coarse-minded; and they dared to aspire to an ambition which they were too dull and too cowardly to pursue, when the game was in their hands. They wished to rule; but when they might, they were afraid. The commons were on their side, the moderate men, the party of law, the lovers of republican government, and for the most part the magistrates; but they shrank from their fortune, "more from cowardice than from goodness, because they exceedingly feared their adversaries."[32] Boniface VIII. had no prepossessions in Florence, except for energy and an open hand; the side which was most popular he would have accepted and backed; but "he would not lose," he said, "the men for the women." "_Io non voglio perdere gli uomini per le femminelle._"[33] If the Black party furnished types for the grosser or fiercer forms of wickedness in the poet's Hell, the White party surely were the originals of that picture of stupid and cowardly selfishness, in the miserable crowd who moan and are buffeted in the vestibule of the Pit, mingled with the angels who dared neither to rebel nor be faithful, but "_were for themselves_;" and whoever it may be who is singled out in the "setta dei cattivi," for deeper and special scorn--he, Che fece per viltà il gran rifiuto--[34] the idea was derived from the Cerchi in Florence. [Footnote 31: In 1300. G. Villani, viii. 38, 39.] [Footnote 32: _Dino Comp._ p. 45.] [Footnote 33: _Ibid._ p. 62.] [Footnote 34: _Inf._ c. 3, 60.] A French prince was sent by the Pope to mediate and make peace in Florence. The Black Guelfs and Corso Donati came with him. The magistrates were overawed and perplexed. The White party were, step by step, amused, entrapped, led blindly into false plots, entangled in the elaborate subtleties, and exposed with all the zest and mockery, of Italian intrigue--finally chased out of their houses and from the city, condemned unheard, outlawed, ruined in name and property, by the Pope's French mediator. With them fell many citizens who had tried to hold the balance between the two parties: for the leaders of the Black Guelfs were guilty of no errors of weakness. In two extant lists of the proscribed--condemned by default, for corruption and various crimes, especially for hindering the entrance into Florence of Charles de Valois, to a heavy fine and banishment--then, two months after, for contumacy, to be burned alive if he ever fell into the hands of the Republic--appears the name of Dante Alighieri; and more than this, concerning the history of his expulsion, we know not.[35] [Footnote 35: Pelli, _Memorie per servire alla vita di Dante._ Fir. 1823, pp. 105, 106.]