The gabelle on fruit was imposed early in the year; and on many days of spring, even before the burden of the tax was felt, crowds ran beside the Viceroy's coach demanding angrily that the duty should be repealed. As the warm days drew on, the angry temper rose. Every market day whipped it up to fever heat and set the people thinking of their miseries. It is said--and the thing is probable enough--that many days before the actual outbreak of revolt a rising was being planned by several agents, of whom one was a Carmelite monk. The day selected for its commencement was carefully chosen in such a manner as to secure the patronage and protection of the most popular Madonna of the crowded city; but before it came an accident precipitated the disturbance. It was the custom in those days to hold a kind of popular game in the Piazza del Mercato, a few days before the Festival of the Madonna of the Carmine. The ragged population chose a captain, under whom they attacked and stormed a wooden castle reared in the centre of the piazza. In this year the lot of the people had fallen on Tommaso Anello, who in their contracted and musical dialect was known as "Mas'aniello," a native of Amalfi, by origin, if not by birth, driven perhaps into the city by fear of the constant incursions of the Turks, which went near to depopulate the coasts from Salerno to Castellammare. By one account Mas'aniello was thirsting to revenge an insult offered to his wife by one of the collectors. Other writers assert that chance alone thrust him into the foremost position in what followed. On Sunday the 7th of July the Mercato was seething with life. Out of all the rookeries around the Porta Nolana, and behind the Church of Sant' Eligio, the people poured out intent on frolic. Festivity was in the air--that joyousness which in southern Italy is very apt to smear itself with blood ere night. The women crowded in and out of the churches. The bells chimed. From all the towns and villages on either side of Naples the peasant women had brought in their fruit, and the thirsty people bought it greedily. Among the crowd Mas'aniello and his army of ragamuffins were going up and down armed with canes; when suddenly there arose a loud and angry bawling, and everyone pressed forward to see what had happened.