The successor to a splendid mansion--the fifth or sixth remove perhaps within a month--seized possession--it might be, with a title--but certainly without waiting for the forms of law to ratify it. Great quantities of personal property, of houses and movables especially, were sometimes left in a few hours without _any_ certain claimants at all; and ruffians and outcasts--the police of the city being virtually almost extinct--fought and scrambled for the right of rifling such possessions in open day. Antonio Malespini, the servant of a goldsmith who had fled the city and died under the walls of Pisa, produced a will, alleged to have been left by his master, bequeathing to him the whole of his effects. On the very next day, this title passing undisputed, there were twenty claimants for similar successions! From inheriting after those who had fled and died, it was but one step farther to presume the death, and a man's flight then at once conveyed his effects to those who stayed behind. And within the expiration of eight-and-forty hours farther (no interference by the authorities taking place), both lie and forgery began to be considered unnecessary; and the rights of health and strength became the only rights acknowledged in the new community. It was then that the general tumult and terror reached its height; and that Florence appeared like a city delivered over to pillage, in which each man made his best of what came next him; or rather like a vast ship tost in a tempest, under which she could not choose but founder, and where each man, according to the usage of desperate mariners, resolved to live, at common cost, the short while longer that existence lasted. Domestics, left in charge of their masters' houses, burst open the cellars and cabinets, and used the treasure as their own. The richest garments were seen worn by common beggars; the most costly wines intoxicated the lowest of the population. All safe people fled the city at every hazard, or shut themselves up, and refused to communicate even with each other; and a scarcity of food--in the very excess of valuables and money--began to aggravate the general distress. Those physicians who still lived now made off, with one consent, to secure what they had gained. The monks barred the gates of their convents: some would say no mass; and scarce any would confess the sick any longer. Some men lay dead or dying in their houses, and none would come to aid or bury them. Others were found with marks of violence on their bodies and their chambers rifled; and none could say, nor did any inquire, who had done it. The hired nurses, it was reported, poisoned their patients; and one beldam confessed afterwards to having caused the death of five women, by administering the _eau forte_ (_aqua fortis_) to them instead of common water. Brute strength, and freedom from the plague, became the only sources of power; and the slave spat in the face of his master. Those