nothing but shame for having entered into it, they made peace.” “_The boldness with which wine inspired a shoemaker at Genoa, occasioned the government of that republic to be changed._ “All republics have been torn by civil wars: ambition hath ever kindled discord therein. In the history of those states we see continually the nobles assuming more than their rights, and by their injustice exhausting the patience of the people, who arming themselves at the instigation of an ambitious person and guided by rage alone, brave the laws and commit the most terrible disorders. “Genoa was not exempt from these evils; we meet with nothing in the writers who have transmitted its history, but troubles and calamities: it is a chain of revolutions. Towards the middle of the fourteenth century, the people, impatient under the tyranny of the nobility, murmured. There were some among them who sacrificed the welfare and tranquillity of the public to their ambition and to their interest: they took advantage of the discontent of the people, and irritated them by seditious discourses; they took up arms, and the nobility, to avoid the blows with which they were threatened, promised to grant whatever should be demanded of them. “The populace were desirous that an _Abbé of the People_ should be elected. His office was to sustain the interests and liberties of the people, and to counterbalance, in a great measure, the authority of the _captains_, who were then the magistrates of the republic. “An assembly was accordingly held for the election of an _Abbé of the People_. Vast numbers went to the place of meeting, and every one gave his voice; but as they all spoke at once nobody was understood. The tumult increased, the people began to grow warm, and were ready to proceed to blows; when a shoemaker, who at that instant was just come from a drinking house, passing by the assembly, mixed among the crowd, and getting upon a little eminence that fell in his way, being emboldened by the fumes of the wine, he bawled out as loud as he was able, ‘Fellow citizens, will you hearken to me?’ This invocation struck their ears, and immediately all eyes were fixed upon him; and the Genoese who were about to tear each other to pieces, all joined in a hearty laugh. Some bade him hold his peace, others encouraged him to speak on, and others again threw dirt at him; all laughed. This orator, without being in the least disconcerted, said, ‘I think myself obliged to tell you that you ought to {658} nominate to the dignity of _Abbé of the People_, an honest man; and I know of none more so than Simon Boccanegra. You ought to appoint him.’