The acuter reader has already learned, without the absolute intervention of the author as narrator, the incidents occurring to Rienzi in the interval between his acquittal at Avignon and his return to Rome. As the impression made by Nina upon the softer and better nature of Albornoz died away, he naturally began to consider his guest—as the profound politicians of that day ever considered men—a piece upon the great Chess-Board, to be moved, advanced, or sacrificed, as best suited the scheme in view. His purpose accomplished, in the recovery of the patrimonial territory, the submission of John di Vico, and the fall and death of the Demagogue Baroncelli, the Cardinal deemed it far from advisable to restore to Rome, and with so high a dignity, the able and ambitious Rienzi. Before the daring Roman, even his own great spirit quailed; and he was wholly unable to conceive or to calculate the policy that might be adopted by the new Senator, when once more Lord of Rome. Without affecting to detain, he therefore declined to assist in restoring him. And Rienzi thus saw himself within an easy march of Rome, without one soldier to protect him against the Barons by the way. But Heaven had decreed that no single man, however gifted, or however powerful, should long counteract or master the destinies of Rienzi: and perhaps in no more glittering scene of his life did he ever evince so dexterous and subtle an intellect as he now did in extricating himself from the wiles of the Cardinal. Repairing to Perugia, he had, as we have seen, procured, through the brothers of Montreal, men and money for his return. But the Knight of St. John was greatly mistaken, if he imagined that Rienzi was not thoroughly aware of the perilous and treacherous tenure of the support he had received. His keen eye read at a glance the aims and the characters of the brothers of Montreal—he knew that while affecting to serve him, they designed to control—that, made the debtor of the grasping and aspiring Montreal, and surrounded by the troops conducted by Montreal’s brethren, he was in the midst of a net which, if not broken, would soon involve fortune and life itself in its fatal and deadly meshes. But, confident in the resources and promptitude of his own genius, he yet sanguinely trusted to make those his puppets, who dreamed that he was their own; and, with empire for the stake, he cared not how crafty the antagonists he was compelled to engage.
Meanwhile, uniting to all his rasher and all his nobler qualities, a profound dissimulation, he appeared to trust implicitly to his Provencal companions; and his first act on entering the Capitol, after the triumphal procession, was to reward with the highest dignities in his gift, Messere Arimbaldo and Messere Brettone de Montreal!
High feasting was there that night in the halls of the Capitol; but dearer to Rienzi than all the pomp of the day, were the smiles of Nina. Her proud and admiring eyes, swimming with delicious tears, fixed upon his countenance, she but felt that they were re-united, and that the hours, however brilliantly illumined, were hastening to that moment, when, after so desolate and dark an absence, they might once more be alone.
Far other the thoughts of Adrian Colonna, as he sate alone in the dreary palace in the yet more dreary quarter of his haughty race. Irene then was alive,—he had been deceived by some strange error,—she had escaped the devouring pestilence; and something in the pale sadness of her gentle features, even in that day of triumph, told him he was still remembered. But as his mind by degrees calmed itself from its first wild and tumultuous rapture, he could not help asking himself the question whether they were not still to be divided! Stefanello Colonna, the grandson of the old Stephen, and (by the death of his sire and brother) the youthful head of that powerful House, had already raised his standard against the Senator. Fortifying himself in the almost impregnable fastness of Palestrina, he had assembled around him all the retainers of his family, and his lawless soldiery now ravaged the neighbouring plains far and wide.
Adrian foresaw that the lapse of a few days would suffice to bring the Colonna and the Senator to open war. Could he take part against those of his own blood? The very circumstance of his love for Irene would yet more rob such a proceeding of all appearance of disinterested patriotism, and yet more deeply and irremediably stain his knightly fame, wherever the sympathy of his equals was enlisted with the cause of the Colonna. On the other hand, not only his love for the Senator’s sister, but his own secret inclinations and honest convictions, were on the side of one who alone seemed to him possessed of the desire and the genius to repress the disorders of his fallen city. Long meditating, he feared no alternative was left him but in the same cruel neutrality to which he had been before condemned; but he resolved at least to make the attempt—rendered favourable and dignified by his birth and reputation—to reconcile the contending parties. To effect this, he saw that he must begin with his haughty cousin. He was well aware that were it known that he had first obtained an interview with Rienzi—did it appear as if he were charged with overtures from the Senator—although Stefanello himself might be inclined to yield to his representations, the insolent and ferocious Barons who surrounded him would not deign to listen to the envoy of the People’s chosen one; and instead of being honoured as an intercessor, he should be suspected as a traitor. He determined, then, to depart for Palestrina; but (and his heart beat audibly) would it not be possible first to obtain an interview with Irene? It was no easy enterprise, surrounded as she was, but he resolved to adventure it. He summoned Giulio.
“The Senator holds a festival this evening—think you that the assemblage will be numerous?”
“I hear,” answered Giulio, “that the banquet given to the Ambassadors and Signors today is to be followed tomorrow by a mask, to which all ranks are admitted. By Bacchus, (Still a common Roman expletive.) if the Tribune only invited nobles, the smallest closet in the Capitol would suffice to receive his maskers. I suppose a mask has been resolved on in order to disguise the quality of the visitors.”
Adrian mused a moment; and the result of his revery was a determination to delay for another sun his departure to Palestrina—to take advantage of the nature of the revel, and to join the masquerade.
That species of entertainment, though unusual at that season of the year, had been preferred by Rienzi, partly and ostensibly because it was one in which all his numerous and motley supporters could be best received; but chiefly and secretly because it afforded himself and his confidential friends the occasion to mix unsuspected amongst the throng, and learn more of the real anticipations of the Romans with respect to his policy and his strength, than could well be gathered from the enthusiasm of a public spectacle.
The following night was beautifully serene and clear. The better to accommodate the numerous guests, and to take advantage of the warm and moonlit freshness of the air, the open court of the Capitol, with the Place of the Lion, (as well as the state apartments within,) was devoted to the festival.
As Adrian entered the festive court with the rush of the throng, it chanced that in the eager impatience of some maskers, more vehement than the rest, his vizard was deranged. He hastily replaced it; but not before one of the guests had recognised his countenance.
From courtesy, Rienzi and his family remained at first unmasked. They stood at the head of the stairs to which the old Egyptian Lion gave the name. The lights shone over that Colossal Monument—which, torn from its antique home, had witnessed, in its grim repose, the rise and lapse of countless generations, and the dark and stormy revolutions of avenging fate. It was an ill omen, often afterwards remarked, that the place of that state festival was the place also of the state executions. But at that moment, as group after group pressed forward to win smile and word from the celebrated man, whose fortunes had been the theme of Europe, or to bend in homage to the lustrous loveliness of Nina, no omen and no warning clouded the universal gladness.
Behind Nina, well contented to shrink from the gaze of the throng, and to feel her softer beauty eclipsed by the dazzling and gorgeous charms of her brother’s wife, stood Irene. Amidst the crowd on her alone Adrian fixed his eyes. The years which had flown over the fair brow of the girl of sixteen—then animated by, yet trembling beneath, the first wild breath of Love;—youth in every vein—passion and childish tenderness in every thought, had not marred, but they had changed, the character of Irene’s beauty. Her cheek, no longer varying with every instant, was settled into a delicate and thoughtful paleness—her form, more rounded to the proportions of Roman beauty, had assumed an air of dignified and calm repose. No longer did the restless eye wander in search of some imagined object; no longer did the lip quiver into smiles at some untold hope or half-unconscious recollection. A grave and mournful expression gave to her face (still how sweet!) a gravity beyond her years. The bloom, the flush, the April of the heart, was gone; but yet neither time, nor sorrow, nor blighted love, had stolen from her countenance its rare and angelic softness—nor that inexpressible and virgin modesty of form and aspect, which, contrasting the bolder beauties of Italy, had more than aught else distinguished to Adrian, from all other women, the idol of his heart. And feeding his gaze upon those dark deep eyes, which spoke of thought far away and busy with the past, Adrian felt again and again that he was not forgotten! Hovering near her, but suffering the crowd to press one after another before him, he did not perceive that he had attracted the eagle eye of the Senator.
In fact, as one of the maskers passed Rienzi, he whispered, “Beware, a Colonna is among the masks! beneath the reveller’s domino has often lurked the assassin’s dagger. Yonder stands your foe—mark him!”
These words were the first sharp and thrilling intimation of the perils into which he had rushed, that the Tribune-Senator had received since his return. He changed colour slightly; and for some minutes the courtly smile and ready greeting with which he had hitherto delighted every guest, gave way to a moody abstraction.
“Why stands yon strange man so mute and motionless?” whispered he to Nina. “He speaks to none—he approaches us not—a churl, a churl!—he must be seen to.”
“Doubtless, some German or English barbarian,” answered Nina. “Let not, my Lord, so slight a cloud dim your merriment.”
“You are right, dearest; we have friends here; we are well girt. And, by my father’s ashes, I feel that I must accustom myself to danger. Nina, let us move on; methinks we might now mix among the maskers—masked ourselves.”
The music played loud and cheerily as the Senator and his party mingled with the throng. But still his eye turned ever towards the grey domino of Adrian, and he perceived that it followed his steps. Approaching the private entrance of the Capitol, he for a few moments lost sight of his unwelcome pursuer: but just as he entered, turning abruptly, Rienzi perceived him close at his side—the next moment the stranger had vanished amidst the throng. But that moment had sufficed to Adrian—he had reached Irene. “Adrian Colonna (he whispered) waits thee beside the Lion.”
In the absorption of his own reflections, Rienzi fortunately did not notice the sudden paleness and agitation of his sister. Entered within his palace, he called for wine—the draught revived his spirits—he listened smilingly to the sparkling remarks of Nina; and enduing his mask and disguise, said, with his wonted cheerfulness, “Now for Truth—strange that in festivals it should only speak behind a vizard! My sweet sister, thou hast lost thine old smile, and I would rather see that than—Ha! has Irene vanished?”
“Only, I suppose, to change her dress, my Cola, and mingle with the revellers,” answered Nina. “Let my smile atone for hers.”
Rienzi kissed the bright brow of his wife as she clung fondly to his bosom. “Thy smile is the sunlight,” said he; “but this girl disturbs me. Methinks now, at least, she might wear a gladder aspect.”
“Is there nothing of love beneath my fair sister’s gloom?” answered Nina. “Do you not call to mind how she loved Adrian Colonna?”
“Does that fantasy hold still?” returned Rienzi, musingly. “Well, and she is fit bride for a monarch.”
“Yet it were an alliance that would, better than one with monarchs, strengthen thy power at Rome!”
“Ay, were it possible; but that haughty race!—Perchance this very masker that so haunted our steps was but her lover. I will look to this. Let us forth, my Nina. Am I well cloaked?”
“Excellently well—and I?”
“The sun behind a cloud.”
“Ah, let us not tarry long; what hour of revel like that when thy hand in mine, this head upon thy bosom, we forget the sorrows we have known, and even the triumphs we have shared?”
Meanwhile, Irene, confused and lost amidst a transport of emotion, already disguised and masked, was threading her way through the crowd back to the staircase of the Lion. With the absence of the Senator that spot had comparatively been deserted. Music and the dance attracted the maskers to another quarter of the wide space. And Irene now approaching, beheld the moonlight fall over the statue, and a solitary figure leaning against the pedestal. She paused, the figure approached, and again she heard the voice of her early love.
“Oh, Irene! recognised even in this disguise,” said Adrian, seizing her trembling hand; “have I lived to gaze again upon that form—to touch this hand? Did not these eyes behold thee lifeless in that fearful vault, which I shudder to recall? By what miracle wert thou raised again? By what means did Heaven spare to this earth one that it seemed already to have placed amongst its angels?”
“Was this, indeed, thy belief?” said Irene, falteringly, but with an accent eloquent of joy. “Thou didst not then willingly desert me? Unjust that I was, I wronged thy noble nature, and deemed that my brother’s fall, my humble lineage, thy brilliant fate, had made thee renounce Irene.”
“Unjust indeed!” answered the lover. “But surely I saw thee amongst the dead!—thy cloak, with the silver stars—who else wore the arms of the Roman Tribune?”
“Was it but the cloak then, which, dropped in the streets, was probably assumed by some more ill-fated victim; was it that sight alone, that made thee so soon despair? Ah! Adrian,” continued Irene, tenderly, but with reproach; “not even when I saw thee seemingly lifeless on the couch by which I had watched three days and nights, not even then did I despair!”
“What, then, my vision did not deceive me! It was you who watched by my bed in that grim hour, whose love guarded, whose care preserved me! And I, wretch that I was!—”
“Nay,” answered Irene, “your thought was natural. Heaven seemed to endow me with superhuman strength, whilst I was necessary to thee. But judge of my dismay. I left thee to seek the good friar who attended thee as thy leech; I returned, and found thee not. Heart-sick and terrified, I searched the desolate city in vain. Strong as I was while hope supported me, I sunk beneath fear.—And my brother found me senseless, and stretched on the ground, by the church of St. Mark.”
“The church of St. Mark!—so foretold his dream!”
“He had told me he had met thee; we searched for thee in vain; at length we heard that thou hadst left the city, and—and—I rejoiced, Adrian, but I repined!”
For some minutes the young lovers surrendered themselves to the delight of reunion, while new explanations called forth new transports.
“And now,” murmured Irene, “now that we have met—” she paused, and her mask concealed her blushes.
“Now that we have met,” said Adrian, filling up the silence, “wouldst thou say further, ‘that we should not part?’ Trust me, dearest, that is the hope that animates my heart. It was but to enjoy these brief bright moments with thee, that I delayed my departure to Palestrina. Could I but hope to bring my young cousin into amity with thy brother, no barrier would prevent our union. Willingly I forget the past—the death of my unhappy kinsmen, (victims, it is true, to their own faults;) and, perhaps, amidst all the crowds that hailed his return, none more appreciated the great and lofty qualities of Cola di Rienzi, than did Adrian Colonna.”
“If this be so,” said Irene, “let me hope the best; meanwhile, it is enough of comfort and of happiness to know, that we love each other as of old. Ah, Adrian, I am sadly changed; and often have I thought it a thing beyond my dreams, that thou shouldst see me again and love me still.”
“Fairer art thou and lovelier than ever,” answered Adrian, passionately; “and time, which has ripened thy bloom, has but taught me more deeply to feel thy value. Farewell, Irene, I linger here no longer; thou wilt, I trust, hear soon of my success with my House, and ere the week be over I may return to claim thy hand in the face of day.”
The lovers parted; Adrian lingered on the spot, and Irene hastened to bury her emotion and her raptures in her own chamber.
As her form vanished, and the young Colonna slowly turned away, a tall mask strode abruptly towards him.
“Thou art a Colonna,” it said, “and in the power of the Senator. Dost thou tremble?”
“If I be a Colonna, rude masker,” answered Adrian, coldly, “thou shouldst know the old proverb, ‘He who stirs the column, shall rue the fall.’”
The stranger laughed aloud, and then lifting his mask, Adrian saw that it was the Senator who stood before him.
“My Lord Adrian di Castello,” said Rienzi, resuming all his gravity, “is it as friend or foe that you have honoured our revels this night?”
“Senator of Rome,” answered Adrian, with equal stateliness, “I partake of no man’s hospitality but as a friend. A foe, at least to you, I trust never justly to be esteemed.”
“I would,” rejoined Rienzi, “that I could apply to myself unreservedly that most flattering speech. Are these friendly feelings entertained towards me as the Governor of the Roman people, or as the brother of the woman who has listened to your vows?”
Adrian, who when the Senator had unmasked had followed his example, felt at these words that his eye quailed beneath Rienzi’s. However, he recovered himself with the wonted readiness of an Italian, and replied laconically,
“As both.”
“Both!” echoed Rienzi. “Then, indeed, noble Adrian, you are welcome hither. And yet, methinks, if you conceived there was no cause for enmity between us, you would have wooed the sister of Cola di Rienzi in a guise more worthy of your birth; and, permit me to add, of that station which God, destiny, and my country, have accorded unto me. You dare not, young Colonna, meditate dishonour to the sister of the Senator of Rome. Highborn as you are, she is your equal.”
“Were I the Emperor, whose simple knight I but am, your sister were my equal,” answered Adrian, warmly. “Rienzi, I grieve that I am discovered to you yet. I had trusted that, as a mediator between the Barons and yourself, I might first have won your confidence, and then claimed my reward. Know that with tomorrow’s dawn I depart for Palestrina, seeking to reconcile my young cousin to the choice of the People and the Pontiff. Various reasons, which I need not now detail, would have made me wish to undertake this heraldry of peace without previous communication with you. But since we have met, intrust me with any terms of conciliation, and I pledge you the right hand, not of a Roman noble—alas! the prisca fides has departed from that pledge!—but of a Knight of the Imperial Court, that I will not betray your confidence.”
Rienzi, accustomed to read the human countenance, had kept his eyes intently fixed upon Adrian while he spoke; when the Colonna concluded, he pressed the proffered hand, and said, with that familiar and winning sweetness which at times was so peculiar to his manner,
“I trust you, Adrian, from my soul. You were mine early friend in calmer, perchance happier, years. And never did river reflect the stars more clearly, than your heart then mirrored back the truth. I trust you!”
While thus speaking, he had mechanically led back the Colonna to the statue of the Lion; there pausing, he resumed:
“Know that I have this morning despatched my delegate to your cousin Stefanello. With all due courtesy, I have apprised him of my return to Rome, and invited hither his honoured presence. Forgetting all ancient feuds, mine own past exile, I have assured him, here, the station and dignity due to the head of the Colonna. All that I ask in return is obedience to the law. Years and reverses have abated my younger pride, and though I may yet preserve the sternness of the Judge, none shall hereafter complain of the insolence of the Tribune.”
“I would,” answered Adrian, “that your mission to Stefanello had been delayed a day; I would fain have forestalled its purport. Howbeit, you increase my desire of departure, should I yet succeed in obtaining an honourable and peaceful reconciliation, it is not in disguise that I will woo your sister.”
“And never did Colonna,” replied Rienzi, loftily, “bring to his House a maiden whose alliance more gratified ambition. I still see, as I have seen ever, in mine own projects, and mine own destinies, the chart of the new Roman Empire!”
“Be not too sanguine yet, brave Rienzi,” replied Adrian, laying his hand on the Lion of Basalt: “bethink thee on how many scheming brains this dumb image of stone hath looked down from its pedestal—schemes of sand, and schemers of dust. Thou hast enough, at present, for the employ of all thine energy—not to extend thy power, but to preserve thyself. For, trust me, never stood human greatness on so wild and dark a precipice!”
“Thou art honest,” said the Senator; “and these are the first words of doubt, and yet of sympathy, I have heard in Rome. But the People love me, the Barons have fled from Rome, the Pontiff approves, and the swords of the Northmen guard the avenues of the Capitol. But these are nought; in mine own honesty are my spear and buckler. Oh, never,” continued Rienzi, kindling with his enthusiasm, “never since the days of the old Republic, did Roman dream a purer and a brighter aspiration, than that which animates and supports me now. Peace restored—law established—art, letters, intellect, dawning upon the night of time; the Patricians, no longer bandits of rapine, but the guard of order; the People ennobled from a mob, brave to protect, enlightened to guide, themselves. Then, not by the violence of arms, but by the majesty of her moral power, shall the Mother of Nations claim the obedience of her children. Thus dreaming and thus hoping, shall I tremble or despond? No, Adrian Colonna, come weal or woe, I abide, unshrinking and unawed, by the chances of my doom!”
So much did the manner and the tone of the Senator exalt his language, that even the sober sense of Adrian was enchanted and subdued. He kissed the hand he held, and said earnestly,
“A doom that I will deem it my boast to share—a career that it will be my glory to smooth. If I succeed in my present mission—”
“You are my brother!” said Rienzi.
“If I fail?”
“You may equally claim that alliance. You pause—you change colour.”
“Can I desert my house?”
“Young Lord,” said Rienzi, loftily, “say rather can you desert your country? If you doubt my honesty, if you fear my ambition, desist from your task, rob me not of a single foe. But if you believe that I have the will and the power to serve the State—if you recognise, even in the reverses and calamities I have known and mastered, the protecting hand of the Saviour of Nations—if those reverses were but the mercies of Him who chasteneth—necessary, it may be, to correct my earlier daring and sharpen yet more my intellect—if, in a word, thou believest me one whom, whatever be his faults, God hath preserved for the sake of Rome, forget that you are a Colonna—remember only that you are a Roman!”
“You have conquered me, strange and commanding spirit,” said Adrian, in a low voice, completely carried away; “and whatever the conduct of my kindred, I am yours and Rome’s. Farewell.”
It was yet noon when Adrian beheld before him the lofty mountains that shelter Palestrina, the Praeneste of the ancient world. Back to a period before Romulus existed, in the earliest ages of that mysterious civilisation which in Italy preceded the birth of Rome, could be traced the existence and the power of that rocky city. Eight dependent towns owned its sway and its wealth; its position, and the strength of those mighty walls, in whose ruins may yet be traced the masonry of the remote Pelasgi, had long braved the ambition of the neighbouring Rome. From that very citadel, the Mural Crown (Hence, apparently, its Greek name of Stephane. Palestrina is yet one of the many proofs which the vicinity of Rome affords of the old Greek civilization of Italy.) of the mountain, had waved the standard of Marius; and up the road which Adrian’s scanty troop slowly wound, had echoed the march of the murtherous Sylla, on his return from the Mithridatic war. Below, where the city spread towards the plain, were yet seen the shattered and roofless columns of the once celebrated Temple of Fortune; and still the immemorial olives clustered grey and mournfully around the ruins.
A more formidable hold the Barons of Rome could not have selected; and as Adrian’s military eye scanned the steep ascent and the rugged walls, he felt that with ordinary skill it might defy for months all the power of the Roman Senator. Below, in the fertile valley, dismantled cottages and trampled harvests attested the violence and rapine of the insurgent Barons; and at that very moment were seen, in the old plain of the warlike Hernici, troops of armed men, driving before them herds of sheep and cattle, collected in their lawless incursions. In sight of that Praeneste, which had been the favourite retreat of the luxurious Lords of Rome in its most polished day, the Age of Iron seemed renewed.
The banner of the Colonna, borne by Adrian’s troop, obtained ready admittance at the Porta del Sole. As he passed up the irregular and narrow streets that ascended to the citadel, groups of foreign mercenaries,—half-ragged, half-tawdry knots of abandoned women,—mixed here and there with the liveries of the Colonna, stood loitering amidst the ruins of ancient fanes and palaces, or basked lazily in the sun, upon terraces, through which, from amidst weeds and grass, glowed the imperishable hues of the rich mosaics, which had made the pride of that lettered and graceful nobility, of whom savage freebooters were now the heirs.
The contrast between the Past and Present forcibly occurred to Adrian, as he passed along; and, despite his order, he felt as if Civilization itself were enlisted against his House upon the side of Rienzi.
Leaving his train in the court of the citadel, Adrian demanded admission to the presence of his cousin. He had left Stefanello a child on his departure from Rome, and there could therefore be but a slight and unfamiliar acquaintance betwixt them, despite their kindred.
Peals of laughter came upon his ear, as he followed one of Stefanello’s gentlemen through a winding passage that led to the principal chamber. The door was thrown open, and Adrian found himself in a rude hall, to which some appearance of hasty state and attempted comfort had been given. Costly arras imperfectly clothed the stone walls, and the rich seats and decorated tables, which the growing civilization of the northern cities of Italy had already introduced into the palaces of Italian nobles, strangely contrasted the rough pavement, spread with heaps of armour negligently piled around. At the farther end of the apartment, Adrian shudderingly perceived, set in due and exact order, the implements of torture.
Stefanello Colonna, with two other Barons, indolently reclined on seats drawn around a table, in the recess of a deep casement, from which might be still seen the same glorious landscape, bounded by the dim spires of Rome, which Hannibal and Pyrrhus had ascended that very citadel to survey!
Stefanello himself, in the first bloom of youth, bore already on his beardless countenance those traces usually the work of the passions and vices of maturest manhood. His features were cast in the mould of the old Stephen’s; in their clear, sharp, high-bred outline might be noticed that regular and graceful symmetry, which blood, in men as in animals, will sometimes entail through generations; but the features were wasted and meagre. His brows were knit in an eternal frown; his thin and bloodless lips wore that insolent contempt which seems so peculiarly cold and unlovely in early youth; and the deep and livid hollows round his eyes, spoke of habitual excess and premature exhaustion. By him sat (reconciled by hatred to one another) the hereditary foes of his race; the soft, but cunning and astute features of Luca di Savelli, contrasted with the broad frame and ferocious countenance of the Prince of the Orsini.
The young head of the Colonna rose with some cordiality to receive his cousin. “Welcome,” he said, “dear Adrian; you are arrived in time to assist us with your well-known military skill. Think you not we shall stand a long siege, if the insolent plebeian dare adventure it? You know our friends, the Orsini and the Savelli? Thanks to St. Peter, or Peter’s delegate, we have now happily meaner throats to cut than those of each other!”
Thus saying, Stefanello again threw himself listlessly on his seat, and the shrill, woman’s voice of Savelli took part in the dialogue.
“I would, noble Signor, that you had come a few hours earlier: we are still making merry at the recollection—he, he, he!”
“Ah, excellent,” cried Stefanello, joining in the laugh; “our cousin has had a loss. Know Adrian, that this base fellow, whom the Pope has had the impudence to create Senator, dared but yesterday to send us a varlet, whom he called—by our Lady!—his ambassador!”
“Would you could have seen his mantle, Signor Adrian!” chimed in the Savelli: “purple velvet, as I live, decorated in gold, with the arms of Rome: we soon spoiled his finery.”
“What!” exclaimed Adrian, “you did not break the laws of all nobility and knighthood?—you offered no insult to a herald!”
“Herald, sayst thou?” cried Stefanello, frowning till his eyes were scarce visible. “It is for Princes and Barons alone to employ heralds. An’ I had had my will, I would have sent back the minion’s head to the usurper.”
“What did ye then?” asked Adrian, coldly.
“Bade our swineherds dip the fellow in the ditch, and gave him a night’s lodging in a dungeon to dry himself withal.”
“And this morning—he, he, he!” added the Savelli, “we had him before us, and drew his teeth, one by one;—I would you could have heard the fellow mumble out for mercy!”
Adrian rose hastily, and struck the table fiercely with his gauntlet.
“Stefanello Colonna,” said he, colouring with noble rage, “answer me: did you dare to inflict this indelible disgrace upon the name we jointly bear? Tell me, at least, that you protested against this foul treason to all the laws of civilization and of honour. You answer not. House of the Colonna, can such be thy representative!”
“To me these words!” said Stefanello, trembling with passion. “Beware! Methinks thou art the traitor, leagued perhaps with yon rascal mob. Well do I remember that thou, the betrothed of the Demagogue’s sister, didst not join with my uncle and my father of old, but didst basely leave the city to her plebeian tyrant.”
“That did he!” said the fierce Orsini, approaching Adrian menacingly, while the gentle cowardice of Savelli sought in vain to pluck him back by the mantle—“that did he! and but for thy presence, Stefanello—”
“Coward and blusterer!” interrupted Adrian, fairly beside himself with indignation and shame, and dashing his gauntlet in the very face of the advancing Orsini—“wouldst thou threaten one who has maintained, in every list of Europe, and against the stoutest Chivalry of the North, the honour of Rome, which thy deeds the while disgraced? By this gage, I spit upon and defy thee. With lance and with brand, on horse and on foot, I maintain against thee and all thy line, that thou art no knight to have thus maltreated, in thy strongholds, a peaceful and unarmed herald. Yes, even here, on the spot of thy disgrace, I challenge thee to arms!”
“To the court below! Follow me,” said Orsini, sullenly, and striding towards the threshold. “What, ho there! my helmet and breast-plate!”
“Stay, noble Orsini,” said Stefanello. “The insult offered to thee is my quarrel—mine was the deed—and against me speaks this degenerate scion of our line. Adrian di Castello—sometime called Colonna—surrender your sword: you are my prisoner!”
“Oh!” said Adrian, grinding his teeth, “that my ancestral blood did not flow through thy veins—else—but enough! Me! your equal, and the favoured Knight of the Emperor, whose advent now brightens the frontiers of Italy!—me—you dare not detain. For your friends, I shall meet them yet perhaps, ere many days are over, where none shall separate our swords. Till then, remember, Orsini, that it is against no unpractised arm that thou wilt have to redeem thine honour!”
Adrian, his drawn sword in his hand, strode towards the door, and passed the Orsini, who stood, lowering and irresolute, in the centre of the apartment.
Savelli whispered Stefanello. “He says, ‘Ere many days be past!’ Be sure, dear Signor, that he goes to join Rienzi. Remember, the alliance he once sought with the Tribune’s sister may be renewed. Beware of him! Ought he to leave the castle? The name of a Colonna, associated with the mob, would distract and divide half our strength.”
“Fear me not,” returned Stefanello, with a malignant smile. “Ere you spoke, I had determined!”
The young Colonna lifted the arras from the wall, opened a door, and passed into a low hall, in which sate twenty mercenaries.
“Quick!” said he. “Seize and disarm yon stranger in the green mantle—but slay him not. Bid the guard below find dungeons for his train. Quick! ere he reach the gate.”
Adrian had gained the open hall below—his train and his steed were in sight in the court—when suddenly the soldiery of the Colonna, rushing through another passage than that which he had passed, surrounded and intercepted his retreat.
“Yield thee, Adrian di Castello,” cried Stefanello from the summit of the stairs; “or your blood be on your own head.”
Three steps did Adrian make through the press, and three of his enemies fell beneath his sword. “To the rescue!” he shouted to his band, and already those bold and daring troopers had gained the hall. Presently the alarum bell tolled loud—the court swarmed with soldiers. Oppressed by numbers, beat down rather than subdued, Adrian’s little train was soon secured, and the flower of the Colonna, wounded, breathless, disarmed, but still uttering loud defiance, was a prisoner in the fortress of his kinsman.
Rewards of Ambition.
The indignation of Rienzi may readily be conceived, on the return of his herald mutilated and dishonoured. His temper, so naturally stern, was rendered yet more hard by the remembrance of his wrongs and trials; and the result which attended his overtures of conciliation to Stefanello Colonna stung him to the soul.
The bell of the Capitol tolled to arms within ten minutes after the return of the herald. The great gonfalon of Rome was unfurled on the highest tower; and the very evening after Adrian’s arrest, the forces of the Senator, headed by Rienzi in person, were on the road to Palestrina. The troopers of the Barons had, however, made incursions as far as Tivoli with the supposed connivance of the inhabitants, and Rienzi halted at that beautiful spot to raise recruits, and receive the allegiance of the suspected, while his soldiers, with Arimbaldo and Brettone at their head, went in search of the marauders. The brothers of Montreal returned late at night with the intelligence, that the troopers of the Barons had secured themselves amidst the recesses of the wood of Pantano.
The red spot mounted to Rienzi’s brow. He gazed hard at Brettone, who stated the news to him, and a natural suspicion shot across his mind.
“How!—escaped!” he said. “Is it possible? Enough of such idle skirmishes with these lordly robbers. Will the hour ever come when I shall meet them hand to hand? Brettone,” and the brother of Montreal felt the dark eye of Rienzi pierce to his very heart; “Brettone!” said he, with an abrupt change of voice, “are your men to be trusted? Is there no connivance with the Barons?”
“How!” said Brettone, sullenly, but somewhat confused.
“How me no hows!” quoth the Tribune-Senator, fiercely. “I know that thou art a valiant Captain of valiant men. Thou and thy brother Arimbaldo have served me well, and I have rewarded ye well! Have I not? Speak!”
“Senator,” answered Arimbaldo, taking up the word, “you have kept your word to us. You have raised us to the highest rank your power could bestow, and this has amply atoned our humble services.”
“I am glad ye allow thus much,” said the Tribune.
Arimbaldo proceeded, somewhat more loftily, “I trust, my Lord, you do not doubt us?”
“Arimbaldo,” replied Rienzi, in a voice of deep, but half-suppressed emotion; “you are a lettered man, and you have seemed to share my projects for the regeneration of our common kind. You ought not to betray me. There is something in unison between us. But, chide me not, I am surrounded by treason, and the very air I breathe seems poison to my lips.”
There was a pathos mingled with Rienzi’s words which touched the milder brother of Montreal. He bowed in silence. Rienzi surveyed him wistfully, and sighed. Then, changing the conversation, he spoke of their intended siege of Palestrina, and shortly afterwards retired to rest.
Left alone, the brothers regarded each other for some moments in silence. “Brettone,” said Arimbaldo at length, in a whispered voice, “my heart misgives me. I like not Walter’s ambitious schemes. With our own countrymen we are frank and loyal, why play the traitor with this high-souled Roman?” (The anonymous biographer of Rienzi makes the following just remark: “Sono li tedeschi, come discendon de la Alemagna, semplici, puri, senza fraude, come si allocano tra’ taliani, diventano mastri coduti, viziosi, che sentono ogni malizia.”—“Vita di Cola di Rienzi”, lib. ii. cap. 16.)
“Tush!” said Brettone. “Our brother’s hand of iron alone can sway this turbulent people; and if Rienzi be betrayed, so also are his enemies, the Barons. No more of this! I have tidings from Montreal; he will be in Rome in a few days.”
“And then?”
“Rienzi, weakened by the Barons (for he must not conquer)—the Barons, weakened by Rienzi—our Northmen seize the Capitol, and the soldiery, now scattered throughout Italy, will fly to the standard of the Great Captain. Montreal must be first Podesta, then King, of Rome.”
Arimbaldo moved restlessly in his seat, and the brethren conferred no more on their projects.
The situation of Rienzi was precisely that which tends the most to sour and to harden the fairest nature. With an intellect capable of the grandest designs, a heart that beat with the loftiest emotions, elevated to the sunny pinnacle of power and surrounded by loud-tongued adulators, he knew not among men a single breast in which he could confide. He was as one on a steep ascent, whose footing crumbles, while every bough at which he grasps seems to rot at his touch. He found the people more than ever eloquent in his favour, but while they shouted raptures as he passed, not a man was capable of making a sacrifice for him! The liberty of a state is never achieved by a single individual; if not the people—if not the greater number—a zealous and fervent minority, at least must go hand in hand with him. Rome demanded sacrifices in all who sought the Roman regeneration—sacrifices of time, ease, and money. The crowd followed the procession of the Senator, but not a single Roman devoted his life, unpaid, to his standard; not a single coin was subscribed in the defence of freedom. Against him were arrayed the most powerful and the most ferocious Barons of Italy; each of whom could maintain, at his own cost, a little army of practised warriors. With Rienzi were traders and artificers, who were willing to enjoy the fruits of liberty, but not to labour at the soil; who demanded, in return for empty shouts, peace and riches; and who expected that one man was to effect in a day what would be cheaply purchased by the struggle of a generation. All their dark and rude notion of a reformed state was to live unbutchered by the Barons and untaxed by their governors. Rome, I say, gave to her Senator not a free arm, nor a voluntary florin. (This plain fact is thoroughly borne out by every authority.) Well aware of the danger which surrounds the ruler who defends his state by foreign swords, the fondest wish, and the most visionary dream of Rienzi, was to revive amongst the Romans, in their first enthusiasm at his return, an organised and voluntary force, who, in protecting him, would protect themselves:—not, as before, in his first power, a nominal force of twenty thousand men, who at any hour might yield (as they did yield) to one hundred and fifty; but a regular, well disciplined, and trusty body, numerous enough to resist aggression, not numerous enough to become themselves the aggressors.
Hitherto all his private endeavours, his public exhortations, had failed; the crowd listened—shouted—saw him quit the city to meet their tyrants, and returned to their shops, saying to each other, “What a great man!”
The character of Rienzi has chiefly received for its judges men of the closet, who speculate upon human beings as if they were machines; who gauge the great, not by their merit, but their success; and who have censured or sneered at the Tribune, where they should have condemned the People! Had but one-half the spirit been found in Rome which ran through a single vein of Cola di Rienzi, the august Republic, if not the majestic empire, of Rome, might be existing now! Turning from the people, the Senator saw his rude and savage troops, accustomed to the licence of a tyrant’s camp, and under commanders in whom it was ruin really to confide—whom it was equal ruin openly to distrust. Hemmed in on every side by dangers, his character daily grew more restless, vigilant, and stern; and still, with all the aims of the patriot, he felt all the curses of the tyrant. Without the rough and hardening career which, through a life of warfare, had brought Cromwell to a similar power—with more of grace and intellectual softness in his composition, he resembled that yet greater man in some points of character—in his religious enthusiasm; his rigid justice, often forced by circumstance into severity, but never wantonly cruel or blood-thirsty; in his singular pride of country; and his mysterious command over the minds of others. But he resembled the giant Englishman far more in circumstance than original nature, and that circumstance assimilated their characters at the close of their several careers. Like Cromwell, beset by secret or open foes, the assassin’s dagger ever gleamed before his eyes; and his stout heart, unawed by real, trembled at imagined, terrors. The countenance changing suddenly from red to white—the bloodshot, restless eye, belying the composed majesty of mien—the muttering lips—the broken slumber—the secret corselet; these to both were the rewards of Power!
The elasticity of youth had left the Tribune! His frame, which had endured so many shocks, had contracted a painful disease in the dungeon at Avignon (“Dicea che ne la prigione era stato ascarmato.” “Vita di Cola di Rienzi”, lib. ii. cap. 18.)—his high soul still supported him, but the nerves gave way. Tears came readily into his eyes, and often, like Cromwell, he was thought to weep from hypocrisy, when in truth it was the hysteric of over-wrought and irritable emotion. In all his former life singularly temperate, (“Solea prima esser sobrio, temperato, astinente, or a e diventato distemperatissimo bevitore,” &c.—Ibid.) he now fled from his goading thoughts to the beguiling excitement of wine. He drank deep, though its effects were never visible upon him except in a freer and wilder mood, and the indulgence of that racy humour, half-mirthful, half-bitter, for which his younger day had been distinguished. Now the mirth had more loudness, but the bitterness more gall.
Such were the characteristics of Rienzi at his return to power—made more apparent with every day. Nina he still loved with the same tenderness, and, if possible, she adored him more than ever: but, the zest and freshness of triumphant ambition gone, somehow or other, their intercourse together had not its old charm. Formerly they talked constantly of the future—of the bright days in store for them. Now, with a sharp and uneasy pang, Rienzi turned from all thought of that “gay tomorrow.” There was no “gay tomorrow” for him! Dark and thorny as was the present hour, all beyond seemed yet less cheering and more ominous. Still he had some moments, brief but brilliant, when, forgetting the iron race amongst whom he was thrown, he plunged into scholastic reveries of the worshipped Past, and half-fancied that he was of a People worthy of his genius and his devotion. Like most men who have been preserved through great dangers, he continued with increasing fondness to nourish a credulous belief in the grandeur of his own destiny. He could not imagine that he had been so delivered, and for no end! He was the Elected, and therefore the Instrument, of Heaven. And thus, that Bible which in his loneliness, his wanderings, and his prison, had been his solace and support, was more than ever needed in his greatness.
It was another cause of sorrow and chagrin to one who, amidst such circumstances of public danger, required so peculiarly the support and sympathy of private friends,—that he found he had incurred amongst his old coadjutors the common penalty of absence. A few were dead; others, wearied with the storms of public life, and chilled in their ardour by the turbulent revolutions to which, in every effort for her amelioration, Rome had been subjected, had retired,—some altogether from the city, some from all participation in political affairs. In his halls, the Tribune-Senator was surrounded by unfamiliar faces, and a new generation. Of the heads of the popular party, most were animated by a stern dislike to the Pontifical domination, and looked with suspicion and repugnance upon one who, if he governed for the People, had been trusted and honoured by the Pope. Rienzi was not a man to forget former friends, however lowly, and had already found time to seek an interview with Cecco del Vecchio. But that stern Republican had received him with coldness. His foreign mercenaries, and his title of Senator, were things that the artisan could not digest. With his usual bluntness, he had said so to Rienzi.
“As for the last,” answered the Tribune, affably, “names do not alter natures. When I forget that to be delegate to the Pontiff is to be the guardian of his flock, forsake me. As for the first, let me but see five hundred Romans sworn to stand armed day and night for the defence of Rome, and I dismiss the Northmen.”
Cecco del Vecchio was unsoftened; honest, but uneducated—impracticable, and by nature a malcontent, he felt as if he were no longer necessary to the Senator, and this offended his pride. Strange as it may seem, the sullen artisan bore, too, a secret grudge against Rienzi, for not having seen and selected him from a crowd of thousands on the day of his triumphal entry. Such are the small offences which produce deep danger to the great!
The artisans still held their meetings, and Cecco del Vecchio’s voice was heard loud in grumbling forebodings. But what wounded Rienzi yet more than the alienation of the rest, was the confused and altered manner of his old friend and familiar, Pandulfo di Guido. Missing that popular citizen among those who daily offered their homage at the Capitol, he had sent for him, and sought in vain to revive their ancient intimacy. Pandulfo affected great respect, but not all the condescension of the Senator could conquer his distance and his restraint. In fact, Pandulfo had learned to form ambitious projects of his own; and but for the return of Rienzi, Pandulfo di Guido felt that he might now, with greater safety, and indeed with some connivance from the Barons, have been the Tribune of the People. The facility to rise into popular eminence which a disordered and corrupt state, unblest by a regular constitution, offers to ambition, breeds the jealousy and the rivalship which destroy union, and rot away the ties of party.
Such was the situation of Rienzi, and yet, wonderful to say, he seemed to be adored by the multitude; and law and liberty, life and death, were in his hands!
Of all those who attended his person, Angelo Villani was the most favoured; that youth who had accompanied Rienzi in his long exile, had also, at the wish of Nina, attended him from Avignon, through his sojourn in the camp of Albornoz. His zeal, intelligence, and frank and evident affection, blinded the Senator to the faults of his character, and established him more and more in the gratitude of Rienzi. He loved to feel that one faithful heart beat near him, and the page, raised to the rank of his chamberlain, always attended his person, and slept in his ante-chamber.
Retiring that night at Tivoli, to the apartment prepared for him, the Senator sat down by the open casement, through which were seen, waving in the starlight, the dark pines that crowned the hills, while the stillness of the hour gave to his ear the dash of the waterfalls heard above the regular and measured tread of the sentinels below. Leaning his cheek upon his hand, Rienzi long surrendered himself to gloomy thought, and, when he looked up, he saw the bright blue eye of Villani fixed in anxious sympathy on his countenance.
“Is my Lord unwell?” asked the young chamberlain, hesitating.
“Not so, my Angelo; but somewhat sick at heart. Methinks, for a September night, the air is chill!”
“Angelo,” resumed Rienzi, who had already acquired that uneasy curiosity which belongs to an uncertain power,—“Angelo, bring me hither yon writing implements; hast thou heard aught what the men say of our probable success against Palestrina?”
“Would my Lord wish to learn all their gossip, whether it please or not?” answered Villani.
“If I studied only to hear what pleased me, Angelo, I should never have returned to Rome.”
“Why, then, I heard a constable of the Northmen say, meaningly, that the place will not be carried.”
“Humph! And what said the captains of my Roman Legion?”
“My Lord, I have heard it whispered that they fear defeat less than they do the revenge of the Barons, if they are successful.”
“And with such tools the living race of Europe and misjudging posterity will deem that the workman is to shape out the Ideal and the Perfect! Bring me yon Bible.”
As Angelo reverently brought to Rienzi the sacred book, he said,
“Just before I left my companions below, there was a rumour that the Lord Adrian Colonna had been imprisoned by his kinsman.”
“I too heard, and I believe, as much,” returned Rienzi: “these Barons would gibbet their own children in irons, if there were any chance of the shackles growing rusty for want of prey. But the wicked shall be brought low, and their strong places shall be made desolate.”
“I would, my Lord,” said Villani, “that our Northmen had other captains than these Provencals.”
“Why?” asked Rienzi, abruptly.
“Have the creatures of the Captain of the Grand Company ever held faith with any man whom it suited the avarice or the ambition of Montreal to betray? Was he not, a few months ago, the right arm of John di Vico, and did he not sell his services to John di Vico’s enemy, the Cardinal Albornoz? These warriors barter men as cattle.”
“Thou describest Montreal rightly: a dangerous and an awful man. But methinks his brothers are of a duller and meaner kind; they dare not the crimes of the Robber Captain. Howbeit, Angelo, thou hast touched a string that will make discord with sleep tonight. Fair youth, thy young eyes have need of slumber; withdraw, and when thou hearest men envy Rienzi, think that—”
“God never made Genius to be envied!” interrupted Villani, with an energy that overcame his respect. “We envy not the sun, but rather the valleys that ripen beneath his beams.”
“Verily, if I be the sun,” said Rienzi, with a bitter and melancholy smile, “I long for night,—and come it will, to the human as to the celestial Pilgrim!—Thank Heaven, at least, that our ambition cannot make us immortal!”