It was as a thunderbolt in a serene day--the reverse of the Tribune in
the zenith of his power, in the abasement of his foe; when, with but a
handful of brave Romans, determined to be free, he might have crushed
for ever the antagonist power to the Roman liberties--have secured the
rights of his country, and filled up the measure of his own renown. Such
a reverse was the very mockery of Fate, who bore him through disaster,
to abandon him in the sunniest noon of his prosperity.
The next morning not a soul was to be seen in the streets; the shops
were shut--the churches closed; the city was as under an interdict. The
awful curse of the papal excommunication upon the chief magistrate of
the Pontifical City, seemed to freeze up all the arteries of life. The
Legate himself, affecting fear of his life, had fled to Monte Fiascone,
where he was joined by the Barons immediately after the publication of
the edict. The curse worked best in the absence of the execrator.
Towards evening a few persons might be seen traversing the broad space
of the Capitol, crossing themselves, as the bull, placarded on the Lion,
met their eyes, and disappearing within the doors of the great palace.
By and by, a few anxious groups collected in the streets, but they
soon dispersed. It was a paralysis of all intercourse and commune. That
spiritual and unarmed authority, which, like the invisible hand of God,
desolated the market-place, and humbled the crowned head, no physical
force could rally against or resist. Yet, through the universal awe, one
conviction touched the multitude--it was for them that their Tribune
was thus blasted in the midst of his glories! The words of the
Brand recorded against him on wall and column detailed his
offences:--rebellion in asserting the liberties of Rome--heresy in
purifying ecclesiastical abuses;--and, to serve for a miserable covert
to the rest, it was sacrilege for bathing in the porphyry vase of
Constantine! They felt the conviction; they sighed--they shuddered--and,
in his vast palace, save a few attached and devoted hearts, the Tribune
was alone!
The staunchest of his Tuscan soldiery were gone with Irene. The rest
of his force, save a few remaining guards, was the paid Roman militia,
composed of citizens; who, long discontented by the delay of their
stipends, now seized on the excuse of the excommunication to remain
passive, but grumbling, in their homes.
On the third day, a new incident broke upon the death-like lethargy of
the city; a hundred and fifty mercenaries, with Pepin of Minorbino, a
Neapolitan, half noble, half bandit, (a creature of Montreal’s) at their
head, entered the city, seized upon the fortresses of the Colonna, and
sent a herald through the city, proclaiming in the name of the Cardinal
Legate, the reward of ten thousand florins for the head of Cola di
Rienzi.
Then, swelled on high, shrill but not inspiring as of old, the great
bell of the Capitol--the people, listless, disheartened, awed by the
spiritual fear of the papal authority, (yet greater, in such events,
since the removal of the see,) came unarmed to the Capitol; and there,
by the Place of the Lion, stood the Tribune. His squires, below the
step, held his war-horse, his helm, and the same battle-axe which had
blazed in the van of victorious war.
Beside him were a few of his guard, his attendants, and two or three of
the principal citizens.
He stood bareheaded and erect, gazing upon the abashed and unarmed crowd
with a look of bitter scorn, mingled with deep compassion; and, as the
bell ceased its toll, and the throng remained hushed and listening, he
thus spoke:--
“Ye come, then, once again! Come ye as slaves or freemen? A handful
of armed men are in your walls: will ye who chased from your gates the
haughtiest knights--the most practised battle-men of Rome, succumb now
to one hundred and fifty hirelings and strangers? Will ye arm for
your Tribune? You are silent!--be it so. Will you arm for your own
liberties--your own Rome? Silent still! By the saints that reign on the
thrones of the heathen gods! are ye thus fallen from your birthright?
Have you no arms for your own defence? Romans, hear me! Have I wronged
you?--if so, by your hands let me die: and then, with knives yet reeking
with my blood, go forward against the robber who is but the herald of
your slavery; and I die honoured, grateful, and avenged. You weep! Great
God! you weep! Ay, and I could weep, too--that I should live to speak
of liberty in vain to Romans--Weep! is this an hour for tears? Weep
now, and your tears shall ripen harvests of crime, and licence, and
despotism, to come! Romans, arm! follow me at once to the Place of the
Colonna: expel this ruffian--expel your enemy (no matter what afterwards
you do to me):” he paused; no ardour was kindled by his words--“or,” he
continued, “I abandon you to your fate.” There was a long, low, general
murmur; at length it became shaped into speech, and many voices cried
simultaneously: “The Pope’s bull!--Thou art a man accursed!”
“What!” cried the Tribune; “and is it ye who forsake me, ye for whose
cause alone man dares to hurl against me the thunders of his God? Is it
not for you that I am declared heretic and rebel! What are my imputed
crimes? That I have made Rome and asserted Italy to be free; that I
have subdued the proud Magnates, who were the scourge both of Pope and
People. And you--you upbraid me with what I have dared and done for you!
Men, with you I would have fought, for you I would have perished. You
forsake yourselves in forsaking me, and since I no longer rule over
brave men, I resign my power to the tyrant you prefer. Seven months
I have ruled over you, prosperous in commerce, stainless in
justice--victorious in the field:--I have shown you what Rome could be;
and, since I abdicate the government ye gave me, when I am gone, strike
for your own freedom! It matters nothing who is the chief of a brave
and great people. Prove that Rome hath many a Rienzi, but of brighter
fortunes.”
“I would he had not sought to tax us,” said Cecco del Vecchio, who
was the very personification of the vulgar feeling: “and that he had
beheaded the Barons!”
“Ay!” cried the ex-gravedigger; “but that blessed porphyry vase!”
“And why should we get our throats cut,” said Luigi, the butcher, “like
my two brothers?--Heaven rest them!”
On the face of the general multitude there was a common expression of
irresolution and shame, many wept and groaned, none (save the aforesaid
grumblers) accused; none upbraided, but none seemed disposed to arm. It
was one of those listless panics, those strange fits of indifference and
lethargy which often seize upon a people who make liberty a matter of
impulse and caprice, to whom it has become a catchword, who have not
long enjoyed all its rational, and sound, and practical, and blessed
results; who have been affrayed by the storms that herald its dawn;--a
people such as is common to the south: such as even the north has known;
such as, had Cromwell lived a year longer, even England might have seen;
and, indeed, in some measure, such a reaction from popular enthusiasm
to popular indifference England did see, when her children madly
surrendered the fruits of a bloody war, without reserve, without
foresight, to the lewd pensioner of Louis, and the royal murderer of
Sydney. To such prostration of soul, such blindness of intellect, even
the noblest people will be subjected, when liberty, which should be the
growth of ages, spreading its roots through the strata of a thousand
customs, is raised, the exotic of an hour, and (like the Tree and Dryad
of ancient fable) flourishes and withers with the single spirit that
protects it.
“Oh, Heaven, that I were a man!” exclaimed Angelo, who stood behind
Rienzi.
“Hear him, hear the boy,” cried the Tribune; “out of the mouths of babes
speaketh wisdom! He wishes that he were a man, as ye are men, that
he might do as ye should do. Mark me,--I ride with these faithful few
through the quarter of the Colonna, before the fortress of your foe.
Three times before that fortress shall my trumpets sound; if at the
third blast ye come not, armed as befits ye--I say not all, but three,
but two, but one hundred of ye--I break up my wand of office, and the
world shall say one hundred and fifty robbers quelled the soul of Rome,
and crushed her magistrate and her laws!”
With those words he descended the stairs, and mounted his charger; the
populace gave way in silence, and their Tribune and his slender train
passed slowly on, and gradually vanished from the view of the increasing
crowd.
The Romans remained on the place, and after a pause, the demagogue
Baroncelli, who saw an opening to his ambition, addressed them. Though
not an eloquent nor gifted man, he had the art of uttering the most
popular commonplaces. And he knew the weak side of his audience, in
their vanity, indolence, and arrogant pride.
“Look you, my masters,” said he, leaping up to the Place of the Lion;
“the Tribune talks bravely--he always did--but the monkey used the cat
for his chestnuts; he wants to thrust your paws into the fire; you will
not be so silly as to let him. The saints bless us! but the Tribune,
good man, gets a palace and has banquets, and bathes in a porphyry vase;
the more shame on him!--in which San Sylvester christened the Emperor
Constantine: all this is worth fighting for; but you, my masters, what
do you get except hard blows, and a stare at a holyday spectacle? Why,
if you beat these fellows, you will have another tax on the wine: that
will be your reward!”
“Hark!” cried Cecco, “there sounds the trumpet,--a pity he wanted to tax
us!”
“True,” cried Baroncelli, “there sounds the trumpet; a silver trumpet,
by the Lord! Next week, if you help him out of the scrape, he’ll have
a golden one. But go--why don’t you move, my friends?--‘tis but one
hundred and fifty mercenaries. True, they are devils to fight, clad in
armour from top to toe; but what then?--if they do cut some four or five
hundred throats you’ll beat them at last, and the Tribune will sup the
merrier.”
“There sounds the second blast,” said the butcher. “If my old mother
had not lost two of us already, ‘tis odds, but I’d strike a blow for the
bold Tribune.”
“You had better put more quicksilver in you,” continued Baroncelli, “or
you will be too late. And what a pity that will be!--If you believe the
Tribune, he is the only man that can save Rome. What, you, the finest
people in the world--you, not able to save yourselves!--you, bound up
with one man--you, not able to dictate to the Colonna and Orsini! Why,
who beat the Barons at San Lorenzo? Was it not you? Ah! you got the
buffets, and the Tribune the moneta! Tush, my friends, let the man go;
I warrant there are plenty as good as he to be bought a cheaper bargain.
And, hark! there is the third blast; it is too late now!”
As the trumpet from the distance sent forth its long and melancholy
note, it was as the last warning of the parting genius of the place;
and when silence swallowed up the sound, a gloom fell over the whole
assembly. They began to regret, to repent, when regret and repentance
availed no more. The buffoonery of Baroncelli became suddenly
displeasing; and the orator had the mortification of seeing his audience
disperse in all directions, just as he was about to inform them what
great things he himself could do in their behalf.
Meanwhile the Tribune, passing unscathed through the dangerous quarter
of the enemy, who, dismayed at his approach, shrunk within their
fortress, proceeded to the Castle of St. Angelo, whither Nina had
already preceded him; and which he entered to find that proud lady with
a smile for his safety,--without a tear for his reverse.