Blame--the Forsaken one or the Forsakers?
Cheerfully broke the winter sun over the streets of Rome, as the army
of the Barons swept along them. The Cardinal Legate at the head; the old
Colonna (no longer haughty and erect, but bowed, and broken-hearted
at the loss of his sons) at his right hand;--the sleek smile of Luca
Savelli--the black frown of Rinaldo Orsini, were seen close behind. A
long but barbarous array it was; made up chiefly of foreign hirelings;
nor did the procession resemble the return of exiled citizens, but the
march of invading foes.
“My Lord Colonna,” said the Cardinal Legate, a small withered man, by
birth a Frenchman, and full of the bitterest prejudices against the
Romans, who had in a former mission very ill received him, as was their
wont with foreign ecclesiastics; “this Pepin, whom Montreal has deputed
at your orders, hath done us indeed good service.”
The old Lord bowed, but made no answer. His strong intellect was already
broken, and there was dotage in his glassy eye. The Cardinal muttered,
“He hears me not; sorrow hath brought him to second childhood!” and
looking back, motioned to Luca Savelli to approach.
“Luca,” said the Legate, “it was fortunate that the Hungarian’s black
banner detained the Provencal at Aversa. Had he entered Rome, we might
have found Rienzi’s successor worse than the Tribune himself. Montreal,”
he added, with a slight emphasis and a curled lip, “is a gentleman, and
a Frenchman. This Pepin, who is his delegate, we must bribe, or menace
to our will.”
“Assuredly,” answered Savelli, “it is not a difficult task: for Montreal
calculated on a more stubborn contest, which he himself would have found
leisure to close--”
“As Podesta, or Prince of Rome! the modest man! We Frenchmen have a due
sense of our own merits; but this sudden victory surprises him as it
doth us, Luca; and we shall wrest the prey from Pepin, ere Montreal can
come to his help! But Rienzi must die. He is still, I hear, shut up in
St. Angelo. The Orsini shall storm him there ere the day be much older.
Today we possess the Capitol--annul all the rebel’s laws--break up his
ridiculous parliament, and put all the government of the city under
three senators--Rinaldo Orsini, Colonna, and myself; you, my Lord, I
trust, we shall fitly provide for.”
“Oh! I am rewarded enough by returning to my palace; and a descent
on the Jewellers’ quarter will soon build up its fortifications. Luca
Savelli is not an ambitious man. He wants but to live in peace.”
The Cardinal smiled sourly, and took the turn towards the Capitol.
In the front space the usual gapers were assembled. “Make way! make
way! knaves!” cried the guards, trampling on either side the crowd, who,
accustomed to the sedate and courteous order of Rienzi’s guard, fell
back too slowly for many of them to escape severe injury from the pikes
of the soldiers and the hoofs of the horses. Our friend, Luigi, the
butcher, was one of these, and the surliness of the Roman blood was past
boiling heat when he received in his ample stomach the blunt end of a
German’s pike. “There, Roman,” said the rude mercenary, in his barbarous
attempt at Italian, “make way for your betters; you have had enough
crowds and shows of late, in all conscience.”
“Betters!” gulped out the poor butcher; “a Roman has no betters; and if
I had not lost two brothers by San Lorenzo, I would--”
“The dog is mutinous,” said one of the followers of the Orsini,
succeeding the German who had passed on, “and talks of San Lorenzo!”
“Oh!” said another Orsinist, who rode abreast, “I remember him of old.
He was one of Rienzi’s gang.”
“Was he?” said the other, sternly; “then we cannot begin salutary
examples too soon;” and, offended at something swaggering and insolent
in the butcher’s look, the Orsinist coolly thrust him through the heart
with his pike, and rode on over his body.
“Shame! Shame!” “Murder! Murder!” cried the crowd: and they began to
press, in the passion of the moment, round the fierce guards.
The Legate heard the cry, and saw the rush: he turned pale. “The rascals
rebel again!” he faltered.
“No, your Eminence--no,” said Luca; “but it may be as well to infuse a
wholesome terror; they are all unarmed; let me bid the guards disperse
them. A word will do it.”
The Cardinal assented; the word was given; and, in a few minutes, the
soldiery, who still smarted under the vindictive memory of defeat from
an undisciplined multitude, scattered the crowd down the streets without
scruple or mercy--riding over some, spearing others--filling the air
with shrieks and yells, and strewing the ground with almost as many
men as a few days before would have sufficed to have guarded Rome, and
preserved the constitution! Through this wild, tumultuous scene, and
over the bodies of its victims, rode the Legate and his train, to
receive in the Hall of the Capitol the allegiance of the citizens, and
to proclaim the return of the oppressors.
As they dismounted at the stairs, a placard in large letters struck
the eye of the Legate. It was placed upon the pedestal of the Lion of
Basalt, covering the very place that had been occupied by the bull of
excommunication. The words were few, and ran thus:
“TREMBLE! RIENZI SHALL RETURN!”
“How! what means this mummery!” cried the Legate, trembling already, and
looking round to the nobles.
“Please your Eminence,” said one of the councillors, who had come from
the Capitol to meet the Legate, “we saw it at daybreak, the ink yet
moist, as we entered the Hall. We deemed it best to leave it for your
Eminence to deal with.”
“You deemed! Who are you, then?”
“One of the members of the Council, your Eminence, and a stanch opponent
of the Tribune, as is well known, when he wanted the new tax--”
“Council--trash! No more councils now! Order is restored at last. The
Orsini and the Colonna will look to you in future. Resist a tax, did
you? Well, that was right when proposed by a tyrant; but I warn you,
friend, to take care how you resist the tax we shall impose. Happy
if your city can buy its peace with the Church on any terms:--and his
Holiness is short of the florins.”
The discomfited councillor shrank back.
“Tear off yon insolent placard. Nay, hold! fix over it our proclamation
of ten thousand florins for the heretic’s head! Ten thousand? methinks
that is too much now--we will alter the cipher. Meanwhile Rinaldo
Orsini, Lord Senator, march thy soldiers to St. Angelo; let us see if
the heretic can stand a siege.”
“It needs not, your Eminence,” said the councillor, again officiously
bustling up; “St. Angelo is surrendered. The Tribune, his wife, and one
page, escaped last night, it is said, in disguise.”
“Ha!” said the old Colonna, whose dulled sense had at length arrived at
the conclusion that something extraordinary arrested the progress of his
friends. “What is the matter? What is that placard? Will no one tell me
the words? My old eyes are dim.”
As he uttered the questions, in the shrill and piercing treble of age,
a voice replied in a loud and deep tone--none knew whence it came; the
crowd was reduced to a few stragglers, chiefly friars in cowl and
serge, whose curiosity nought could daunt, and whose garb ensured them
safety--the soldiers closed the rear: a voice, I say, came, startling
the colour from many a cheek--in answer to the Colonna, saying:
“TREMBLE! RIENZI SHALL RETURN!”