Rienzi

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Rienzi


At length, as Adrian and Montreal seated themselves at a little distance
from Raimond, the bell suddenly ceased--the murmurs of the people were
stilled--the purple curtain was withdrawn, and Rienzi came forth with
slow and majestic steps. He came--but not in his usual sombre and plain
attire. Over his broad breast he wore a vest of dazzling whiteness--a
long robe, in the ample fashion of the toga, descended to his feet
and swept the floor. On his head he wore a fold of white cloth, in the
centre of which shone a golden crown. But the crown was divided, or
cloven, as it were, by the mystic ornament of a silver sword, which,
attracting the universal attention, testified at once that this strange
garb was worn, not from the vanity of display, but for the sake of
presenting to the concourse--in the person of the citizen--a type and
emblem of that state of the city on which he was about to descant.

"Faith," whispered one of the old nobles to his neighbour, "the plebeian
assumes it bravely."

"It will be rare sport," said a second. "I trust the good man will put
some jests in his discourse."

"What showman's tricks are these?" said a third.

"He is certainly crazed!" said a fourth.

"How handsome he is!" said the women, mixed with the populace.

"This is a man who has learned the people by heart," observed Montreal
to Adrian. "He knows he must speak to the eye, in order to win the mind:
a knave,--a wise knave!"

And now Rienzi had ascended the scaffold; and as he looked long and
steadfastly around the meeting, the high and thoughtful repose of
his majestic countenance, its deep and solemn gravity, hushed all the
murmurs, and made its effect equally felt by the sneering nobles as the
impatient populace.

"Signors of Rome," said he, at length, "and ye, friends, and citizens,
you have heard why we are met together this day; and you, my Lord
Bishop of Orvietto,--and ye, fellow labourers with me in the field of
letters,--ye, too, are aware that it is upon some matter relative to
that ancient Rome, the rise and the decline of whose past power and
glories we have spent our youth in endeavouring to comprehend. But
this, believe me, is no vain enigma of erudition, useful but to the
studious,--referring but to the dead. Let the Past perish!--let darkness
shroud it!--let it sleep for ever over the crumbling temples and
desolate tombs of its forgotten sons,--if it cannot afford us, from
its disburied secrets, a guide for the Present and the Future. What, my
Lords, ye have thought that it was for the sake of antiquity alone that
we have wasted our nights and days in studying what antiquity can teach
us! You are mistaken; it is nothing to know what we have been, unless it
is with the desire of knowing that which we ought to be. Our ancestors
are mere dust and ashes, save when they speak to our posterity; and then
their voices resound, not from the earth below, but the heaven above.
There is an eloquence in Memory, because it is the nurse of Hope.
There is a sanctity in the Past, but only because of the chronicles it
retains,--chronicles of the progress of mankind,--stepping-stones in
civilisation, in liberty, and in knowledge. Our fathers forbid us to
recede,--they teach us what is our rightful heritage,--they bid us
reclaim, they bid us augment, that heritage,--preserve their virtues,
and avoid their errors. These are the true uses of the Past. Like the
sacred edifice in which we are,--it is a tomb upon which to rear a
temple. I see that you marvel at this long beginning; ye look to each
other--ye ask to what it tends. Behold this broad plate of iron; upon it
is graven an inscription but lately disinterred from the heaps of stone
and ruin, which--O shame to Rome!--were once the palaces of empire, and
the arches of triumphant power. The device in the centre of the table,
which you behold, conveys the act of the Roman Senators,--who are
conferring upon Vespasian the imperial authority. It is this inscription
which I have invited you to hear read! It specifies the very terms and
limits of the authority thus conferred. To the Emperor was
confided the power of making laws and alliances with whatsoever
nation,--of increasing, or of diminishing the limits of towns and
districts,--of--mark this, my Lords!--exalting men to the rank of dukes
and kings,--ay, and of deposing and degrading them;--of making cities,
and of unmaking: in short, of all the attributes of imperial power.
Yes, to that Emperor was confided this vast authority; but, by whom?
Heed--listen, I pray you--let not a word be lost;--by whom, I say? By
the Roman Senate! What was the Roman Senate? The Representative of the
Roman People!"

"I knew he would come to that!" said the smith, who stood at the door
with his fellows, but to whose ear, clear and distinct, rolled the
silver voice of Rienzi.

"Brave fellow! and this, too, in the hearing of the Lords!"

"Ay, you see what the people were! and we should never have known this
but for him."

"Peace, fellows;" said the officer to those of the crowd, from whom came
these whispered sentences.

Rienzi continued.--"Yes, it is the people who intrusted this power--to
the people, therefore, it belongs! Did the haughty Emperor arrogate the
crown? Could he assume the authority of himself? Was it born with
him? Did he derive it, my Lord Barons, from the possession of towered
castles--of lofty lineage? No! all-powerful as he was, he had no right
to one atom of that power, save from the voice and trust of the Roman
people. Such, O my countrymen! such was even that day, when Liberty
was but the shadow of her former self,--such was the acknowledged
prerogative of your fathers! All power was the gift of the people. What
have ye to give now? Who, who, I say,--what single person, what petty
chief, asks you for the authority he assumes? His senate is his
sword; his chart of license is written, not with ink, but blood. The
people!--there is no people! Oh! would to God that we might disentomb
the spirit of the Past as easily as her records!"

"If I were your kinsman," whispered Montreal to Adrian, "I would give
this man short breathing-time between his peroration and confession."

"What is your Emperor?" continued Rienzi; "a stranger! What the great
head of your Church?--an exile! Ye are without your lawful chiefs; and
why? Because ye are not without your law-defying tyrants! The licence
of your nobles, their discords, their dissensions, have driven our Holy
Father from the heritage of St. Peter;--they have bathed your streets in
your own blood; they have wasted the wealth of your labours on private
quarrels and the maintenance of hireling ruffians! Your forces are
exhausted against yourselves. You have made a mockery of your country,
once the mistress of the world. You have steeped her lips in gall--ye
have set a crown of thorns upon her head! What, my Lords!" cried he,
turning sharply round towards the Savelli and Orsini, who, endeavouring
to shake off the thrill which the fiery eloquence of Rienzi had stricken
to their hearts, now, by contemptuous gestures and scornful smiles,
testified the displeasure they did not dare loudly to utter in the
presence of the Vicar and the people.--"What! even while I speak--not
the sanctity of this place restrains you! I am an humble man--a citizen
of Rome;--but I have this distinction: I have raised against myself
many foes and scoffers for that which I have done for Rome. I am hated,
because I love my country; I am despised, because I would exalt her. I
retaliate--I shall be avenged. Three traitors in your own palaces shall
betray you: their names are--Luxury, Envy, and Dissension!"

"There he had them on the hip!"

"Ha, ha! by the Holy Cross, that was good!"

"I would go to the hangman for such another keen stroke as that!"

"It is a shame if we are cowards, when one man is thus brave," said the
smith.

"This is the man we have always wanted!"

"Silence!" proclaimed the officer.

"O Romans!" resumed Rienzi, passionately--"awake! I conjure you! Let
this memorial of your former power--your ancient liberties--sink deep
into your souls. In a propitious hour, if ye seize it,--in an evil one,
if ye suffer the golden opportunity to escape,--has this record of the
past been unfolded to your eyes. Recollect that the Jubilee approaches."

The Bishop of Orvietto smiled, and bowed approvingly; the people, the
citizens, the inferior nobles, noted well those signs of encouragement;
and, to their minds, the Pope himself, in the person of his Vicar,
looked benignly on the daring of Rienzi.

"The Jubilee approaches,--the eyes of all Christendom will be directed
hither. Here, where, from all quarters of the globe, men come for peace,
shall they find discord?--seeking absolution, shall they perceive
but crime? In the centre of God's dominion, shall they weep at your
weakness?--in the seat of the martyred saints, shall they shudder at
your vices?--in the fountain and source of Christ's law, shall they
find all law unknown? You were the glory of the world--will you be its
by-word? You were its example--will you be its warning? Rise, while it
is yet time!--clear your roads from the bandits that infest them!--your
walls from the hirelings that they harbour! Banish these civil discords,
or the men--how proud, how great, soever--who maintain them! Pluck
the scales from the hand of Fraud!--the sword from the hand of
Violence!--the balance and the sword are the ancient attributes of
Justice!--restore them to her again! This be your high task,--these be
your great ends! Deem any man who opposes them a traitor to his country.
Gain a victory greater than those of the Caesars--a victory over
yourselves! Let the pilgrims of the world behold the resurrection of
Rome! Make one epoch of the Jubilee of Religion and the Restoration of
Law! Lay the sacrifice of your vanquished passions--the first-fruits of
your renovated liberties--upon the very altar that these walls contain!
and never! oh, never! since the world began, shall men have made a more
grateful offering to their God!"

So intense was the sensation these words created in the audience--so
breathless and overpowered did they leave the souls with they took by
storm--that Rienzi had descended the scaffold, and already disappeared
behind the curtain from which he had emerged, ere the crowd were fully
aware that he had ceased.

The singularity of this sudden apparition--robed in mysterious
splendour, and vanishing the moment its errand was fulfilled--gave
additional effect to the words it had uttered. The whole character of
that bold address became invested with a something preternatural and
inspired; to the minds of the vulgar, the mortal was converted into the
oracle; and, marvelling at the unhesitating courage with which their
idol had rebuked and conjured the haughty barons,--each of whom they
regarded in the light of sanctioned executioners, whose anger could be
made manifest at once by the gibbet or the axe,--the people could not
but superstitiously imagine that nothing less than authority from above
could have gifted their leader with such hardihood, and preserved him
from the danger it incurred. In fact, it was in this very courage of
Rienzi that his safety consisted; he was placed in those circumstances
where audacity is prudence. Had he been less bold, the nobles would have
been more severe; but so great a license of speech in an officer of the
Holy See, they naturally imagined, was not unauthorised by the assent of
the Pope, as well as by the approbation of the people. Those who did not
(like Stephen Colonna) despise words as wind, shrank back from the task
of punishing one whose voice might be the mere echo of the wishes of the
pontiff. The dissensions of the nobles among each other, were no less
favourable to Rienzi. He attacked a body, the members of which had no
union.

"It is not my duty to slay him!" said one.

"I am not the representative of the barons!" said another.

"If Stephen Colonna heeds him not, it would be absurd, as well as
dangerous, in a meaner man to make himself the champion of the order!"
said a third.

The Colonna smiled approval, when Rienzi denounced an Orsini--an Orsini
laughed aloud, when the eloquence burst over a Colonna. The lesser
nobles were well pleased to hear attacks upon both: while, on the other
hand, the Bishop, by the long impunity of Rienzi, had taken courage
to sanction the conduct of his fellow-officer. He affected, indeed, at
times, to blame the excess of his fervour, but it was always accompanied
by the praises of his honesty; and the approbation of the Pope's Vicar
confirmed the impression of the nobles as to the approbation of the
Pope. Thus, from the very rashness of his enthusiasm had grown his
security and success.

Still, however, when the barons had a little recovered from the stupor
into which Rienzi had cast them, they looked round to each other; and
their looks confessed their sense of the insolence of the orator, and
the affront offered to themselves.

"Per fede!" quoth Reginaldo di Orsini, "this is past bearing,--the
plebeian has gone too far!"

"Look at the populace below! how they murmur and gape,--and how their
eyes sparkle--and what looks they bend at us!" said Luca di Savelli to
his mortal enemy, Castruccio Malatesta: the sense of a common danger
united in one moment, but only for a moment, the enmity of years.

"Diavolo!" muttered Raselli (Nina's father) to a baron, equally poor,
"but the clerk has truth in his lips. 'Tis a pity he is not noble."

"What a clever brain marred!" said a Florentine merchant. "That man
might be something, if he were sufficiently rich."

Adrian and Montreal were silent: the first seemed lost in thought,--the
last was watching the various effects produced upon the audience.

"Silence!" proclaimed the officers. "Silence, for my Lord Vicar."

At this announcement, every eye turned to Raimond, who, rising with much
clerical importance, thus addressed the assembly:--

"Although, Barons and Citizens of Rome, my well-beloved flock, and
children,--I, no more than yourselves, anticipated the exact nature of
the address ye have just heard,--and, albeit, I cannot feel unalloyed
contentment at the manner, nor, I may say, at the whole matter of that
fervent exhortation--yet (laying great emphasis on the last word), I
cannot suffer you to depart without adding to the prayers of our
Holy Father's servant, those, also, of his Holiness's spiritual
representative. It is true! the Jubilee approaches! The Jubilee
approaches--and yet our roads, even to the gates of Rome, are infested
with murderous and godless ruffians! What pilgrim can venture across the
Apennines to worship at the altars of St. Peter? The Jubilee
approaches: what scandal shall it be to Rome if these shrines be without
pilgrims--if the timid recoil from, if the bold fall victims to, the
dangers of the way! Wherefore, I pray you all, citizens and chiefs
alike,--I pray you all to lay aside those unhappy dissensions which have
so long consumed the strength of our sacred city; and, uniting with each
other in the ties of amity and brotherhood, to form a blessed league
against the marauders of the road. I see amongst you, my Lords, many of
the boasts and pillars of the state; but, alas! I think with grief
and dismay on the causeless and idle hatred that has grown up between
you!--a scandal to our city, and reflecting, let me add, my Lords, no
honour on your faith as Christians, nor on your dignity as defenders of
the Church."

Amongst the inferior nobles--along the seats of the judges and the men
of letters--through the vast concourse of the people--ran a loud murmur
of approbations at these words. The greater barons looked proudly, but
not contemptuously, at the countenance of the prelate, and preserved a
strict and unrevealing silence.

"In this holy spot," continued the Bishop, "let me beseech you to bury
those fruitless animosities which have already cost enough of blood and
treasure; and let us quit these walls with one common determination to
evince our courage and display our chivalry only against our universal
foes;--those ruffians who lay waste our fields, and infest our public
ways,--the foes alike of the people we should protect, and the God whom
we should serve!"

The Bishop resumed his seat; the nobles looked at each other without
reply; the people began to whisper loudly among themselves; when, after
a short pause, Adrian di Castello rose.

"Pardon me, my Lords, and you, reverend Father, if I, inexperienced in
years and of little mark or dignity amongst you, presume to be the first
to embrace the proposal we have just heard. Willingly do I renounce all
ancient cause of enmity with any of my compeers. Fortunately for me,
my long absence from Rome has swept from my remembrance the feuds and
rivalries familiar to my early youth; and in this noble conclave I see
but one man (glancing at Martino di Porto, who sat sullenly looking
down) against whom I have, at any time, deemed it a duty to draw my
sword; the gage that I once cast to that noble is yet, I rejoice to
think, unredeemed. I withdraw it. Henceforth my only foes shall be the
foes of Rome!"

"Nobly spoken!" said the Bishop, aloud.

"And," continued Adrian, casting down his glove amongst the nobles, "I
throw, my Lords, the gage, thus resumed, amongst you all, in challenge
to a wider rivalry, and a more noble field. I invite any man to vie with
me in the zeal that he shall show to restore tranquillity to our roads,
and order to our state. It is a contest in which, if I be vanquished
with reluctance, I will yield the prize without envy. In ten days from
this time, reverend Father, I will raise forty horsemen-at-arms, ready
to obey whatever orders shall be agreed upon for the security of the
Roman state. And you, O Romans, dismiss, I pray you, from your minds,
those eloquent invectives against your fellow-citizens which ye have
lately heard. All of us, of what rank soever, may have shared in the
excesses of these unhappy times; let us endeavour, not to avenge nor to
imitate, but to reform and to unite. And may the people hereafter find,
that the true boast of a patrician is, that his power the better enables
him to serve his country."

"Brave words!" quoth the smith, sneeringly.

"If they were all like him!" said the smith's neighbour.

"He has helped the nobles out of a dilemma," said Pandulfo.

"He has shown grey wit under young hairs," said an aged Malatesta.

"You have turned the tide, but not stemmed it, noble Adrian," whispered
the ever-boding Montreal, as, amidst the murmurs of the general
approbation, the young Colonna resumed his seat.

"How mean you?" said Adrian.

"That your soft words, like all patrician conciliations, have come too
late."

Not another noble stirred, though they felt, perhaps, disposed to join
in the general feeling of amnesty, and appeared, by signs and whispers,
to applaud the speech of Adrian. They were too habituated to the
ungracefulness of an unlettered pride, to bow themselves to address
conciliating language either to the people or their foes. And Raimond,
glancing round, and not willing that their unseemly silence should be
long remarked, rose at once, to give it the best construction in his
power.

"My son, thou hast spoken as a patriot and a Christian; by the approving
silence of your peers we all feel that they share your sentiments. Break
we up the meeting--its end is obtained. The manner of our proceeding
against the leagued robbers of the road requires maturer consideration
elsewhere. This day shall be an epoch in our history."

"It shall," quoth Cecco del Vecchio, gruffly, between his teeth.

"Children, my blessing upon you all!" concluded the Vicar, spreading his
arms.

And in a few minutes more the crowd poured from the church. The
different servitors and flag-bearers ranged themselves on the steps
without, each train anxious for their master's precedence; and the
nobles, gravely collecting in small knots, in the which was no mixture
of rival blood, followed the crowd down the aisles. Soon rose again the
din, and the noise, and the wrangling, and the oaths, of the hostile
bands, as, with pain and labour, the Vicar's officers marshalled them in
"order most disorderly."

But so true were Montreal's words to Adrian, that the populace already
half forgot the young noble's generous appeal, and were only bitterly
commenting on the ungracious silence of his brother Lords. What, too, to
them was this crusade against the robbers of the road? They blamed
the good Bishop for not saying boldly to the nobles--"Ye are the first
robbers we must march against!" The popular discontents had gone far
beyond palliatives; they had arrived at that point when the people
longed less for reform than change. There are times when a revolution
cannot be warded off; it must come--come alike by resistance or
by concession. Wo to that race in which a revolution produces no
fruits!--in which the thunderbolt smites the high place, but does
not purify the air! To suffer in vain is often the lot of the
noblest individuals; but when a People suffer in vain, let them curse
themselves!



Chapter 2.IV. The Ambitious Citizen, and the Ambitious Soldier.

The Bishop of Orvietto lingered last, to confer with Rienzi, who awaited
him in the recesses of the Lateran. Raimond had the penetration not
to be seduced into believing that the late scene could effect any
reformation amongst the nobles, heal their divisions, or lead them
actively against the infestors of the Campagna. But, as he detailed to
Rienzi all that had occurred subsequent to the departure of that hero of
the scene, he concluded with saying:--

"You will perceive from this, one good result will be produced: the
first armed dissension--the first fray among the nobles--will seem like
a breach of promise; and, to the people and to the Pope, a reasonable
excuse for despairing of all amendment amongst the Barons,--an excuse
which will sanction the efforts of the first, and the approval of the
last."

"For such a fray we shall not long wait," answered Rienzi.

"I believe the prophecy," answered Raimond, smiling; "at present all
runs well. Go you with us homeward?"

"Nay, I think it better to tarry here till the crowd is entirely
dispersed; for if they were to see me, in their present excitement, they
might insist on some rash and hasty enterprise. Besides, my Lord," added
Rienzi, "with an ignorant people, however honest and enthusiastic, this
rule must be rigidly observed--stale not your presence by custom. Never
may men like me, who have no external rank, appear amongst the crowd,
save on those occasions when the mind is itself a rank."

"That is true, as you have no train," answered Raimond, thinking of his
own well-liveried menials. "Adieu, then! we shall meet soon."

"Ay, at Philippi, my Lord. Reverend Father, your blessing!"

It was some time subsequent to this conference that Rienzi quitted the
sacred edifice. As he stood on the steps of the church--now silent and
deserted--the hour that precedes the brief twilight of the South lent
its magic to the view. There he beheld the sweeping arches of the mighty
Aqueduct extending far along the scene, and backed by the distant and
purpled hills. Before--to the right--rose the gate which took its
Roman name from the Coelian Mount, at whose declivity it yet stands.
Beyond--from the height of the steps--he saw the villages scattered
through the grey Campagna, whitening in the sloped sun; and in the
furthest distance the mountain shadows began to darken over the roofs
of the ancient Tusculum, and the second Alban (The first Alba--the Alba
Longa--whose origin Fable ascribes to Ascanius, was destroyed by Tullus
Hostilius. The second Alba, or modern Albano, was erected on the plain
below the ancient town, a little before the time of Nero.) city, which
yet rises, in desolate neglect, above the vanished palaces of Pompey and
Domitian.

The Roman stood absorbed and motionless for some moments, gazing on the
scene, and inhaling the sweet balm of the mellow air. It was the soft
springtime--the season of flowers, and green leaves, and whispering
winds--the pastoral May of Italia's poets: but hushed was the voice of
song on the banks of the Tiber--the reeds gave music no more. From the
sacred Mount in which Saturn held his home, the Dryad and the Nymph, and
Italy's native Sylvan, were gone for ever. Rienzi's original nature--its
enthusiasm--its veneration for the past--its love of the beautiful and
the great--that very attachment to the graces and pomp which give so
florid a character to the harsh realities of life, and which power
afterwards too luxuriantly developed; the exuberance of thoughts
and fancies, which poured itself from his lips in so brilliant and
inexhaustible a flood--all bespoke those intellectual and imaginative
biasses, which, in calmer times, might have raised him in literature to
a more indisputable eminence than that to which action can ever lead;
and something of such consciousness crossed his spirit at that moment.