At the appointed hour, the Emperor, the nobles, the false Pope, and the prelates, ascended the platform and took seats according to their respective rank. Alberic, the Pope's chaplain, first, in a noisy harangue, explained the object of the assembly. He denounced Alexander and his adherents as heretics, and extolled Victor as the legitimate Pope. Lighted tapers were then handed to the nobles and the clergy; and Octavian, mounting the pulpit, began to recite, in a voice trembling with passion, the usual lengthy formula of excommunication, at the close of which, as the sentence of malediction was thundered out, the Emperor, nobles, and clergy extinguished their candles. This solemn farce, enacted by Frederic's orders, in the immediate vicinity of a city whose inhabitants were enthusiastic partisans of the cause of Alexander, was received by the Milanese with shouts of derision; and scarcely had the anathema been uttered when a speaking-trumpet was heard upon the walls. "Octavian," it cried, "wrongfully surnamed Victor, slave of the Emperor, we scorn your maledictions.--Heaven blesses whom you curse, and curses whom you bless!" Few of the soldiers present had ever before heard a speaking-trumpet, and these words seemed supernatural, while the distant echo gave credence to the speedy realization of the prophecy. But Frederic, more enlightened, skilfully parried the blow, and aware of a report which had been circulated latterly, that an angel had descended from heaven to curse Victor and his partisans, he looked on in scornful silence, while the crowd broke out in clamorous surprise. Suddenly a straw effigy of the Pope, crowned with rags, with a paper mitre on its head, and a scroll with the inscription, in large letters, of "Pope Victor" in its hand, was hurled from the walls by a catapult, and fell close to Octavian's feet, while, amid a burst of contemptuous laughter, the voice again shouted through the trumpet, "Straw Pope! Straw Pope!" Octavian was thunderstruck, and stood gazing with a wild stare upon the effigy, and his face assumed an expression so ridiculously stupid, that Rinaldo and the bystanders, remarking the absurd resemblance between it and the figure, could with difficulty restrain their mirth. Frederic reflected grimly for a moment, but soon found means to turn this incident to profit. "Resume your seat!" he said to Victor, and then rising with the fierce and decided manner which so well became him, he commanded silence. Even Rinaldo's face wore a serious expression, and all awaited, breathlessly, the monarch's harangue.