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 of the man whom she had burned. This, however, was never done.

If we trust some of the accounts handed down to us, Savonarola can be accused of having shown weakness in the face of torture; he can be accused of having been too ambitious for political power and of having, in the fear of losing his authority, allowed without protest the execution of innocent men who were charged with conspiracy; he can be accused of having traded on the reputation of being a prophet who saw visions and to whom miraculous events occurred. He certainly placed too much confidence in the permanent effect of his eloquent preaching, and deluded himself in trusting in the loyalty of the people whom he had apparently moved. He may, no doubt, be called a fanatic—that is to say, a wild, odd man, who disregards every one and everything in his zeal to pursue the object he has in view. Such people are not frightened of making fools of themselves, and their peculiarities and their strange behavior can be very easily ridiculed. But apart from the contradictory accounts, and the incomplete records of history, we have Savonarola's actual sermons and writings, without which he might indeed have been condemned as a charlatan. In them we can read in his own stirring language of his noble intentions and lofty aspirations, of his vigorous and single-minded pursuit of what he believed to be right, and of his un