Rienzi by Edward Bulwer-lytton — Read

Girt with his soldiery, secure in his feudal hold, enchanted with the / beauty of the earth, sky, and sea around, and passionately adoring his / Adeline, Montreal for awhile forgot all his more stirring projects and / his ruder occupations. His nature was capable of great tenderness, as of / great ferocity; and his heart smote him when he looked at the fair cheek / of his lady, and saw that even his presence did not suffice to bring / back the smile and the fresh hues of old. Often he cursed that fatal / oath of his knightly order which forbade him to wed, though with one / more than his equal; and remorse embittered his happiest hours. That / gentle lady in that robber hold, severed from all she had been taught / most to prize -- mother, friends, and fair fame -- only loved her seducer / the more intensely; only the more concentrated upon one object all the / womanly and tender feelings denied every other and less sinful vent. / But she felt her shame, though she sought to conceal it, and a yet / more gnawing grief than even that of shame contributed to prey upon her / spirits and undermine her health. Yet, withal, in Montreal's presence / she was happy, even in regret; and in her declining health she had at / least a consolation in the hope to die while his love was undiminished. / Sometimes they made short excursions, for the disturbed state of the / country forbade them to wander far from the castle, through the sunny / woods, and along the glassy sea, which make the charm of that delicious / scenery; and that mixture of the savage with the tender, the wild / escort, the tent in some green glade in the woods at noon, the lute and / voice of Adeline, with the fierce soldiers grouped and listening at the / distance, might have well suited the verse of Ariosto, and harmonised / singularly with that strange, disordered, yet chivalric time, in which / the Classic South became the seat of the Northern Romance. Still, / however, Montreal maintained his secret intercourse with the Hungarian / king, and, plunged in new projects, willingly forsook for the present / all his designs on Rome. Yet deemed he that his more august ambition / was only delayed, and, bright in the more distant prospects of his / adventurous career, rose the Capitol of Rome and shone the sceptre of / the Caesars.

One day, as Montreal, with a small troop in attendance, passed on / horseback near the walls of Terracina, the gates were suddenly thrown / open, and a numerous throng issued forth, preceded by a singular figure, / whose steps they followed bareheaded and with loud blessings; a train / of monks closed the procession, chanting a hymn, of which the concluding / words were as follows: --