"Certainly we must!" cried a third. "If our consuls were as hungry as we are, they would soon stop talking about courage, and patriotic devotion, and heroic patience, and other beautiful things of the sort. However, they can say what they please, comrades, for they have plenty to eat and drink." "Consul Boriso's red nose, and Grillo's big belly, have made me reflect very seriously for some time past," said a butcher. "We all look awfully, as if we were going to die of starvation to-day. A man can't live on liberty and patriotism; for we have not got cellars and wine vaults as well filled as our consuls." "Barbarossa will not treat us as badly as the famine will," added another. "What is the use of freedom, if we are to perish with hunger?" "It is all folly! Look, if you please, to what this freedom has brought us? If we taste its sweets ten days longer, we will all be in the grave-digger's hands." "Hurrah for bread! Down with liberty!" screamed a thousand voices, as they caught sight of the consuls. Oberto ascended the tribune, and the yells and murmurs gradually subsided as they looked upon the old man, who, sad and dejected, gazed upon the crowd, and thought of the time when he used to speak to the Milanese, once so brave and valiant. "Fellow-citizens," he said, "it is now a year that you have borne, with a courage and a patience worthy of your ancient renown, all the rigors of a siege. Barbarossa hems us in more closely every day. He desires the destruction of our free institutions; his aim is to humble our noble city, and reduce her citizens to vassalage." A succession of savage yells interrupted the orator. "Bread! Bread!" was cried on all sides. "Open the gates! Down with the ranter!" "Brothers, fellow-countrymen," resumed Oberto, "think of the glories of the past! Are you willing to wear the yoke of slavery?" "Ah! our past glories. We are too wretched and humble now; it will do to talk of that when we are in prosperity. Give us food!" "Fellow-citizens, do not torture me with your reproaches. I suffer from hunger, like yourselves; but I prefer death to the loss of that liberty which our ancestors have bequeathed to us." "Bah! we are not such fools!" yelled the crowd. "Life is better than liberty!" "The man is mad!" cried a voice; "he advises us to die of starvation!" "He is mad! Yes, the gold paid him for his treason inspires his tongue! Comrades, let us go and open the gates!" "Long live the Emperor! Hurrah for bread!" Oberto turned, appealingly, towards his audience,-- "Fellow-citizens," he resumed, "your desires shall be gratified; you shall have all that you ask. To-day a delegation will leave Milan to treat for the surrender of the city; but the consequences must rest on your own shoulders; you will regret and bewail them. If the Lombard race is degenerate, if it courts its own slavery with eagerness, let its wishes be accomplished."