Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/244

 the Emperor Charlemagne, and were continually strengthening their castle, building thick walls and running up high towers, until it became as safe a place as any in Tuscany, and very fit for the habitation of great princes who require retreats of this description wherein they can contemplate at their ease the silly passions of the common people and the violence of party spirit. Some of the Tuscan nobles have chosen to leave the brave old strongholds of their forefathers, and have come down to the cities in the vales, but the lords of San Giuliano knew better than this, and though they were always glad to see the townsfolk climb puffing and panting up the mountain side, and never failed to welcome them heartily if rudely, with spear-heads and arrow-shafts, they still clung to their battlements and gilt pinnacles above the broad mountain woods. They had noticed you see, that nobles who dwelldwelt [sic] in towns became townsfolk, and got involved in town disputes, and sometimes came off second best and had to sit below some stupid fat huckster who called himself Podesta, Gonfaloniere, or Consul, and tried to persuade himself and other people that they were on the whole a finer and more spirited sort of man than the old pagan Romans. This rubbish always made the Dukes of San Giuliano sick, and irritable in temper besides; and as I have said they took good care to stay up on the mountain and made it very hot climbing for anybody who wished to hang his cap on the vanes of the castle or to discover the thickness of the walls by the process of pulling them down. Duke Mark