[5] The Vice-Provost of Eton who has kindly read these pages in the gentle criticism which can say no harsh word, here remarks: "If success is measured less by immediate results than by guiding the way in which men think, I should say that Innocent was successful. 'What will the Pope say?' was the question asked in every corner of the world--though he was not always obeyed." BOOK III. LO POPOLO: AND THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE. [Illustration: ON THE TIBER.] BOOK III. LO POPOLO: AND THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE. CHAPTER I. ROME IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. When the Papal Seat was transferred to Avignon, and Rome was left to its own devices and that fluctuating popular government which meant little beyond a wavering balance of power between two great families, the state of the ancient imperial city became more disorderly, tumultuous and anarchical than that of almost any other town in Italy, which is saying much. All the others had at least the traditions of an established government, or a sturdy tyranny: Rome alone had never been at peace and scarcely knew how to compose herself under any sway. She had fought her Popes, sometimes desperately, sometimes only captiously with the half-subdued rebelliousness of ill-temper, almost from the beginning of their power; and her sons had long been divided into a multiplicity of parties, each holding by one of the nobles who built their fortresses among the classic ruins, and defied the world from within the indestructible remnants of walls built by the Cæsars. One great family after another entrenched itself within those monuments of the ancient ages. The Colosseum was at one time the stronghold of the great Colonna: Stefano, the head of that name, inhabited the great building known as the Theatre of Marcellus at another period, and filled with his retainers an entire quarter. The castle of St. Angelo, with various flanking towers, was the home of the Orsini; and these two houses more or less divided the power between them, the other nobles adhering to one or the other party. Even amid the tumults of Florence there was always a shadow of a principle, a supposed or real cause in the name of which one party drove another _fuori_, out of the city. But in Rome even the great quarrel of Guelf and Ghibelline took an almost entirely personal character to increase the perpetual tumult. The vassals of the Pope were not on the Pope's side nor were they against him, non furon rebelli Nè fur fedeli a Dio, mà per sé foro. The community was distracted by mere personal quarrels, by the feuds of the great houses who were their lords but only tore asunder, and neither protected nor promoted the prosperity of that greatest of Italian cities, which in its miserable incompetence and tumult was for a long time the least among them.