Rienzi

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Rienzi


At that hour, a solitary boat was gliding swiftly along the Tiber. Rome
was at a distance, but the lurid blow of the conflagration cast its
reflection upon the placid and glassy stream: fair beyond description
was the landscape; soft beyond all art of Painter and of Poet, the
sunlight quivering over the autumnal herbage, and hushing into tender
calm the waves of the golden River!

Adrian's eyes were strained towards the towers of the
Capitol, distinguished by the flames from the spires and domes
around;--senseless, and clasped to his guardian breast, Irene was
happily unconscious of the horrors of the time.

"They dare not--they dare not," said the brave Colonna, "touch a hair of
that sacred head!--if Rienzi fall, the liberties of Rome fall for ever!
As those towers that surmount the flames, the pride and monument
of Rome, he shall rise above the dangers of the hour. Behold, still
unscathed amidst the raging element, the Capitol itself is his emblem!"

Scarce had he spoken, when a vast volume of smoke obscured the fires
afar off, a dull crash (deadened by the distance) travelled to his ear,
and the next moment, the towers on which he gazed had vanished from
the scene, and one intense and sullen glare seemed to settle over the
atmosphere,--making all Rome itself the funeral pyre of THE LAST OF THE
ROMAN TRIBUNES!


The End




Appendix I. Some Remarks on the Life and Character of Rienzi.

The principal authority from which historians have taken their account
of the life and times of Rienzi is a very curious biography, by some
unknown contemporary; and this, which is in the Roman patois of the
time, has been rendered not quite unfamiliar to the French and English
reader by the work of Pere du Cerceau, called "Conjuration de Nicolas
Gabrini, dit de Rienzi," (See for a specimen of the singular blunders
of the Frenchman's work, Appendix II.) which has at once pillaged and
deformed the Roman biographer. The biography I refer to was published
(and the errors of the former editions revised) by Muratori in his great
collection; and has lately been reprinted separately in an improved
text, accompanied by notes of much discrimination and scholastic taste,
and a comment upon that celebrated poem of Petrarch, "Spirito Gentil,"
which the majority of Italian critics have concurred in considering
addressed to Rienzi, in spite of the ingenious arguments to the contrary
by the Abbe de Sade.

This biography has been generally lauded for its rare impartiality. And
the author does, indeed, praise and blame alike with a most singular
appearance of stolid candour. The work, in truth, is one of those not
uncommon proofs, of which Boswell's "Johnson" is the most striking, that
a very valuable book may be written by a very silly man. The biographer
of Rienzi appears more like the historian of Rienzi's clothes, so minute
is he on all details of their colour and quality--so silent is he upon
everything that could throw light upon the motives of their wearer.
In fact, granting the writer every desire to be impartial, he is too
foolish to be so. It requires some cleverness to judge accurately of
a very clever man in very difficult circumstances; and the worthy
biographer is utterly incapable of giving us any clue to the actions
of Rienzi--utterly unable to explain the conduct of the man by the
circumstances of the time. The weakness of his vision causes him,
therefore, often to squint. We must add to his want of wisdom a want
of truth, which the Herodotus-like simplicity of his style frequently
conceals. He describes things which had no witness as precisely and
distinctly as those which he himself had seen. For instance, before
the death of Rienzi, in those awful moments when the Senator was alone,
unheard, unseen, he coolly informs us of each motion, and each thought
of Rienzi's, with as much detail as if Rienzi had returned from the
grave to assist his narration. These obvious inventions have been
adopted by Gibbon and others with more good faith than the laws of
evidence would warrant. Still, however, to a patient and cautious reader
the biography may furnish a much better notion of Rienzi's character,
than we can glean from the historians who have borrowed from it
piecemeal. Such a reader will discard all the writer's reasonings,
will think little of his praise or blame, and regard only the facts he
narrates, judging them true or doubtful, according as the writer had the
opportunities of being himself the observer. Thus examining, the reader
will find evidence sufficient of Rienzi's genius and Rienzi's failings:
Carefully distinguishing between the period of his power as Tribune, and
that of his power as Senator, he will find the Tribune vain, haughty,
fond of display; but, despite the reasonings of the biographer, he will
not recognise those faults in the Senator. On the other hand, he will
notice the difference between youth and maturity--hope and experience;
he will notice in the Tribune vast ambition, great schemes, enterprising
activity--which sober into less gorgeous and more quiet colours in
the portrait of the Senator. He will find that in neither instance did
Rienzi fall from his own faults--he will find that the vulgar moral
of ambition, blasted by its own excesses, is not the true moral of the
Roman's life; he will find that, both in his abdication as Tribune,
and his death as Senator, Rienzi fell from the vices of the People. The
Tribune was a victim to ignorant cowardice--the Senator, a victim to
ferocious avarice. It is this which modern historians have failed to
represent. Gibbon records rightly, that the Count of Minorbino entered
Rome with one hundred and fifty soldiers, and barricadoed the quarter of
the Colonna--that the bell of the Capitol sounded--that Rienzi addressed
the People--that they were silent and inactive--and that Rienzi then
abdicated the government. But for this he calls Rienzi "pusillanimous."
Is not that epithet to be applied to the People? Rienzi invoked them to
move against the Robber--the People refused to obey. Rienzi wished to
fight--the People refused to stir. It was not the cause of Rienzi alone
which demanded their exertions--it was the cause of the People--theirs,
not his, the shame, if one hundred and fifty foreign soldiers mastered
Rome, overthrew their liberties, and restored their tyrants! Whatever
Rienzi's sins, whatever his unpopularity, their freedom, their laws,
their republic, were at stake; and these they surrendered to one hundred
and fifty hirelings! This is the fact that damns them! But Rienzi was
not unpopular when he addressed and conjured them: they found no fault
with him. "The sighs and the groans of the People," says Sismondi,
justly, "replied to his,"--they could weep, but they would not fight.
This strange apathy the modern historians have not accounted for, yet
the principal cause was obvious--Rienzi was excommunicated! (And this
curse I apprehend to have been the more effective in the instance of
Rienzi, from a fact that it would be interesting and easy to establish:
viz., that he owed his rise as much to religious as to civil causes. He
aimed evidently to be a religious Reformer. All his devices, ceremonies,
and watchwords, were of a religious character. The monks took part with
his enterprise, and joined in the revolution. His letters are full of
mystical fanaticism. His references to ancient heroes of Rome are always
mingled with invocations to her Christian Saints. The Bible, at that
time little read by the public civilians of Italy, is constantly in
his hands, and his addresses studded with texts. His very garments were
adorned with sacred and mysterious emblems. No doubt, the ceremony of
his Knighthood, which Gibbon ridicules as an act of mere vanity, was but
another of his religious extravagances; for he peculiarly dedicated his
Knighthood to the service of the Santo Spirito; and his bathing in the
vase of Constantine was quite of a piece, not with the vanity of the
Tribune, but with the extravagance of the Fanatic. In fact, they tried
hard to prove him a heretic; but he escaped a charge under the mild
Innocent, which a century or two before, or a century or two afterwards,
would have sufficed to have sent a dozen Rienzis to the stake. I have
dwelt the more upon this point, because, if it be shown that religious
causes operated with those of liberty, we throw a new light upon the
whole of that most extraordinary revolution, and its suddenness is
infinitely less striking. The deep impression Rienzi produced upon that
populace was thus stamped with the spirit of the religious enthusiast
more than that of the classical demagogue. And, as in the time of
Cromwell, the desire for temporal liberty was warmed and coloured by
the presence of a holier and more spiritual fervour:--"The Good Estate"
(Buono Stato) of Rienzi reminds us a little of the Good Cause of General
Cromwell.) In stating the fact, these writers have seemed to think
that excommunication in Rome, in the fourteenth century, produced no
effect!--the effect it did produce I have endeavoured in these pages to
convey.

The causes of the second fall and final murder of Rienzi are equally
misstated by modern narrators. It was from no fault of his--no
injustice, no cruelty, no extravagance--it was not from the execution of
Montreal, nor that of Pandulfo di Guido---it was from a gabelle on
wine and salt that he fell. To preserve Rome from the tyrants it
was necessary to maintain an armed force; to pay the force a tax was
necessary; the tax was imposed--and the multitude joined with the
tyrants, and their cry was, "Perish the traitor who has made the
gabelle!" This was their only charge--this the only crime that their
passions and their fury could cite against him.

The faults of Rienzi are sufficiently visible, and I have not
unsparingly shewn them; but we must judge men, not according as they
approach perfection, but according as their good or bad qualities
preponderate--their talents or their weaknesses--the benefits they
effected, the evil they wrought. For a man who rose to so great a power,
Rienzi's faults were singularly few--crimes he committed none. He is
almost the only man who ever rose from the rank of a citizen to a power
equal to that of monarchs without a single act of violence or treachery.
When in power, he was vain, ostentatious, and imprudent,--always an
enthusiast--often a fanatic; but his very faults had greatness of soul,
and his very fanaticism at once supported his enthusiastic daring, and
proved his earnest honesty. It is evident that no heinous charge could
be brought against him even by his enemies, for all the accusations to
which he was subjected, when excommunicated, exiled, fallen, were for
two offences which Petrarch rightly deemed the proofs of his virtue
and his glory: first, for declaring Rome to be free; secondly, for
pretending that the Romans had a right of choice in the election of
the Roman Emperor. (The charge of heresy was dropped.) Stern, just, and
inflexible, as he was when Tribune, his fault was never that of wanton
cruelty. The accusation against him, made by the gentle Petrarch,
indeed, was that he was not determined enough--that he did not
consummate the revolution by exterminating the patrician tyrants. When
Senator, he was, without sufficient ground, accused of avarice in
the otherwise just and necessary execution of Montreal. (Gibbon, in
mentioning the execution of Montreal, omits to state that Montreal was
more than suspected of conspiracy and treason to restore the Colonna.
Matthew Villani records it as a common belief that such truly was the
offence of the Provencal. The biographer of Rienzi gives additional
evidence of the fact. Gibbon's knowledge of this time was superficial.
As one instance of this, he strangely enough represents Montreal as the
head of the first Free Company that desolated Italy: he took that error
from the Pere du Cerceau.) It was natural enough that his enemies and
the vulgar should suppose that he executed a creditor to get rid of a
debt; but it was inexcusable in later, and wiser, and fairer writers
to repeat so grave a calumny, without at least adding the obvious
suggestion, that the avarice of Rienzi could have been much better
gratified by sparing than by destroying the life of one of the richest
subjects in Europe. Montreal, we may be quite sure, would have purchased
his life at an immeasurably higher price than the paltry sum lent to
Rienzi by his brothers. And this is not a probable hypothesis, but a
certain fact, for we are expressly told that Montreal, "knowing the
Tribune was in want of money, offered Rienzi, that if he would let
him go, he, Montreal, would furnish him not only with twenty thousand
florins, (four times the amount of Rienzi's debt to him,) but with as
many soldiers and as much money as he pleased." This offer Rienzi did
not attend to. Would he have rejected it had avarice been his motive?
And what culpable injustice, to mention the vague calumny without citing
the practical contradiction! When Gibbon tells us, also, that "the most
virtuous citizen of Rome," meaning Pandulfo, or Pandolficcio di Guido,
(Matthew Villani speaks of him as a wise and good citizen, of great
repute among the People--and this, it seems, he really was.) was
sacrificed to his jealousy, he a little exaggerates the expression
bestowed upon Pandulfo, which is that of "virtuoso assai;" and
that expression, too, used by a man who styles the robber Montreal,
"eccellente uomo--di quale fama suono per tutta la Italia di virtude"
("An excellent man whose fame for valour resounded throughout all
Italy.")--(so good a moral critic was the writer!) but he also
altogether waves all mention of the probabilities that are sufficiently
apparent, of the scheming of Pandulfo to supplant Rienzi, and to obtain
the "Signoria del Popolo." Still, however, if the death of Pandulfo may
be considered a blot on the memory of Rienzi, it does not appear that it
was this which led to his own fate. The cry of the mob surrounding his
palace was not, "Perish him who executed Pandulfo," it was--and this
again and again must be carefully noted--it was nothing more nor less
than, "Perish him who has made the gabelle!"

Gibbon sneers at the military skill and courage of Rienzi. For this
sneer there is no cause. His first attempts, his first rise, attested
sufficiently his daring and brave spirit; in every danger he was
present--never shrinking from a foe so long as he was supported by
the People. He distinguished himself at Viterbo when in the camp of
Albornoz, in several feats of arms, ("Vita di Cola di Rienzi", lib. ii.
cap. 14.) and his end was that of a hero. So much for his courage; as to
his military skill; it would be excusable enough if Rienzi--the eloquent
and gifted student, called from the closet and the rostrum to assume the
command of an army--should have been deficient in the art of war; yet,
somehow or other, upon the whole, his arms prospered. He defeated the
chivalry of Rome at her gates; and if he did not, after his victory,
march to Marino, for which his biographer (In this the anonymous writer
compares him gravely to Hannibal, who knew how to conquer, but not how
to use his conquest.) and Gibbon blame him, the reason is sufficiently
clear--"Volea pecunia per soldati"--he wanted money for the soldiers!
On his return as Senator, it must be remembered that he had to besiege
Palestrina, which was considered even by the ancient Romans almost
impregnable by position; but during the few weeks he was in power,
Palestrina yielded--all his open enemies were defeated--the tyrants
expelled--Rome free; and this without support from any party, Papal
or Popular, or, as Gibbon well expresses it, "suspected by the
People--abandoned by the Prince."

On regarding what Rienzi did, we must look to his means, to the
difficulties that surrounded him, to the scantiness of his resources. We
see a man without rank, wealth, or friends, raising himself to the head
of a popular government in the metropolis of the Church--in the City
of the Empire. We see him reject any title save that of a popular
magistrate--establish at one stroke a free constitution--a new code of
law. We see him first expel, then subdue, the fiercest aristocracy in
Europe--conquer the most stubborn banditti, rule impartially the most
turbulent people, embruted by the violence, and sunk in the corruption
of centuries. We see him restore trade--establish order--create
civilization as by a miracle--receive from crowned heads homage and
congratulation--outwit, conciliate, or awe, the wiliest priesthood of
the Papal Diplomacy--and raise his native city at once to sudden yet
acknowledged eminence over every other state, its superior in arts,
wealth, and civilization;--we ask what errors we are to weigh in the
opposite balance, and we find an unnecessary ostentation, a fanatical
extravagance, and a certain insolent sternness. But what are such
offences--what the splendour of a banquet, or the ceremony of
Knighthood, or a few arrogant words, compared with the vices of
almost every prince who was his contemporary? This is the way to judge
character: we must compare men with men, and not with ideals of what
men should be. We look to the amazing benefits Rienzi conferred upon his
country. We ask his means, and see but his own abilities. His treasury
becomes impoverished--his enemies revolt--the Church takes advantage of
his weakness--he is excommunicated--the soldiers refuse to fight--the
People refuse to assist--the Barons ravage the country--the ways are
closed, the provisions are cut off from Rome. ("Allora le strade furo
chiuse, li massari de la terre non portavano grano, ogni die nasceva
nuovo rumore."--"Vita di Cola di Rienzi", lib. i. cap. 37.) A handful
of banditti enter the city--Rienzi proposes to resist them--the People
desert--he abdicates. Rapine, Famine, Massacre, ensue--they who deserted
regret, repent--yet he is still unassisted, alone--now an exile, now a
prisoner, his own genius saves him from every peril, and restores him
to greatness. He returns, the Pope's Legate refuses him arms--the People
refuse him money. He re-establishes law and order, expels the tyrants,
renounces his former faults (this, the second period of his power, has
been represented by Gibbon and others as that of his principal faults,
and he is evidently at this time no favourite with his contemporaneous
biographer; but looking to what he did, we find amazing dexterity,
prudence, and energy in the most difficult crisis, and none of his
earlier faults. It is true, that he does not shew the same brilliant
extravagance which, I suspect, dazzled his contemporaries, more than his
sounder qualities; but we find that in a few weeks he had conquered
all his powerful enemies--that his eloquence was as great as ever--his
promptitude greater--his diligence indefatigable--his foresight
unslumbering. "He alone," says the biographer, "carried on the affairs
of Rome, but his officials were slothful and cold." This too, tortured
by a painful disease--already--though yet young--broken and infirm. The
only charges against him, as Senator, were the deaths of Montreal and
Pandulfo di Guido, the imposition of the gabelle, and the renunciation
of his former habits of rigid abstinence, for indulgence in wine and
feasting. Of the first charges, the reader has already been enabled to
form a judgment. To the last, alas! the reader must extend indulgence,
and for it he may find excuse. We must compassionate even more than
condemn the man to whom excitement has become nature, and who resorts
to the physical stimulus or the momentary Lethe, when the mental
exhilarations of hope, youth, and glory, begin to desert him. His
alleged intemperance, however, which the Romans (a peculiarly sober
people) might perhaps exaggerate, and for which he gave the excuse of
a thirst produced by disease contracted in the dungeon of
Avignon--evidently and confessedly did not in the least diminish his
attention to business, which, according to his biographer, was at that
time greater than ever.)--is prudent, wary, provident--reigns a few
weeks--taxes the People, in support of the People, and is torn to
pieces! One day of the rule that followed is sufficient to vindicate his
reign and avenge his memory--and for centuries afterwards, whenever that
wretched and degenerate populace dreamed of glory or sighed for justice,
they recalled the bright vision of their own victim, and deplored the
fate of Cola di Rienzi. That he was not a tyrant is clear in this--when
he was dead, he was bitterly regretted. The People never regret a
tyrant! From the unpopularity that springs from other faults there is
often a re-action; but there is no re-action in the populace towards
their betrayor or oppressor. A thousand biographies cannot decide upon
the faults or merits of a ruler like the one fact, whether he is beloved
or hated ten years after he is dead. But if the ruler has been murdered
by the People, and is then regretted by them, their repentance is his
acquittal.

I have said that the moral of the Tribune's life, and of this fiction,
is not the stale and unprofitable moral that warns the ambition of
an individual:--More vast, more solemn, and more useful, it addresses
itself to nations. If I judge not erringly, it proclaims that, to
be great and free, a People must trust not to individuals but
themselves--that there is no sudden leap from servitude to liberty--that
it is to institutions, not to men, for they must look for reforms that
last beyond the hour--that their own passions are the real despots they
should subdue, their own reason the true regenerator of abuses. With a
calm and a noble people, the individual ambition of a citizen can
never effect evil:--to be impatient of chains, is not to be worthy of
freedom--to murder a magistrate is not to ameliorate the laws. (Rienzi
was murdered because the Romans had been in the habit of murdering
whenever they were displeased. They had, very shortly before, stoned one
magistrate, and torn to pieces another. By the same causes and the same
career a People may be made to resemble the bravo whose hand wanders to
his knife at the smallest affront, and if today he poniards the enemy
who assaults him, tomorrow he strikes the friend who would restrain.)
The People write their own condemnation whenever they use characters
of blood; and theirs alone the madness and the crime, if they crown a
tyrant or butcher a victim.




Appendix II. A Word Upon the Work by Pere du Cerceau and Pere Brumoy,

Entitled "Conjuration de Nicolas Gabrini, Dit de Rienzi, Tyran de Rome."

Shortly after the Romance of "Rienzi" first appeared, a translation
of the biography compiled by Cerceau and Brumoy was published by Mr.
Whittaker. The translator, in a short and courteous advertisement,
observes, "That it has always been considered as a work of authority;
and even Gibbon appears to have relied on it without further research:
(Here, however, he does injustice to Gibbon.)...that, "as a record of
facts, therefore, the work will, it is presumed, be acceptable to the
public." The translator has fulfilled his duty with accuracy, elegance,
and spirit,--and he must forgive me, if, in justice to History and
Rienzi, I point out a very few from amongst a great many reasons, why
the joint labour of the two worthy Jesuits cannot be considered either a
work of authority, or a record of facts. The translator observes in his
preface, "that the general outline (of Du Cerceau's work) was probably
furnished by an Italian life written by a contemporary of Rienzi." The
fact, however, is, that Du Cerceau's book is little more than a wretched
paraphrase of that very Italian life mentioned by the translator,--full
of blunders, from ignorance of the peculiar and antiquated dialect in
which the original is written, and of assumptions by the Jesuit himself,
which rest upon no authority whatever. I will first shew, in support
of this assertion, what the Italians themselves think of the work of
Fathers Brumoy and Du Cerceau. The Signor Zefirino Re, who had proved
himself singularly and minutely acquainted with the history of that
time, and whose notes to the "Life of Rienzi" are characterized by
acknowledged acuteness and research, thus describes the manner in which
the two Jesuits compounded this valuable "record of facts."

"Father Du Cerceau for his work made use of a French translation of the
life by the Italian contemporary printed in Bracciano, 1624, executed
by Father Sanadon, another Jesuit, from whom he received the MS.
This proves that Du Cerceau knew little of our 'volgar lingua' of the
fourteenth century. But the errors into which he has run shew, that even
that little was unknown to his guide, and still less to Father Brumoy,
(however learned and reputed the latter might be in French literature,)
who, after the death of Du Cerceau, supplied the deficiencies in the
first pages of the author's MS., which were, I know not how, lost; and
in this part are found the more striking errors in the work, which
shall be noticed in the proper place; in the meantime, one specimen will
suffice. In the third chapter, book i., Cola, addressing the Romans,
says, 'Che lo giubileo si approssima, che se la gente, la quale verra
al giubileo, li trova sproveduti di annona, le pietre (per metatesi sta
scritto le preite) ne porteranno da Roma per rabbia di fame, e le pietre
non basteranno a tanta moltitudine. Il francese traduce. Le
jubile approche, et vous n'avez ni provisions, ni vivres; les
etrangers...trouvent votre ville denue de tout. Ne comptez point sur les
secours des gens d'Eglise; ils sortiront de la ville, s'ils n'y trouvent
de quoi subsister: et d'ailleurs pourroient-ils suffire a la multitude
innombrable, que se trouvera dans vos murs?'" (The English translator
could not fail to adopt the Frenchman's ludicrous mistake.) "Buon Dio!"
exclaims the learned Zefirino, "Buon Dio! le pietre prese per tanta
gente di chiesa!" (See Preface to Zefirino Re's edition of the "Life of
Rienzi," page 9, note on Du Cerceau.)