[Footnote *7: They were of many nationalities--Germans, Spaniards, Italians--"a horde of 40,000 ruffians free from all restraint." They gratified their elemental passions and lusts at the expense of the most cultivated population in the world. The Germans were the worst: "the Lutherans amongst them setting an example which was quickly followed of disregard of holy places." The Spaniards, however, excelled them in deliberate cruelty. For three days this barbarism went on unchecked. On the fourth the barbarians began to quarrel amongst themselves over the division of the booty. "The Germans ... turned to drunkenness and buffoonery. Clad in magnificent vestments and decked with jewels, accompanied by concubines who were bedizened with like ornaments, they rode on mules through the streets and imitated with drunken gravity the processions of the Papal Court." Cf. CREIGHTON, _op. cit._, vol. VI., pp. 342-3.] [Footnote 8: Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1677, f. 19.] After these miserable scenes had endured for three days, rumours of the Duke of Urbino's approach recalled the imperialist leaders to the necessity of defence.[*9] The command having devolved upon the Prince of Orange, a yellow-haired barbarian, further plunder was prohibited, under severe penalties; and the army, reduced to comparative order, betook themselves to enjoy their booty. But now a new drama of atrocities opened. The Germans had especially distinguished themselves by a thirst for blood, but the wily Spaniards taught them a means more effectual than murder of enriching themselves and punishing their victims. The prisoners had, in most cases, concealed whatever of greatest value they possessed, and recourse was had to every variety of torment in order to extract from them supposed treasures, and a ransom for their lives; so that those who had been spared in seeming mercy found themselves but reserved for a worse fate. After stripes and blows had been exhausted, when hunger and thirst had failed to force compliance, tortures the most brutal succeeded. Some were suspended naked from their own windows by a sensitive limb, or swung head downwards, and momentarily threatened to be let drop into the street. Others had their teeth drawn slowly and singly, or were compelled to swallow their own mutilated and roasted members. Others were forced to perform the most odious and menial services; and the greatest extremities were always used towards those who were suspected of being the most wealthy and noble. Even after the desired amount of gold had been thus extorted from them, their sufferings were sometimes resumed at the instance of new tormentors. When such cruelties palled, their inflictors had recourse to a novel amusement, by forcing from the victims a confession of their sins; and we are assured by the narrator of these enormities, himself a Roman, that the iniquities thus brought to light, as habitual in that dissolute capital, were such as to confound even the