Chapter 3.III. The Conversation between the Roman and the Provencal -
Adeline's History - the Moonlit Sea - the Lute and the Song.
As soon as Annibaldi, with the greater part of the retinue, was gone,
Adrian, divesting himself of his heavy greaves, entered alone the pavilion
of the Knight of St. John. Montreal had already doffed all his armour,
save the breastplate, and he now stepped forward to welcome his guest with
the winning and easy grace which better suited his birth than his
profession. He received Adrian's excuses for the absence of Annibaldi and
the other knights of his train with a smile which seemed to prove how
readily he divined the cause, and conducted him to the other and more
private division of the pavilion in which the repast (rendered acceptable
by the late exercise of guest and host) was prepared; and here Adrian for
the first time discovered Adeline. Long inurement to the various and
roving life of her lover, joined to a certain pride which she derived from
conscious, though forfeited, rank, gave to the outward manner of that
beautiful lady an ease and freedom which often concealed, even from
Montreal, her sensitiveness to her unhappy situation. At times, indeed,
when alone with Montreal, whom she loved with all the devotion of romance,
she was sensible only to the charm of a presence which consoled her for all
things; but in his frequent absence, or on the admission of any stranger,
the illusion vanished - the reality returned. Poor lady! Nature had not
formed, education had not reared, habit had not reconciled, her to the
breath of shame!
The young Colonna was much struck by her beauty, and more by her gentle and
highborn grace. Like her lord she appeared younger than she was; time
seemed to spare a bloom which an experienced eye might have told was
destined to an early grave; and there was something almost girlish in the
lightness of her form - the braided luxuriance of her rich auburn hair, and
the colour that went and came, not only with every moment, but almost with
every word. The contrast between her and Montreal became them both - it
was the contrast of devoted reliance and protecting strength: each looked
fairer in the presence of the other: and as Adrian sate down to the well-
laden board, he thought he had never seen a pair more formed for the poetic
legends of their native Troubadours.
Montreal conversed gaily upon a thousand matters - pressed the wine flasks
- and selected for his guest the most delicate portions of the delicious
spicola of the neighbouring sea, and the rich flesh of the wild boar of the
Pontine Marshes.
"Tell me," said Montreal, as their hunger was now appeased - "tell me,
noble Adrian, how fares your kinsman, Signor Stephen? A brave old man for
his years."
"He bears him as the youngest of us," answered Adrian.
"Late events must have shocked him a little," said Montreal, with an arch
smile. "Ah, you look grave - yet commend my foresight; - I was the first
who prophesied to thy kinsman the rise of Cola di Rienzi; he seems a great
man - never more great than in conciliating the Colonna and the Orsini."
"The Tribune," returned Adrian, evasively, "is certainly a man of
extraordinary genius. And now, seeing him command, my only wonder is how
he ever brooked to obey - majesty seems a very part of him."
"Men who win power, easily put on its harness, dignity," answered Montreal;
"and if I hear aright - (pledge me to your lady's health) - the Tribune, if
not himself nobly born will soon be nobly connected."
"He is already married to a Raselli, an old Roman house," replied Adrian.
"You evade my pursuit, - Le doulx soupir! le doulx soupir! as the old
Cabestan has it" - said Montreal, laughing. "Well, you have pledged me one
cup to your lady, pledge another to the fair Irene, the Tribune's sister -
always provided they two are not one. - You smile and shake your head."
"I do not disguise from you, Sir Knight," answered Adrian, "that when my
present embassy is over, I trust the alliance between the Tribune and a
Colonna will go far towards the benefit of both."
"I have heard rightly, then," said Montreal, in a grave and thoughtful
tone. "Rienzi's power must, indeed, be great."
"Of that my mission is a proof. Are you aware, Signor de Montreal, that
Louis, King of Hungary - "
"How! what of him?"
"Has referred the decision of the feud between himself and Joanna of
Naples, respecting the death of her royal spouse, his brother, to the fiat
of the Tribune? This is the first time, methinks, since the death of
Constantine, that so great a confidence and so high a charge were ever
intrusted to a Roman!"
"By all the saints in the calendar," cried Montreal, crossing himself,
"this news is indeed amazing! The fierce Louis of Hungary waive the right
of the sword, and choose other umpire than the field of battle!"
"And this," continued Adrian, in a significant tone, "this it was which
induced me to obey your courteous summons. I know, brave Montreal, that
you hold intercourse with Louis. Louis has given to the Tribune the best
pledge of his amity and alliance; will you do wisely if you - "
"Wage war with the Hungarian's ally," interrupted Montreal. "This you were
about to add; the same thought crossed myself. My Lord, pardon me -
Italians sometimes invent what they wish. On the honour of a knight of the
Empire, these tidings are the naked truth?"
"By my honour, and on the Cross," answered Adrian, drawing himself up; "and
in proof thereof, I am now bound to Naples to settle with the Queen the
preliminaries of the appointed trial."
"Two crowned heads before the tribunal of a plebeian, and one a defendant
against the charge of murther!" muttered Montreal; "the news might well
amaze me!"
He remained musing and silent a little while, till looking up, he caught
Adeline's tender gaze fixed upon him with that deep solicitude with which
she watched the outward effect of schemes and projects she was too soft to
desire to know, and too innocent to share.
"Lady mine," said the Provencal, fondly, "how sayest thou? must we abandon
our mountain castle, and these wild woodland scenes, for the dull walls of
a city? I fear me so. - The Lady Adeline," he continued, turning to
Adrian, "is of a singular bias; she hates the gay crowds of streets and
thoroughfares, and esteems no palace like the solitary outlaw's hold. Yet,
methinks, she might outshine all the faces of Italy, - thy mistress, Lord
Adrian, of course, excepted."
"It is an exception which only a lover, and that too a betrothed lover,
would dare to make," replied Adrian, gallantly.
"Nay," said Adeline, in a voice singularly sweet and clear, "nay, I know
well at what price to value my lord's flattery, and Signor di Castello's
courtesy. But you are bound, Sir Knight, to a court, that, if fame speak
true, boasts in its Queen the very miracle and mould of beauty."
"It is some years since I saw the Queen of Naples," answered Adrian; "and I
little dreamed then, when I gazed upon that angel face, that I should live
to hear her accused of the foulest murther that ever stained even Italian
royalty."
"And, as if resolved to prove her guilt," said Montreal, "ere long be sure
she will marry the very man who did the deed. Of this I have certain
proof."
Thus conversing, the Knights wore away the daylight, and beheld from the
open tent the sun cast his setting glow over the purple sea. Adeline had
long retired from the board, and they now saw her seated with her handmaids
on a mound by the beach; while the sound of her lute faintly reached their
ears. As Montreal caught the air, he turned from the converse, and
sighing, half shaded his face with his hand. Somehow or other the two
Knights had worn away all the little jealousy or pique which they had
conceived against each other at Rome. Both imbued with the soldier-like
spirit of the age, their contest in the morning had served to inspire them
with that strange kind of respect, and even cordiality, which one brave man
even still (how much more at that day!) feels for another, whose courage he
has proved while vindicating his own. It is like the discovery of a
congenial sentiment hitherto latent; and, in a life of camps, often
establishes sudden and lasting friendship in the very lap of enmity. This
feeling had been ripened by their subsequent familiar intercourse, and was
increased on Adrian's side by the feeling, that in convincing Montreal of
the policy of withdrawing from the Roman territories, he had obtained an
advantage that well repaid whatever danger and delay he had undergone.
The sigh, and the altered manner of Montreal, did not escape Adrian, and he
naturally connected it with something relating to her whose music had been
its evident cause.
"Yon lovely dame," said he, gently, "touches the lute with an exquisite and
fairy hand, and that plaintive air seems to my ear as of the minstrelsy of
Provence."
"It is the air I taught her," said Montreal, sadly, "married as it is to
indifferent words, with which I first wooed a heart that should never have
given itself to me! Ay, young Colonna, many a night has my boat been
moored beneath the starlit Sorgia that washes her proud father's halls, and
my voice awaked the stillness of the waving sedges with a soldier's
serenade. Sweet memories! bitter fruit!"
"Why bitter? ye love each other still."
"But I am vowed to celibacy, and Adeline de Courval is leman where she
should be wedded dame. Methinks I fret at that thought even more than she,
- dear Adeline!"
"Your lady, as all would guess, is then nobly born?"
"She is," answered Montreal, with a deep and evident feeling which, save in
love, rarely, if ever, crossed his hardy breast. "She is! our tale is a
brief one: - we loved each other as children: Her family was wealthier
than mine: We were separated. I was given to understand that she
abandoned me. I despaired, and in despair I took the cross of St. John.
Chance threw us again together. I learned that her love was undecayed.
Poor child! - she was even then, sir, but a child! I, wild, - reckless -
and not unskilled, perhaps, in the arts that woo and win. She could not
resist my suit or her own affection! - We fled. In those words you see the
thread of my after history. My sword and my Adeline were all my fortune.
Society frowned on us. The Church threatened my soul. The Grand Master my
life. I became a knight of fortune. Fate and my right hand favoured me.
I have made those who scorned me tremble at my name. That name shall yet
blaze, a star or a meteor, in the front of troubled nations, and I may yet
win by force from the Pontiff the dispensation refused to my prayers. On
the same day, I may offer Adeline the diadem and the ring. - Eno' of this;
- you marked Adeline's cheek! - Seems it not delicate? I like not that
changeful flush, - and she moves languidly, - her step that was so blithe!"
"Change of scene and the mild south will soon restore her health," said
Adrian; "and in your peculiar life she is so little brought in contact with
others, especially of her own sex, that I trust she is but seldom made
aware of whatever is painful in her situation. And woman's love, Montreal,
as we both have learned, is a robe that wraps her from many a storm!"
"You speak kindly," returned the Knight; "but you know not all our cause of
grief. Adeline's father, a proud sieur, died, - they said of a broken
heart, - but old men die of many another disease than that! The mother, a
dame who boasted her descent from princes, bore the matter more sternly
than the sire; clamoured for revenge, - which was odd, for she is as
religious as a Dominican, and revenge is not Christian in a woman, though
it is knightly in a man! - Well, my Lord, we had one boy, our only child;
he was Adeline's solace in my absence, - his pretty ways were worth the
world to her! She loved him so, that, but he had her eyes and looked like
her when he slept, I should have been jealous! He grew up in our wild
life, strong and comely; the young rogue, he would have been a brave
knight! My evil stars led me to Milan, where I had business with the
Visconti. One bright morning in June, our boy was stolen; verily that June
was like a December to us!"
"Stolen! - how? - by whom?"
"The first question is answered easily, - the boy was with his nurse in the
courtyard, the idle wench left him for but a minute or two - so she avers -
fetch him some childish toy; when she returned he was gone; not a trace
left, save his pretty cap with the plume in it! Poor Adeline, many a time
have I found her kissing that relic till it was wet with tears!"
"A strange fortune, in truth. But what interest could - "
"I will tell you," interrupted Montreal, "the only conjecture I could form;
- Adeline's mother, on learning we had a son, sent to Adeline a letter,
that well nigh broke her heart, reproaching her for her love to me, and so
forth, as if that had made her the vilest of the sex. She bade her take
compassion on her child, and not bring him up to a robber's life, - so was
she pleased to style the bold career of Walter de Montreal. She offered to
rear the child in her own dull halls, and fit him, no doubt, for a shaven
pate and a monk's cowl. She chafed much that a mother would not part with
her treasure! She alone, partly in revenge, partly in silly compassion for
Adeline's child, partly, it may be, from some pious fanaticism, could, it
so seemed to me, have robbed us of our boy. On inquiry, I learned from the
nurse - who, but that she was of the same sex as Adeline, should have
tasted my dagger, - that in their walks, a woman of advanced years, but
seemingly of humble rank, (that might be disguise!) had often stopped, and
caressed and admired the child. I repaired at once to France, sought the
old Castle of De Courval; - it had passed to the next heir, and the old
widow was go on, none knew whither, but, it was conjectured, to take the
veil in some remote convent."
"And you never saw her since?"
"Yes, at Rome," answered Montreal, turning pale; "when last there I chanced
suddenly upon her; and then at length I learned my boy's fate, and the
truth of my own surmise; she confessed to the theft - and my child was
dead! I have not dared to tell Adeline of this; it seems to me as if it
would be like plucking the shaft from the wounded side - and she would die
at once, bereft of the uncertainty that rankles within her. She has still
a hope - it comforts her; though my heart bleeds when I think on its
vanity. Let this pass, my Colonna."
And Montreal started to his feet as if he strove, by a strong effort, to
shake off the weakness that had crept over him in his narration.
"Think no more of it. Life is short - its thorns are many - let us not
neglect any of its flowers. This is piety and wisdom too; Nature that
meant me to struggle and to toil, gave me, happily, the sanguine heart and
the elastic soul of France; and I have lived long enough to own that to die
young is not an evil. Come, Lord Adrian, let us join my lady ere you part,
if part you must; the moon will be up soon, and Fondi is but a short
journey hence. You know that though I admire not your Petrarch, you with
more courtesy laud our Provencal ballads, and you must hear Adeline sing
one that you may prize them the more. The race of the Troubadours is dead,
but the minstrelsy survives the minstrel!"
Adrian, who scarce knew what comfort to administer to the affliction of his
companion, was somewhat relieved by the change in his mood, though his more
grave and sensitive nature was a little startled at its suddenness. But,
as we have before seen, Montreal's spirit (and this made perhaps its
fascination) was as a varying and changeful sky; the gayest sunshine, and
the fiercest storm swept over it in rapid alternation; and elements of
singular might and grandeur, which, properly directed and concentrated,
would have made him the blessing and glory of his time, were wielded with a
boyish levity, roused into war and desolation, or lulled into repose and
smoothness, with all the suddenness of chance, and all the fickleness of
caprice.
Sauntering down to the beach, the music of Adeline's lute sounded more
distinctly in their ears, and involuntarily they hushed their steps upon
the rich and odorous turf, as in a voice, though not powerful, marvellously
sweet and clear, and well adapted to the simple fashion of the words and
melody, she sang the following stanzas: -
Lay of the Lady of Provence.
1.
Ah, why art thou sad, my heart? Why
Darksome and lonely?
Frowns the face of the happy sky
Over thee only?
Ah me, ah me!
Render to joy the earth!
Grief shuns, not envies, Mirth;
But leave one quiet spot,
Where Mirth may enter not,
To sigh, Ah, me! -
Ah me.
2.
As a bird, though the sky be clear,
Feels the storm lower;
My soul bodes the tempest near,
In the sunny hour;
Ah me, ah me!
Be glad while yet we may!
I bid thee, my heart, be gay;
And still I know not why, -
Thou answerest with a sigh,
(Fond heart!) Ah me! -
Ah me!
3.
As this twilight o'er the skies,
Doubt brings the sorrow;
Who knows when the daylight dies,
What waits the morrow?
Ah me, ah me!
Be blithe, be blithe, my lute,
Thy strings will soon be mute;
Be blithe - hark! while it dies,
The note forewarning, sighs
Its last - Ah me!
Ah me!
"My own Adeline - my sweetest night-bird," half-whispered Montreal, and
softly approaching, he threw himself at his lady's feet - "thy song is too
sad for this golden eve."
"No sound ever went to the heart," said Adrian, "whose arrow was not
feathered by sadness. True sentiment, Montreal, is twin with melancholy,
though not with gloom."
The lady looked softly and approvingly up at Adrian's face; she was pleased
with its expression; she was pleased yet more with words of which women
rather than men would acknowledge the truth. Adrian returned the look with
one of deep and eloquent sympathy and respect; in fact, the short story he
had heard from Montreal had interested him deeply in her; and never to the
brilliant queen, to whose court he was bound, did his manner wear so
chivalric and earnest a homage as it did to that lone and ill-fated lady on
the twilight shores of Terracina.
Adeline blushed slightly and sighed; and then, to break the awkwardness of
a pause which had stolen over them, as Montreal, unheeding the last remark
of Adrian, was tuning the strings of the lute, she said - "Of course the
Signor di Castello shares the universal enthusiasm for Petrarch?"
"Ay," cried Montreal; "my lady is Petrarch mad, like the rest of them: but
all I know is, that never did belted knight and honest lover woo in such
fantastic and tortured strains."
"In Italy," answered Adrian, "common language is exaggeration; - but even
your own Troubadour poetry might tell you that love, ever seeking a new
language of its own, cannot but often run into what to all but lovers seems
distortion and conceit."
"Come, dear Signor," said Montreal, placing the lute in Adrian's hands,
"let Adeline be the umpire between us, which music - yours or mine - can
woo the more blandly."
"Ah," said Adrian, laughing; "I fear me, Sir Knight, you have already
bribed the umpire."
Montreal's eyes and Adeline's met; and in that gaze Adeline forgot all her
sorrows.
With a practised and skilful hand, Adrian touched the strings; and
selecting a song which was less elaborate than those mostly in vogue
amongst his countrymen, though still conceived in the Italian spirit, and
in accordance with the sentiment he had previously expressed to Adeline, he
sang as follows: -
Love's Excuse for Sadness.
Chide not, beloved, if oft with thee
I feel not rapture wholly;
For aye the heart that's fill'd with love,
Runs o'er in melancholy.
To streams that glide in noon, the shade
From summer skies is given;
So, if my breast reflects the cloud,
'Tis but the cloud of heaven!
Thine image glass'd within my soul
So well the mirror keepeth;
That, chide me not, if with the light
The shadow also sleepeth.
"And now," said Adrian, as he concluded, "the lute is to you: I but
preclude your prize."
The Provencal laughed, and shook his head. - "With any other umpire, I had
had my lute broken on my own head, for my conceit in provoking such a
rival; but I must not shrink from a contest I have myself provoked, even
though in one day twice defeated." And with that, in a deep and
exquisitely melodious voice, which wanted only more scientific culture to
have challenged any competition, the Knight of St. John poured forth
The Lay of the Troubadour.
1.
Gentle river, the moonbeam is hush'd on thy tide,
On thy pathway of light to my lady I glide.
My boat, where the stream laves the castle, I moor, -
All at rest save the maid and her young Troubadour!
As the stars to the waters that bore
My bark, to my spirit thou art;
Heaving yet, see it bound to the shore,
So moor'd to thy beauty my heart, -
Bel' amie, bel' amie, bel' amie!
2.
Wilt thou fly from the world? It hath wealth for the vain;
But Love breaks his bond when there's gold in the chain;
Wilt thou fly from the world? It hath courts for the proud; -
But Love, born in caves, pines to death in the crowd.
Were this bosom thy world, dearest one,
Thy world could not fail to be bright;
For thou shouldst thyself be its sun,
And what spot could be dim in thy light -
Bel' amie, bel' amie, bel' amie?
3.
The rich and the great woo thee dearest; and poor,
Though his fathers were princes, thy young Troubadour!
But his heart never quail'd save to thee, his adored, -
There's no guile in his lute, and no stain on his sword.
Ah, I reck not what sorrows I know,
Could I still on thy solace confide;
And I care not, though earth be my foe,
If thy soft heart be found by my side, -
Bel' amie, bel' amie, bel' amie!
4.
The maiden she blush'd, and the maiden she sighed,
Not a cloud in the sky, not a gale on the tide;
But though tempest had raged on the wave and the wind,
That castle, methinks, had been still left behind!
Sweet lily, though bow'd by the blast,
(To this bosom transplanted) since then,
Wouldst thou change, could we call the past,
To the rock from thy garden again -
Bel' amie, bel' amie, bel' amie?
Thus they alternated the time with converse and song, as the wooded hills
threw their sharp, long shadows over the sea; while from many a mound of
waking flowers, and many a copse of citron and orange, relieved by the dark
and solemn aloe, stole the summer breeze, laden with mingled odours; and,
over the seas, coloured by the slow-fading hues of purple and rose, that
the sun had long bequeathed to the twilight, flitted the gay fireflies that
sparkle along that enchanted coast. At length, the moon slowly rose above
the dark forest-steeps, gleaming on the gay pavilion and glittering pennon
of Montreal, - on the verdant sward, - the polished mail of the soldiers,
stretched on the grass in various groups, half-shaded by oaks and cypress,
and the war-steeds grazing peaceably together - a wild mixture of the
Pastoral and the Iron time.
Adrian, reluctantly reminded of his journey, rose to depart.
"I fear," said he to Adeline, "that I have already detained you too late in
the night air: but selfishness is little considerate."
"Nay, you see we are prudent," said Adeline, pointing to Montreal's mantle,
which his provident hand had long since drawn around her form; "but if you
must part, farewell, and success attend you!"
"We may meet again, I trust," said Adrian.
Adeline sighed gently; and the Colonna, gazing on her face by the
moonlight, to which it was slightly raised, was painfully struck by its
almost transparent delicacy. Moved by his compassion, ere he mounted his
steed, he drew Montreal aside, - "Forgive me if I seem presumptuous," said
he; "but to one so noble this wild life is scarce a fitting career. I know
that, in our time, War consecrates all his children; but surely a settled
rank in the court of the Emperor, or an honourable reconciliation with your
knightly brethren, were better - "
"Than a Tartar camp, and a brigand's castle," interrupted Montreal, with
some impatience. "This you were about to say - you are mistaken. Society
thrust me from her bosom; let society take the fruit it hath sown. 'A
fixed rank,' say you? some subaltern office, to fight at other men's
command! You know me not: Walter de Montreal was not formed to obey. War
when I will, and rest when I list, is the motto of my escutcheon. Ambition
proffers me rewards you wot not of; and I am of the mould as of the race of
those whose swords have conquered thrones. For the rest, your news of the
alliance of Louis of Hungary with your Tribune makes it necessary for the
friend of Louis to withdraw from all feud with Rome. Ere the week expire,
the owl and the bat may seek refuge in yon grey turrets."
"But your lady?"
"Is inured to change. - God help her, and temper the rough wind to the
lamb!"
"Enough, Sir Knight: but should you desire a sure refuge at Rome for one
so gentle and so highborn, by the right hand of a knight, I promise a safe
roof and an honoured home to the Lady Adeline."
Montreal pressed the offered hand to his heart; then plucking his own
hastily away, drew it across his eyes, and joined Adeline, in a silence
that showed he dared not trust himself to speak. In a few moments Adrian
and his train were on the march; but still the young Colonna turned back,
to gaze once more on his wild host and that lovely lady, as they themselves
lingered on the moonlit sward, while the sea rippled mournfully on their
ears.
It was not many months after that date, that the name of Fra Monreale
scattered terror and dismay throughout the fair Campania. The right hand
of the Hungarian king, in his invasion of Naples, he was chosen afterwards
vicar (or vice-gerent) of Louis in Aversa; and fame and fate seemed to lead
him triumphantly along that ambitious career which he had elected, whether
bounded by the scaffold or the throne.
BOOK IV. THE TRIUMPH AND THE POMP.
"Allora fama e paura di si buono reggimento, passa in ogni terra." - "Vita
di Cola di Rienzi", lib. i. cap. 21.
"Then the fame and the fear of that so good government passed into every
land." - "Life of Cola di Rienzi".
