Rienzi

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Rienzi


Another blunder little less extraordinary occurs in Chapter vi., in
which the ordinances of Rienzi's Buono Stato are recited.

It is set forth as the third ordinance:--"Che nulla case di Roma sia
data per terra per alcuna cagione, ma vada in commune;" which simply
means, that the houses of delinquents should in no instance be razed,
but added to the community or confiscated. This law being intended
partly to meet the barbarous violences with which the excesses and
quarrels of the Barons had half dismantled Rome, and principally to
repeal some old penal laws by which the houses of a certain class of
offenders might be destroyed; but the French translator construes it,
"Que nulle maison de Rome ne saroit donnee en propre, pour quelque
raison que ce put etre; mais que les revenus en appartiendroient au
public!" (The English translator makes this law unintelligible:--"That
no family of Rome shall appropriate to their own use what they think
fit, but that the revenues shall appertain to the public"!!!--the
revenues of what?)

But enough of the blunders arising from ignorance.--I must now be
permitted to set before the reader a few of the graver offences of
wilful assumption and preposterous invention.

When Rienzi condemned some of the Barons to death, the Pere thus writes;
I take the recent translation published by Mr. Whittaker:--

"The next day the Tribune, resolving more than ever to rid himself of
his prisoners, ordered tapestries of two colours, red and white, to be
laid over the place whereon he held his councils, and which he had made
choice of to be the theatre of this bloody tragedy, as the extraordinary
tapestry seemed to declare. He afterwards sent a cordelier to every
one of the prisoners to administer the sacraments, and then ordered
the Capitol bell to be tolled. At that fatal sound and the sight of
the confessors, the Lords no longer doubted of sentence of death being
passed upon them. They all confessed except the old Colonna, and many
received the communion. In the meanwhile the people, naturally prompt to
attend, when their first impetuosity had time to calm, could not without
pity behold the dismal preparations which were making. The sight of the
bloody colour in the tapestry shocked them. On this first impression
they joined in opinion in relation to so many illustrious heads now
going to be sacrificed, and lamented more their unhappy catastrophe,
as no crime had been proved upon them to render them worthy of such
barbarous treatment. Above all, the unfortunate Stephen Colonna,
whose birth, age, and affable behaviour, commanded respect, excited a
particular compassion. An universal silence and sorrow reigned among
them. Those who were nearest Rienzi discovered an alteration. They took
the opportunity of imploring his mercy towards the prisoners in terms
the most affecting and moving."

Will it be believed, that in the original from which the Pere Du Cerceau
borrows or rather imagines this touching recital, there is not a single
syllable about the pity of the people, nor their shock at the bloody
colours of the tapestry, nor their particular compassion for the
unfortunate Stephen Colonna?--in fine, the People are not even mentioned
at all. All that is said is, "Some Roman citizens, (alcuni cittadini
Romani,) considering the judgment Rienzi was about to make, interposed
with soft and caressing words, and at last changed the opinion of the
Tribune;" all the rest is the pure fiction of the ingenious Frenchman!
Again, Du Cerceau, describing the appearance of the Barons at this fatal
moment, says, "Notwithstanding the grief and despair visible in their
countenances, they shewed a noble indignation, generally attendant on
innocence in the hour of death." What says the authority from which
alone, except his own, the good Father could take his account? Why, not
a word about this noble indignation, or this parade of innocence! The
original says simply, that "the Barons were so frozen with terror
that they were unable to speak," (diventaso si gelati che non poteano
favellare;) "that the greater part humbled themselves," (e prese
penitenza e comunione;) that when Rienzi addressed them "all the Barons
(come dannati) stood in sadness." (See "Vita di Cola di Rienzi", lib. i.
cap. 29.) Du Cerceau then proceeds to state, that "although he (Rienzi)
was grieved at heart to behold his victims snatched from him, he
endeavoured to make a merit of it in the eyes of the People." There is
not a word of this in the original!

So when Rienzi, on a latter occasion, placed the Prefect John di Vico
in prison, this Jesuit says, "To put a gloss upon this action before
the eyes of the people, Rienzi gave out that the Governor, John di Vico,
keeping a correspondence with the conspirators, came with no other view
than to betray the Romans." And if this scribbler, who pretends to have
consulted the Vatican MSS., had looked at the most ordinary authorities,
he would have seen that John di Vico did come with that view. (See for
Di Vico's secret correspondence with the Barons, La Cron. Bologn. page
406; and La Cron. Est. page 444.)

Again, in the battle between the Barons and the Romans at the gates, Du
Cerceau thus describes the conduct of the Tribune:--"The Tribune, amidst
his troops, knew so little of what had passed, that seeing at a distance
one of his standards fall, he looked upon all as lost, and, casting up
his eyes to heaven full of despair, cried out, 'O God, will you then
forsake me?' But no sooner was he informed of the entire defeat of
his enemies, than his dread and cowardice even turned to boldness and
arrogance."

Now in the original all that is said of this is, "That it is true that
the standard of the Tribune fell--the Tribune astonished, (or if you
please, dismayed, sbigottio,) stood with his eyes raised to heaven, and
could find no other words than, 'O God hast thou betrayed me?'" This
evinced, perhaps, alarm or consternation at the fall of his standard--a
consternation natural, not to a coward, but a fanatic, at such an event.
But not a word is said about Rienzi's cowardice in the action itself;
it is not stated when the accident happened--nothing bears out the
implication that the Tribune was remote from the contest, and knew
little of what passed. And if this ignorant Frenchman had consulted
any other contemporaneous historian whatever, he would have found it
asserted by them all, that the fight was conducted with great valour,
both by the Roman populace and their leader on the one side, and the
Barons on the other.--G. Vill. lib. xii. cap. 105; Cron. Sen. tom. xv.
Murat. page 119; Cron. Est. page 444. Yet Gibbon rests his own sarcasm
on the Tribune's courage solely on the baseless exaggeration of this
Pere Du Cerceau.

So little, indeed, did this French pretender know of the history of the
time and place he treats of, that he imagines the Stephen Colonna who
was killed in the battle above-mentioned was the old Stephen Colonna,
and is very pathetic about his "venerable appearance," &c. This error,
with regard to a man so eminent as Stephen Colonna the elder, is
inexcusable: for, had the priest turned over the other pages of the very
collection in which he found the biography he deforms, he would
have learned that old Stephen Colonna was alive some time after that
battle.--(Cron. Sen. Murat. tom. xv. page 121.)

Again, just before Rienzi's expulsion from the office of Tribune, Du
Cerceau, translating in his headlong way the old biographer's account of
the causes of Rienzi's loss of popularity, says, "He shut himself up in
his palace, and his presence was known only by the rigorous punishments
which he caused his agents to inflict upon the innocent." Not a word of
this in the original!

Again, after the expulsion, Du Cerceau says, that the Barons seized upon
the "immense riches" he had amassed,--the words in the original are,
"grandi ornamenti," which are very different things from immense riches.
But the most remarkable sins of commission are in this person's account
of the second rise and fall of Rienzi under the title of Senator. Of
this I shall give but one instance:--

"The Senator, who perceived it, became only the more cruel. His
jealousies produced only fresh murders. In the continual dread he was
in, that the general discontent would terminate in some secret attempt
upon his person, he determined to intimidate the most enterprising, by
sacrificing sometimes one, sometimes another, and chiefly those whose
riches rendered them the more guilty in his eyes. Numbers were sent
every day to the Capitol prison. Happy were those who could get off with
the confiscation of their estates."

Of these grave charges there is not a syllable in the original! And so
much for the work of Pere Cerceau and Pere Brumoy, by virtue of which,
historians have written of the life and times of Rienzi, and upon the
figments of which, the most remarkable man in an age crowded with great
characters is judged by the general reader!

I must be pardoned for this criticism, which might not have been
necessary, had not the work to which it relates, in the English
translation quoted from, (a translation that has no faults but those
of the French original,) been actually received as an historical and
indisputable authority, and opposed with a triumphant air to some
passages in my own narrative which were literally taken from the
authentic records of the time.