honourable monarch had refused to yield his illustrious guest to the demands of Clement, but had plainly declared his inability to shelter him in safety.  Maintaining secret intercourse with his partisans at Rome, the fugitive then sought a refuge with the Eremites, sequestered in the lone recesses of the Monte Maiella, where in solitude and thought he had passed a whole year, save the time consumed in his visit to and return from Florence.  Taking advantage of the Jubilee in Rome, he had then, disguised as a pilgrim, traversed the vales and mountains still rich in the melancholy ruins of ancient Rome, and entering the city, his restless and ambitious spirit indulged in new but vain conspiracies! (Rainald, Ann. 1350, N. 4, E. 5.) Excommunicated a second time by the Cardinal di Ceccano, and again a fugitive, he shook the dust from his feet as he left the city, and raising his hands towards those walls, in which are yet traced the witness of the Tarquins, cried aloud—­“Honoured as thy prince—­persecuted as thy victim—­Rome, Rome, thou shalt yet receive me as thy conqueror!”

Still disguised as a pilgrim, he passed unmolested through Italy into the Court of the Emperor Charles of Bohemia, where the page, who had probably witnessed, had rightly narrated, his reception.  It is doubtful, however, whether the conduct of the Emperor had been as chivalrous as appears by Angelo’s relation, or whether he had not delivered Rienzi to the Pontiff’s emissaries.  At all events it is certain, that from Prague to Avignon, the path of the fallen Tribune had been as one triumph.  His strange adventures—­his unbroken spirit—­the new power that Intellect daily and wonderfully excited over the minds of the rising generation—­the eloquence of Petrarch, and the common sympathy of the vulgar for fallen greatness,—­all conspired to make Rienzi the hero of the age.  Not a town through which he passed which would not have risked a siege for his protection—­not a house that would not have sheltered him—­not a hand that would not have struck in his defence.  Refusing all offers of aid, disdaining all occasion of escape, inspired by his indomitable hope, and his unalloyed belief in the brightness of his own destinies, the Tribune sought Avignon—­and found a dungeon!

These, his external adventures, are briefly and easily told; but who shall tell what passed within?—­who narrate the fearful history of the heart?—­who paint the rapid changes of emotion and of thought—­the indignant grief—­the stern dejection—­the haughty disappointment that saddened while it never destroyed the resolve of that great soul?  Who can say what must have been endured, what meditated, in the hermitage of Maiella;—­on the lonely hills of the perished empire it had been his dream