Passages from the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete. Nathaniel Hawthorne
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to another, till we found ourselves right at the feet of the Archangel Michael. He has stood there in bronze for I know not how many hundred years, in the act of sheathing a (now) rusty sword, such being the attitude in which he appeared to one of the popes in a vision, in token that a pestilence which was then desolating Rome was to be stayed.
There is a fine view from the lofty station over Rome and the whole adjacent country, and the abbe pointed out the site of Ardea, of Corioli, of Veii, and other places renowned in story. We were ushered, too, into the French commandant's quarters in the castle. There is a large hall, ornamented with frescos, and accessible from this a drawing-room, comfortably fitted up, and where we saw modern furniture, and a chess-board, and a fire burning clear, and other symptoms that the place had perhaps just been vacated by civilized and kindly people. But in one corner of the ceiling the abbe pointed out a ring, by which, in the times of mediaeval anarchy, when popes, cardinals, and barons were all by the ears together, a cardinal was hanged. It was not an assassination, but a legal punishment, and he was executed in the best apartment of the castle as an act of grace.
The fortress is a straight-lined structure on the summit of the immense round tower of Hadrian's tomb; and to make out the idea of it we must throw in drawbridges, esplanades, piles of ancient marble balls for cannon; battlements and embrasures, lying high in the breeze and sunshine, and opening views round the whole horizon; accommodation for the soldiers; and many small beds in a large room.
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