Rienzi

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Rienzi


"Hold!" interrupted the Senator. "All that thou sayest, my mind
forestalled. But thou knowest me--to thee I have no disguise. No compact
can bind Montreal's faith--no mercy win his gratitude. Before his red
right hand truth and justice are swept away. If I condemn Montreal I
incur disgrace and risk danger--granted. If I release him, ere the first
showers of April, the chargers of the Northmen will neigh in the halls
of the Capitol. Which shall I hazard in this alternative, myself or
Rome? Ask me no more--to bed, to bed!"

"Couldst thou read my forebodings, Cola, mystic--gloomy--unaccountable?"

"Forebodings!--I have mine," answered Rienzi, sadly, gazing on space,
as if his thoughts peopled it with spectres. Then, raising his eyes to
Heaven, he said with that fanatical energy which made much both of his
strength and weakness--"Lord, mine at least not the sin of Saul! the
Amalekite shall not be saved!"

While Rienzi enjoyed a short, troubled, and restless sleep, over which
Nina watched--unslumbering, anxious, tearful, and oppressed with dark
and terrible forewarnings--the accuser was more happy than the judge.
The last thoughts that floated before the young mind of Angelo Villani,
ere wrapped in sleep, were bright and sanguine. He felt no honourable
remorse that he had entrapped the confidence of another--he felt only
that his scheme had prospered, that his mission had been fulfilled.
The grateful words of Rienzi rang in his ear, and hopes of fortune and
power, beneath the sway of the Roman Senator, lulled him into slumber,
and coloured all his dreams.

Scarce, however, had he been two hours asleep, ere he was wakened by one
of the attendants of the palace, himself half awake. "Pardon me, Messere
Villani," said he, "but there is a messenger below from the good Sister
Ursula; he bids thee haste instantly to the Convent--she is sick unto
death, and has tidings that crave thy immediate presence."

Angelo, whose morbid susceptibility as to his parentage was ever excited
by vague but ambitious hopes--started up, dressed hurriedly, and joining
the messenger below, repaired to the Convent. In the Court of the
Capitol, and by the Staircase of the Lion, was already heard the noise
of the workmen, and looking back, Villani beheld the scaffold, hung with
black--sleeping cloudlike in the grey light of dawn--at the same time,
the bell of the Capitol tolled heavily. A pang shot athwart him. He
hurried on;--despite the immature earliness of the hour, he met groups
of either sex, hastening along the streets to witness the execution
of the redoubted Captain of the Grand Company. The Convent of the
Augustines was at the farthest extremity of that city, even then so
extensive, and the red light upon the hilltops already heralded the
rising sun, ere the young man reached the venerable porch. His name
obtained him instant admittance.

"Heaven grant," said an old Nun, who conducted him through a long and
winding passage, "that thou mayst bring comfort to the sick sister: she
has pined for thee grievously since matins."

In a cell set apart for the reception of visitors (from the
outward world), to such of the Sisterhood as received the necessary
dispensation, sate the aged Nun. Angelo had only seen her once since his
return to Rome, and since then disease had made rapid havoc on her form
and features. And now, in her shroudlike garments and attenuated frame,
she seemed by the morning light as a spectre whom day had surprised
above the earth. She approached the youth, however, with a motion more
elastic and rapid than seemed possible to her worn and ghastly form.
"Thou art come," she said. "Well, well! This morning after matins, my
confessor, an Augustine, who alone knows the secrets of my life, took
me aside, and told me that Walter de Montreal had been seized by the
Senator--that he was adjudged to die, and that one of the Augustine
brotherhood had been sent for to attend his last hours--is it so?"

"Thou wert told aright," said Angelo, wonderingly. "The man at whose
name thou wert wont to shudder--against whom thou hast so often warned
me--will die at sunrise."

"So soon!--so soon!--Oh, Mother of Mercy!--fly! thou art about the
person of the Senator, thou hast high favour with him; fly! down on thy
knees, and as thou hopest for God's grace, rise not till thou hast won
the Provencal's life."

"She raves," muttered Angelo, with white lips.

"I do not rave,--boy!" screeched the Sister, wildly, "know that my
daughter was his leman. He disgraced our house,--a house haughtier than
his own. Sinner that I was, I vowed revenge. His boy--they had only
one!--was brought up in a robber's camp;--a life of bloodshed--a death
of doom--a futurity of hell--were before him. I plucked the child from
such a fate--I bore him away--I told the father he was dead--I placed
him in the path to honourable fortunes. May my sin be forgiven me!
Angelo Villani, thou art that child;--Walter de Montreal is thy father.
But now, trembling on the verge of death, I shudder at the vindictive
thoughts I once nourished. Perhaps--"

"Sinner and accursed!" interrupted Villani, with a loud shout:--"sinner
and accursed thou art indeed! Know that it was I who betrayed thy
daughter's lover!--by the son's treason dies the father!"

Not a moment more did he tarry: he waited not to witness the effect
his words produced. As one frantic--as one whom a fiend possesses
or pursues--he rushed from the Convent--he flew through the desolate
streets. The death-bell came, first indistinct, then loud, upon his ear.
Every sound seemed to him like the curse of God; on--on--he passed the
more deserted quarter--crowds swept before him--he was mingled with
the living stream, delayed, pushed back--thousands on thousands around,
before him. Breathless, gasping, he still pressed on--he forced his
way--he heard not--he saw not--all was like a dream. Up burst the sun
over the distant hills!--the bell ceased! From right to left he pushed
aside the crowd--his strength was as a giant's. He neared the fatal
spot. A dead hush lay like a heavy air over the multitude. He heard
a voice, as he pressed along, deep and clear--it was the voice of his
father!--it ceased--the audience breathed heavily--they murmured--they
swayed to and fro. On, on, went Angelo Villani. The guards of the
Senator stopped his way;--he dashed aside their pikes--he eluded their
grasp--he pierced the armed barrier--he stood on the Place of the
Capitol. "Hold, hold!" he would have cried--but horror struck him dumb.
He beheld the gleaming axe--he saw the bended neck. Ere another breath
passed his lips, a ghastly and trunkless face was raised on high--Walter
de Montreal was no more!

Villani saw--swooned not--shrunk not--breathed not!--but he turned his
eyes from that lifted head, dropping gore, to the balcony, in which,
according to custom, sate, in solemn pomp, the Senator of Rome--and the
face of that young man was as the face of a demon!

"Ha!" said he, muttering to himself, and recalling the words of Rienzi
seven years before--"Blessed art thou who hast no blood of kindred to
avenge!"



Chapter 10.VI. The Suspense.

Walter de Montreal was buried in the church of St. Maria dell' Araceli.
But the "evil that he did lived after him!" Although the vulgar
had, until his apprehension, murmured against Rienzi for allowing so
notorious a freebooter to be at large, he was scarcely dead ere they
compassionated the object of their terror. With that singular species of
piety which Montreal had always cultivated, as if a decorous and natural
part of the character of a warrior, no sooner was his sentence fixed,
than he had surrendered himself to the devout preparation for death.
With the Augustine Friar he consumed the brief remainder of the night
in prayer and confession, comforted his brothers, and passed to the
scaffold with the step of a hero and the self-acquittal of a martyr. In
the wonderful delusions of the human heart, far from feeling remorse at
a life of professional rapine and slaughter, almost the last words
of the brave warrior were in proud commendation of his own deeds. "Be
valiant like me," he said to his brothers, "and remember that ye are now
the heirs to the Humbler of Apulia, Tuscany, and La Marca."

(Pregovi che vi amiate e siate valorosi al mondo, come fui
io, che mi feci fare obbedienza a la Puglia, Toscana, e a La
Marca."--"Vita di Cola di Rienzi", lib. ii. cap. 22. "I pray
you love one another, and be valorous as was I, who made
Apulia, Tuscany and La Marca own obedience to me."--"Life of
Cola di Rienzi".)

This confidence in himself continued at the scaffold. "I die," he said,
addressing the Romans--"I die contented, since my bones shall rest in
the Holy City of St. Peter and St. Paul, and the Soldier of Christ shall
have the burial-place of the Apostles. But I die unjustly. My wealth is
my crime--the poverty of your state my accuser. Senator of Rome,
thou mayst envy my last hour--men like Walter de Montreal perish not
unavenged." So saying, he turned to the East, murmured a brief prayer,
knelt down deliberately, and said as to himself, "Rome guard my
ashes!--Earth my memory--Fate my revenge;--and, now, Heaven receive my
soul!--Strike!" At the first blow, the head was severed from the body.

His treason but imperfectly known, the fear of him forgotten, all that
remained of the recollection of Walter de Montreal (The military renown
and bold exploits of Montreal are acknowledged by all the Italian
authorities. One of them declares that since the time of Caesar, Italy
had never known so great a Captain. The biographer of Rienzi, forgetting
all the offences of the splendid and knightly robber, seems to feel only
commiseration for his fate. He informs us, moreover, that at Tivoli
one of his servants (perhaps our friend, Rodolf of Saxony), hearing his
death, died of grief the following day.) in Rome, was admiration for
his heroism, and compassion for his end. The fate of Pandulfo di Guido,
which followed some days afterwards, excited a yet deeper, though more
quiet, sentiment, against the Senator. "He was once Rienzi's friend!"
said one man; "He was an honest, upright citizen!" muttered another;
"He was an advocate of the people!" growled Cecco del Vecchio. But the
Senator had wound himself up to a resolve to be inflexibly just, and to
regard every peril to Rome as became a Roman. Rienzi remembered that he
had never confided but he had been betrayed; he had never forgiven but
to sharpen enmity. He was amidst a ferocious people, uncertain friends,
wily enemies; and misplaced mercy would be but a premium to conspiracy.
Yet the struggle he underwent was visible in the hysterical emotions he
betrayed. He now wept bitterly, now laughed wildly. "Can I never again
have the luxury to forgive?" said he. The coarse spectators of that
passion deemed it,--some imbecility, some hypocrisy. But the execution
produced the momentary effect intended. All sedition ceased, terror
crept throughout the city, order and peace rose to the surface; but
beneath, in the strong expression of a contemporaneous writer, "Lo
mormorito quetamente suonava." ("The murmur quietly sounded.")

On examining dispassionately the conduct of Rienzi at this awful period
of his life, it is scarcely possible to condemn it of a single error
in point of policy. Cured of his faults, he exhibited no unnecessary
ostentation--he indulged in no exhibitions of intoxicated pride--that
gorgeous imagination rather than vanity, which had led the Tribune into
spectacle and pomp, was now lulled to rest, by the sober memory of grave
vicissitudes, and the stern calmness of a maturer intellect. Frugal,
provident, watchful, self-collected, 'never was seen,' observes no
partial witness, 'so extraordinary a man.' ("Vita di Cola di Rienzi",
lib. ii. c. 23.) 'In him was concentrated every thought for every want
of Rome. Indefatigably occupied, he inspected, ordained, regulated all
things; in the city, in the army, for peace, or for war. But he was
feebly supported, and those he employed were lukewarm and lethargic.'
Still his arms prospered. Place after place, fortress after fortress,
yielded to the Lieutenant of the Senator: and the cession of Palestrina
itself was hourly expected. His art and address were always strikingly
exhibited in difficult situations, and the reader cannot fail to have
noticed how conspicuously they were displayed in delivering himself from
the iron tutelage of his foreign mercenaries. Montreal executed, his
brothers imprisoned, (though their lives were spared,) a fear that
induced respect was stricken into the breasts of those bandit soldiers.
Removed from Rome, and, under Annibaldi, engaged against the Barons,
constant action and constant success, withheld those necessary fiends
from falling on their Master; while Rienzi, willing to yield to the
natural antipathy of the Romans, thus kept the Northmen from all contact
with the city; and as he boasted, was the only chief in Italy who
reigned in his palace guarded only by his citizens.

Despite his perilous situation--despite his suspicions, and his fears,
no wanton cruelty stained his stern justice--Montreal and Pandulfo di
Guido were the only state victims he demanded. If, according to the
dark Machiavelism of Italian wisdom, the death of those enemies was
impolitic, it was not in the act, but the mode of doing it. A prince
of Bologna, or of Milan would have avoided the sympathy excited by
the scaffold, and the drug or the dagger would have been the safer
substitute for the axe. But with all his faults, real and imputed, no
single act of that foul and murtherous policy, which made the science
of the more fortunate princes of Italy, ever advanced the ambition or
promoted the security of the Last of the Roman Tribunes. Whatever his
errors, he lived and died as became a man, who dreamed the vain but
glorious dream, that in a corrupt and dastard populace he could revive
the genius of the old Republic.

Of all who attended on the Senator, the most assiduous and the most
honoured was still Angelo Villani. Promoted to a high civil station,
Rienzi felt it as a return of youth, to find one person entitled to his
gratitude;--he loved and confided in the youth as a son. Villani was
never absent from his side, except in intercourse with the various
popular leaders in the various quarters of the city; and in this
intercourse his zeal was indefatigable--it seemed even to prey upon
his health; and Rienzi chid him fondly, whenever starting from his own
reveries, he beheld the abstracted eye and the livid paleness which had
succeeded the sparkle and bloom of youth.

Such chiding the young man answered only by the same unvarying words.

"Senator, I have a great trust to fulfil;"--and at these words he
smiled.

One day Villani, while with the Senator, said rather abruptly, "Do you
remember, my Lord, that before Viterbo, I acquitted myself so in arms,
that even the Cardinal d'Albornoz was pleased to notice me?"

"I remember your valour well, Angelo; but why the question?"

"My Lord, Bellini, the Captain of the Guard of the Capitol is
dangerously ill."

"I know it."

"Whom can my Lord trust at the post?"

"Why, the Lieutenant."

"What!--a soldier that has served under the Orsini!"

"True. Well! There is Tommaso Filangieri."

"An excellent man; but is he not kin by blood to Pandulfo di Guido?"

"Ay--is he so? It must be thought of. Hast thou any friend to name?"
said the Senator, smiling, "Methinks thy cavils point that way."

"My Lord," replied Villani, colouring; "I am too young perhaps; but the
post is one that demands fidelity more than it does years. Shall I own
it?--My tastes are rather to serve thee with my sword than with my pen."

"Wilt thou, indeed, accept the office? It is of less dignity and
emolument than the one you hold; and you are full young to lead these
stubborn spirits."

"Senator, I led taller men than they are to the assault at Viterbo. But,
be it as seems best to your superior wisdom. Whatever you do, I pray you
to be cautious. If you select a traitor to the command of the Capitol
Guard!--I tremble at the thought!"

"By my faith, thou dost turn pale at it, dear boy; thy affection is
a sweet drop in a bitter draught. Whom can I choose better than
thee?--thou shalt have the post, at least during Bellini's illness. I
will attend to it today. The business, too, will less fatigue thy young
mind than that which now employs thee. Thou art over-laboured in our
cause."

"Senator, I can but repeat my usual answer--I have a great trust to
fulfil!"



Chapter 10.VII. The Tax.

These formidable conspiracies quelled, the Barons nearly subdued, and
three parts of the Papal territory reunited to Rome, Rienzi now
deemed he might safely execute one of his favourite projects for the
preservation of the liberties of his native city; and this was to
raise and organize in each quarter of Rome a Roman Legion. Armed in the
defence of their own institutions, he thus trusted to establish amongst
her own citizens the only soldiery requisite for Rome.

But so base were the tools with which this great man was condemned to
work out his noble schemes, that none could be found to serve their own
country, without a pay equal to that demanded by foreign hirelings. With
the insolence so peculiar to a race that has once been great, each Roman
said, "Am I not better than a German?--Pay me, then, accordingly."

The Senator smothered his disgust--he had learned at last to know that
the age of the Catos was no more. From a daring enthusiast, experience
had converted him into a practical statesman. The Legions were necessary
to Rome--they were formed--gallant their appearance and faultless
their caparisons. How were they to be paid? There was but one means to
maintain Rome--Rome must be taxed. A gabelle was put upon wine and salt.

The Proclamation ran thus:--

"Romans! raised to the rank of your Senator, my whole thought has been
for your liberties and welfare; already treason defeated in the City,
our banners triumphant without, attest the favour with which the Deity
regards men who seek to unite liberty with law. Let us set an example
to Italy and the World! Let us prove that the Roman sword can guard
the Roman Forum! In each Rione of the City is provided a Legion of the
Citizens, collected from the traders and artisans of the town; they
allege that they cannot leave their callings without remuneration. Your
senator calls upon you willingly to assist in your own defence. He has
given you liberty; he has restored to you peace: your oppressors are
scattered over the earth. He asks you now to preserve the treasures you
have gained. To be free, you must sacrifice something; for freedom, what
sacrifice too great? Confident of your support, I at length, for the
first time, exert the right entrusted to me by office--and for Rome's
salvation I tax the Romans!"

Then followed the announcement of the gabelle.

The Proclamation was set up in the public thoroughfares. Round one
of the placards a crowd assembled. Their gestures were vehement and
unguarded--their eyes sparkled--they conversed low, but eagerly.

"He dares to tax us, then! Why, the Barons or the Pope could not do more
than that!"

"Shame! shame!" cried a gaunt female; "we, who were his friends! How are
our little ones to get bread?"

"He should have seized the Pope's money!" quoth an honest wine-vender.

"Ah! Pandulfo di Guido would have maintained an army at his own cost. He
was a rich man. What insolence in the innkeeper's son to be a Senator!"

"We are not Romans if we suffer this!" said a deserter from Palestrina.

"Fellow-citizens!" exclaimed gruffly a tall man, who had hitherto been
making a clerk read to him the particulars of the tax imposed, and
whose heavy brain at length understood that wine was to be made
dearer--"Fellow-citizens, we must have a new revolution! This is indeed
gratitude! What have we benefited by restoring this man! Are we always
to be ground to the dust? To pay--pay--pay! Is that all we are fit for?"

"Hark to Cecco del Vecchio!"

"No, no; not now," growled the smith. "Tonight the artificers have a
special meeting. We'll see--we'll see!"

A young man, muffled in a cloak, who had not been before observed,
touched the smith.

"Whoever storms the Capitol the day after tomorrow at the dawn," he
whispered, "shall find the guards absent!"

He was gone before the smith could look round.

The same night Rienzi, retiring to rest, said to Angelo Villani--"A bold
but necessary measure this of mine! How do the people take it?"

"They murmur a little, but seem to recognise the necessity. Cecco del
Vecchio was the loudest grumbler, but is now the loudest approver."

"The man is rough; he once deserted me;--but then that fatal
excommunication! He and the Romans learned a bitter lesson in that
desertion, and experience has, I trust, taught them to be honest. Well,
if this tax be raised quietly, in two years Rome will be again the Queen
of Italy;--her army manned--her Republic formed; and then--then--"

"Then what, Senator?"

"Why then, my Angelo, Cola di Rienzi may die in peace! There is a want
which a profound experience of power and pomp brings at last to us--a
want gnawing as that of hunger, wearing as that of sleep!--my Angelo, it
is the want to die!"

"My Lord, I would give this right hand," cried Villani, earnestly, "to
hear you say you were attached to life!"

"You are a good youth, Angelo!" said Rienzi, as he passed to Nina's
chamber; and in her smile and wistful tenderness, forgot for a
while--that he was a great man!



Chapter 10.VIII. The Threshold of the Event.

The next morning the Senator of Rome held high Court in the Capitol.
From Florence, from Padua, from Pisa, even from Milan, (the dominion of
the Visconti,) from Genoa, from Naples,--came Ambassadors to welcome his
return, or to thank him for having freed Italy from the freebooter De
Montreal. Venice alone, who held in her pay the Grand Company, stood
aloof. Never had Rienzi seemed more prosperous and more powerful, and
never had he exhibited a more easy and cheerful majesty of demeanour.

Scarce was the audience over, when a messenger arrived from Palestrina.
The town had surrendered, the Colonna had departed, and the standard
of the Senator waved from the walls of the last hold of the rebellious
Barons. Rome might now at length consider herself free, and not a foe
seemed left to menace the repose of Rienzi.

The Court dissolved. The Senator, elated and joyous, repaired
towards his private apartments, previous to the banquet given to the
Ambassadors. Villani met him with his wonted sombre aspect.

"No sadness today, my Angelo," said the Senator, gaily; "Palestrina is
ours!"

"I am glad to hear such news, and to see my Lord of so fair a mien,"
answered Angelo. "Does he not now desire life?"

"Till Roman virtue revives, perhaps--yes! But thus are we fools of
Fortune;--today glad--tomorrow dejected!"

"Tomorrow," repeated Villani, mechanically: "Ay--tomorrow perhaps
dejected."

"Thou playest with my words, boy," said Rienzi, half angrily, as he
turned away.

But Villani heeded not the displeasure of his Lord.

The banquet was thronged and brilliant; and Rienzi that day, without an
effort, played the courteous host.

Milanese, Paduan, Pisan, Neapolitan, vied with each other in
attracting the smiles of the potent Senator. Prodigal were their
compliments--lavish their promises of support. No monarch in Italy
seemed more securely throned.

The banquet was over (as usual on state occasions) at an early hour;
and Rienzi, somewhat heated with wine, strolled forth alone from the
Capitol. Bending his solitary steps towards the Palatine, he saw the
pale and veil-like mists that succeed the sunset, gather over the wild
grass which waves above the Palace of the Caesars. On a mound of ruins
(column and arch overthrown) he stood, with folded arms, musing and
intent. In the distance lay the melancholy tombs of the Campagna, and
the circling hills, crested with the purple hues soon to melt beneath
the starlight. Not a breeze stirred the dark cypress and unwaving pine.
There was something awful in the stillness of the skies, hushing the
desolate grandeur of the earth below. Many and mingled were the thoughts
that swept over Rienzi's breast: memory was busy at his heart. How
often, in his youth, had he trodden the same spot!--what visions had
he nursed!--what hopes conceived! In the turbulence of his later life,
Memory had long slept; but at that hour, she re-asserted her shadowy
reign with a despotism that seemed prophetic. He was wandering--a boy,
with his young brother, hand in hand, by the riverside at eve: anon he
saw a pale face and gory side, and once more uttered his imprecations of
revenge! His first successes, his virgin triumphs, his secret love, his
fame, his power, his reverses, the hermitage of Maiella, the dungeon of
Avignon, the triumphal return to Rome,--all swept across his breast with
a distinctness as if he were living those scenes again!--and now!--he
shrunk from the present, and descended the hill. The moon, already
risen, shed her light over the Forum, as he passed through its mingled
ruins. By the Temple of Jupiter, two figures suddenly emerged; the
moonlight fell upon their faces, and Rienzi recognised Cecco del
Vecchio and Angelo Villani. They saw him not; but, eagerly conversing,
disappeared by the Arch of Trajan.