Chapter 24
I WENT out into the piazza. It was full of men, but where was the enthusiasm we had expected, the tumult, the shouts of joy? Was not the tyrant dead? But they stood there dismayed, confounded, like sheep.... And was not the tyrant dead? I saw partisans of Checco rushing through the crowd with cries of 'Death to all tyrants,' and 'Liberty, liberty!' but the people did not move. Here and there were men mounted on barrows, haranguing the people, throwing out words of fire, but the wind was still and they did not spread.... Some of the younger ones were talking excitedly, but the merchants kept calm, seeming afraid. They asked what was to happen now-what Checco would do? Some suggested that the town should be offered to the Pope; others talked of Lodovico Sforza and the vengeance he would brin
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