Chapter 10.VI. The Suspense.
Walter de Montreal was buried in the church of St. Maria dell' Araceli.
But the "evil that he did lived after him!" Although the vulgar had, until
his apprehension, murmured against Rienzi for allowing so notorious a
freebooter to be at large, he was scarcely dead ere they compassionated the
object of their terror. With that singular species of piety which Montreal
had always cultivated, as if a decorous and natural part of the character
of a warrior, no sooner was his sentence fixed, than he had surrendered
himself to the devout preparation for death. With the Augustine Friar he
consumed the brief remainder of the night in prayer and confession,
comforted his brothers, and passed to the scaffold with the step of a hero
and the self-acquittal of a martyr. In the wonderful delusions of the
human heart, far from feeling remorse at a life of professional rapine and
slaughter, almost the last words of the brave warrior were in proud
commendation of his own deeds. "Be valiant like me," he said to his
brothers, "and remember that ye are now the heirs to the Humbler of Apulia,
Tuscany, and La Marca." (Pregovi che vi amiate e siate valorosi al mondo,
come fui io, che mi feci fare obbedienza a la Puglia, Toscana, e a La
Marca." - "Vita di Cola di Rienzi", lib. ii. cap. 22. "I pray you love one
another, and be valorous as was I, who made Apulia, Tuscany and La Marca
own obedience to me." - "Life of Cola di Rienzi".)
This confidence in himself continued at the scaffold. "I die," he said,
addressing the Romans - "I die contented, since my bones shall rest in the
Holy City of St. Peter and St. Paul, and the Soldier of Christ shall have
the burial-place of the Apostles. But I die unjustly. My wealth is my
crime - the poverty of your state my accuser. Senator of Rome, thou mayst
envy my last hour - men like Walter de Montreal perish not unavenged." So
saying, he turned to the East, murmured a brief prayer, knelt down
deliberately, and said as to himself, "Rome guard my ashes! - Earth my
memory - Fate my revenge; - and, now, Heaven receive my soul! - Strike!"
At the first blow, the head was severed from the body.
His treason but imperfectly known, the fear of him forgotten, all that
remained of the recollection of Walter de Montreal (The military renown and
bold exploits of Montreal are acknowledged by all the Italian authorities.
One of them declares that since the time of Caesar, Italy had never known
so great a Captain. The biographer of Rienzi, forgetting all the offences
of the splendid and knightly robber, seems to feel only commiseration for
his fate. He informs us, moreover, that at Tivoli one of his servants
(perhaps our friend, Rodolf of Saxony), hearing his death, died of grief
the following day.) in Rome, was admiration for his heroism, and compassion
for his end. The fate of Pandulfo di Guido, which followed some days
afterwards, excited a yet deeper, though more quiet, sentiment, against the
Senator. "He was once Rienzi's friend!" said one man; "He was an honest,
upright citizen!" muttered another; "He was an advocate of the people!"
growled Cecco del Vecchio. But the Senator had wound himself up to a
resolve to be inflexibly just, and to regard every peril to Rome as became
a Roman. Rienzi remembered that he had never confided but he had been
betrayed; he had never forgiven but to sharpen enmity. He was amidst a
ferocious people, uncertain friends, wily enemies; and misplaced mercy
would be but a premium to conspiracy. Yet the struggle he underwent was
visible in the hysterical emotions he betrayed. He now wept bitterly, now
laughed wildly. "Can I never again have the luxury to forgive?" said he.
The coarse spectators of that passion deemed it, - some imbecility, some
hypocrisy. But the execution produced the momentary effect intended. All
sedition ceased, terror crept throughout the city, order and peace rose to
the surface; but beneath, in the strong expression of a contemporaneous
writer, "Lo mormorito quetamente suonava." ("The murmur quietly sounded.")
On examining dispassionately the conduct of Rienzi at this awful period of
his life, it is scarcely possible to condemn it of a single error in point
of policy. Cured of his faults, he exhibited no unnecessary ostentation -
he indulged in no exhibitions of intoxicated pride - that gorgeous
imagination rather than vanity, which had led the Tribune into spectacle
and pomp, was now lulled to rest, by the sober memory of grave
vicissitudes, and the stern calmness of a maturer intellect. Frugal,
provident, watchful, self-collected, 'never was seen,' observes no partial
witness, 'so extraordinary a man.' ("Vita di Cola di Rienzi", lib. ii. c.
23.) 'In him was concentrated every thought for every want of Rome.
Indefatigably occupied, he inspected, ordained, regulated all things; in
the city, in the army, for peace, or for war. But he was feebly supported,
and those he employed were lukewarm and lethargic.' Still his arms
prospered. Place after place, fortress after fortress, yielded to the
Lieutenant of the Senator: and the cession of Palestrina itself was hourly
expected. His art and address were always strikingly exhibited in
difficult situations, and the reader cannot fail to have noticed how
conspicuously they were displayed in delivering himself from the iron
tutelage of his foreign mercenaries. Montreal executed, his brothers
imprisoned, (though their lives were spared,) a fear that induced respect
was stricken into the breasts of those bandit soldiers. Removed from Rome,
and, under Annibaldi, engaged against the Barons, constant action and
constant success, withheld those necessary fiends from falling on their
Master; while Rienzi, willing to yield to the natural antipathy of the
Romans, thus kept the Northmen from all contact with the city; and as he
boasted, was the only chief in Italy who reigned in his palace guarded only
by his citizens.
Despite his perilous situation - despite his suspicions, and his fears, no
wanton cruelty stained his stern justice - Montreal and Pandulfo di Guido
were the only state victims he demanded. If, according to the dark
Machiavelism of Italian wisdom, the death of those enemies was impolitic,
it was not in the act, but the mode of doing it. A prince of Bologna, or
of Milan would have avoided the sympathy excited by the scaffold, and the
drug or the dagger would have been the safer substitute for the axe. But
with all his faults, real and imputed, no single act of that foul and
murtherous policy, which made the science of the more fortunate princes of
Italy, ever advanced the ambition or promoted the security of the Last of
the Roman Tribunes. Whatever his errors, he lived and died as became a
man, who dreamed the vain but glorious dream, that in a corrupt and dastard
populace he could revive the genius of the old Republic.
Of all who attended on the Senator, the most assiduous and the most
honoured was still Angelo Villani. Promoted to a high civil station,
Rienzi felt it as a return of youth, to find one person entitled to his
gratitude; - he loved and confided in the youth as a son. Villani was
never absent from his side, except in intercourse with the various popular
leaders in the various quarters of the city; and in this intercourse his
zeal was indefatigable - it seemed even to prey upon his health; and Rienzi
chid him fondly, whenever starting from his own reveries, he beheld the
abstracted eye and the livid paleness which had succeeded the sparkle and
bloom of youth.
Such chiding the young man answered only by the same unvarying words.
"Senator, I have a great trust to fulfil;" - and at these words he smiled.
One day Villani, while with the Senator, said rather abruptly, "Do you
remember, my Lord, that before Viterbo, I acquitted myself so in arms, that
even the Cardinal d'Albornoz was pleased to notice me?"
"I remember your valour well, Angelo; but why the question?"
"My Lord, Bellini, the Captain of the Guard of the Capitol is dangerously
ill."
"I know it."
"Whom can my Lord trust at the post?"
"Why, the Lieutenant."
"What! - a soldier that has served under the Orsini!"
"True. Well! There is Tommaso Filangieri."
"An excellent man; but is he not kin by blood to Pandulfo di Guido?"
"Ay - is he so? It must be thought of. Hast thou any friend to name?"
said the Senator, smiling, "Methinks thy cavils point that way."
"My Lord," replied Villani, colouring; "I am too young perhaps; but the
post is one that demands fidelity more than it does years. Shall I own it?
- My tastes are rather to serve thee with my sword than with my pen."
"Wilt thou, indeed, accept the office? It is of less dignity and emolument
than the one you hold; and you are full young to lead these stubborn
spirits."
"Senator, I led taller men than they are to the assault at Viterbo. But,
be it as seems best to your superior wisdom. Whatever you do, I pray you
to be cautious. If you select a traitor to the command of the Capitol
Guard! - I tremble at the thought!"
"By my faith, thou dost turn pale at it, dear boy; thy affection is a sweet
drop in a bitter draught. Whom can I choose better than thee? - thou shalt
have the post, at least during Bellini's illness. I will attend to it
today. The business, too, will less fatigue thy young mind than that which
now employs thee. Thou art over-laboured in our cause."
"Senator, I can but repeat my usual answer - I have a great trust to
fulfil!"
