Romola Author:George Eliot Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: BOOK III. CHAPTER I. RomoJa in her Place. It was the thirtieth of October, 1496. The sky that morning was clear enough, and there was a pleasant autumna... more »l breeze. But the Florentines just then thought very little about the land breezes: they were thinking of the gales at sea, which seemed to be uniting with all other powers to disprove the Frate's declaration that Heaven took special care of Florence. For those terrible gales had driven away from the coast of Leghorn certain ships from Marseilles, freighted with soldiery and corn; and Florence was in the direst need, first of food, and secondly of fighting men. Pale Famine was in her streets, and her territory was threatened on all its borders. For the French king, that new Charlemagne, who had entered Italy in anticipatory triumph, and had conquered Naples without the least trouble, had gone away again fifteen months ago, and was even, it was feared, in his grief for the loss of a new-born son, losing the languid intention of coming back again to redress grievances and set the Church in order. A league had been formed against him — a Holy League, with Pope Borgia at its head— to "drive out the barbarians," who still garrisoned the fortress of Naples. That had a patriotic sound; but, looked at more closely, the Holy League eeemed very much like an agreement among certainwolves to drive away all other wolves, and then to see which among themselves could snatch the largest share of the prey. And there was a general disposition to regard Florence not as a fellow wolf, but rather as a desirable carcase. Florence, therefore, of all the chief Italian States, had alone declined to join the League, adhering still to the French alliance. She had declined at her peril. At this moment Pisa, still fighting savagely for libert...« less