Chapter 2.IV. The Ambitious Citizen, and the Ambitious Soldier.
The Bishop of Orvietto lingered last, to confer with Rienzi, who awaited
him in the recesses of the Lateran. Raimond had the penetration not to be
seduced into believing that the late scene could effect any reformation
amongst the nobles, heal their divisions, or lead them actively against the
infestors of the Campagna. But, as he detailed to Rienzi all that had
occurred subsequent to the departure of that hero of the scene, he
concluded with saying: -
"You will perceive from this, one good result will be produced: the first
armed dissension - the first fray among the nobles - will seem like a
breach of promise; and, to the people and to the Pope, a reasonable excuse
for despairing of all amendment amongst the Barons, - an excuse which will
sanction the efforts of the first, and the approval of the last."
"For such a fray we shall not long wait," answered Rienzi.
"I believe the prophecy," answered Raimond, smiling; "at present all runs
well. Go you with us homeward?"
"Nay, I think it better to tarry here till the crowd is entirely dispersed;
for if they were to see me, in their present excitement, they might insist
on some rash and hasty enterprise. Besides, my Lord," added Rienzi, "with
an ignorant people, however honest and enthusiastic, this rule must be
rigidly observed - stale not your presence by custom. Never may men like
me, who have no external rank, appear amongst the crowd, save on those
occasions when the mind is itself a rank."
"That is true, as you have no train," answered Raimond, thinking of his own
well-liveried menials. "Adieu, then! we shall meet soon."
"Ay, at Philippi, my Lord. Reverend Father, your blessing!"
It was some time subsequent to this conference that Rienzi quitted the
sacred edifice. As he stood on the steps of the church - now silent and
deserted - the hour that precedes the brief twilight of the South lent its
magic to the view. There he beheld the sweeping arches of the mighty
Aqueduct extending far along the scene, and backed by the distant and
purpled hills. Before - to the right - rose the gate which took its Roman
name from the Coelian Mount, at whose declivity it yet stands. Beyond -
from the height of the steps - he saw the villages scattered through the
grey Campagna, whitening in the sloped sun; and in the furthest distance
the mountain shadows began to darken over the roofs of the ancient
Tusculum, and the second Alban (The first Alba - the Alba Longa - whose
origin Fable ascribes to Ascanius, was destroyed by Tullus Hostilius. The
second Alba, or modern Albano, was erected on the plain below the ancient
town, a little before the time of Nero.) city, which yet rises, in desolate
neglect, above the vanished palaces of Pompey and Domitian.
The Roman stood absorbed and motionless for some moments, gazing on the
scene, and inhaling the sweet balm of the mellow air. It was the soft
springtime - the season of flowers, and green leaves, and whispering winds
- the pastoral May of Italia's poets: but hushed was the voice of song on
the banks of the Tiber - the reeds gave music no more. From the sacred
Mount in which Saturn held his home, the Dryad and the Nymph, and Italy's
native Sylvan, were gone for ever. Rienzi's original nature - its
enthusiasm - its veneration for the past - its love of the beautiful and
the great - that very attachment to the graces and pomp which give so
florid a character to the harsh realities of life, and which power
afterwards too luxuriantly developed; the exuberance of thoughts and
fancies, which poured itself from his lips in so brilliant and
inexhaustible a flood - all bespoke those intellectual and imaginative
biasses, which, in calmer times, might have raised him in literature to a
more indisputable eminence than that to which action can ever lead; and
something of such consciousness crossed his spirit at that moment.
"Happier had it been for me," thought he, "had I never looked out from my
own heart upon the world. I had all within me that makes contentment of
the present, because I had that which can make me forget the present. I
had the power to re-people - to create: the legends and dreams of old -
the divine faculty of verse, in which the beautiful superfluities of the
heart can pour themselves - these were mine! Petrarch chose wisely for
himself! To address the world, but from without the world; to persuade -
to excite - to command, - for these are the aim and glory of ambition; -
but to shun its tumult, and its toil! His the quiet cell which he fills
with the shapes of beauty - the solitude, from which he can banish the evil
times whereon we are fallen, but in which he can dream back the great
hearts and the glorious epochs of the past. For me - to what cares I am
wedded! to what labours I am bound! what instruments I must use! what
disguises I must assume! to tricks and artifice I must bow my pride! base
are my enemies - uncertain my friends! and verily, in this struggle with
blinded and mean men, the soul itself becomes warped and dwarfish. Patient
and darkling, the Means creep through caves and the soiling mire, to gain
at last the light which is the End."
In these reflections there was a truth, the whole gloom and sadness of
which the Roman had not yet experienced. However august be the object we
propose to ourselves, every less worthy path we take to insure it distorts
the mental sight of our ambition; and the means, by degrees, abase the end
to their own standard. This is the true misfortune of a man nobler than
his age - that the instruments he must use soil himself: half he reforms
his times; but half, too, the times will corrupt the reformer. His own
craft undermines his safety; - the people, whom he himself accustoms to a
false excitement, perpetually crave it; and when their ruler ceases to
seduce their fancy, he falls their victim. The reform he makes by these
means is hollow and momentary - it is swept away with himself: it was but
the trick - the show - the wasted genius of a conjuror: the curtain falls
- the magic is over - the cup and balls are kicked aside. Better one slow
step in enlightenment, - which being made by the reason of a whole people,
cannot recede, - than these sudden flashes in the depth of the general
night, which the darkness, by contrast doubly dark, swallows up
everlastingly again!
As, slowly and musingly, Rienzi turned to quit the church, he felt a light
touch upon his shoulder.
"Fair evening to you, Sir Scholar," said a frank voice.
"To you, I return the courtesy," answered Rienzi, gazing upon the person
who thus suddenly accosted him, and in whose white cross and martial
bearing the reader recognises the Knight of St. John.
"You know me not, I think?" said Montreal; "but that matters little, we may
easily commence our acquaintance: for me, indeed, I am fortunate enough to
have made myself already acquainted with you."
"Possibly we have met elsewhere, at the house of one of those nobles to
whose rank you seem to belong?"
"Belong! no, not exactly!" returned Montreal, proudly. "Highborn and great
as your magnates deem themselves, I would not, while the mountains can
yield one free spot for my footstep, change my place in the world's many
grades for theirs. To the brave, there is but one sort of plebeian, and
that is the coward. But you, sage Rienzi," continued the Knight, in a
gayer tone, "I have seen in more stirring scenes than the hall of a Roman
Baron."
Rienzi glanced keenly at Montreal, who met his eye with an open brow.
"Yes!" resumed the Knight - "but let us walk on; suffer me for a few
moments to be your companion. Yes! I have listened to you - the other eve,
when you addressed the populace, and today, when you rebuked the nobles;
and at midnight, too, not long since, when (your ear, fair Sir! - lower, it
is a secret!) - at midnight, too, when you administered the oath of
brotherhood to the bold conspirators, on the ruined Aventine!"
As he concluded, the Knight drew himself aside to watch, upon Rienzi's
countenance, the effect which his words might produce.
A slight tremor passed over the frame of the conspirator - for so, unless
the conspiracy succeed, would Rienzi be termed, by others than Montreal:
he turned abruptly round to confront the Knight, and placed his hand
involuntarily on his sword, but presently relinquished the grasp.
"Ha!" said the Roman, slowly, "if this be true, fall Rome! There is
treason even among the free!"
"No treason, brave Sir!" answered Montreal; "I possess thy secret - but
none have betrayed it to me."
"And is it as friend or foe that thou hast learned it?"
"That as it may be," returned Montreal, carelessly. "Enough, at present,
that I could send thee to the gibbet, if I said but the word, - to show my
power to be thy foe; enough, that I have not done it, to prove my
disposition to be thy friend."
"Thou mistakest, stranger! that man does not live who could shed my blood
in the streets of Rome! The gibbet! Little dost thou know of the power
which surrounds Rienzi."
These words were said with some scorn and bitterness; but, after a moment's
pause, Rienzi resumed, more calmly: -
"By the cross on thy mantle, thou belongest to one of the proudest orders
of knighthood: thou art a foreigner, and a cavalier. What generous
sympathies can convert thee into a friend of the Roman people?"
"Cola di Rienzi," returned Montreal, "the sympathies that unite us are
those which unite all men who, by their own efforts, rise above the herd.
True, I was born noble - but powerless and poor: at my beck now move, from
city to city, the armed instruments of authority: my breath is the law of
thousands. This empire I have not inherited; I won it by a cool brain and
a fearless arm. Know me for Walter de Montreal; is it not a name that
speaks a spirit kindred to thine own? Is not ambition a common sentiment
between us? I do not marshal soldiers for gain only, though men have
termed me avaricious - nor butcher peasants for the love of blood, though
men have called me cruel. Arms and wealth are the sinews of power; it is
power that I desire; - thou, bold Rienzi, strugglest thou not for the same?
Is it the rank breath of the garlic-chewing mob - is it the whispered envy
of schoolmen - is it the hollow mouthing of boys who call thee patriot and
freeman, words to trick the ear - that will content thee? These are but
thy instruments to power. Have I spoken truly?"
Whatever distaste Rienzi might conceive at this speech he masked
effectually. "Certes," said he, "it would be in vain, renowned Captain, to
deny that I seek but that power of which thou speakest. But what union can
there be between the ambition of a Roman citizen and the leader of paid
armies that take their cause only according to their hire - today, fight
for liberty in Florence - tomorrow, for tyranny in Bologna? Pardon my
frankness; for in this age that is deemed no disgrace which I impute to thy
armies. Valour and generalship are held to consecrate any cause they
distinguish; and he who is the master of princes, may be well honoured by
them as their equal."
"We are entering into a less deserted quarter of the town," said the
Knight; "is there no secret place - no Aventine - in this direction, where
we can confer?"
"Hush!" replied Rienzi, cautiously looking round. "I thank thee, noble
Montreal, for the hint; nor may it be well for us to be seen together.
Wilt thou deign to follow me to my home, by the Palatine Bridge? (The
picturesque ruins shown at this day as having once been the habitation of
the celebrated Cola di Rienzi, were long asserted by the antiquarians to
have belonged to another Cola or Nicola. I believe, however, that the
dispute has been lately decided: and, indeed, no one but an antiquary, and
that a Roman one, could suppose that there were two Colas to whom the
inscription on the house would apply.) there we can converse undisturbed
and secure."
"Be it so," said Montreal, falling back.
With a quick and hurried step, Rienzi passed through the town, in which,
wherever he was discovered, the scattered citizens saluted him with marked
respect; and, turning through a labyrinth of dark alleys, as if to shun the
more public thoroughfares, arrived at length at a broad space near the
river. The first stars of night shone down on the ancient temple of
Fortuna Virilis, which the chances of Time had already converted into the
Church of St. Mary of Egypt; and facing the twice-hallowed edifice stood
the house of Rienzi.
"It is a fair omen to have my mansion facing the ancient Temple of
Fortune," said Rienzi, smiling, as Montreal followed the Roman into the
chamber I have already described.
"Yet Valour need never pray to Fortune," said the Knight; "the first
commands the last."
Long was the conference between these two men, the most enterprising of
their age. Meanwhile, let me make the reader somewhat better acquainted
with the character and designs of Montreal, than the hurry of events has
yet permitted him to become.
Walter de Montreal, generally known in the chronicles of Italy by the
designation of Fra Moreale, had passed into Italy - a bold adventurer,
worthy to become a successor of those roving Normans (from one of the most
eminent of whom, by the mother's side, he claimed descent) who had formerly
played so strange a part in the chivalric errantry of Europe, - realizing
the fables of Amadis and Palmerin - (each knight, in himself a host),
winning territories and oversetting thrones; acknowledging no laws save
those of knighthood; never confounding themselves with the tribe amongst
which they settled; incapable of becoming citizens, and scarcely contented
with aspiring to be kings. At that time, Italy was the India of all those
well-born and penniless adventurers who, like Montreal, had inflamed their
imagination by the ballads and legends of the Roberts and the Godfreys of
old; who had trained themselves from youth to manage the barb, and bear,
through the heats of summer, the weight of arms; and who, passing into am
effeminate and distracted land, had only to exhibit bravery in order to
command wealth. It was considered no disgrace for some powerful chieftain
to collect together a band of these hardy aliens, - to subsist amidst the
mountains on booty and pillage, - to make war upon tyrant or republic, as
interest suggested, and to sell, at enormous stipends, the immunities of
peace. Sometimes they hired themselves to one state to protect it against
the other; and the next year beheld them in the field against their former
employers. These bands of Northern stipendiaries assumed, therefore, a
civil, as well as a military, importance; they were as indispensable to the
safety of one state as they were destructive to the security of all. But
five years before the present date, the Florentine Republic had hired the
services of a celebrated leader of these foreign soldiers, - Gualtier, duke
of Athens. By acclamation, the people themselves had elected that warrior
to the state of prince, or tyrant, of their state; before the year was
completed, they revolted against his cruelties, or rather against his
exactions, - for, despite all the boasts of their historians, they felt an
attack on their purses more deeply than an assault on their liberties, -
they had chased him from their city, and once more proclaimed themselves a
Republic. The bravest, and most favoured of the soldiers of the Duke of
Athens had been Walter de Montreal; he had shared the rise and the downfall
of his chief. Amongst popular commotions, the acute and observant mind of
the Knight of St. John had learned no mean civil experience; he had learned
to sound a people - to know how far they would endure - to construe the
signs of revolution - to be a reader of the times. After the downfall of
the Duke of Athens, as a Free Companion, in other words a Freebooter,
Montreal had augmented under the fierce Werner his riches and his renown.
At present without employment worthy his spirit of enterprise and intrigue,
the disordered and chiefless state of Rome had attracted him thither. In
the league he had proposed to Colonna - in the suggestions he had made to
the vanity of that Signor - his own object was to render his services
indispensable - to constitute himself the head of the soldiery whom his
proposed designs would render necessary to the ambition of the Colonna,
could it be excited - and, in the vastness of his hardy genius for
enterprise, he probably foresaw that the command of such a force would be,
in reality, the command of Rome; - a counter-revolution might easily unseat
the Colonna and elect himself to the principality. It had sometimes been
the custom of Roman, as of other Italian, States, to prefer for a chief
magistrate, under the title of Podesta, a foreigner to a native. And
Montreal hoped that he might possibly become to Rome what the Duke of
Athens had been to Florence - an ambition he knew well enough to be above
the gentleman of Provence, but not above the leader of an army. But, as we
have already seen, his sagacity perceived at once that he could not move
the aged head of the patricians to those hardy and perilous measures which
were necessary to the attainment of supreme power. Contented with his
present station, and taught moderation by his age and his past reverses,
Stephen Colonna was not the man to risk a scaffold from the hope to gain a
throne. The contempt which the old patrician professed for the people, and
their idol, also taught the deep-thinking Montreal that, if the Colonna
possessed not the ambition, neither did he possess the policy, requisite
for empire. The Knight found his caution against Rienzi in vain, and he
turned to Rienzi himself. Little cared the Knight of St. John which party
were uppermost - prince or people - so that his own objects were attained;
in fact, he had studied the humours of a people, not in order to serve, but
to rule them; and, believing all men actuated by a similar ambition, he
imagined that, whether a demagogue or a patrician reigned, the people were
equally to be victims, and that the cry of "Order" on the one hand, or of
"Liberty" on the other, was but the mere pretext by which the energy of one
man sought to justify his ambition over the herd. Deeming himself one of
the most honourable spirits of his age, he believed in no honour which he
was unable to feel; and, sceptic in virtue, was therefore credulous of
vice.
But the boldness of his own nature inclined him, perhaps, rather to the
adventurous Rienzi than to the self-complacent Colonna; and he considered
that to the safety of the first he and his armed minions might be even more
necessary than to that of the last. At present his main object was to
learn from Rienzi the exact strength which he possessed, and how far he was
prepared for any actual revolt.
The acute Roman took care, on the one hand, how he betrayed to the Knight
more than he yet knew, or he disgusted him by apparent reserve on the
other. Crafty as Montreal was, he possessed not that wonderful art of
mastering others which was so preeminently the gift of the eloquent and
profound Rienzi, and the difference between the grades of their intellect
was visible in their present conference.
"I see," said Rienzi, "that amidst all the events which have lately smiled
upon my ambition, none is so favourable as that which assures me of your
countenance and friendship. In truth, I require some armed alliance.
Would you believe it, our friends, so bold in private meetings, yet shrink
from a public explosion. They fear not the patricians, but the soldiery of
the patricians; for it is the remarkable feature in the Italian courage,
that they have no terror for each other, but the casque and sword of a
foreign hireling make them quail like deer."
"They will welcome gladly, then, the assurance that such hirelings shall be
in their service - not against them; and as much as you desire for the
revolution, so many shall you receive."
"But the pay and the conditions," said Rienzi, with his dry, sarcastic
smile. "How shall we arrange the first, and what shall we hold to be the
second?"
"That is an affair easily concluded," replied Montreal. "For me, to tell
you frankly, the glory and excitement of so great a revulsion would alone
suffice. I like to feel myself necessary to the completion of high events.
For my men it is otherwise. Your first act will be to seize the revenues
of the state. Well, whatever they amount to, the product of the first
year, great or small, shall be divided amongst us. You the one half, I and
my men the other half."
"It is much," said Rienzi, gravely, and as if in calculation, - "but Rome
cannot purchase her liberties too dearly. So be it then decided."
"Amen! - and now, then, what is your force? for these eighty or a hundred
signors of the Aventine, - worthy men, doubtless, - scarce suffice for a
revolt!"
Gazing cautiously round the room, the Roman placed his hand on Montreal's
arm -
"Between you and me, it requires time to cement it. We shall be unable to
stir these five weeks. I have too rashly anticipated the period. The corn
is indeed cut, but I must now, by private adjuration and address, bind up
the scattered sheaves."
"Five weeks," repeated Montreal; "that is far longer than I anticipated."
"What I desire," continued Rienzi, fixing his searching eyes upon Montreal,
"is, that, in the meanwhile, we should preserve a profound calm, - we
should remove every suspicion. I shall bury myself in my studies, and
convoke no more meetings."
"Well - "
"And for yourself, noble Knight, might I venture to dictate, I would pray
you to mix with the nobles - to profess for me and for the people the
profoundest contempt - and to contribute to rock them yet more in the
cradle of their false security. Meanwhile, you could quietly withdraw as
many of the armed mercenaries as you influence from Rome, and leave the
nobles without their only defenders. Collecting these hardy warriors in
the recesses of the mountains, a day's march from hence, we may be able to
summon them at need, and they shall appear at our gates, and in the midst
of our rising - hailed as deliverers by the nobles, but in reality allies
with the people. In the confusion and despair of our enemies at
discovering their mistake, they will fly from the city."
"And its revenues and its empire will become the appanage of the hardy
soldier and the intriguing demagogue!" cried Montreal, with a laugh.
"Sir Knight, the division shall be equal."
"Agreed!"
"And now, noble Montreal, a flask of our best vintage!" said Rienzi,
changing his tone.
"You know the Provencals," answered Montreal, gaily.
The wine was brought, the conversation became free and familiar, and
Montreal, whose craft was acquired, and whose frankness was natural,
unwittingly committed his secret projects and ambition more nakedly to
Rienzi than he had designed to do. They parted apparently the best of
friends.
"By the way," said Rienzi, as they drained the last goblet. "Stephen
Colonna betakes him to Corneto, with a convoy of corn, on the 19th. Will
it not be as well if you join him? You can take that opportunity to
whisper discontent to the mercenaries that accompany him on his mission,
and induce them to our plan."
"I thought of that before," returned Montreal; "it shall be done. For the
present, farewell!"
"'His barb, and his sword,
And his lady, the peerless,
Are all that are prized
By Orlando the fearless.
"'Success to the Norman,
The darling of story;
His glory is pleasure -
His pleasure is glory.'"
Chanting this rude ditty as he resumed his mantle, the Knight waved his
hand to Rienzi, and departed.
Rienzi watched the receding form of his guest with an expression of hate
and fear upon his countenance. "Give that man the power," he muttered,
"and he may be a second Totila. (Innocent VI., some years afterwards,
proclaimed Montreal to be worse than Totila.) Methinks I see, in his
griping and ferocious nature, - through all the gloss of its gaiety and
knightly grace, - the very personification of our old Gothic foes. I trust
I have lulled him! Verily, two suns could no more blaze in one hemisphere,
than Walter de Montreal and Cola di Rienzi live in the same city. The
star-seers tell us that we feel a secret and uncontrollable antipathy to
those whose astral influences destine them to work us evil; such antipathy
do I feel for yon fair-faced homicide. Cross not my path, Montreal! -
cross not my path!"
With this soliloquy Rienzi turned within, and, retiring to his apartment,
was seen no more that night.
