water was drawn from the well at the palace was designed by him), but
this very ingenuity was the beginning of his difficulties. During a long
siege, he invented a machine for casting large stones against the walls,
or rather put it together from the fragmentary descriptions he had seen
in authors, whose works had almost perished before the dispersion of the
ancients; for he, too, had been studious in youth.

The old Prince was highly pleased with this engine, which promised him
speedy conquest over his enemies, and the destruction of their
strongholds. But the nobles who had the hereditary command of the siege
artillery, which consisted mainly of battering-rams, could not endure to
see their prestige vanishing. They caballed, traduced the Baron, and he
fell into disgrace. This disgrace, as he was assured by secret messages
from the Prince, was but policy; he would be recalled so soon as the
Prince felt himself able to withstand the pressure of the nobles. But it
happened that the old Prince died at that juncture, and the present
Prince succeeded.

The enemies of the Baron, having access to him, obtained his confidence;
the Baron was arrested and amerced in a heavy fine, the payment of which
laid the foundation of those debts which had since been constantly
increasing. He was then released, but was not for some two years
permitted to approach the Court. Meantime, men of not half his descent,
but with an unblushing brow and unctuous tongue, had become the
favourites at the palace of the Prince, who, as said before, was not
bad, but the mere puppet of circumstances.

Into competition with these vulgar flatterers Aquila could not enter. It
was indeed pride, and nothing but pride, that had kept him from the
palace. By slow degrees he had sunk out of sight, occupying himself more