The next morning, Palm Sunday, April 8th, Savonarola preached a very short sermon in the church of San Marco, in which he offered himself in sacrifice to God and was prepared to suffer death for his flock. _Tanto fu sempre questo uomo simile a sè stesso_, says Jacopo Nardi. Hell had broken loose by the evening, and the Arrabbiati and Compagnacci, stabbing and hewing as they came, surged round the church and convent. In spite of Savonarola and Fra Domenico, the friars had weapons and ammunition in their cells, and there was a small band of devout laymen with them, prepared to hold by the prophet to the end. From vespers till past midnight the attack and defence went on; in the Piazza, in the church, and through the cloisters raged the fight, while riot and murder wantoned through the streets of the city. Francesco Valori, who had escaped from the convent in the hope of bringing reinforcements, was brutally murdered before his own door. The great bell of the convent tolled and tolled, animating both besieged and besiegers to fresh efforts, but bringing no relief from without. Savonarola, who had been prevented from following the impulses of his heart and delivering himself up to the infernal crew that thirsted for his blood in the Piazza, at last gathered his friars round him before the Blessed Sacrament, in the great hall of the Greek library, solemnly confirmed his doctrine, exhorted them to embrace the Cross alone, and then, together with Fra Domenico, gave himself into the hands of the forces of the Signoria. The entire cloisters were already swarming with his exultant foes. "The work of the Lord shall go forward without cease," he said, as the mace-bearers bound him and Domenico, "my death will but hasten it on." Buffeted and insulted by the Compagnacci and the populace, amidst the deafening uproar, the two Dominicans were brought to the Palazzo Vecchio. It seemed to the excited imaginations of the Piagnoni that the scenes of the first Passiontide at Jerusalem were now being repeated in the streets of fifteenth century Florence.