Chapter 9.IV. The Position of the Senator. - The Work of Years. - The
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!"
