On an evening in April, 1347, and in one of those wide spaces in which
Modern and Ancient Rome seemed blent together--equally desolate and
equally in ruins--a miscellaneous and indignant populace were assembled.
That morning the house of a Roman jeweller had been forcibly entered and
pillaged by the soldiers of Martino di Porto, with a daring effrontery
which surpassed even the ordinary licence of the barons. The sympathy
and sensation throughout the city were deep and ominous.
“Never will I submit to this tyranny!”
“Nor I!”
“Nor I!”
“Nor by the bones of St. Peter, will I!”
“And what, my friends, is this tyranny to which you will not submit?”
said a young nobleman, addressing himself to the crowd of citizens who,
heated, angry, half-armed, and with the vehement gestures of Italian
passion, were now sweeping down the long and narrow street that led to
the gloomy quarter occupied by the Orsini.
“Ah, my lord!” cried two or three of the citizens in a breath, “you will
right us--you will see justice done to us--you are a Colonna.”
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed scornfully one man of gigantic frame, and wielding
on high a huge hammer, indicative of his trade. “Justice and Colonna!
body of God! those names are not often found together.”
“Down with him! down with him! he is an Orsinist--down with him!” cried
at least ten of the throng: but no hand was raised against the giant.
“He speaks the truth,” said a second voice, firmly.
“Ay, that doth he,” said a third, knitting his brows, and unsheathing
his knife, “and we will abide by it. The Orsini are tyrants--and the
Colonnas are, at the best, as bad.”
“Thou liest in thy teeth, ruffian!” cried the young noble, advancing
into the press and confronting the last asperser of the Colonna.
Before the flashing eye and menacing gesture of the cavalier, the worthy
brawler retreated some steps, so as to leave an open space between the
towering form of the smith, and the small, slender, but vigorous frame
of the young noble.
Taught from their birth to despise the courage of the plebeians, even
while careless of much reputation as to their own, the patricians of
Rome were not unaccustomed to the rude fellowship of these brawls; nor
was it unoften that the mere presence of a noble sufficed to scatter
whole crowds, that had the moment before been breathing vengeance
against his order and his house.
Waving his hand, therefore, to the smith, and utterly unheeding either
his brandished weapon or his vast stature, the young Adrian di Castello,
a distant kinsman of the Colonna, haughtily bade him give way.
“To your homes, friends! and know,” he added, with some dignity, “that
ye wrong us much, if ye imagine we share the evil-doings of the Orsini,
or are pandering solely to our own passions in the feud between their
house and ours. May the Holy Mother so judge me,” continued he, devoutly
lifting up his eyes, “as I now with truth declare, that it is for your
wrongs, and for the wrongs of Rome, that I have drawn this sword against
the Orsini.”
“So say all the tyrants,” rejoined the smith, hardily, as he leant his
hammer against a fragment of stone--some remnant of ancient Rome--“they
never fight against each other, but it is for our good. One Colonna cuts
me the throat of Orsini’s baker--it is for our good! Another Colonna
seizes on the daughter of Orsini’s tailor--it is for our good! our
good--yes, for the good of the people! the good of the bakers and
tailors, eh?”
“Fellow,” said the young nobleman, gravely, “if a Colonna did thus, he
did wrong; but the holiest cause may have bad supporters.”
“Yes, the holy Church itself is propped on very in different columns,”
answered the smith, in a rude witticism on the affection of the pope for
the Colonna.
“He blasphemes! the smith blasphemes!” cried the partisans of that
powerful house. “A Colonna, a Colonna!”
“An Orsini, an Orsini!” was no less promptly the counter cry.
“The People!” shouted the smith, waving his formidable weapon far above
the heads of the group.
In an instant the whole throng, who had at first united against the
aggression of one man, were divided by the hereditary wrath of faction.
At the cry of Orsini, several new partisans hurried to the spot; the
friends of the Colonna drew themselves on one side--the defenders of
the Orsini on the other--and the few who agreed with the smith that both
factions were equally odious, and the people was the sole legitimate
cry in a popular commotion, would have withdrawn themselves from the
approaching melee, if the smith himself, who was looked upon by them as
an authority of great influence, had not--whether from resentment at the
haughty bearing of the young Colonna, or from that appetite of contest
not uncommon in men of a bulk and force which assure them in all
personal affrays the lofty pleasure of superiority--if, I say, the smith
himself had not, after a pause of indecision, retired among the Orsini,
and entrained, by his example, the alliance of his friends with the
favourers of that faction.
In popular commotions, each man is whirled along with the herd, often
half against his own approbation or assent. The few words of peace
by which Adrian di Castello commenced an address to his friends were
drowned amidst their shouts. Proud to find in their ranks one of the
most beloved, and one of the noblest of that name, the partisans of
the Colonna placed him in their front, and charged impetuously on their
foes. Adrian, however, who had acquired from circumstances something of
that chivalrous code which he certainly could not have owed to his Roman
birth, disdained at first to assault men among whom he recognised no
equal, either in rank or the practice of arms. He contented himself with
putting aside the few strokes that were aimed at him in the gathering
confusion of the conflict--few; for those who recognised him, even
amidst the bitterest partisans of the Orsini, were not willing to expose
themselves to the danger and odium of spilling the blood of a man, who,
in addition to his great birth and the terrible power of his connexions,
was possessed of a personal popularity, which he owed rather to a
comparison with the vices of his relatives than to any remarkable
virtues hitherto displayed by himself. The smith alone, who had as
yet taken no active part in the fray, seemed to gather himself up in
determined opposition as the cavalier now advanced within a few steps of
him.
“Did we not tell thee,” quoth the giant, frowning, “that the Colonna
were, not less than the Orsini, the foes of the people? Look at thy
followers and clients: are they not cutting the throats of humble men by
way of vengeance for the crime of a great one? But that is the way one
patrician always scourges the insolence of another. He lays the rod on
the backs of the people, and then cries, ‘See how just I am!’”
“I do not answer thee now,” answered Adrian; “but if thou regrettest
with me this waste of blood, join with me in attempting to prevent it.”
“I--not I! let the blood of the slaves flow today: the time is fast
coming when it shall be washed away by the blood of the lords.”
“Away, ruffian!” said Adrian, seeking no further parley, and touching
the smith with the flat side of his sword. In an instant the hammer of
the smith swung in the air, and, but for the active spring of the young
noble, would infallibly have crushed him to the earth. Ere the smith
could gain time for a second blow, Adrian’s sword passed twice through
his right arm, and the weapon fell heavily to the ground.
“Slay him, slay him!” cried several of the clients of the Colonna, now
pressing, dastard-like, round the disarmed and disabled smith.
“Ay, slay him!” said, in tolerable Italian, but with a barbarous accent,
one man, half-clad in armour, who had but just joined the group, and who
was one of those wild German bandits whom the Colonna held in their pay;
“he belongs to a horrible gang of miscreants sworn against all order
and peace. He is one of Rienzi’s followers, and, bless the Three Kings!
raves about the People.”
“Thou sayest right, barbarian,” said the sturdy smith, in a loud voice,
and tearing aside the vest from his breast with his left hand; “come
all--Colonna and Orsini--dig to this heart with your sharp blades, and
when you have reached the centre, you will find there the object of your
common hatred--‘Rienzi and the People!’”
As he uttered these words, in language that would have seemed above his
station (if a certain glow and exaggeration of phrase and sentiment were
not common, when excited, to all the Romans), the loudness of his voice
rose above the noise immediately round him, and stilled, for an instant,
the general din; and when, at last, the words, “Rienzi and the People”
rang forth, they penetrated midway through the increasing crowd, and
were answered as by an echo, with a hundred voices--“Rienzi and the
People!”
But whatever impression the words of the mechanic made on others, it was
equally visible in the young Colonna. At the name of Rienzi the glow
of excitement vanished from his cheek; he started back, muttered to
himself, and for a moment seemed, even in the midst of that stirring
commotion, to be lost in a moody and distant revery. He recovered, as
the shout died away; and saying to the smith, in a low tone, “Friend, I
am sorry for thy wound; but seek me on the morrow, and thou shalt find
thou hast wronged me;” he beckoned to the German to follow him, and
threaded his way through the crowd, which generally gave back as he
advanced. For the bitterest hatred to the order of the nobles was at
that time in Rome mingled with a servile respect for their persons, and
a mysterious awe of their uncontrollable power.
As Adrian passed through that part of the crowd in which the fray had
not yet commenced, the murmurs that followed him were not those which
many of his race could have heard.
“A Colonna,” said one.
“Yet no ravisher,” said another, laughing wildly.
“Nor murtherer,” muttered a third, pressing his hand to his breast.
“‘Tis not against him that my father’s blood cries aloud.”
“Bless him,” said a fourth, “for as yet no man curses him!”
“Ah, God help us!” said an old man, with a long grey beard, leaning on
his staff: “The serpent’s young yet; the fangs will show by and by.”
“For shame, father! he is a comely youth, and not proud in the least.
What a smile he hath!” quoth a fair matron, who kept on the outskirt of
the melee.
“Farewell to a man’s honour when a noble smiles on his wife!” was the
answer.
“Nay,” said Luigi, a jolly butcher, with a roguish eye, “what a man
can win fairly from maid or wife, that let him do, whether plebeian or
noble--that’s my morality; but when an ugly old patrician finds fair
words will not win fair looks, and carries me off a dame on the back of
a German boar, with a stab in the side for comfort to the spouse,--then,
I say, he is a wicked man, and an adulterer.”
While such were the comments and the murmurs that followed the noble,
very different were the looks and words that attended the German
soldier.
Equally, nay, with even greater promptitude, did the crowd make way at
his armed and heavy tread; but not with looks of reverence:--the eye
glared as he approached; but the cheek grew pale--the head bowed--the
lip quivered; each man felt a shudder of hate and fear, as recognizing
a dread and mortal foe. And well and wrathfully did the fierce
mercenary note the signs of the general aversion. He pushed on
rudely--half-smiling in contempt, half-frowning in revenge, as he looked
from side to side; and his long, matted, light hair, tawny-coloured
moustache, and brawny front, contrasted strongly with the dark eyes,
raven locks, and slender frames of the Italians.
“May Lucifer double damn those German cut-throats!” muttered, between
his grinded teeth, one of the citizens.
“Amen!” answered, heartily, another.
“Hush!” said a third, timorously looking round; “if one of them hear
thee, thou art a lost man.”
“Oh, Rome! Rome! to what art thou fallen!” said bitterly one citizen,
clothed in black, and of a higher seeming than the rest; “when thou
shudderest in thy streets at the tread of a hired barbarian!”
“Hark to one of our learned men, and rich citizens!” said the butcher,
reverently.
“‘Tis a friend of Rienzi’s,” quoth another of the group, lifting his
cap.
With downcast eyes, and a face in which grief, shame, and wrath, were
visibly expressed, Pandulfo di Guido, a citizen of birth and repute,
swept slowly through the crowd, and disappeared.
Meanwhile, Adrian, having gained a street which, though in the
neighbourhood of the crowd, was empty and desolate, turned to his fierce
comrade. “Rodolf!” said he, “mark!--no violence to the citizens. Return
to the crowd, collect the friends of our house, withdraw them from the
scene; let not the Colonna be blamed for this day’s violence; and assure
our followers, in my name, that I swear, by the knighthood I received at
the Emperor’s hands, that by my sword shall Martino di Porto be punished
for his outrage. Fain would I, in person, allay the tumult, but my
presence only seems to sanction it. Go--thou hast weight with them all.”
“Ay, Signor, the weight of blows!” answered the grim soldier. “But the
command is hard; I would fain let their puddle-blood flow an hour or
two longer. Yet, pardon me; in obeying thy orders, do I obey those of my
master, thy kinsman? It is old Stephen Colonna--who seldom spares blood
or treasure, God bless him--(save his own!)--whose money I hold, and to
whose hests I am sworn.”
“Diavolo!” muttered the cavalier, and the angry spot was on his cheek;
but, with the habitual self-control of the Italian nobles, he smothered
his rising choler, and said aloud, with calmness, but dignity--
“Do as I bid thee; check this tumult--make us the forbearing party.
Let all be still within one hour hence, and call on me tomorrow for thy
reward; be this purse an earnest of my future thanks. As for my kinsman,
whom I command thee to name more reverently, ‘tis in his name I speak.
Hark! the din increases--the contest swells--go--lose not another
moment.”
Somewhat awed by the quiet firmness of the patrician, Rodolf nodded,
without answer, slid the money into his bosom, and stalked away into the
thickest of the throng. But, even ere he arrived, a sudden reaction had
taken place.
The young cavalier, left alone in that spot, followed with his eyes the
receding form of the mercenary, as the sun, now setting, shone slant
upon his glittering casque, and said bitterly to himself--“Unfortunate
city, fountain of all mighty memories--fallen queen of a thousand
nations--how art thou decrowned and spoiled by thy recreant and apostate
children! Thy nobles divided against themselves--thy people cursing thy
nobles--thy priests, who should sow peace, planting discord--the father
of thy church deserting thy stately walls, his home a refuge, his mitre
a fief, his court a Gallic village--and we! we, of the haughtiest
blood of Rome--we, the sons of Caesars, and of the lineage of demigods,
guarding an insolent and abhorred state by the swords of hirelings, who
mock our cowardice while they receive our pay--who keep our citizens
slaves, and lord it over their very masters in return! Oh, that we, the
hereditary chiefs of Rome, could but feel--oh, that we could but find,
our only legitimate safeguard in the grateful hearts of our countrymen!”
So deeply did the young Adrian feel the galling truth of all he uttered,
that the indignant tears rolled down his cheeks as he spoke. He felt no
shame as he dashed them away; for that weakness which weeps for a fallen
race, is the tenderness not of women but of angels.
As he turned slowly to quit the spot, his steps were suddenly arrested
by a loud shout: “Rienzi! Rienzi!” smote the air. From the walls of the
Capitol to the bed of the glittering Tiber, that name echoed far and
wide; and, as the shout died away, it was swallowed up in a silence so
profound, so universal, so breathless, that you might have imagined that
death itself had fallen over the city. And now, at the extreme end of
the crowd, and elevated above their level, on vast fragments of stone
which had been dragged from the ruins of Rome in one of the late
frequent tumults between contending factions, to serve as a barricade
for citizens against citizens,--on these silent memorials of the past
grandeur, the present misery, of Rome, stood that extraordinary man,
who, above all his race, was the most penetrated with the glories of the
one time, with the degradation of the other.
From the distance at which he stood from the scene, Adrian could only
distinguish the dark outline of Rienzi’s form; he could only hear the
faint sound of his mighty voice; he could only perceive, in the subdued
yet waving sea of human beings that spread around, their heads bared
in the last rays of the sun, the unutterable effect which an eloquence,
described by contemporaries almost as miraculous,--but in reality
less so from the genius of the man than the sympathy of the
audience,--created in all, who drank into their hearts and souls the
stream of its burning thoughts.
It was but for a short time that that form was visible to the earnest
eye, that that voice at intervals reached the straining ear, of Adrian
di Castello; but that time sufficed to produce all the effect which
Adrian himself had desired.
Another shout, more earnest, more prolonged than the first--a shout,
in which spoke the release of swelling thoughts, of intense
excitement--betokened the close of the harangue; and then you might
see, after a minute’s pause, the crowd breaking in all directions, and
pouring down the avenues in various knots and groups, each testifying
the strong and lasting impression made upon the multitude by that
address. Every cheek was flushed--every tongue spoke: the animation of
the orator had passed, like a living spirit, into the breasts of the
audience. He had thundered against the disorders of the patricians, yet,
by a word, he had disarmed the anger of the plebeians--he had preached
freedom, yet he had opposed licence. He had calmed the present, by a
promise of the future. He had chid their quarrels, yet had supported
their cause. He had mastered the revenge of today, by a solemn assurance
that there should come justice for the morrow. So great may be the
power, so mighty the eloquence, so formidable the genius, of one
man,--without arms, without rank, without sword or ermine, who addresses
himself to a people that is oppressed!