_Castruccio in Italy--Susa--Creed of Benedetto._
Messer Tadeo received his old friend with respect and friendship; and,
courteously welcoming Castruccio, he led them into a large hall, where
the sight of a repast already set out seemed to diffuse joy over the
countenances of both travellers. The hall was richly hung with scarlet
cloth, and the tables and seats covered with tapestry; at the upper end
of the room was a chimney and a fire, near which taking his seat, Messer
Tadeo invited the new comers to join several other friends of his, who
arranged themselves round the table.
When the long ceremony of dinner was finished, and the servants were
busy in removing the tables, Messer Tadeo proposed to the newly arrived
guests to conduct them to a bed-chamber, where they might repose after
the fatigues of the journey. They both gladly accepted this offer; and
in a deep and refreshing sleep Castruccio forgot his curiosity
concerning who or what his companion might be, and the latter recovered
from the trembling fear of danger, which had haunted him since his
escape of the preceding day.
When Castruccio arose at about six o'clock in the evening, he joined
Messer Tadeo, who was sitting with the other traveller in the great
hall. The rest of the company had departed; and these two were in
earnest conversation, which they changed when Castruccio entered.
After some time, holding up his finger, and drawing down still longer
the long wrinkles of his cheeks, the fellow-traveller of Castruccio, in
a mysterious manner, pronounced the word which had been given to the
soldiers of Alberto Scoto, that they might distinguish one another
during the darkness of night, or the confusion of battle; Castruccio,
hearing this, easily divined that he had a fellow soldier, and a friend
of his chief, in his strange travelling companion; so smiling, he
uttered the countersign, and the other, turning on him, as if the ghost
of one whom he had known many years before had risen before him, hastily
enquired, "You served then in his troop?"
"Yes," replied Castruccio, "I had the honour of serving under the noble
knight, Messer Alberto Scoto; and, in having rendered you a service, I
am still more happy to find that I saved one who has fought under the
same banners with myself."
"Is your name a secret?"
"I am of a noble Lucchese family, now exiled and wandering; my name is
Castruccio Castracani dei Antelminelli."
The elder traveller suddenly arose, and, embracing Castruccio warmly,
bestowed on him a brotherly kiss, and then turning to Tadeo, said: "This
morning I introduced to you a stranger whose merit with me was that of
having saved my life at the imminent risk of his own; now I introduce to
you a gallant soldier, whose name has been spread through France, as
that of the bravest warrior and the ablest commander that fought in the
Low Countries: the Sieur Castruccio is a name which even the children in
France lisp with gratitude, and the Flemings tremble to hear."
Many compliments passed; and then the traveller said: "This pleasant
discovery has made friends of three who were before strangers; nor will
I conceal from you, Messer Castruccio, that my name is Benedetto Pepi, a
Cremonese, now returning to my own country, after having gained laurels
and knight-hood under the banners of Messer Scoto. You, my dear
companion, say that you are an exile; but great changes are now taking
place in Italy, and, knowing who you are, we may well admit you to the
confidential conversation that I and Messer Tadeo were holding when you
entered, concerning all that has passed since the arrival of the emperor
Henry in Italy."
Saying this, Benedetto made a slight sign to his friend, which
Castruccio easily guessed to be an admonition to be discreet in his
disclosures. Tadeo replied to this sign by a nod, and said:
"Two Florentine usurers who had come through Milan, dined yesterday at
my house; they had witnessed the entrance of the emperor into that city.
The lord of Milan, Guido della Torre, was obliged to discharge his
soldiers, and unarmed, at the head of an unarmed multitude, went out to
meet the emperor, who had the Visconti in his train, and all the
Ghibelines, the old enemies of the Torre family. These are now
reinstated in their possessions; yet Henry still pretends to
impartiality, and in his march has restored all the exiles to their
various towns, whether they be Guelphs or Ghibelines."
"I wonder," said Pepi, "how long he will keep on the mask; few men are
impartial, an emperor never: to one curious in state affairs it were a
fine occasion, to conjecture what will be the issue and crown of these
pretensions."
"Why," asked Castruccio, "should not they be as they appear? Cannot the
emperor be animated by a generous policy, and wish to reconcile all
parties by a just and fair proceeding?"
"Impossible!" cried Pepi with energy; "an emperor just! a prince
impartial! Do not thrones rest upon dissentions and quarrels? And must
there not be weakness in the people to create power in the prince? I
prophesy; and as a discreet man I prophesy seldom, yet I now securely
foretell, that Henry will set all Italy by the ears, to reap the fruits
of their dissentions. He procures the recall of all the exiles--I admire
his policy, worthy of being studied and understood by all who would
reign. Can Ghibelines and Guelphs live within the walls of the same
town? No more than one vessel can contain fire and water. No; the cities
of Italy will be filled with brawls, and her rivers run blood, by means
of this conjunction. If he had meant to establish peace in Italy, he
would have assassinated all of one party, to secure the lives of the
other; but to unite them, is to destroy both, and under the mask of
friendship to get into his own hands all that each has possessed."
Pepi uttered this harangue with an energy and a vivacity that startled
Castruccio; his black eyes sparkled, his brows became elevated, and
drawing down the perpendicular wrinkles of his cheeks, and contracting
the horizontal ones of his forehead, he looked round with an air of
triumph on his companions.
"You say true, Messer Benedetto," said Tadeo, groaning at the dismal
prognostications of his friend; "and I greatly fear lest this pretended
justice prove the watchword for war and bloodshed. Yet now all wears the
appearance of peace and brotherhood. The lords of Langusco, Pavìa,
Vercelli, Novara and Lodi have resigned their tyrannies and given up the
keys of their respective towns to Henry, and Imperial Vicars are every
where established. Guido della Torre, the proudest and most powerful
tyrant of Lombardy, has submitted; and the court of the emperor at Milan
is crowded by the lords of the towns in the east of Italy, and the
ambassadors of the free states of the south."
"Has Florence submitted?" asked Castruccio.
"No;--that town and its league holds out; Sienna, Lucca and Bologna.
Yet, when the emperor marches south, we shall see these proud
republicans bow their stiff knees."
"Never!" cried Pepi; "Bologna, Lucca and Sienna may submit; but Florence
never will; they are stiff-kneed, stiff-necked, and hate the name of
emperor and master more than Pope Urban hated the house of Suabia. These
republicans, whom from my soul I detest, have turned out the Ghibelines,
and are now fighting with the nobles, and asserting the superiority of
the vulgar, till every petty artizan of its meanest lane fancies himself
as great a prince as the emperor Henry himself. Besides, when all else
fails, they will buy him off: these Florentines squander their golden
florins, and pay thousands to purchase what would be a dear bargain even
as a gift. Their watch-word is that echo of fools, and laughing stock of
the wise,--Liberty. Surely the father of lies invented that bait, that
trap, at which the multitude catch, as a mouse at a bit of cheese: well
would it be for the world, if they found the same end; and, as the
nibbling mouse pulls down the iron on his head, they, as if they had one
neck, were lopped off, as they seized their prize:--but Florence
flourishes!"
Pepi ended his speech with a deep groan, and continued lost in thought;
while Tadeo and Castruccio discussed the chances that might arise from
the new order of things established in Italy; and Castruccio owned his
intention of joining the train of the emperor, and his hopes of being by
his means re-instated in his paternal estates. The evening wore away
during these discussions, and they retired early to rest. The next
morning Castruccio and Pepi took leave of Tadeo, and departed together
on the road to Milan.
For some time they rode along silently. Castruccio was overcome by a
variety of feelings on again visiting Italian earth. Although, being
winter, the landscape was stript bare, and its vineyards and corn-fields
alike appeared waste, yet Castruccio thought that no country could vie
with this in beauty, unless it were the plain of Lucca, such as he
remembered it, the last time he beheld it, then a child, standing on the
summit of his father's palace,--girded by hills, and the many-towered
city set as its heart in the midst. He longed for a companion to whom he
could pour out his full heart; for his overflowing feelings had for a
time swept away the many lessons of Alberto Scoto. He forgot ambition,
and the dreams of princely magnificence which he had cherished for many
months. He forgot Milan, the emperor, the Guelphs and Ghibelines, and
seemed to bury himself, as a bee in the fragrant circle of a rose, in
the softest and most humane emotions; till, half recovering, he blushed
to find his eyes dim, and his cheek stained by the pure tears of his
deep and unadulterated feeling. Turning hastily round, he was glad to
observe his companion somewhat behind him, and he reined in his horse
that he might approach. Pepi rode up with his measured pace; and it
would have been a curious study to remark the contrasted countenances of
the travellers: Castruccio, glorious in beauty; his deep eyes suffused
with tears, and his lips breathing passion and delight, was more
opposite than light to dark, to the hard lines of Pepi's face, which
were unmoved as he glanced his small bright eyes from side to side,
while no other sign shewed that he felt or thought; his mouth shut
close, his person stiff and strait, his knees pressing his mule's
flanks, and his ungainly horsemanship easily betraying the secret, that
his feats in arms must have been performed on foot.
At length tired of silence, and willing to speak although to so
unsympathizing a being, Castruccio asked: "Messer Benedetto, you seemed
last night to groan under the weight of your hatred of the Florentines.
Now I have good reason to hate them, since by their means my party was
exiled, and Lucca ranks among the Guelphic cities of Tuscany. But you
are of Cremona, a town separated from Florence by many mountains and
rivers; whence therefore arises your abhorrence of this republic?"
Pepi fixed his little piercing eyes upon Castruccio, as if to read into
his heart, and discover the secret motive of this question; but the
frank and noble beauty of his fellow-traveller was such, that it even
had an effect on this man's rigid soul; and, as he gazed on him, the
hard lines of his face seemed to melt away, and he replied at first with
gentleness; until, carried away by his subject, he poured forth the
torrent of his hatred with a warmth, strange to observe in one, who in
calmer moments appeared more as a man made of wood or leather, than of
flesh and blood:
"My good friend, you say true, I hate the Florentines; yet I may well
find it difficult to tell the cause; for neither have they wounded me,
nor stolen my purse, nor done me any other great injury of the like
nature; but I am a Ghibeline, and therefore I hate them. And who would
not hate a people, that despise the emperor, and all lawful authority;
that have as it were dug up the buried form of Liberty, which died when
Milan fell under the Visconti; who force their very nobles to become
vulgar, and counts of the palace, and counts of the empire, to inscribe
their names as weavers and furriers; who go about the world enriching
themselves by a wicked usury, and return and squander the money in
purchasing licence for themselves? Is not their town filled with brawls,
and are not their streets strewed with the ruins of the palaces of the
noble Ghibelines? Do they not one day undo the acts of the day before,
and ever introduce more and more licence? Now create every two months a
set of magistrates, who take all power out of the hands of the rich, and
now a captain of the people, who protects and raises the vile multitude,
till every lord must cap to his shoe-maker? The example is what I abhor;
are not Lucca, Bologna and Sienna free? and the contagion spreads over
Lombardy. Oh! to every saint in heaven would I put up my prayer; to the
devil himself would I give my thanks (but that so good a work could
never have been done by his means), if, as was once proposed, the town
of Florence had been razed, its streets sown with salt, and its
inhabitants scattered like Jews and Sclavonians about the world. Curse
thee, curse thee, Farinata, that through thy means this was not done!"
"A disinterested love of the Imperial power causes these emotions? In
truth you are the warmest Ghibeline I ever knew."
"My friend, the world, trust me, will never go well, until the rich
rule, and the vulgar sink to their right station as slaves of the soil.
You will readily allow that war is the scourge of the world; now in free
towns war has a better harvest, than where proper and legitimate
authority is established. During war neither our persons, nor our lands,
nor our houses are in safety; we may be wounded in brawls, our lands
laid waste, our houses and all our possessions despoiled. Now my plan is
easy, simple, and practicable: if you are at all read in history, you
must know, that the fortunes of the nobles of antient Rome consisted in
many hundreds of slaves, whom they brought up to various trades and
arts, and then let them out to work, or permitted them to keep shops and
make money, which the masters received, paying them a small sum for
their necessary support. Such is the order, which, if I were a prince, I
would establish, and every town, such as Florence, where all is noise
and talk, should be reduced to silence and peace; about two thousand
rich men should possess all the rest of the inhabitants, who, like
sheep, would flock to their folds, and receive their pittances with
thankfulness and humility."
"But if, instead of sheep, they were to be wolves, and turn rebels to
their masters? Methinks their numbers would panic-strike their two
thousand drivers."
"Nay, then we would display our whips, and drive the flock to market.
Slaves rebel! we would starve them into decent submission."
Castruccio could not help being amused by the strange policy and earnest
manners of the Italian lawgiver, and replied: "But, Messer Benedetto, I
dispute your first proposition, and assert that there is as much war and
bloodshed under kings, as in republics. You who have fought in Flanders,
and I who have also visited England, know this to be true; yet in France
and England the people do not mingle with the quarrels of the nobles; so
I think you must mend your constitution, and reduce your two thousand
slave-drivers of Florence to a single one; yet I am afraid that, if
there were only one in each town of Italy; or even if there were only
two in the whole world, they would contrive to create war and
bloodshed."
"That," replied Pepi, with a groan, "is the great fault that I find in
the constitution of the world. If the rich would only know their own
interests, we might chain the monster and again bury Liberty. But they
are all fools; if the rich would agree, if the few princes that there
need exist in the world, would league in amity, instead of quarrelling,
such a state as that of Florence would not subsist a year. But, if
reason had a trump as loud as that which will awaken us at the last day,
the clash of arms of these senseless people would drown it. Now, if
instead of quarrelling, the Pope and Frederic Barbarossa had made a
league, all Italy would now be on its knees before this Henry of
Luxembourgh. And one day this may be; mark my words; tyranny is a
healthy tree, it strikes a deep root, and each year its branches grow
larger and larger, and its shade spreads wider and wider. While liberty
is a word, a breath, an air; it will dissipate, and Florence become as
slavish as it is now rebellious; did not Rome fall?"
"I am little acquainted with the history of antient times," said
Castruccio gaily; "but, since the world began, I can easily imagine that
states have risen and fallen; we are blind with regard to futurity, and
methinks it is foolish to build for a longer term than a man's life.
Kingdoms are as fragile as a porcelain vessel tossed by the ocean; nay,
so very weak are they, that even the stars, those small, silly points of
light, are said to rule them; and often, when they are at their highest
glory, God sends his scourges, pest or earthquake, to sink them for
ever; let us work for ourselves alone; we may be obscure or famous,
grovelling as the worm, or lofty as the kingly eagle, according as our
desires sink or mount."
Discoursing thus they arrived at Turin, and were again entertained by a
merchant, the friend of Pepi. Here they found a numerous company, who
all discoursed with warmth concerning the political state of Italy, and
poured forth the most extravagant praises of the emperor Henry. He had
passed two months in Piedmont, reconciling factions, hearing complaints,
and destroying the vexatious tyrannies of its petty lords. Pepi, not
considering this a fit occasion to poison these sanguine hopes by his
prophecies, sat in silence with elevated brows and pressed lips, turning
his sharp eyes from one speaker to another, as if by their means to
drink in all the intelligence the politicians were able to afford.
The next morning Pepi and Castruccio parted; whether this was caused by
the necessities or the prudence of the former cannot be determined. He
alleged that his business called him to Alessandria in his way to
Cremona, and the road of Castruccio lay directly for Milan. On parting
Pepi made a speech, expressive of his gratitude, and the return he was
willing to render for the benefit he had received; which was a welcome
to his house and board, whenever his preserver should pass through
Cremona. "Yet," he added, "if you have any other friends in that town,
you may be will prefer them to me. I have, as I related yesterday,
suffered many losses, and am endeavouring to repair them by an
œconomical mode of life; I have no rich wines or soft couches, and can
neither afford to burn wax lights, nor to eat delicate food. I have a
good tower to my house; and, now that I am a knight, I shall have a good
horse in my stable; and that is all I have to boast. You seem to have no
taste for coarse fare or hard beds; and therefore my dwelling would in
no manner be agreeable to you."
Castruccio thanked him, and carelessly replied, that, as a soldier, he
had been accustomed to hardship and privation, nor would the poverty of
Pepi's dwelling render it less worthy in his eyes; and they coldly took
leave of one another, Pepi trotting gravely on the road towards
Alessandria, his head full of plans which he kept carefully locked up in
his own brain, and his hard lined face, faithful to his commands, giving
no indications of what was passing in his soul.
Castruccio rode on gaily towards Milan; the cheerless wintry sky and the
cold air could not tame his buoyant spirits or his hopes. He panted for
action, for distinction, and for power; yet he no longer desired these
things as a boy, unknowing of the road which led to them. During the
interval which he had spent in England and France, he had studied human
nature with the observant eye of genius; and, all careless as he
appeared to be, he had learned how to please the multitude, how to
flatter the foibles of the noble, and thus to gain the hearts of men and
to rule them. Under Alberto Scoto he had revolved with care the
political state of Italy, such as that commander had pictured it to him;
his plans of lordship and conquest were already formed; he had only the
first step to make, to proceed afterwards with a swift pace to the goal
for which he panted.