The Festival of that day was far the most sumptuous hitherto known. The
hint of Cecco del Vecchio, which so well depicted the character of his
fellow-citizens, as yet it exists, though not to such excess, in their
love of holyday pomp and gorgeous show, was not lost upon Rienzi. One
instance of the universal banqueting (intended, indeed, rather for
the people than the higher ranks) may illustrate the more than royal
profusion that prevailed. From morn till eve, streams of wine flowed
like a fountain from the nostrils of the Horse of the great Equestrian
Statue of Constantine. The mighty halls of the Lateran palace, open
to all ranks, were prodigally spread; and the games, sports, and
buffooneries of the time, were in ample requisition. Apart, the
Tribunessa, as Nina was rather unclassically entitled, entertained
the dames of Rome; while the Tribune had so effectually silenced or
conciliated Raimond, that the good Bishop shared his peculiar table--the
only one admitted to that honour. As the eye ranged each saloon
and hall--it beheld the space lined with all the nobility and
knighthood--the wealth and strength--the learning and the beauty--of the
Italian metropolis; mingled with ambassadors and noble strangers, even
from beyond the Alps; (The simple and credulous briographer of
Rienzi declares his fame to have reached the ears of the Soldan of
Babylon.)--envoys not only of the free states that had welcomed the rise
of the Tribune, but of the highborn and haughty tyrants who had first
derided his arrogance, and now cringed to his power. There, were not
only the ambassadors of Florence, of Sienna, of Arezzo (which last
subjected its government to the Tribune,) of Todi, of Spoleto, and of
countless other lesser towns and states, but of the dark and terrible
Visconti, prince of Milan; of Obizzo of Ferrara, and the tyrant rulers
of Verona and Bologna; even the proud and sagacious Malatesta, lord of
Rimini, whose arm afterwards broke for awhile the power of Montreal,
at the head of his Great Company, had deputed his representative in his
most honoured noble. John di Vico, the worst and most malignant despot
of his day, who had sternly defied the arms of the Tribune, now subdued
and humbled, was there in person; and the ambassadors of Hungary and of
Naples mingled with those of Bavaria and Bohemia, whose sovereigns that
day had been cited to the Roman Judgment Court. The nodding of plumes,
the glitter of jewels and cloth of gold, the rustling of silks and
jingle of golden spurs, the waving of banners from the roof, the sounds
of minstrelsy from the galleries above, all presented a picture of such
power and state--a court and chivalry of such show--as the greatest of
the feudal kings might have beheld with a sparkling eye and a swelling
heart. But at that moment the cause and lord of all that splendour,
recovered from his late exhilaration, sat moody and abstracted,
remembering with a thoughtful brow the adventure of the past night,
and sensible that amongst his gaudiest revellers lurked his intended
murtherers. Amidst the swell of the minstrelsy and the pomp of the
crowd, he felt that treason scowled beside him; and the image of the
skeleton obtruding, as of old, its grim thought of death upon the feast,
darkened the ruby of the wine, and chilled the glitter of the scene.
It was while the feast was loudest that Rienzi’s page was seen gliding
through the banquet, and whispering several of the nobles; each bowed
low, but changed colour as he received the message.
“My Lord Savelli,” said Orsini, himself trembling, “bear yourself more
bravely. This must be meant in honour, not revenge. I suppose your
summons corresponds with mine.”
“He--he--asks--asks--me to supper at the Capitol; a fri-endly
meeting--(pest on his friendship!)--after the noise of the day.”
“The words addressed also to me!” said Orsini, turning to one of the
Frangipani.
Those who received the summons soon broke from the feast, and collected
in a group, eagerly conferring. Some were for flight, but flight was
confession; their number, rank, long and consecrated impunity, reassured
them, and they resolved to obey. The old Colonna, the sole innocent
Baron of the invited guests, was also the only one who refused the
invitation. “Tush!” said he, peevishly; “here is feasting enough for one
day! Tell the Tribune that ere he sups I hope to be asleep. Grey hairs
cannot encounter all this fever of festivity.”
As Rienzi rose to depart, which he did early, for the banquet took place
while yet morning, Raimond, eager to escape and confer with some of his
spiritual friends, as to the report he should make to the Pontiff, was
beginning his expressions of farewell, when the merciless Tribune said
to him gravely--
“My Lord, we want you on urgent business at the Capitol. A prisoner--a
trial--perhaps (he added with his portentous and prophetic frown) an
execution waits us! Come.”
“Verily, Tribune,” stammered the good Bishop, “this is a strange time
for execution!”
“Last night was a time yet more strange.--Come.”
There was something in the way in which the final word was pronounced,
that Raimond could not resist. He sighed, muttered, twitched his robes,
and followed the Tribune. As he passed through the halls, the company
rose on all sides. Rienzi repaid their salutations with smiles and
whispers of frank courtesy and winning address. Young as he yet was,
and of a handsome and noble presence, that took every advantage from
splendid attire, and yet more from an appearance of intellectual command
in his brow and eye, which the less cultivated signors of that dark
age necessarily wanted--he glittered through the court as one worthy to
form, and fitted to preside over, it; and his supposed descent from the
Teuton Emperor, which, since his greatness, was universally bruited and
believed abroad, seemed undeniably visible to the foreign lords in the
majesty of his mien and the easy blandness of his address.
“My Lord Prefect,” said he to a dark and sullen personage in black
velvet, the powerful and arrogant John di Vico, prefect of Rome, “we are
rejoiced to find so noble a guest at Rome: we must repay the courtesy by
surprising you in your own palace ere long;--nor will you, Signor (as he
turned to the envoy from Tivoli,) refuse us a shelter amidst your groves
and waterfalls ere the vintage be gathered. Methinks Rome, united with
sweet Tivoli, grows reconciled to the Muses. Your suit is carried,
Master Venoni: the council recognises its justice; but I reserved
the news for this holyday--you do not blame me, I trust.” This was
whispered, with a half-affectionate frankness, to a worthy citizen, who,
finding himself amidst so many of the great, would have shrunk from
the notice of the Tribune; but it was the policy of Rienzi to pay an
especial and marked attention to those engaged in commercial pursuits.
As, after tarrying a moment or two with the merchant, he passed on, the
tall person of the old Colonna caught his eye--
“Signor,” said he, with a profound inclination of his head, but with a
slight emphasis of tone, “you will not fail us this evening.”
“Tribune--” began the Colonna.
“We receive no excuse,” interrupted the Tribune, hastily, and passed on.
He halted for a few moments before a small group of men plainly attired,
who were watching him with intense interest; for they, too, were
scholars, and in Rienzi’s rise they saw another evidence of that
wonderful and sudden power which intellect had begun to assume over
brute force. With these, as if abruptly mingled with congenial spirits,
the Tribune relaxed all the gravity of his brow. Happier, perhaps, his
living career--more unequivocal his posthumous renown--had his objects
as his tastes been theirs!
“Ah, carissime!” said he to one, whose arm he drew within his own,--“and
how proceeds thy interpretation of the old marbles?--half unravelled? I
rejoice to hear it! Confer with me as of old, I pray thee. Tomorrow--no,
nor the day after, but next week--we will have a tranquil evening. Dear
poet, your ode transported me to the days of Horace; yet, methinks, we
do wrong to reject the vernacular for the Latin. You shake your head?
Well, Petrarch thinks with you: his great epic moves with the stride
of a giant--so I hear from his friend and envoy,--and here he is. My
Laeluis, is that not your name with Petrarch? How shall I express my
delight at his comforting, his inspiring letter? Alas! he overrates not
my intentions, but my power. Of this hereafter.”
A slight shade darkened the Tribune’s brow at these words: but moving
on, a long line of nobles and princes on either side, he regained his
self-possession, and the dignity he had dropped with his former equals.
Thus he passed through the crowd, and gradually disappeared.
“He bears him bravely,” said one, as the revellers reseated themselves.
“Noticed you the ‘we’--the style royal?”
“But it must be owned that he lords it well,” said the ambassador of the
Visconti: “less pride would be cringing to his haughty court.”
“Why,” said a professor of Bologna, “why is the Tribune called proud? I
see no pride in him.”
“Nor I,” said a wealthy jeweller.
While these, and yet more contradictory, comments followed the exit of
the Tribune, he passed into the saloon, where Nina presided; and here
his fair person and silver tongue (“Suavis colorataeque sententiae,”
according to the description of Petrarch) won him a more general favour
with the matrons than he experienced with their lords, and not a little
contrasted the formal and nervous compliments of the good Bishop, who
served him on such occasions with an excellent foil.
But as soon as these ceremonies were done, and Rienzi mounted his horse,
his manner changed at once into a stern and ominous severity.
“Vicar,” said he, abruptly, to the Bishop, “we might well need your
presence. Learn that at the Capitol now sits the Council in judgment
upon an assassin. Last night, but for Heaven’s mercy, I should have
fallen a victim to a hireling’s dagger, Knew you aught of this?”
And he turned so sharply on the Bishop, that the poor canonist nearly
dropped from his horse in surprise and terror.
“I,--” said he.
Rienzi smiled--“No, good my Lord Bishop! I see you are of no murtherer’s
mould. But to continue:--that I might not appear to act in mine own
cause, I ordered the prisoner to be tried in my absence. In his trial
(you marked the letter brought me at our banquet?)--”
“Ay, and you changed colour.”
“Well I might: in his trial, I say, he has confessed that nine of
the loftiest lords of Rome were his instigators. They sup with me
tonight!--Vicar, forwards!”