_Francis Guinigi, the military Peasant.--Castruccio
resides with him one Year._
Castruccio passed through Bologna, Ferrara and Rovigo, to arrive at
Este. It was not the most favourable period for a visit to Lombardy. The
beauty of that country consists in its exquisite vegetation: its fields
of waving corn, planted with rows of trees to which vines are festooned,
form prospects, ever varying in their combinations, that delight and
refresh the eye; but autumn had nearly stript the landscape, and the low
lands were overflowed by the inundation of various rivers. Castruccio's
mind, fixed on the imagination of future events, found no amusement in
the wintry scene; but he saw with delight the mountains that were the
bourn of his journey, become more and more distinct. Este is situated
nearly at the foot of the Euganean hills, on a declivity overlooked by
an extensive and picturesque castle, beyond which is a convent; the
hills rise from behind, from whose heights you discover the vast plain
of Lombardy, bounded to the west by the far Apennines of Bologna, and to
the east by the sea and the towers of Venice.
Castruccio ascended the hill immediately above the town, to seek for the
habitation of Guinigi. The autumnal wind swept over it, scattering the
fallen leaves of the chesnut wood; and the swift clouds, driven over the
boundless plain, gave it the appearance, as their shadows came and went,
of a heaving sea of dusky waters. Castruccio found Guinigi sitting at
the door of his house; it was a low-roofed cottage, that seemed more fit
for the habitation of a peasant, than of a man bred in camps and
palaces. Guinigi himself was about forty years of age: the hardships of
war had thinned the locks on his temples before their time, and drawn a
few lines in his face, beaming as it was with benevolence. The sparkling
intelligence of his eye was tempered by gentleness and wisdom; and the
stately mien of the soldier had yielded somewhat to his late rustic
occupations; for, since his exile he had turned his sword to a
ploughshare, and he dwelt with much complacency on the change.
As Castruccio first saw him, he was gazing with the most heartfelt and
benevolent pleasure on his boy, a child of seven years of age, who was
busy with the peasants, drawing off wine from the vats; for it was just
the time when the vintage was finished, and the last labours were
bestowed on the crushed grapes. The youth paused: but for the air of
dignity that was visible beneath his rustic dress, he could not have
believed that this was his father's friend; his father, who in exile
never forgot that he was a soldier and a knight. He gave the letter;
and, when Guinigi had read it, he embraced the orphan son of his old
comrade, and welcomed him with a cordiality that warmed the heart of
Castruccio. The name of a stranger soon struck the ear of Arrigo, his
little son, who came with joy to greet him, bearing a large basket of
grapes and figs. Guinigi was much amused by the evident astonishment
with which his guest regarded the appearance of the house and its
master, and said:--"You come to the dwelling of a peasant who eats the
bread his own hands have sown; this is a new scene for you, but you will
not find it uninstructive. To my eyes, which do not now glance with the
same fire as yours, the sight of the bounties of nature, and of the
harmless peasants who cultivate the earth, is far more delightful than
an army of knights hasting in brilliant array to deluge the fields with
blood, and to destroy the beneficial hopes of the husbandman. But these
are new doctrines to you; and you perhaps will never, like me, in the
deep sincerity of your heart, prefer this lowly cottage to yonder
majestic castle."
To say the truth, Castruccio was greatly disappointed. As he had
ascended from the town, and saw a gay banner waving from the keep of the
castle, as he heard the clash of armour, and beheld the sun-beams
glitter on the arms of the centinel, he hoped that he should find his
future protector a favourite with the happy chief. He would, he felt,
have accosted him with more respect, if he had found him a monk in the
neighbouring monastery, than a contented farmer, a peasant whose narrow
views soared not beyond the wine-vat and the ox's stall.
These were the first feelings that occurred to Castruccio; but he soon
found that he was introduced to a new world in the society of Guinigi; a
world with whose spring of action he could not sympathize, yet which he
could not contemn. It was characterized by a simple yet sublime
morality, which resting on natural bases, admitted no factitious
colouring. Guinigi thought only of the duty of man to man, laying aside
the distinctions of society, and with lovely humility recognized the
affinity of the meanest peasant to his own noble mind. Exercising the
most exalted virtues, he also cultivated a taste and imagination that
dignified what the vulgar would term ignoble, as the common clouds of
day become fields of purple and gold, painted by the sun at eve. His
fancy only paused, when he would force it to adorn with beauty vice,
death, and misery, when disguised by a kingly robe, by the trappings of
a victorious army, or the false halo of glory spread over the smoking
ruins of a ravaged town. Then his heart sickened, and the banners of
triumph or the song of victory could not drive from his recollection the
varieties of death, and the groans of torture that occasion such
exultation to the privileged murderers of the earth.
When Guinigi and Castruccio became intimate, the youth would reason with
him, and endeavour to prove, that in the present distracted state of
mankind, it was better that one man should get the upper hand, to rule
the rest. "Yes," said Guinigi, "let one man, if it be forbidden to more
than one, get the upper hand in wisdom, and let him teach the rest:
teach them the valuable arts of peace and love."
Guinigi was a strange enthusiast. Men, like Alexander and other
conquerors, have indulged the hope of subduing the world, and spreading
by their triumphs refinement into its barbarous recesses. Guinigi hoped,
how futilely! to lay a foundation-stone for the temple of peace among
the Euganean hills. He had an overflowing affection of soul that could
not confine itself to the person of his son, or the aggrandizement of
his country, or be spiritualized into a metaphysical adoration of ideal
beauty. It bestowed itself on his fellow-creatures; and to see them
happy, warmed his heart with a pleasure experienced by few. This man,
his imaginative flights, his glowing benevolence and his humble
occupations, were an enigma that Castruccio could never solve. But,
while he neither sympathized with nor understood him, he quickly loved
him with the warmest affection.
Castruccio wished to speak to him of his future destination; Guinigi
said, "Your father has recommended you to my counsels, and you must
allow me to become acquainted with you, before I can give you advice.
You are very young; and we need not hurry. Grant me six months; we will
not be idle. We will ramble about the country: winter is the peasant's
leisure time, so I am quite at your service. We shall be much together,
and will discuss many subjects; and by degrees I shall understand the
foundations on which you are to build your future life."
They travelled to Padua, to lovely Venice, raising its head from the
waves of ocean; they rambled about the coast for days together, having
no other end than to enjoy the beauties of nature. Then, coming nearer
home, they climbed the Euganean hills, and penetrated their recesses.
Guinigi had an ultimate object in view; he wished to impress on the mind
of his pupil a love of peace, and a taste for rural pleasures. One day
they were on the summit of Monte Selice, a conical hill between Este and
Padua, and Guinigi pointed to the country around.--"What a Paradise is
this!" he said. "Now it is bare; but in the summer, when the corn waves
among the trees, and the ripening grapes shade the roads; when on every
side you see happy peasants leading the beautiful oxen to their light
work, and the sun, and the air, and the earth are each labouring to
produce for man all that is necessary for his support, and the ground is
covered with vegetation, and the air quickened into life, it is a spot,
on which the Creator of the world might pause, and be pleased with his
work. How different was this some years ago! You have heard of Ezzelino
the tyrant of Padua, under whose auspices the rivers ran blood, and the
unfortunate peasant found his harvests reaped by the sword of the
invading soldier! Look at those peasants on yonder road, conducting
their cattle crowned with flowers: habited in their holiday best, and
moving in solemn procession; their oxen are going to be blest by St.
Antonio, to ward from them the evils of the ensuing seasons. A few years
ago, instead of peasants, soldiers marched along that road: their close
ranks shewed their excellent discipline; their instruments filled the
air with triumphant sounds; the knights pricked their steeds forward,
who arching their proud necks, seemed to exult in their destination.
What were they about to do? to burn a town, to murder the old, and the
helpless, the women, and the children; to destroy the dwellings of
peace; so that, when they left their cruel work, the miserable wretches
who survived had nothing to shelter them but the bare, black walls,
where before their neat cottages had stood."
Castruccio listened impatiently, and cried:--"Yet who would not rather
be a knight, than one of those peasants, whose minds are as grovelling
as their occupations?"
"That would not I," replied Guinigi fervently; "how must the human mind
be distorted, which can delight in that which is ill, in preference to
the cultivation of the earth, and the contemplation of its loveliness!
What a strange mistake is it, that a peasant's life is incompatible with
intellectual improvement! Alas! poor wretches; they are too hard-worked
now to learn much, and their toil, uncheered by the applause of their
fellow-creatures, appears a degradation; yet, when I would picture
happiness upon earth, my imagination conjures up the family of a dweller
among the fields, whose property is secure, and whose time is passed
between labour and intellectual pleasures. Such now is my fate. The
evening of my life steals gently on; and I have no regrets for the past,
no wish for the future, but to continue as I am."
"Yes," cried Castruccio, "You have passed through life, and know what it
is; but I would rather, while alive, enter my tomb, than live unknown
and unheard of. Is it not fame that makes men gods? Do not urge me to
pass my days in indolence; I must act, to be happy,--to be any thing. My
father did not wish me to become a farmer and a vinedresser; but to
tread in his steps, and go beyond them, and that is my purpose, which I
would die to attain."
A year passed while Castruccio still lived under the low roof of
Guinigi. He found that it was no vain boast, that this noble ate the
bread that he had sown: for he saw him hold the plough, trim his vines,
and enter into all the labours of the husbandman. There is something
picturesque in the toil of an Italian peasant. It is not, as in more
northern climates, where cold, and wet, and care are endured, to be
scantily repaid; and their unceasing anxiety is often terminated by the
destruction of their crops through the severity of their climate.
Guinigi and his fellow-labourers rose with the sun, which, ascending
from the ocean, illumined the wide plain with its slant beams. The most
beautiful vegetation luxuriated around them: the strips of land were
planted with Indian corn, wheat and beans; they were divided, in some
places by row of olives, in others by elms or Lombardy poplars, to which
the vines clung. The hedges were of myrtle, whose aromatic perfume
weighed upon the sluggish air of noon, as the labourers reposed,
sleeping under the trees, lulled by the rippling of the brooks that
watered their grounds. In the evening they ate their meal under the open
sky; the birds were asleep, but the ground was alive with innumerable
glowworms, and the air with the lightning-like fire-flies, small,
humming crickets, and heavy beetles: the west had quickly lost its
splendour, but in the fading beams of subset sailed the boat-like moon,
while Venus, as another satellite to earth, beamed just above the
crescent hardly brighter than itself, and the outline of the rugged
Apennines was marked darkly below.
Their harvests were plenteous and frequent. The moving of the grass was
quickly followed in June by the reaping, and the well-trodden threshing
floor, such as Virgil describes it, received the grain; then came the
harvest of the Indian corn; and last the glorious vintage, when the
beautiful dove-coloured oxen of Lombardy could hardly drag the creaking
wains laden with the fruit.
Castruccio attended Guinigi in his labours; and Guinigi, resting on his
spade, would moralize on all around him, and win the ardent imagination
of the youth to follow his flights. All in the country bore for him the
immediate stamp of divine and eternal beauty; he knew every flower of
the field, and could describe their various habits, and what insects
best loved to suck their nectar. He knew the form and the life of every
little being of that peopled region, where the sun seems to quicken
every atom into life; and that which was insignificant to common eyes,
appeared to him to be invested with strange attributes and uncommon
loveliness.
Again Guinigi sat, Castruccio beside him, at the door of his cot,
watching the evening work of the labourers, as the wine was drawn off
from the last vat. Arrigo, now a year older, was helping them:
Castruccio said--"Instead of six months I have given you twelve, and I
have not mentioned my future destiny; indeed we have been employed so
pleasantly during the summer, that I almost forgot it. But I cannot live
another year among these hills; you know not what bitterness I feel at
heart, when I hear the clash of arms from that castle, I, who am wearing
away an ignoble youth."
Guinigi smiled, and replied, "I have reflected for you, and I have dived
into your secret thoughts, although you have not spoken. To-morrow we
will make a journey; and you shall soon be introduced to a man who will
bring you into that life whose promise of glory is so attractive to you.
So bid farewell to these hills; you will not see them again for many
years."
This hope stole sleep from the eyes of Castruccio that night. His
imagination, which had lately rested on sickles, and wains, and vines,
and the simple philosophy of Guinigi, now again fled to its wonted
track, and entered upon what he conceived to be a more glorious world.
Fleecy clouds hid the full moon, and the world was invested by a faint
light that gradually opened into day. Castruccio saw the horses led
saddled to the door, and he hastened to join Guinigi. Before he departed
he kissed affectionately the sleeping Arrigo, and said: "I fear those
fair eyes will be dimmed with tears, when he hears that I am not to
return. Sweet boy! I love you as a brother, and hope some future day to
shew that love in something more than words."
Guinigi smiled at the aspiring spirit of Castruccio; he smiled to
perceive that, still wanting protection, still a boy, his thoughts
always dwelt on the power which he would one day acquire, and the
protection he would then afford to others.
They rode silently along the well known road that led to Padua: after
resting their horses at this town, they continued their way to Venice.
Who knows not Venice? its streets paved with the eternal ocean, its
beautiful domes and majestic palaces? It is not now as it was when
Castruccio visited it; now the degenerate inhabitants go "crouching and
crab-like through their sapping streets:" then they were at the height
of their glory, just before the aristocratical government was fixed, and
the people were struggling for what they lost--liberty.
Guinigi and his young companion were silent during their long ride.
Guinigi was on the eve of seeing the friends of his warlike youth; and
perhaps his memory recalled those scenes. Castruccio dreamed of
futurity; and the uncertainty of his destiny only gave more scope to his
imagination, as he figured the glorious part which he flattered himself
he was about to act on the great theatre. At length they arrived on the
shore of the Laguna, and entered the gondola which was to convey them to
the city. Guinigi then addressed the youth:--"You trust your fate to me;
and I must explain to you the plan that I have formed concerning you,
that you may judge whether I merit the entire confidence you shew
yourself inclined to repose in me. You know, my dear Castruccio, that
poor Italy is distracted by civil brawls, and how little honour one who
is exiled as you are from his native town, can acquire, to whatever
party he may adhere. His most arduous exertions may be sacrificed to
political intrigue, and assuredly he will be repaid with ingratitude
alone, whatever power he serves. In addition, a disgraceful political
craft now reigns in the palaces of the Italian princes, which renders
them ill schools for a youth, who, while he may, ought to preserve the
innocence and sincerity of which the world will but too quickly deprive
him. You would inevitably be disgusted by the narrow views, the
treachery, and beggarly fraud, that dwell in the hearts, and influence
the actions of our proudest nobles.
"You must therefore begin your knightly career out of Italy. The honours
that you will obtain from a foreign sovereign, will ennoble you in the
eyes of your countrymen, and will enable you, when you return, to judge
impartially of the state of your country, and to choose, without being
influenced by narrow party-feeling, the course you will pursue. It is
with this view that I am going to introduce you to an old friend of
mine, an Englishman, who is about to return to his native soil. I knew
him many years ago, when he accompanied Charles of Anjou to Italy. A
long time has elapsed since sir Ethelbert Atawel returned to England;
but, upon the event of a new king's succession to the throne, he was
chosen, as a person well acquainted with the customs of the holy court,
to be the chief of an embassy to the Pope. Having discharged his
mission, he has crossed the Alps to take a last farewell of his Italian
friends, before he proceeds to assume a distinguished part in his own
country. I shall consign you, my young friend, to the guidance of this
noble gentleman. We have now been separated for nearly twenty years; but
our attachment did not arise from casual intercourse alone; we esteemed
one another, we bound ourselves one to the other by vows; and, although
at this distance of time, life has much changed its appearance to both
of us, yet I swear I would keep to the letter all that I vowed to him,
and I believe that he will do the same by me.
"Another motive influences me in sending you to England. You have a rich
relation there named Alderigo, who requested Atawel to enquire for the
various branches of the exiled Antelminelli, and in particular for your
father. It may well appear from the earnestness of his enquiries, that,
if you go to England, you will find yourself neither friendless nor
poor. I am an exile like you, and like you I am destitute of all
resources, and am saved from embarrassment only by those labours in
which I fortunately take a pride. I know that it would not be agreeable
to you to be dependent on the favour of Atawel; but you are differently
circumstanced with regard to your relation; and I believe him to have
both the power and the will to serve you."
The gondola entered Canale Grande, and rested at the steps of a noble
palace. Castruccio had no time to comment upon the relation of Guinigi;
but followed him silently through the stately apartments, hung with silk
and tapestry, and paved with marble, into the banquetting hall, where
the owner of the palace sat surrounded by the aristocracy of Venice. The
childish mind of Castruccio shrunk into itself, when he saw the satined
and gold-laced state of these nobles, and then glanced his eye on the
dignified form of his companion clothed in the mean habiliments of an
Italian peasant: but his shame was turned to pride and astonishment,
when he found this homely-looking man received with reverence, and
embraced with affection, by this lordly assembly. The most cordial
salutes echoed from the ends of the hall, as they all pressed round to
welcome their old friend and counsellor, to whose wisdom and calm
courage many of them owed the most important obligations. There was a
sweetness in the smile of Guinigi, that elevated him in appearance above
other men, a sensibility beaming in his eye which added grace to his
quick and expressive motions, and a gentleness that tempered the
frankness of his manners. He introduced Castruccio to the nobles. The
youth was beautiful to a wonder, and experienced a flattering reception
from the friends of his protector.
"I shall remain but a few days in Venice," said Guinigi to his host;
"but I will visit you again before I retire to my farm; at present you
must tell me where I can find your English visitor, sir Ethelbert
Atawel, for my business is with him."
A man now arose, and advanced from a retired part of the room; his
person formed a strange contrast to the sun-burnt faces and black eyes
of the Italians who were around him. He had the round Saxon features,
moulded with uncommon delicacy; his light hair slightly shaded his fair
temples; and his slender person denoted elegance rather than power; his
countenance bore the expression of much thought, of thoughts moulded by
an enquiring, yet a gentle mind. He advanced towards Guinigi; his lips
were almost convulsed; a tear stole into his eye, as he grasped his
hand, and said: "You do not forget me?"
Guinigi replied with trembling emphasis, "Never!"--the hearts of the
friends were full, they took leave of the company, and descended to the
gondola, that without spectators they might express their remembered
affection.