Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/187

 capitulation with the French general, in consequence of which the commissaries of the enemy's army raised enormous contributions. The people arose, the houses of the nobility, suspected of treachery, were pillaged with the cry of "Long live the holy faith!" Moliterno and Rocca Romana, who directed the municipality, made vain efforts to oppose anarchy. The Duke, de la Torre and Clemens Filomarino, two detested patricians, had just served as victims to the insurrection, and nothing could be foreseen of the time of duration of this popular reaction. Berthold, escaped, nearly naked, from his house devoured by the flames, found himself carried forward by a crowd of the armed populace who were going with frightful howlings to the palace of prince T. Nothing could withstand these furious men. In a few moments, the prince, his servants and a few friends who had joined him were massacred without pity, and the flames finished what the knife had commenced. Berthold still carried on by this band of robbers, had traversed many rooms in the palace, which a black smoke already filled; he tried to fly, but found no outlet, when a cry of distress struck upon his ear. He sprang towards it, burst open a door, and sees a woman who is struggling beneath the dagger of a beggar.

"Great God! it is the princess! it is the heavenly apparition which Berthold had seen but once. A superhuman strength exalted the courage of the exhausted artist; after a short struggle he overthrows the beggar and stabs him with his own poignard; then raising in his nervous arms, the beautiful Angiola, he traverses again all the rooms of the palace devoured by the fire, reaches the door, makes his way through the crowd, who gave way before his bloody dagger, and, after having walked a long time at the mercy of chance, he reaches a quarter of the city rendered desert by the affray; he deposits his precious burden in the corner of a shed, and, broken by so many emotions, fells senseless by the side of Angiola. When he opened his eyes again, the beautiful princess, on her knees at his side, was bathing with water his