Rienzi

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Rienzi


"You see," said the Free Companion, pointing to these insignia, "we are
not without our different ranks in our wild city. And while we speak,
many a golden spur is speeding hitherward from the North!"

All now in the quarter they had entered was still and solemn; only afar
came the mingled hum, or the sudden shout of the pandemonium in the
rear, mellowed by distance to a not unpleasing sound. An occasional
soldier, crossing their path, stalked silently and stealthily to some
neighbouring tent, and seemed scarcely to regard their approach.

"Behold! we are before the General's pavilion," said the Free Lance.

Blazoned with purple and gold, the tent of Montreal lay a little apart
from the rest. A brooklet from the stream they had crossed murmured
gratefully on the ear, and a tall and wide-spreading beech cast its
shadow over the gorgeous canvass.

While his troop waited without, the knight was conducted at once to the
presence of the formidable adventurer.



Chapter 8.II. Adrian Once More the Guest of Montreal.

Montreal was sitting at the head of a table, surrounded by men, some
military, some civil, whom he called his councillors, and with whom
he apparently debated all his projects. These men, drawn from various
cities, were intimately acquainted with the internal affairs of the
several states to which they belonged. They could tell to a fraction
the force of a signor, the wealth of a merchant, the power of a mob. And
thus, in his lawless camp, Montreal presided, not more as a general than
a statesman. Such knowledge was invaluable to the chief of the Great
Company. It enabled him to calculate exactly the time to attack a foe,
and the sum to demand for a suppression of hostilities. He knew what
parties to deal with--where to importune--where to forbear. And it
usually happened that, by some secret intrigue, the appearance of
Montreal's banner before the walls of a city was the signal for some
sedition or some broil within. It may be that he thus also promoted an
ulterior, as well as his present, policy.

The divan were in full consultation when an officer entered, and
whispered a few words in Montreal's ear. His eyes brightened. "Admit
him," he said hastily. "Messires," he added to his councillors, rubbing
his hands, "I think our net has caught our bird. Let us see."

At this moment the drapery was lifted and the Knight admitted.

"How!" muttered Montreal, changing colour, and in evident
disappointment. "Am I to be ever thus balked?"

"Sir Walter de Montreal," said the prisoner, "I am once more your guest.
In these altered features you perhaps scarcely recognise Adrian di
Castello."

"Pardon me, noble Signor," said Montreal, rising with great courtesy;
"the mistake of my varlets disturbed my recollection for a moment.--I
rejoice once more to press a hand that has won so many laurels since
last we parted. Your renown has been grateful to my ears. Ho!" continued
the chieftain, clapping his hands, "see to the refreshment and repose
of this noble Cavalier and his attendants. Lord Adrian, I will join you
presently."

Adrian withdrew. Montreal, forgetful of his councillors, traversed his
tent with hasty strides; then summoning the officer who had admitted
Adrian, he said, "Count Landau still keeps the pass?"

"Yes, General!"

"Hie thee fast back, then--the ambuscade must tarry till nightfall. We
have trapped the wrong fox."

The officer departed, and shortly afterwards Montreal broke up the
divan. He sought Adrian, who was lodged in a tent beside his own.

"My Lord," said Montreal, "it is true that my men had orders to stop
every one on the roads towards Florence. I am at war with that city. Yet
I expected a very different prisoner from you. Need I add, that you and
your men are free?"

"I accept the courtesy, noble Montreal, as frankly as it is rendered.
May I hope hereafter to repay it? Meanwhile permit me, without any
disrespect, to say that had I learned the Grand Company was in this
direction, I should have altered my course. I had heard that your arms
were bent (somewhat to my mind more nobly) against Malatesta, the tyrant
of Rimini!"

"They were so. He was my foe; he is my tributary. We conquered him. He
paid us the price of his liberty. We marched by Asciano upon Sienna.
For sixteen thousand florins we spared that city; and we now hang like
a thunderbolt over Florence, which dared to send her puny aid to the
defence of Rimini. Our marches are forced and rapid and our camp in this
plain but just pitched."

"I hear that the Grand Company is allied with Albornoz, and that its
General is secretly the soldier of the Church. Is it so?"

"Ay--Albornoz and I understand one another," replied Montreal,
carelessly; "and not the less so that we have a mutual foe; whom both
are sworn to crush, in Visconti, the archbishop of Milan."

"Visconti! the most potent of the Italian princes. That he has justly
incurred the wrath of the Church I know--and I can readily understand
that Innocent has revoked the pardon which the intrigues of the
Archbishop purchased from Clement VI. But I do not see clearly why
Montreal should willingly provoke so dark and terrible a foe."

Montreal smiled sternly. "Know you not," he said, "the vast ambition of
that Visconti? By the Holy Sepulchre, he is precisely the enemy my soul
leaps to meet! He has a genius worthy to cope with Montreal's. I have
made myself master of his secret plans--they are gigantic! In a word,
the Archbishop designs the conquest of all Italy. His enormous wealth
purchases the corrupt--his dark sagacity ensnares the credulous--his
daring valour awes the weak. Every enemy he humbles--every ally he
enslaves. This is precisely the Prince whose progress Walter de Montreal
must arrest. For this (he said in a whisper as to himself) is precisely
the Prince who, if suffered to extend his power, will frustrate the
plans and break the force of Walter de Montreal."

Adrian was silent, and for the first time a suspicion of the real nature
of the Provencal's designs crossed his breast.

"But, noble Montreal," resumed the Colonna, "give me, if your knowledge
serves, as no doubt it does,--give me the latest tidings of my native
city. I am Roman, and Rome is ever in my thoughts."

"And well she may," replied Montreal, quickly. "Thou knowest that
Albornoz, as Legate of the Pontiff, led the army of the Church into the
Papal Territories. He took with him Cola di Rienzi. Arrived at Monte
Fiascone, crowds of Romans of all ranks hastened thither to render
homage to the Tribune. The Legate was forgotten in the popularity of
his companion. Whether or not Albornoz grew jealous--for he is proud as
Lucifer--of the respect paid to the Tribune, or whether he feared the
restoration of his power, I cannot tell. But he detained him in his
camp, and refused to yield him to all the solicitations and all the
deputations of the Romans. Artfully, however, he fulfilled one of the
real objects of Rienzi's release. Through his means he formally regained
the allegiance of Rome to the Church, and by the attraction of his
presence swelled his camp with Roman recruits. Marching to Viterbo,
Rienzi distinguished himself greatly in deeds of arms against the tyrant
("Vita di Cola di Rienzi".) John di Vico. Nay, he fought as one worthy
of belonging to the Grand Company. This increased the zeal of the
Romans; and the city disgorged half its inhabitants to attend the person
of the bold Tribune. To the entreaties of these worthy citizens (perhaps
the very men who had before shut up their darling in St. Angelo) the
crafty Legate merely replied, 'Arm against John di Vico--conquer the
tyrants of the Territory--re-establish the patrimony of St. Peter, and
Rienzi shall then be proclaimed Senator, and return to Rome.'

"These words inspired the Romans with so great a zeal, that they
willingly lent their aid to the Legate. Aquapendente, Bolzena yielded,
John di Vico was half reduced and half terrified into submission, and
Gabrielli, the tyrant of Agobbio, has since succumbed. The glory is to
the Cardinal, but the merit with Rienzi."

"And now?"

"Albornoz continued to entertain the Senator-Tribune with great
splendour and fair words, but not a word about restoring him to Rome.
Wearied with this suspense, I have learned by secret intelligence that
Rienzi has left the camp, and betaken himself with few attendants to
Florence, where he has friends, who will provide him with arms and money
to enter Rome."

"Ah then! now I guess," said Adrian, with a half smile, "for whom I was
mistaken!"

Montreal blushed slightly. "Fairly conjectured!" said he.

"Meanwhile, at Rome," continued the Provencal--"at Rome, your worthy
House, and that of the Orsini, being elected to the supreme power,
quarrelled among themselves, and could not keep the authority they had
won. Francesco Baroncelli, (This Baroncelli, who has been introduced to
the reader in a former portion of this work, is called by Matteo Villani
"a man of vile birth and little learning--he had been a Notary of the
Capitol." In the midst of the armed dissensions between the Barons,
which followed the expulsion of Rienzi, Baroncelli contrived to make
himself Master of the Capitol, and of what was considered an auxiliary
of no common importance--viz. the Great Bell, by whose alarum Rienzi
had so often summoned to arms the Roman people. Baroncelli was crowned
Tribune, clothed in a robe of gold brocade, and invested with the
crozier-sceptre of Rienzi. At first, his cruelty against the great took
the appearance of protection to the humble; but the excesses of his sons
(not exaggerated in the text), and his own brutal but bold ferocity,
soon made him execrated by the people, to whom he owed his elevation. He
had the folly to declare against the Pope; and this it really was that
mainly induced Innocent to restore, and oppose to their New Demagogue,
the former and more illustrious Tribune. Baroncelli, like Rienzi, was
excommunicated; and in his instance, also, the curse of the Church
was the immediate cause of his downfall. In attempting flight he was
massacred by the mob, December, 1353. Some, however, have maintained
that he was slain in combat with Rienzi; and others, by a confusion
of dates, have made him succeed to Rienzi on the death of the
latter.--Matteo Villani, lib. iii. cap. 78. Osservaz. Stor. di Zefirino
Re. MS. Vat. Rip. dal Bzovio, ann. 1353. N. 2.) a new demagogue, a
humble imitator of Rienzi, rose upon the ruins of the peace broken by
the nobles, obtained the title of Tribune, and carried about the very
insignia used by his predecessor. But less wise than Rienzi, he took
the antipapal party. And the Legate was thus enabled to play the papal
demagogue against the usurper. Baroncelli was a weak man, his sons
committed every excess in mimicry of the highborn tyrants of Padua and
Milan. Virgins violated and matrons dishonoured, somewhat contrasted the
solemn and majestic decorum of Rienzi's rule;--in fine, Baroncelli fell
massacred by the people. And now, if you ask what rules Rome, I answer,
'It is the hope of Rienzi.'"

"A strange man, and various fortunes. What will be the end of both!"

"Swift murder to the first, and eternal fame to the last," answered
Montreal, calmly. "Rienzi will be restored; that brave phoenix will wing
its way through storm and cloud to its own funereal pyre: I foresee, I
compassionate, I admire.--And then," added Montreal, "I look beyond!"

"But wherefore feel you so certain that, if restored, Rienzi must fall?"

"Is it not clear to every eye, save his, whom ambition blinds? How can
mortal genius, however great, rule that most depraved people by popular
means? The Barons--(you know their indomitable ferocity)--wedded to
abuse, and loathing every semblance to law; the Barons, humbled for
a moment, will watch their occasion, and rise. The people will again
desert. Or else, grown wise in one respect by experience, the new
Senator will see that popular favour has a loud voice, but a recreant
arm. He will, like the Barons, surround himself by foreign swords. A
detachment from the Grand Company will be his courtiers; they will be
his masters! To pay them the people must be taxed. Then the idol is
execrated. No Italian hand can govern these hardy demons of the north;
they will mutiny and fall away. A new demagogue will lead on the people,
and Rienzi will be the victim. Mark my prophecy!"

"And then the 'beyond' to which you look?"

"Utter prostration of Rome, for new and long ages; God makes not two
Rienzis; or," said Montreal, proudly, "the infusion of a new life into
the worn-out and diseased frame,--the foundation of a new dynasty.
Verily, when I look around me, I believe that the Ruler of nations
designs the restoration of the South by the irruptions of the North; and
that out of the old Franc and Germanic race will be built up the thrones
of the future world!"

As Montreal thus spoke, leaning on his great war-sword, with his fair
and heroic features--so different, in their frank, bold, fearless
expression, from the dark and wily intellect that characterises
the lineaments of the South--eloquent at once with enthusiasm and
thought--he might have seemed no unfitting representative of the genius
of that northern chivalry of which he spake. And Adrian half fancied
that he saw before him one of the old Gothic scourges of the Western
World.

Their conversation was here interrupted by the sound of a trumpet, and
presently an officer entering, announced the arrival of ambassadors from
Florence.

"Again you must pardon me, noble Adrian," said Montreal, "and let me
claim you as my guest at least for tonight. Here you may rest secure,
and on parting, my men shall attend you to the frontiers of whatsoever
territory you design to visit."

Adrian, not sorry to see more of a man so celebrated, accepted the
invitation.

Left alone, he leaned his head upon his hand, and soon became lost in
his reflections.



Chapter 8.III. Faithful and Ill-fated Love.--The Aspirations Survive the
Affections.

Since that fearful hour in which Adrian Colonna had gazed upon the
lifeless form of his adored Irene, the young Roman had undergone the
usual vicissitudes of a wandering and adventurous life in those exciting
times. His country seemed no longer dear to him. His very rank precluded
him from the post he once aspired to take in restoring the liberties of
Rome; and he felt that if ever such a revolution could be consummated,
it was reserved for one in whose birth and habits the people could
feel sympathy and kindred, and who could lift his hand in their behalf
without becoming the apostate of his order and the judge of his own
House. He had travelled through various courts, and served with renown
in various fields. Beloved and honoured wheresoever he fixed a temporary
home, no change of scene had removed his melancholy--no new ties had
chased away the memory of the Lost. In that era of passionate and
poetical romance, which Petrarch represented rather than created, Love
had already begun to assume a more tender and sacred character than it
had hitherto known, it had gradually imbibed the divine spirit which
it derives from Christianity, and which associates its sorrows on
earth with the visions and hopes of heaven. To him who relies upon
immortality, fidelity to the dead is easy; because death cannot
extinguish hope, and the soul of the mourner is already half in the
world to come. It is an age that desponds of a future life--representing
death as an eternal separation--in which, if men grieve awhile for the
dead, they hasten to reconcile themselves to the living. For true is the
old aphorism, that love exists not without hope. And all that romantic
worship which the Hermit of Vaucluse felt, or feigned, for Laura, found
its temple in the desolate heart of Adrian Colonna. He was emphatically
the Lover of his time! Often as, in his pilgrimage from land to land,
he passed the walls of some quiet and lonely convent, he seriously
meditated the solemn vows, and internally resolved that the cloister
should receive his maturer age. The absence of years had, however,
in some degree restored the dimmed and shattered affection for his
fatherland, and he desired once more to visit the city in which he had
first beheld Irene. "Perhaps," he thought, "time may have wrought some
unlooked-for change; and I may yet assist to restore my country."

But with this lingering patriotism no ambition was mingled. In that
heated stage of action, in which the desire of power seemed to stir
through every breast, and Italy had become the El Dorado of wealth, or
the Utopia of empire, to thousands of valiant arms and plotting minds,
there was at least one breast that felt the true philosophy of the
Hermit. Adrian's nature, though gallant and masculine, was singularly
imbued with that elegance of temperament which recoils from rude
contact, and to which a lettered and cultivated indolence is the
supremest luxury. His education, his experience, and his intellect, had
placed him far in advance of his age, and he looked with a high contempt
on the coarse villanies and base tricks by which Italian ambition
sought its road to power. The rise and fall of Rienzi, who, whatever his
failings, was at least the purest and most honourable of the self-raised
princes of the age, had conspired to make him despond of the success of
noble, as he recoiled from that of selfish aspirations. And the dreamy
melancholy which resulted from his ill-starred love, yet more tended
to wean him from the stale and hackneyed pursuits of the world. His
character was full of beauty and of poetry--not the less so in that it
found not a vent for its emotions in the actual occupation of the poet!
Pent within, those emotions diffused themselves over all his thoughts
and coloured his whole soul. Sometimes, in the blessed abstraction of
his visions, he pictured to himself the lot he might have chosen had
Irene lived, and fate united them--far from the turbulent and vulgar
roar of Rome--but amidst some yet unpolluted solitude of the bright
Italian soil. Before his eye there rose the lovely landscape--the palace
by the borders of the waveless lake--the vineyards in the valley--the
dark forests waving from the hill--and that home, the resort and refuge
of all the minstrelsy and love of Italy, brightened by the "Lampeggiar
dell' angelico riso," that makes a paradise in the face we love. Often,
seduced by such dreams to complete oblivion of his loss, the young
wanderer started from the ideal bliss, to behold around him the solitary
waste of way--or the moonlit tents of war--or, worse than all, the
crowds and revels of a foreign court.

Whether or not such fancies now, for a moment, allured his meditations,
conjured up, perhaps, by the name of Irene's brother, which never
sounded in his ears but to awaken ten thousand associations, the Colonna
remained thoughtful and absorbed, until he was disturbed by his own
squire, who, accompanied by Montreal's servitors, ushered in
his solitary but ample repast. Flasks of the richest Florentine
wines--viands prepared with all the art which, alas, Italy has now
lost!--goblets and salvers of gold and silver, prodigally wrought with
barbaric gems--attested the princely luxury which reigned in the camp
of the Grand Company. But Adrian saw in all only the spoliation of his
degraded country, and felt the splendour almost as an insult. His lonely
meal soon concluded, he became impatient of the monotony of his tent;
and, tempted by the cool air of the descending eve, sauntered carelessly
forth. He bent his steps by the side of the brooklet that curved,
snakelike and sparkling, by Montreal's tent; and finding a spot somewhat
solitary and apart from the warlike tenements around, flung himself by
the margin of the stream.

The last rays of the sun quivered on the wave that danced musically over
its stony bed; and amidst a little copse on the opposite bank broke the
brief and momentary song of such of the bolder habitants of that purple
air as the din of the camp had not scared from their green retreat. The
clouds lay motionless to the west, in that sky so darkly and intensely
blue, never seen but over the landscapes that a Claude or a Rosa loved
to paint; and dim and delicious rose-hues gathered over the grey peaks
of the distant Apennines. From afar floated the hum of the camp, broken
by the neigh of returning steeds; the blast of an occasional bugle; and,
at regular intervals, by the armed tramp of the neighbouring sentry.
And opposite to the left of the copse--upon a rising ground, matted
with reeds, moss, and waving shrubs--were the ruins of some old Etruscan
building, whose name had perished, whose very uses were unknown.

The scene was so calm and lovely, as Adrian gazed upon it, that it was
scarcely possible to imagine it at that very hour the haunt of fierce
and banded robbers, among most of whom the very soul of man was
embruted, and to all of whom murder or rapine made the habitual
occupation of life.

Still buried in his reveries, and carelessly dropping stones into the
noisy rivulet, Adrian was aroused by the sound of steps.

"A fair spot to listen to the lute and the ballads of Provence," said
the voice of Montreal, as the Knight of St. John threw himself on the
turf beside the young Colonna.

"You retain, then, your ancient love of your national melodies," said
Adrian.

"Ay, I have not yet survived all my youth," answered Montreal, with a
slight sigh. "But somehow or other, the strains that once pleased
my fancy now go too directly to my heart. So, though I still welcome
jongleur and minstrel, I bid them sing their newest conceits. I cannot
wish ever again to hear the poetry I heard when I was young!"

"Pardon me," said Adrian, with great interest, "but fain would I have
dared, though a secret apprehension prevented me hitherto,--fain would
I have dared to question you of that lovely lady, with whom, seven
years ago, we gazed at moonlight upon the odorous orange-groves and rosy
waters of Terracina."

Montreal turned away his face; he laid his hand on Adrian's arm, and
murmured, in a deep and hoarse tone, "I am alone now!"

Adrian pressed his hand in silence. He felt no light shock at thus
learning the death of one so gentle, so lovely, and so ill-fated.

"The vows of my knighthood," continued Montreal, "which precluded
Adeline the rights of wedlock--the shame of her house--the angry
grief of her mother--the wild vicissitudes of my life, so exposed to
peril--the loss of her son--all preyed silently on her frame. She did
not die (die is too harsh a word!), but she drooped away, and glided
into heaven. Even as on a summer's morn some soft dream fleets across
us, growing less and less distinct, until it fades, as it were, into
light, and we awaken--so faded Adeline's parting spirit, till the
daylight of God broke upon it."

Montreal paused a moment, and then resumed: "These thoughts make the
boldest of us weak sometimes, and we Provencals are foolish in these
matters!--God wot, she was very dear to me!"

The Knight bent down and crossed himself devoutly, his lips muttered a
prayer. Strange as it may seem to our more enlightened age, so martial
a garb did morality then wear, that this man, at whose word towns had
blazed and torrents of blood had flowed, neither adjudged himself, nor
was adjudged by the majority of his contemporaries, a criminal. His
order, half monastic, half warlike, was emblematic of himself.
He trampled upon man, yet humbled himself to God; nor had all his
acquaintance with the refining scepticism of Italy shaken the sturdy and
simple faith of the bold Provencal. So far from recognising any want
of harmony between his calling and his creed, he held that man no true
chevalier who was not as devout to the Cross as relentless with the
sword.

"And you have no child save the one you lost?" asked Adrian, when he
observed the wonted composure of Montreal once more returning.

"None!" said Montreal, as his brow again darkened. "No love-begotten
heir of mine will succeed to the fortunes I trust yet to build. Never
on earth shall I see upon the face of her child the likeness of Adeline!
Yet, at Avignon, I saw a boy I would have claimed; for methought she
must have looked her soul into his eyes, they were so like hers! Well,
well! The Provence tree hath other branches; and some unborn nephew must
be--what? The stars have not yet decided! But ambition is now the only
thing in the world left me to love."

"So differently operates the same misfortune upon different characters,"
thought the Colonna. "To me, crowns became valueless when I could no
longer dream of placing them on Irene's brow!"

The similarity of their fates, however, attracted Adrian strongly
towards his host; and the two Knights conversed together with more
friendship and unreserve than they had hitherto done. At length Montreal
said, "By the way, I have not inquired your destination."

"I am bound to Rome," said Adrian; "and the intelligence I have learned
from you incites me thitherward yet more eagerly. If Rienzi return, I
may mediate successfully, perchance, between the Tribune-Senator and the
nobles; and if I find my cousin, young Stefanello, now the head of
our house, more tractable than his sires, I shall not despair of
conciliating the less powerful Barons. Rome wants repose; and whoever
governs, if he govern but with justice, ought to be supported both by
prince and plebeian!"