Page:Valperga (1823) Shelley Vol 2.djvu/151

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Ch. VII.]
VALPERGA.
145

CHAPTER VII.

Castruccio exiles three hundred Families from Lucca — Visits at Valperga — His Character further developed.

During his absence Castruccio had reduced in his own mind his various political plans to a system. He no longer varied either in the end which he desired to attain, or the means by which he resolved to accomplish it. He thought coolly on the obstacles in his way; and he resolved to remove them. His end was the conquest of Tuscany; his means, the enslaving of his native town; and, with the true disposition of a conqueror and an usurper, he began to count heads to be removed, and hands to be used, in the furtherance of his designs. He had no sooner returned to Florence, than messengers brought him intelligence of a plot, which would speedily break out in Lucca to deprive him of his govern-

VOL. II.
H