Rienzi

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Rienzi


Adrian, reluctantly reminded of his journey, rose to depart.

"I fear," said he to Adeline, "that I have already detained you too late
in the night air: but selfishness is little considerate."

"Nay, you see we are prudent," said Adeline, pointing to Montreal's
mantle, which his provident hand had long since drawn around her form;
"but if you must part, farewell, and success attend you!"

"We may meet again, I trust," said Adrian.

Adeline sighed gently; and the Colonna, gazing on her face by the
moonlight, to which it was slightly raised, was painfully struck by its
almost transparent delicacy. Moved by his compassion, ere he mounted
his steed, he drew Montreal aside,--"Forgive me if I seem presumptuous,"
said he; "but to one so noble this wild life is scarce a fitting career.
I know that, in our time, War consecrates all his children; but surely
a settled rank in the court of the Emperor, or an honourable
reconciliation with your knightly brethren, were better--"

"Than a Tartar camp, and a brigand's castle," interrupted Montreal, with
some impatience. "This you were about to say--you are mistaken. Society
thrust me from her bosom; let society take the fruit it hath sown. 'A
fixed rank,' say you? some subaltern office, to fight at other men's
command! You know me not: Walter de Montreal was not formed to obey.
War when I will, and rest when I list, is the motto of my escutcheon.
Ambition proffers me rewards you wot not of; and I am of the mould as
of the race of those whose swords have conquered thrones. For the rest,
your news of the alliance of Louis of Hungary with your Tribune makes it
necessary for the friend of Louis to withdraw from all feud with Rome.
Ere the week expire, the owl and the bat may seek refuge in yon grey
turrets."

"But your lady?"

"Is inured to change.--God help her, and temper the rough wind to the
lamb!"

"Enough, Sir Knight: but should you desire a sure refuge at Rome for one
so gentle and so highborn, by the right hand of a knight, I promise a
safe roof and an honoured home to the Lady Adeline."

Montreal pressed the offered hand to his heart; then plucking his own
hastily away, drew it across his eyes, and joined Adeline, in a silence
that showed he dared not trust himself to speak. In a few moments Adrian
and his train were on the march; but still the young Colonna turned
back, to gaze once more on his wild host and that lovely lady, as
they themselves lingered on the moonlit sward, while the sea rippled
mournfully on their ears.

It was not many months after that date, that the name of Fra Monreale
scattered terror and dismay throughout the fair Campania. The right
hand of the Hungarian king, in his invasion of Naples, he was chosen
afterwards vicar (or vice-gerent) of Louis in Aversa; and fame and fate
seemed to lead him triumphantly along that ambitious career which he had
elected, whether bounded by the scaffold or the throne.




BOOK IV. THE TRIUMPH AND THE POMP.

"Allora fama e paura di si buono reggimento, passa in ogni
terra."--"Vita di Cola di Rienzi", lib. i. cap. 21.

"Then the fame and the fear of that so good government
passed into every land."--"Life of Cola di Rienzi".



Chapter 4.I. The Boy Angelo--the Dream of Nina Fulfilled.

The thread of my story transports us back to Rome. It was in a small
chamber, in a ruinous mansion by the base of Mount Aventine, that a
young boy sate, one evening, with a woman of a tall and stately form,
but somewhat bowed both by infirmity and years. The boy was of a fair
and comely presence; and there was that in his bold, frank, undaunted
carriage, which made him appear older than he was.

The old woman, seated in the recess of the deep window, was apparently
occupied with a Bible that lay open on her knees; but ever and anon she
lifted her eyes, and gazed on her young companion with a sad and anxious
expression.

"Dame," said the boy, who was busily employed in hewing out a sword of
wood, "I would you had seen the show today. Why, every day is a show
at Rome now! It is show enough to see the Tribune himself on his white
steed--(oh, it is so beautiful!)--with his white robes all studded with
jewels. But today, as I have just been telling you, the Lady Nina took
notice of me, as I stood on the stairs of the Capitol: you know, dame, I
had donned my best blue velvet doublet."

"And she called you a fair boy, and asked if you would be her little
page; and this has turned thy brain, silly urchin that thou art--"

"But the words are the least: if you saw the Lady Nina, you would own
that a smile from her might turn the wisest head in Italy. Oh, how I
should like to serve the Tribune! All the lads of my age are mad for
him. How they will stare, and envy me at school tomorrow! You know too,
dame, that though I was not always brought up at Rome, I am Roman. Every
Roman loves Rienzi."

"Ay, for the hour: the cry will soon change. This vanity of thine,
Angelo, vexes my old heart. I would thou wert humbler."

"Bastards have their own name to win," said the boy, colouring deeply.
"They twit me in the teeth, because I cannot say who my father and
mother were."

"They need not," returned the dame, hastily. "Thou comest of noble blood
and long descent, though, as I have told thee often, I know not the
exact names of thy parents. But what art thou shaping that tough sapling
of oak into?"

"A sword, dame, to assist the Tribune against the robbers."

"Alas! I fear me, like all those who seek power in Italy, he is more
likely to enlist robbers than to assail them."

"Why, la you there, you live so shut up, that you know and hear nothing,
or you would have learned that even that fiercest of all the robbers,
Fra Moreale, has at length yielded to the Tribune, and fled from his
castle, like a rat from a falling house."

"How, how!" cried the dame; "what say you? Has this plebeian, whom you
call the Tribune--has he boldly thrown the gage to that dread warrior?
and has Montreal left the Roman territory?"

"Ay, it is the talk of the town. But Fra Moreale seems as much a bugbear
to you as to e'er a mother in Rome. Did he ever wrong you, dame?"

"Yes!" exclaimed the old woman, with so abrupt a fierceness, that even
that hardy boy was startled.

"I wish I could meet him, then," said he, after a pause, as he
flourished his mimic weapon.

"Now Heaven forbid! He is a man ever to be shunned by thee, whether for
peace or war. Say again this good Tribune holds no terms with the Free
Lances."

"Say it again--why all Rome knows it."

"He is pious, too, I have heard; and they do bruit it that he sees
visions, and is comforted from above," said the woman, speaking to
herself. Then turning to Angelo, she continued,--"Thou wouldst like
greatly to accept the Lady Nina's proffer?"

"Ah, that I should, dame, if you could spare me."

"Child," replied the matron, solemnly, "my sand is nearly run, and my
wish is to see thee placed with one who will nurture thy young years,
and save thee from a life of licence. That done, I may fulfil my vow,
and devote the desolate remnant of my years to God. I will think more
of this, my child. Not under such a plebeian's roof shouldst thou have
lodged, nor from a stranger's board been fed: but at Rome, my last
relative worthy of the trust is dead;--and at the worst, obscure honesty
is better than gaudy crime. Thy spirit troubles me already. Back, my
child; I must to my closet, and watch and pray."

Thus saying, the old woman, repelling the advance, and silencing the
muttered and confused words, of the boy--half affectionate as they were,
yet half tetchy and wayward--glided from the chamber.

The boy looked abstractedly at the closing door, and then said to
himself--"The dame is always talking riddles: I wonder if she know more
of me than she tells, or if she is any way akin to me. I hope not, for
I don't love her much; nor, for that matter, anything else. I wish she
would place me with the Tribune's lady, and then we'll see who among the
lads will call Angelo Villani bastard."

With that the boy fell to work again at his sword with redoubled vigour.
In fact, the cold manner of this female, his sole nurse, companion,
substitute for parent, had repelled his affections without subduing his
temper; and though not originally of evil disposition, Angelo Villani
was already insolent, cunning, and revengeful; but not, on the other
hand, without a quick susceptibility to kindness as to affront, a
natural acuteness of understanding, and a great indifference to fear.
Brought up in quiet affluence rather than luxury, and living much with
his protector, whom he knew but by the name of Ursula, his bearing was
graceful, and his air that of the well-born. And it was his carriage,
perhaps, rather than his countenance, which, though handsome, was more
distinguished for intelligence than beauty, which had attracted the
notice of the Tribune's bride. His education was that of one reared for
some scholastic profession. He was not only taught to read and write,
but had been even instructed in the rudiments of Latin. He did not,
however, incline to these studies half so fondly as to the games of his
companions, or the shows or riots in the street, into all of which
he managed to thrust himself, and from which he had always the happy
dexterity to return safe and unscathed.

The next morning Ursula entered the young Angelo's chamber. "Wear again
thy blue doublet today," said she; "I would have thee look thy best.
Thou shalt go with me to the palace."

"What, today?" cried the boy joyfully, half leaping from his bed.
"Dear dame Ursula, shall I really then belong to the train of the great
Tribune's lady?"

"Yes; and leave the old woman to die alone! Your joy becomes you,--but
ingratitude is in your blood. Ingratitude! Oh, it has burned my heart
into ashes--and yours, boy, can no longer find a fuel in the dry
crumbling cinders."

"Dear dame, you are always so biting. You know you said you wished to
retire into a convent, and I was too troublesome a charge for you. But
you delight in rebuking me, justly or unjustly."

"My task is over," said Ursula, with a deep-drawn sigh.

The boy answered not; and the old woman retired with a heavy step,
and, it may be, a heavier heart. When he joined her in their common
apartment, he observed what his joy had previously blinded him to--that
Ursula did not wear her usual plain and sober dress. The gold chain,
rarely assumed then by women not of noble birth--though, in the
other sex, affected also by public functionaries and wealthy
merchants--glittered upon a robe of the rich flowered stuffs of Venice,
and the clasps that confined the vest at the throat and waist were
adorned with jewels of no common price.

Angelo's eye was struck by the change, but he felt a more manly pride in
remarking that the old lady became it well. Her air and mien were indeed
those of one to whom such garments were habitual; and they seemed that
day more than usually austere and stately.

She smoothed the boy's ringlets, drew his short mantle more gracefully
over his shoulder, and then placed in his belt a poniard whose handle
was richly studded, and a purse well filled with florins.

"Learn to use both discreetly," said she; "and, whether I live or die,
you will never require to wield the poniard to procure the gold."

"This, then," cried Angelo, enchanted, "is a real poniard to fight the
robbers with! Ah, with this I should not fear Fra Moreale, who wronged
thee so. I trust I may yet avenge thee, though thou didst rate me so
just now for ingratitude."

"I am avenged. Nourish not such thoughts, my son, they are sinful;
at least I fear so. Draw to the board and eat; we will go betimes, as
petitioners should do."

Angelo had soon finished his morning meal, and sallying with Ursula to
the porch, he saw, to his surprise, four of those servitors who then
usually attended persons of distinction, and who were to be hired in
every city, for the convenience of strangers or the holyday ostentation
of the gayer citizens.

"How grand we are today!" said he, clapping his hands with an eagerness
which Ursula failed not to reprove.

"It is not for vain show," she added, "which true nobility can well
dispense with, but that we may the more readily gain admittance to the
palace. These princes of yesterday are not easy of audience to the over
humble."

"Oh! but you are wrong this time," said the boy. "The Tribune gives
audience to all men, the poorest as the richest. Nay, there is not a
ragged boor, or a bare-footed friar, who does not win access to him
sooner than the proudest baron. That's why the people love him so.
And he devotes one day of the week to receiving the widows and the
orphans;--and you know, dame, I am an orphan."

Ursula, already occupied with her own thoughts, did not answer, and
scarcely heard, the boy; but leaning on his young arm, and preceded by
the footmen to clear the way, passed slowly towards the palace of the
Capitol.

A wonderful thing would it have been to a more observant eye, to note
the change which two or three short months of the stern but salutary
and wise rule of the Tribune had effected in the streets of Rome. You
no longer beheld the gaunt and mail-clad forms of foreign mercenaries
stalking through the vistas, or grouped in lazy insolence before
the embattled porches of some gloomy palace. The shops, that in many
quarters had been closed for years, were again open, glittering with
wares and bustling with trade. The thoroughfares, formerly either silent
as death, or crossed by some affrighted and solitary passenger with
quick steps, and eyes that searched every corner,--or resounding with
the roar of a pauper rabble, or the open feuds of savage nobles, now
exhibited the regular, and wholesome, and mingled streams of civilized
life, whether bound to pleasure or to commerce. Carts and waggons laden
with goods which had passed in safety by the dismantled holds of the
robbers of the Campagna, rattled cheerfully over the pathways. "Never,
perhaps,"--to use the translation adapted from the Italian authorities,
by a modern and by no means a partial historian (Gibbon.)--"Never,
perhaps, has the energy and effect of a single mind been more remarkably
felt than in the sudden reformation of Rome by the Tribune Rienzi. A
den of robbers was converted to the discipline of a camp or convent. 'In
this time,' says the historian, ("Vita di Cola di Rienzi", lib. i. c.
9.) 'did the woods begin to rejoice that they were no longer infested
with robbers; the oxen began to plough; the pilgrims visited the
sanctuaries; (Gibbon: the words in the original are "li pellegrini
cominciaro a fere la cerca per la santuaria.") the roads and inns
were replenished with travellers: trade, plenty, and good faith, were
restored in the markets; and a purse of gold might be exposed without
danger in the midst of the highways.'"

Amidst all these evidences of comfort and security to the people--some
dark and discontented countenances might be seen mingled in the crowd,
and whenever one who wore the livery of the Colonna or the Orsini felt
himself jostled by the throng, a fierce hand moved involuntarily to the
sword-belt, and a half-suppressed oath was ended with an indignant
sigh. Here and there too,--contrasting the redecorated, refurnished, and
smiling shops--heaps of rubbish before the gate of some haughty mansion
testified the abasement of fortifications which the owner impotently
resented as a sacrilege. Through such streets and such throngs did the
party we accompany wend their way, till they found themselves amidst
crowds assembled before the entrance of the Capitol. The officers there
stationed kept, however, so discreet and dexterous an order, that they
were not long detained; and now in the broad place or court of that
memorable building, they saw the open doors of the great justice-hall,
guarded but by a single sentinel, and in which, for six hours daily,
did the Tribune hold his court, for "patient to hear, swift to redress,
inexorable to punish, his tribunal was always accessible to the poor and
stranger." (Gibbon.)

Not, however, to that hall did the party bend its way, but to the
entrance which admitted to the private apartments of the palace. And
here the pomp, the gaud, the more than regal magnificence, of the
residence of the Tribune, strongly contrasted the patriarchal simplicity
which marked his justice court.

Even Ursula, not unaccustomed, of yore, to the luxurious state of
Italian and French principalities, seemed roused into surprise at the
hall crowded with retainers in costly liveries, the marble and gilded
columns wreathed with flowers, and the gorgeous banners wrought with the
blended arms of the Republican City and the Pontifical See, which blazed
aloft and around.

Scarce knowing whom to address in such an assemblage, Ursula was
relieved from her perplexity by an officer attired in a suit of crimson
and gold, who, with a grave and formal decorum, which indeed reigned
throughout the whole retinue, demanded, respectfully, whom she sought?
"The Signora Nina!" replied Ursula, drawing up her stately person, with
a natural, though somewhat antiquated, dignity. There was something
foreign in the accent, which influenced the officer's answer.

"Today, madam, I fear that the Signora receives only the Roman ladies.
Tomorrow is that appointed for all foreign dames of distinction."

Ursula, with a slight impatience of tone, replied--"My business is of
that nature which is welcome on any day, at palaces. I come, Signor, to
lay certain presents at the Signora's feet, which I trust she will deign
to accept."

"And say, Signor," added the boy, abruptly, "that Angelo Villani, whom
the Lady Nina honoured yesterday with her notice, is no stranger but a
Roman; and comes, as she bade him, to proffer to the Signora his homage
and devotion."

The grave officer could not refrain a smile at the pert, yet not
ungraceful, boldness of the boy.

"I remember me, Master Angelo Villani," he replied, "that the Lady
Nina spoke to you by the great staircase. Madam, I will do your errand.
Please to follow me to an apartment more fitting your sex and seeming."

With that the officer led the way across the hall to a broad staircase
of white marble, along the centre of which were laid those rich Eastern
carpets which at that day, when rushes strewed the chambers of an
English monarch, were already common to the greater luxury of Italian
palaces. Opening a door at the first flight, he ushered Ursula and
her young charge into a lofty ante-chamber, hung with arras of wrought
velvets; while over the opposite door, through which the officer now
vanished, were blazoned the armorial bearings which the Tribune so
constantly introduced in all his pomp, not more from the love of show,
than from his politic desire to mingle with the keys of the Pontiff the
heraldic insignia of the Republic.

"Philip of Valois is not housed like this man!" muttered Ursula. "If
this last, I shall have done better for my charge than I recked of."

The officer soon returned, and led them across an apartment of vast
extent, which was indeed the great reception chamber of the palace.
Four-and-twenty columns of the Oriental alabaster which had attested the
spoils of the later emperors, and had been disinterred from forgotten
ruins, to grace the palace of the Reviver of the old Republic, supported
the light roof, which, half Gothic, half classic, in its architecture,
was inlaid with gilded and purple mosaics. The tesselated floor was
covered in the centre with cloth of gold, the walls were clothed, at
intervals, with the same gorgeous hangings, relieved by panels freshly
painted in the most glowing colours, with mystic and symbolical designs.
At the upper end of this royal chamber, two steps ascended to the place
of the Tribune's throne, above which was the canopy wrought with the
eternal armorial bearings of the Pontiff and the City.

Traversing this apartment, the officer opened the door at its extremity,
which admitted to a small chamber, crowded with pages in rich dresses of
silver and blue velvet. There were few amongst them elder than Angelo;
and, from their general beauty, they seemed the very flower and blossom
of the city.

Short time had Angelo to gaze on his comrades that were to be:--another
minute, and he and his protectress were in the presence of the Tribune's
bride.

The chamber was not large--but it was large enough to prove that the
beautiful daughter of Raselli had realised her visions of vanity and
splendour.

It was an apartment that mocked description--it seemed a cabinet for the
gems of the world. The daylight, shaded by high and deep-set casements
of stained glass, streamed in a purple and mellow hue over all that the
art of that day boasted most precious, or regal luxury held most dear.
The candelabras of the silver workmanship of Florence; the carpets and
stuffs of the East; the draperies of Venice and Genoa; paintings like
the illuminated missals, wrought in gold, and those lost colours of blue
and crimson; antique marbles, which spoke of the bright days of Athens;
tables of disinterred mosaics, their freshness preserved as by magic;
censers of gold that steamed with the odours of Araby, yet so subdued
as not to deaden the healthier scent of flowers, which blushed in every
corner from their marble and alabaster vases; a small and spirit-like
fountain, which seemed to gush from among wreaths of roses, diffusing
in its diamond and fairy spray, a scarce felt coolness to the air;--all
these, and such as these, which it were vain work to detail, congregated
in the richest luxuriance, harmonised with the most exquisite taste,
uniting the ancient arts with the modern, amazed and intoxicated the
sense of the beholder. It was not so much the cost, nor the luxury, that
made the character of the chamber; it was a certain gorgeous and almost
sublime phantasy,--so that it seemed rather the fabled retreat of
an enchantress, at whose word genii ransacked the earth, and fairies
arranged the produce, than the grosser splendour of an earthly queen.
Behind the piled cushions upon which Nina half reclined, stood four
girls, beautiful as nymphs, with fans of the rarest feathers, and at
her feet lay one older than the rest, whose lute, though now silent,
attested her legitimate occupation.

But, had the room in itself seemed somewhat too fantastic and
overcharged in its prodigal ornaments, the form and face of Nina would
at once have rendered all appropriate; so completely did she seem the
natural Spirit of the Place; so wonderfully did her beauty, elated as it
now was with contented love, gratified vanity, exultant hope, body forth
the brightest vision that ever floated before the eyes of Tasso, when
he wrought into one immortal shape the glory of the Enchantress with the
allurements of the Woman.

Nina half rose as she saw Ursula, whose sedate and mournful features
involuntarily testified her surprise and admiration at a loveliness
so rare and striking, but who, undazzled by the splendour around, soon
recovered her wonted self-composure, and seated herself on the cushion
to which Nina pointed, while the young visitor remained standing, and
spell-bound by childish wonder, in the centre of the apartment. Nina
recognised him with a smile.

"Ah, my pretty boy, whose quick eye and bold air caught my fancy
yesterday! Have you come to accept my offer? Is it you, madam, who claim
this fair child?"

"Lady," replied Ursula, "my business here is brief: by a train of
events, needless to weary you with narrating, this boy from his infancy
fell to my charge--a weighty and anxious trust to one whose thoughts
are beyond the barrier of life. I have reared him as became a youth of
gentle blood; for on both sides, lady, he is noble, though an orphan,
motherless and sireless."

"Poor child!" said Nina, compassionately.

"Growing now," continued Ursula, "oppressed by years, and desirous only
to make my peace with Heaven, I journeyed hither some months since, in
the design to place the boy with a relation of mine; and, that trust
fulfilled, to take the vows in the City of the Apostle. Alas! I found my
kinsman dead, and a baron of wild and dissolute character was his heir.
Here remaining, perplexed and anxious, it seemed to me the voice of
Providence when, yester-evening, the child told me you had been pleased
to honour him with your notice. Like the rest of Rome, he has already
learned enthusiasm for the Tribune--devotion to the Tribune's bride.
Will you, in truth, admit him of your household? He will not dishonour
your protection by his blood, nor, I trust, by his bearing."

"I would take his face for his guarantee, madam, even without so
distinguished a recommendation as your own. Is he Roman? His name then
must be known to me."

"Pardon me, lady," replied Ursula: "He bears the name of Angelo
Villani--not that of his sire or mother. The honour of a noble house for
ever condemns his parentage to rest unknown. He is the offspring of a
love unsanctioned by the church."