Discontent.--Scene of the Lateran.
The situation of a Patrician who honestly loves the people is, in those
evil times, when power oppresses and freedom struggles,--when the two
divisions of men are wrestling against each other,--the most irksome and
perplexing that destiny can possibly contrive. Shall he take part with
the nobles?--he betrays his conscience! With the people?--he deserts
his friends! But that consequence of the last alternative is not the
sole--nor, perhaps, to a strong mind, the most severe. All men are
swayed and chained by public opinion--it is the public judge; but public
opinion is not the same for all ranks. The public opinion that excites
or deters the plebeian, is the opinion of the plebeians,--of those
whom he sees, and meets, and knows; of those with whom he is brought
in contact,--those with whom he has mixed from childhood,--those whose
praises are daily heard,--whose censure frowns upon him with every
hour. (It is the same in still smaller divisions. The public opinion for
lawyers is that of lawyers; of soldiers, that of the army; of scholars,
it is that of men of literature and science. And to the susceptible
amongst the latter, the hostile criticism of learning has been more
stinging than the severest moral censures of the vulgar. Many a man has
done a great act, or composed a great work, solely to please the two
or three persons constantly present to him. Their voice was his public
opinion. The public opinion that operated on Bishop, the murderer, was
the opinion of the Burkers, his comrades. Did that condemn him? No! He
knew no other public opinion till he came to be hanged, and caught the
loathing eyes, and heard the hissing execrations of the crowd below his
gibbet.) So, also, the public opinion of the great is the opinion of
their equals,--of those whom birth and accident cast for ever in their
way. This distinction is full of important practical deductions; it
is one which, more than most maxims, should never be forgotten by a
politician who desires to be profound. It is, then, an ordeal terrible
to pass--which few plebeians ever pass, which it is therefore unjust to
expect patricians to cross unfaulteringly--the ordeal of opposing the
public opinion which exists for them. They cannot help doubting their
own judgment,--they cannot help thinking the voice of wisdom or of
virtue speaks in those sounds which have been deemed oracles from
their cradle. In the tribunal of Sectarian Prejudice they imagine
they recognise the court of the Universal Conscience. Another powerful
antidote to the activity of a patrician so placed, is in the certainty
that to the last the motives of such activity will be alike misconstrued
by the aristocracy he deserts and the people he joins. It seems so
unnatural in a man to fly in the face of his own order, that the world
is willing to suppose any clue to the mystery save that of honest
conviction or lofty patriotism. “Ambition!” says one. “Disappointment!”
cries another. “Some private grudge!” hints a third. “Mob-courting
vanity!” sneers a fourth. The people admire at first, but suspect
afterwards. The moment he thwarts a popular wish, there is no redemption
for him: he is accused of having acted the hypocrite,--of having worn
the sheep’s fleece: and now, say they,--“See! the wolf’s teeth
peep out!” Is he familiar with the people?--it is cajolery! Is he
distant?--it is pride! What, then, sustains a man in such a situation,
following his own conscience, with his eyes opened to all the perils
of the path? Away with the cant of public opinion,--away with the poor
delusion of posthumous justice; he will offend the first, he will never
obtain the last. What sustains him? HIS OWN SOUL! A man thoroughly great
has a certain contempt for his kind while he aids them: their weal or
woe are all; their applause--their blame--are nothing to him. He walks
forth from the circle of birth and habit; he is deaf to the little
motives of little men. High, through the widest space his orbit may
describe, he holds on his course to guide or to enlighten; but the
noises below reach him not! Until the wheel is broken,--until the dark
void swallow up the star,--it makes melody, night and day, to its own
ear: thirsting for no sound from the earth it illumines, anxious for no
companionship in the path through which it rolls, conscious of its own
glory, and contented, therefore, to be alone!
But minds of this order are rare. All ages cannot produce them. They
are exceptions to the ordinary and human virtue, which is influenced
and regulated by external circumstance. At a time when even to be merely
susceptible to the voice of fame was a great pre-eminence in moral
energies over the rest of mankind, it would be impossible that any
one should ever have formed the conception of that more refined and
metaphysical sentiment, that purer excitement to high deeds--that glory
in one’s own heart, which is so immeasurably above the desire of a
renown that lackeys the heels of others. In fact, before we can
dispense with the world, we must, by a long and severe novitiate--by the
probation of much thought, and much sorrow--by deep and sad conviction
of the vanity of all that the world can give us, have raised our
selves--not in the fervour of an hour, but habitually--above the world:
an abstraction--an idealism--which, in our wiser age, how few even of
the wisest, can attain! Yet, till we are thus fortunate, we know not
the true divinity of contemplation, nor the all-sufficing mightiness of
conscience; nor can we retreat with solemn footsteps into that Holy of
Holies in our own souls, wherein we know, and feel, how much our nature
is capable of the self-existence of a God!
But to return to the things and thoughts of earth. Those considerations,
and those links of circumstance, which, in a similar situation have
changed so many honest and courageous minds, changed also the mind of
Adrian. He felt in a false position. His reason and conscience shared in
the schemes of Rienzi, and his natural hardihood and love of enterprise
would have led him actively to share the danger of their execution. But
this, all his associations, his friendships, his private and household
ties, loudly forbade. Against his order, against his house, against the
companions of his youth, how could he plot secretly, or act sternly?
By the goal to which he was impelled by patriotism, stood hypocrisy and
ingratitude. Who would believe him the honest champion of his country
who was a traitor to his friends? Thus, indeed,
“The native hue of resolution
Was sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought!”
And he who should have been by nature a leader of the time became only
its spectator. Yet Adrian endeavoured to console himself for his present
passiveness in a conviction of the policy of his conduct. He who takes
no share in the commencement of civil revolutions, can often become,
with the most effect, a mediator between the passions and the parties
subsequently formed. Perhaps, under Adrian’s circumstances, delay was
really the part of a prudent statesman; the very position which cripples
at the first, often gives authority before the end. Clear from the
excesses, and saved from the jealousies, of rival factions, all men
are willing to look with complaisance and respect to a new actor in a
turbulent drama; his moderation may make him trusted by the people; his
rank enable him to be a fitting mediator with the nobles; and thus the
qualities that would have rendered him a martyr at one period of the
Revolution, raise him perhaps into a saviour at another.
Silent, therefore, and passive, Adrian waited the progress of events. If
the projects of Rienzi failed, he might, by that in activity, the better
preserve the people from new chains, and their champion from death.
If those projects succeeded, he might equally save his house from the
popular wrath--and, advocating liberty, check disorder. Such, at least,
were his hopes; and thus did the Italian sagacity and caution of his
character control and pacify the enthusiasm of youth and courage.
The sun shone, calm and cloudless, upon the vast concourse gathered
before the broad space that surrounds the Church of St. John of
Lateran. Partly by curiosity--partly by the desire of the Bishop of
Orvietto--partly because it was an occasion in which they could display
the pomp of their retinues--many of the principal Barons of Rome had
gathered to this spot.
On one of the steps ascending to the church, with his mantle folded
round him, stood Walter de Montreal, gazing on the various parties that,
one after another, swept through the lane which the soldiers of the
Church preserved unimpeded, in the middle of the crowd, for the access
of the principal nobles. He watched with interest, though with his usual
carelessness of air and roving glance, the different marks and looks
of welcome given by the populace to the different personages of note.
Banners and penons preceded each Signor, and, as they waved aloft, the
witticisms or nicknames--the brief words of praise or censure, that
imply so much--which passed to and fro among that lively crowd, were
treasured carefully in his recollection.
“Make way, there!--way for my Lord Martino Orsini--Baron di Porto!”
“Peace, minion!--draw back! way for the Signor Adrian Colonna, Baron di
Castello, and Knight of the Empire.”
And at those two rival shouts, you saw waving on high the golden bear of
the Orsini, with the motto--“Beware my embrace!” and the solitary column
on an azure ground, of the Colonna, with Adrian’s especial device--“Sad,
but strong.” The train of Martino Orsini was much more numerous than
that of Adrian, which last consisted but of ten servitors. But Adrian’s
men attracted far greater admiration amongst the crowd, and pleased more
the experienced eye of the warlike Knight of St. John. Their arms were
polished like mirrors; their height was to an inch the same; their march
was regular and sedate; their mien erect; they looked neither to the
right nor left; they betrayed that ineffable discipline--that harmony
of order--which Adrian had learned to impart to his men during his own
apprenticeship of arms. But the disorderly train of the Lord of Porto
was composed of men of all heights. Their arms were ill-polished and
ill-fashioned, and they pressed confusedly on each other; they laughed
and spoke aloud; and in their mien and bearing expressed all the
insolence of men who despised alike the master they served and the
people they awed. The two bands coming unexpectedly on each other
through this narrow defile, the jealousy of the two houses presently
declared itself. Each pressed forward for the precedence; and, as the
quiet regularity of Adrian’s train, and even its compact paucity of
numbers, enabled it to pass before the servitors of his rival, the
populace set up a loud shout--“A Colonna for ever!”--“Let the Bear dance
after the Column!”
“On, ye knaves!” said Orsini aloud to his men. “How have ye suffered
this affront?” And passing himself to the head of his men, he would have
advanced through the midst of his rival’s train, had not a tall guard,
in the Pope’s livery, placed his baton in the way.
“Pardon, my Lord! we have the Vicar’s express commands to suffer no
struggling of the different trains one with another.”
“Knave! dost thou bandy words with me?” said the fierce Orsini; and with
his sword he clove the baton in two.
“In the Vicar’s name, I command you to fall back!” said the sturdy
guard, now placing his huge bulk in the very front of the noble’s path.
“It is Cecco del Vecchio!” cried those of the populace, who were near
enough to perceive the interruption and its cause.
“Ay,” said one, “the good Vicar has put many of the stoutest fellows
in the Pope’s livery, in order the better to keep peace. He could have
chosen none better than Cecco.”
“But he must not fall!” cried another, as Orsini, glaring on the smith,
drew back his sword as if to plunge it through his bosom.
“Shame--shame! shall the Pope be thus insulted in his own city?” cried
several voices. “Down with the sacrilegious--down!” And, as if by a
preconcerted plan, a whole body of the mob broke at once through
the lane, and swept like a torrent over Orsini and his jostled and
ill-assorted train. Orsini himself was thrown on the ground with
violence, and trampled upon by a hundred footsteps; his men, huddled and
struggling as much against themselves as against the mob, were scattered
and overset; and when, by a great effort of the guards, headed by the
smith himself, order was again restored, and the line reformed, Orsini,
well nigh choked with his rage and humiliation, and greatly bruised by
the rude assaults he had received, could scarcely stir from the ground.
The officers of the Pope raised him, and, when he was on his legs, he
looked wildly around for his sword, which, falling from his hand, had
been kicked amongst the crowd, and seeing it not, he said, between his
ground teeth, to Cecco del Vecchio--
“Fellow, thy neck shall answer this outrage, or may God desert me!” and
passed along through the space; while a half-suppressed and exultant
hoot from the bystanders followed his path.
“Way there!” cried the smith, “for the Lord Martino di Porto, and may
all the people know that he has threatened to take my life for the
discharge of my duty in obedience to the Pope’s Vicar!”
“He dare not!” shouted out a thousand voices; “the people can protect
their own!”
This scene had not been lost on the Provencal, who well knew how to
construe the wind by the direction of straws, and saw at once, by the
boldness of the populace, that they themselves were conscious of a
coming tempest. “Par Dieu,” said he, as he saluted Adrian, who, gravely,
and without looking behind, had now won the steps of the church, “yon
tall fellow has a brave heart, and many friends, too. What think you,”
he added, in a low whisper, “is not this scene a proof that the nobles
are less safe than they wot of?”
“The beast begins to kick against the spur, Sir Knight,” answered
Adrian, “a wise horseman should, in such a case, take care how he
pull the rein too tight, lest the beast should rear, and he be
overthrown--yet that is the policy thou wouldst recommend.”
“You mistake,” returned Montreal, “my wish was to give Rome one
sovereign instead of many tyrants,--but hark! what means that bell?”
“The ceremony is about to begin,” answered Adrian. “Shall we enter the
church together?”
Seldom had a temple consecrated to God witnessed so singular a spectacle
as that which now animated the solemn space of the Lateran.
In the centre of the church, seats were raised in an amphitheatre, at
the far end of which was a scaffolding, a little higher than the rest;
below this spot, but high enough to be in sight of all the concourse,
was placed a vast table of iron, on which was graven an ancient
inscription, and bearing in its centre a clear and prominent device,
presently to be explained.
The seats were covered with cloth and rich tapestry. In the rear of
the church was drawn a purple curtain. Around the amphitheatre were the
officers of the Church, in the party-coloured liveries of the Pope. To
the right of the scaffold sate Raimond, Bishop of Orvietto, in his robes
of state. On the benches round him you saw all the marked personages of
Rome--the judges, the men of letters, the nobles, from the lofty rank
of the Savelli to the inferior grade of a Raselli. The space beyond the
amphitheatre was filled with the people, who now poured fast in, stream
after stream: all the while rang, clear and loud, the great bell of the
church.
At length, as Adrian and Montreal seated themselves at a little distance
from Raimond, the bell suddenly ceased--the murmurs of the people were
stilled--the purple curtain was withdrawn, and Rienzi came forth with
slow and majestic steps. He came--but not in his usual sombre and plain
attire. Over his broad breast he wore a vest of dazzling whiteness--a
long robe, in the ample fashion of the toga, descended to his feet
and swept the floor. On his head he wore a fold of white cloth, in the
centre of which shone a golden crown. But the crown was divided, or
cloven, as it were, by the mystic ornament of a silver sword, which,
attracting the universal attention, testified at once that this strange
garb was worn, not from the vanity of display, but for the sake of
presenting to the concourse--in the person of the citizen--a type and
emblem of that state of the city on which he was about to descant.
“Faith,” whispered one of the old nobles to his neighbour, “the plebeian
assumes it bravely.”
“It will be rare sport,” said a second. “I trust the good man will put
some jests in his discourse.”
“What showman’s tricks are these?” said a third.
“He is certainly crazed!” said a fourth.
“How handsome he is!” said the women, mixed with the populace.
“This is a man who has learned the people by heart,” observed Montreal
to Adrian. “He knows he must speak to the eye, in order to win the mind:
a knave,--a wise knave!”
And now Rienzi had ascended the scaffold; and as he looked long and
steadfastly around the meeting, the high and thoughtful repose of
his majestic countenance, its deep and solemn gravity, hushed all the
murmurs, and made its effect equally felt by the sneering nobles as the
impatient populace.
“Signors of Rome,” said he, at length, “and ye, friends, and citizens,
you have heard why we are met together this day; and you, my Lord
Bishop of Orvietto,--and ye, fellow labourers with me in the field of
letters,--ye, too, are aware that it is upon some matter relative to
that ancient Rome, the rise and the decline of whose past power and
glories we have spent our youth in endeavouring to comprehend. But
this, believe me, is no vain enigma of erudition, useful but to the
studious,--referring but to the dead. Let the Past perish!--let darkness
shroud it!--let it sleep for ever over the crumbling temples and
desolate tombs of its forgotten sons,--if it cannot afford us, from
its disburied secrets, a guide for the Present and the Future. What, my
Lords, ye have thought that it was for the sake of antiquity alone that
we have wasted our nights and days in studying what antiquity can teach
us! You are mistaken; it is nothing to know what we have been, unless it
is with the desire of knowing that which we ought to be. Our ancestors
are mere dust and ashes, save when they speak to our posterity; and then
their voices resound, not from the earth below, but the heaven above.
There is an eloquence in Memory, because it is the nurse of Hope.
There is a sanctity in the Past, but only because of the chronicles it
retains,--chronicles of the progress of mankind,--stepping-stones in
civilisation, in liberty, and in knowledge. Our fathers forbid us to
recede,--they teach us what is our rightful heritage,--they bid us
reclaim, they bid us augment, that heritage,--preserve their virtues,
and avoid their errors. These are the true uses of the Past. Like the
sacred edifice in which we are,--it is a tomb upon which to rear a
temple. I see that you marvel at this long beginning; ye look to each
other--ye ask to what it tends. Behold this broad plate of iron; upon it
is graven an inscription but lately disinterred from the heaps of stone
and ruin, which--O shame to Rome!--were once the palaces of empire, and
the arches of triumphant power. The device in the centre of the table,
which you behold, conveys the act of the Roman Senators,--who are
conferring upon Vespasian the imperial authority. It is this inscription
which I have invited you to hear read! It specifies the very terms and
limits of the authority thus conferred. To the Emperor was
confided the power of making laws and alliances with whatsoever
nation,--of increasing, or of diminishing the limits of towns and
districts,--of--mark this, my Lords!--exalting men to the rank of dukes
and kings,--ay, and of deposing and degrading them;--of making cities,
and of unmaking: in short, of all the attributes of imperial power.
Yes, to that Emperor was confided this vast authority; but, by whom?
Heed--listen, I pray you--let not a word be lost;--by whom, I say? By
the Roman Senate! What was the Roman Senate? The Representative of the
Roman People!”
“I knew he would come to that!” said the smith, who stood at the door
with his fellows, but to whose ear, clear and distinct, rolled the
silver voice of Rienzi.
“Brave fellow! and this, too, in the hearing of the Lords!”
“Ay, you see what the people were! and we should never have known this
but for him.”
“Peace, fellows;” said the officer to those of the crowd, from whom came
these whispered sentences.
Rienzi continued.--“Yes, it is the people who intrusted this power--to
the people, therefore, it belongs! Did the haughty Emperor arrogate the
crown? Could he assume the authority of himself? Was it born with
him? Did he derive it, my Lord Barons, from the possession of towered
castles--of lofty lineage? No! all-powerful as he was, he had no right
to one atom of that power, save from the voice and trust of the Roman
people. Such, O my countrymen! such was even that day, when Liberty
was but the shadow of her former self,--such was the acknowledged
prerogative of your fathers! All power was the gift of the people. What
have ye to give now? Who, who, I say,--what single person, what petty
chief, asks you for the authority he assumes? His senate is his
sword; his chart of license is written, not with ink, but blood. The
people!--there is no people! Oh! would to God that we might disentomb
the spirit of the Past as easily as her records!”
“If I were your kinsman,” whispered Montreal to Adrian, “I would give
this man short breathing-time between his peroration and confession.”
“What is your Emperor?” continued Rienzi; “a stranger! What the great
head of your Church?--an exile! Ye are without your lawful chiefs; and
why? Because ye are not without your law-defying tyrants! The licence
of your nobles, their discords, their dissensions, have driven our Holy
Father from the heritage of St. Peter;--they have bathed your streets in
your own blood; they have wasted the wealth of your labours on private
quarrels and the maintenance of hireling ruffians! Your forces are
exhausted against yourselves. You have made a mockery of your country,
once the mistress of the world. You have steeped her lips in gall--ye
have set a crown of thorns upon her head! What, my Lords!” cried he,
turning sharply round towards the Savelli and Orsini, who, endeavouring
to shake off the thrill which the fiery eloquence of Rienzi had stricken
to their hearts, now, by contemptuous gestures and scornful smiles,
testified the displeasure they did not dare loudly to utter in the
presence of the Vicar and the people.--“What! even while I speak--not
the sanctity of this place restrains you! I am an humble man--a citizen
of Rome;--but I have this distinction: I have raised against myself
many foes and scoffers for that which I have done for Rome. I am hated,
because I love my country; I am despised, because I would exalt her. I
retaliate--I shall be avenged. Three traitors in your own palaces shall
betray you: their names are--Luxury, Envy, and Dissension!”
“There he had them on the hip!”
“Ha, ha! by the Holy Cross, that was good!”
“I would go to the hangman for such another keen stroke as that!”
“It is a shame if we are cowards, when one man is thus brave,” said the
smith.
“This is the man we have always wanted!”
“Silence!” proclaimed the officer.
“O Romans!” resumed Rienzi, passionately--“awake! I conjure you! Let
this memorial of your former power--your ancient liberties--sink deep
into your souls. In a propitious hour, if ye seize it,--in an evil one,
if ye suffer the golden opportunity to escape,--has this record of the
past been unfolded to your eyes. Recollect that the Jubilee approaches.”
The Bishop of Orvietto smiled, and bowed approvingly; the people, the
citizens, the inferior nobles, noted well those signs of encouragement;
and, to their minds, the Pope himself, in the person of his Vicar,
looked benignly on the daring of Rienzi.
“The Jubilee approaches,--the eyes of all Christendom will be directed
hither. Here, where, from all quarters of the globe, men come for peace,
shall they find discord?--seeking absolution, shall they perceive
but crime? In the centre of God’s dominion, shall they weep at your
weakness?--in the seat of the martyred saints, shall they shudder at
your vices?--in the fountain and source of Christ’s law, shall they
find all law unknown? You were the glory of the world--will you be its
by-word? You were its example--will you be its warning? Rise, while it
is yet time!--clear your roads from the bandits that infest them!--your
walls from the hirelings that they harbour! Banish these civil discords,
or the men--how proud, how great, soever--who maintain them! Pluck
the scales from the hand of Fraud!--the sword from the hand of
Violence!--the balance and the sword are the ancient attributes of
Justice!--restore them to her again! This be your high task,--these be
your great ends! Deem any man who opposes them a traitor to his country.
Gain a victory greater than those of the Caesars--a victory over
yourselves! Let the pilgrims of the world behold the resurrection of
Rome! Make one epoch of the Jubilee of Religion and the Restoration of
Law! Lay the sacrifice of your vanquished passions--the first-fruits of
your renovated liberties--upon the very altar that these walls contain!
and never! oh, never! since the world began, shall men have made a more
grateful offering to their God!”
So intense was the sensation these words created in the audience--so
breathless and overpowered did they leave the souls with they took by
storm--that Rienzi had descended the scaffold, and already disappeared
behind the curtain from which he had emerged, ere the crowd were fully
aware that he had ceased.
The singularity of this sudden apparition--robed in mysterious
splendour, and vanishing the moment its errand was fulfilled--gave
additional effect to the words it had uttered. The whole character of
that bold address became invested with a something preternatural and
inspired; to the minds of the vulgar, the mortal was converted into the
oracle; and, marvelling at the unhesitating courage with which their
idol had rebuked and conjured the haughty barons,--each of whom they
regarded in the light of sanctioned executioners, whose anger could be
made manifest at once by the gibbet or the axe,--the people could not
but superstitiously imagine that nothing less than authority from above
could have gifted their leader with such hardihood, and preserved him
from the danger it incurred. In fact, it was in this very courage of
Rienzi that his safety consisted; he was placed in those circumstances
where audacity is prudence. Had he been less bold, the nobles would have
been more severe; but so great a license of speech in an officer of the
Holy See, they naturally imagined, was not unauthorised by the assent of
the Pope, as well as by the approbation of the people. Those who did not
(like Stephen Colonna) despise words as wind, shrank back from the task
of punishing one whose voice might be the mere echo of the wishes of the
pontiff. The dissensions of the nobles among each other, were no less
favourable to Rienzi. He attacked a body, the members of which had no
union.
“It is not my duty to slay him!” said one.
“I am not the representative of the barons!” said another.
“If Stephen Colonna heeds him not, it would be absurd, as well as
dangerous, in a meaner man to make himself the champion of the order!”
said a third.
The Colonna smiled approval, when Rienzi denounced an Orsini--an Orsini
laughed aloud, when the eloquence burst over a Colonna. The lesser
nobles were well pleased to hear attacks upon both: while, on the other
hand, the Bishop, by the long impunity of Rienzi, had taken courage
to sanction the conduct of his fellow-officer. He affected, indeed, at
times, to blame the excess of his fervour, but it was always accompanied
by the praises of his honesty; and the approbation of the Pope’s Vicar
confirmed the impression of the nobles as to the approbation of the
Pope. Thus, from the very rashness of his enthusiasm had grown his
security and success.
Still, however, when the barons had a little recovered from the stupor
into which Rienzi had cast them, they looked round to each other; and
their looks confessed their sense of the insolence of the orator, and
the affront offered to themselves.
“Per fede!” quoth Reginaldo di Orsini, “this is past bearing,--the
plebeian has gone too far!”
“Look at the populace below! how they murmur and gape,--and how their
eyes sparkle--and what looks they bend at us!” said Luca di Savelli to
his mortal enemy, Castruccio Malatesta: the sense of a common danger
united in one moment, but only for a moment, the enmity of years.
“Diavolo!” muttered Raselli (Nina’s father) to a baron, equally poor,
“but the clerk has truth in his lips. ‘Tis a pity he is not noble.”
“What a clever brain marred!” said a Florentine merchant. “That man
might be something, if he were sufficiently rich.”
Adrian and Montreal were silent: the first seemed lost in thought,--the
last was watching the various effects produced upon the audience.
“Silence!” proclaimed the officers. “Silence, for my Lord Vicar.”
At this announcement, every eye turned to Raimond, who, rising with much
clerical importance, thus addressed the assembly:--
“Although, Barons and Citizens of Rome, my well-beloved flock, and
children,--I, no more than yourselves, anticipated the exact nature of
the address ye have just heard,--and, albeit, I cannot feel unalloyed
contentment at the manner, nor, I may say, at the whole matter of that
fervent exhortation--yet (laying great emphasis on the last word), I
cannot suffer you to depart without adding to the prayers of our
Holy Father’s servant, those, also, of his Holiness’s spiritual
representative. It is true! the Jubilee approaches! The Jubilee
approaches--and yet our roads, even to the gates of Rome, are infested
with murderous and godless ruffians! What pilgrim can venture across the
Apennines to worship at the altars of St. Peter? The Jubilee
approaches: what scandal shall it be to Rome if these shrines be without
pilgrims--if the timid recoil from, if the bold fall victims to, the
dangers of the way! Wherefore, I pray you all, citizens and chiefs
alike,--I pray you all to lay aside those unhappy dissensions which have
so long consumed the strength of our sacred city; and, uniting with each
other in the ties of amity and brotherhood, to form a blessed league
against the marauders of the road. I see amongst you, my Lords, many of
the boasts and pillars of the state; but, alas! I think with grief
and dismay on the causeless and idle hatred that has grown up between
you!--a scandal to our city, and reflecting, let me add, my Lords, no
honour on your faith as Christians, nor on your dignity as defenders of
the Church.”
Amongst the inferior nobles--along the seats of the judges and the men
of letters--through the vast concourse of the people--ran a loud murmur
of approbations at these words. The greater barons looked proudly, but
not contemptuously, at the countenance of the prelate, and preserved a
strict and unrevealing silence.
“In this holy spot,” continued the Bishop, “let me beseech you to bury
those fruitless animosities which have already cost enough of blood and
treasure; and let us quit these walls with one common determination to
evince our courage and display our chivalry only against our universal
foes;--those ruffians who lay waste our fields, and infest our public
ways,--the foes alike of the people we should protect, and the God whom
we should serve!”
The Bishop resumed his seat; the nobles looked at each other without
reply; the people began to whisper loudly among themselves; when, after
a short pause, Adrian di Castello rose.
“Pardon me, my Lords, and you, reverend Father, if I, inexperienced in
years and of little mark or dignity amongst you, presume to be the first
to embrace the proposal we have just heard. Willingly do I renounce all
ancient cause of enmity with any of my compeers. Fortunately for me,
my long absence from Rome has swept from my remembrance the feuds and
rivalries familiar to my early youth; and in this noble conclave I see
but one man (glancing at Martino di Porto, who sat sullenly looking
down) against whom I have, at any time, deemed it a duty to draw my
sword; the gage that I once cast to that noble is yet, I rejoice to
think, unredeemed. I withdraw it. Henceforth my only foes shall be the
foes of Rome!”
“Nobly spoken!” said the Bishop, aloud.
“And,” continued Adrian, casting down his glove amongst the nobles, “I
throw, my Lords, the gage, thus resumed, amongst you all, in challenge
to a wider rivalry, and a more noble field. I invite any man to vie with
me in the zeal that he shall show to restore tranquillity to our roads,
and order to our state. It is a contest in which, if I be vanquished
with reluctance, I will yield the prize without envy. In ten days from
this time, reverend Father, I will raise forty horsemen-at-arms, ready
to obey whatever orders shall be agreed upon for the security of the
Roman state. And you, O Romans, dismiss, I pray you, from your minds,
those eloquent invectives against your fellow-citizens which ye have
lately heard. All of us, of what rank soever, may have shared in the
excesses of these unhappy times; let us endeavour, not to avenge nor to
imitate, but to reform and to unite. And may the people hereafter find,
that the true boast of a patrician is, that his power the better enables
him to serve his country.”
“Brave words!” quoth the smith, sneeringly.
“If they were all like him!” said the smith’s neighbour.
“He has helped the nobles out of a dilemma,” said Pandulfo.
“He has shown grey wit under young hairs,” said an aged Malatesta.
“You have turned the tide, but not stemmed it, noble Adrian,” whispered
the ever-boding Montreal, as, amidst the murmurs of the general
approbation, the young Colonna resumed his seat.
“How mean you?” said Adrian.
“That your soft words, like all patrician conciliations, have come too
late.”
Not another noble stirred, though they felt, perhaps, disposed to join
in the general feeling of amnesty, and appeared, by signs and whispers,
to applaud the speech of Adrian. They were too habituated to the
ungracefulness of an unlettered pride, to bow themselves to address
conciliating language either to the people or their foes. And Raimond,
glancing round, and not willing that their unseemly silence should be
long remarked, rose at once, to give it the best construction in his
power.
“My son, thou hast spoken as a patriot and a Christian; by the approving
silence of your peers we all feel that they share your sentiments. Break
we up the meeting--its end is obtained. The manner of our proceeding
against the leagued robbers of the road requires maturer consideration
elsewhere. This day shall be an epoch in our history.”
“It shall,” quoth Cecco del Vecchio, gruffly, between his teeth.
“Children, my blessing upon you all!” concluded the Vicar, spreading his
arms.
And in a few minutes more the crowd poured from the church. The
different servitors and flag-bearers ranged themselves on the steps
without, each train anxious for their master’s precedence; and the
nobles, gravely collecting in small knots, in the which was no mixture
of rival blood, followed the crowd down the aisles. Soon rose again the
din, and the noise, and the wrangling, and the oaths, of the hostile
bands, as, with pain and labour, the Vicar’s officers marshalled them in
“order most disorderly.”
But so true were Montreal’s words to Adrian, that the populace already
half forgot the young noble’s generous appeal, and were only bitterly
commenting on the ungracious silence of his brother Lords. What, too, to
them was this crusade against the robbers of the road? They blamed
the good Bishop for not saying boldly to the nobles--“Ye are the first
robbers we must march against!” The popular discontents had gone far
beyond palliatives; they had arrived at that point when the people
longed less for reform than change. There are times when a revolution
cannot be warded off; it must come--come alike by resistance or
by concession. Wo to that race in which a revolution produces no
fruits!--in which the thunderbolt smites the high place, but does
not purify the air! To suffer in vain is often the lot of the
noblest individuals; but when a People suffer in vain, let them curse
themselves!