Eight days before this event, a man dressed as a hermit, of about sixty years of age, went through the streets of Rome, about midnight, sounding a handbell, and pronouncing with a loud voice the following words: “The anger of God will soon fall upon this city!” The Pope obtained nothing from the examination he made of this man; the severest tortures could draw no more from him than this terrifying oracle: “The anger of God will soon fall upon this city!” When the prince of Orange became master of the city, he liberated him from prison, and offered him a considerable sum of money. He, however, refused reward, three days after disappeared, and was never again heard of. The imperial army left Rome, loaded with a booty of more than eighteen millions of crowns, every private soldier having an immense sum. The obsequies of the duke of Bourbon were celebrated with great pomp, and his body was conveyed to Gaeta. THIRTEENTH SIEGE, A.D. 1796–1799. The temporal power of the popes had long ceased to be an object of jealousy for Christian princes: the small extent of their states, the respect which was entertained for their ministry, and their abstinence from military enterprises, preserved peace in a city which had formerly, and for many centuries, made the world tremble with the terror of its arms. Louis XIV. and Louis XV. had satisfied themselves with seizing the Venaissian county, to punish the popes for some affronts offered to their crowns; and the pontiffs, conscious of their weakness, had acknowledged their errors and disavowed the acts of their ministers. But it was not thus when the French revolution broke out. Pius VI., irritated at seeing at once both his annates and the Venaissian county wrested from his hands, entered into the league of the kings against France. In no city were the French more hated than in Rome. Basseville, the French envoy, was massacred in a riot, which the government of the Pope had allowed to be got up with more than suspected negligence. The troops of the Pope were preparing to unite themselves with those of the other powers of Italy, when Buonaparte was seen to enter that country, in 1796, as a conqueror. His victories seemed to foretell the destruction of the Holy See. Republican enthusiasm was awakened on the banks of the Tiber; nothing was talked of but rebuilding the Capitol and founding a new Roman republic.