Thus, although the power of kings had given way to that of the people, liberty was in general ill understood and insecure. The passions were impetuous; a certain point of honour was attached to violence; the nobles believed they gave proof of independence by rapine and outrage; and the friends of order believed they had attained the highest purpose of government, when they made such audacious disturbers tremble. The turbulence and number of the noble criminals, the support which their crimes found in a false point of honour, form an excuse for the judicial institutions of the Italian republics, which were all more calculated to strike terror into criminals too daring to conceal themselves, than to protect the accused against the unjust suspicion of secret crimes. Order could be maintained only by an iron hand; but this iron hand soon crushed liberty. Nevertheless, among the Italian cities there was one which above all others seemed to think of justice more than of peace, and of the security of the citizen more than of the punishment of the guilty. It was Florence; its judicial institutions are, indeed, far from meriting to be held up as models; but they were the first in Italy which offered any guarantee to the citizen; because Florence was the city where the love of liberty was the most general and the most constant in every class; where the cultivation of the understanding was carried farthest; and where enlightenment of mind soonest appeared in the improvement of the laws. FLORENTINE AFFAIRS; THE GUELFS RECALLED [Sidenote: [1250-1260 A.D.]] The Ghibelline nobles had taken possession of the sovereignty of Florence with the help of the king of Antioch, two years before the death of his father, Frederick II; but their power soon became insupportable to the free and proud citizens of that republic, who had already become wealthy by commerce and who reckoned amongst them some distinguished literary men, such as Brunetto Latini, and Guido Cavalcanti, without having lost simplicity of manners, their sobriety of habits, or their bodily vigour.