The next day at early noon the Cavalier, whom our last chapter presented
to the reader, was seen mounted on a strong Norman horse, winding his
way slowly along a green and pleasant path some miles from Avignon. At
length he found himself in a wild and romantic valley, through which
wandered that delightful river whose name the verse of Petrarch has
given to so beloved a fame. Sheltered by rocks, and in this part winding
through the greenest banks, enamelled with a thousand wild flowers and
water-weeds, went the crystal Sorgia. Advancing farther, the landscape
assumed a more sombre and sterile aspect. The valley seemed enclosed or
shut in by fantastic rocks of a thousand shapes, down which dashed and
glittered a thousand rivulets. And, in the very wildest of the scene,
the ground suddenly opened into a quaint and cultivated garden, through
which, amidst a profusion of foliage, was seen a small and lonely
mansion,--the hermitage of the place. The horseman was in the valley
of the Vaucluse; and before his eye lay the garden and the house of
PETRARCH! Carelessly, however, his eye scanned the consecrated spot;
and unconsciously it rested, for a moment, upon a solitary figure seated
musingly by the margin of the river. A large dog at the side of the
noonday idler barked at the horseman as he rode on. “A brave animal and
a deep bay!” thought the traveller; to him the dog seemed an object much
more interesting than its master. And so,--as the crowd of little men
pass unheeding and unmoved, those in whom Posterity shall acknowledge
the landmarks of their age,--the horseman turned his glance from the
Poet!
Thrice blessed name! Immortal Florentine! (I need scarcely say that it
is his origin, not his actual birth, which entitles us to term Petrarch
a Florentine.) not as the lover, nor even as the poet, do I bow before
thy consecrated memory--venerating thee as one it were sacrilege to
introduce in this unworthy page--save by name and as a shadow; but as
the first who ever asserted to people and to prince the august majesty
of Letters; who claimed to Genius the prerogative to influence states,
to control opinion, to hold an empire over the hearts of men, and
prepare events by animating passion, and guiding thought! What, (though
but feebly felt and dimly seen)--what do we yet owe to Thee if Knowledge
be now a Power; if MIND be a Prophet and a Fate, foretelling and
foredooming the things to come! From the greatest to the least of us, to
whom the pen is at once a sceptre and a sword, the low-born Florentine
has been the arch-messenger to smooth the way and prepare the welcome.
Yes! even the meanest of the aftercomers--even he who now vents his
gratitude,--is thine everlasting debtor! Thine, how largely is the
honour, if his labours, humble though they be, find an audience wherever
literature is known; preaching in remotest lands the moral of forgotten
revolutions, and scattering in the palace and the marketplace the seeds
that shall ripen into fruit when the hand of the sower shall be dust,
and his very name, perhaps, be lost! For few, alas! are they, whose
names may outlive the grave; but the thoughts of every man who writes,
are made undying;--others appropriate, advance, exalt them; and millions
of minds unknown, undreamt of, are required to produce the immortality
of one!
Indulging meditations very different from those which the idea of
Petrarch awakens in a later time, the Cavalier pursued his path.
The valley was long left behind, and the way grew more and more faintly
traced, until it terminated in a wood, through whose tangled boughs the
sunlight broke playfully. At length, the wood opened into a wide glade,
from which rose a precipitous ascent, crowned with the ruins of an old
castle. The traveller dismounted, led his horse up the ascent, and,
gaining the ruins, left his steed within one of the roofless chambers,
overgrown with the longest grass and a profusion of wild shrubs; thence
ascending, with some toil, a narrow and broken staircase, he found
himself in a small room, less decayed than the rest, of which the roof
and floor were yet whole.
Stretched on the ground in his cloak, and leaning his head thoughtfully
on his hand, was a man of tall stature, and middle age. He lifted
himself on his arm with great alacrity as the Cavalier entered.
“Well, Brettone, I have counted the hours--what tidings?”
“Albornoz consents.”
“Glad news! Thou givest me new life. Pardieu, I shall breakfast all the
better for this, my brother. Hast thou remembered that I am famishing?”
Brettone drew from beneath his cloak a sufficiently huge flask of wine,
and a small panier, tolerably well filled; the inmate of the tower threw
himself upon the provant with great devotion. And both the soldiers, for
such they were, stretched at length on the ground, regaled themselves
with considerable zest, talking hastily and familiarly between every
mouthful.
“I say, Brettone, thou playest unfairly; thou hast already devoured more
than half the pasty: push it hitherward. And so the Cardinal consents!
What manner of man is he? Able as they say?”
“Quick, sharp, and earnest, with an eye of fire, few words, and comes to
the point.”
“Unlike a priest then;--a good brigand spoilt. What hast thou heard of
the force he heads? Ho, not so fast with the wine.”
“Scanty at present.--He relies on recruits throughout Italy.”
“What his designs for Rome? There, my brother, there tends my secret
soul! As for these petty towns and petty tyrants, I care not how they
fall, or by whom. But the Pope must not return to Rome. Rome must be
mine. The city of a new empire, the conquest of a new Attila! There,
every circumstance combines in my favour!--the absence of the Pope, the
weakness of the middle class, the poverty of the populace, the imbecile
though ferocious barbarism of the Barons, have long concurred to render
Rome the most facile, while the most glorious conquest!”
“My brother, pray Heaven your ambition do not wreck you at last; you
are ever losing sight of the land. Surely with the immense wealth we are
acquiring, we may--”
“Aspire to be something greater than Free Companions, generals today,
and adventurers tomorrow. Rememberest thou, how the Norman sword won
Sicily, and how the bastard William converted on the field of Hastings
his baton into a sceptre. I tell thee, Brettone, that this loose Italy
has crowns on the hedge that a dexterous hand may carry off at the point
of the lance. My course is taken, I will form the fairest army in Italy,
and with it I will win a throne in the Capitol. Fool that I was six
years ago!--Instead of deputing that mad dolt Pepin of Minorbino, had
I myself deserted the Hungarian, and repaired with my soldiery to Rome,
the fall of Rienzi would have been followed by the rise of Montreal.
Pepin was outwitted, and threw away the prey after he had hunted it
down. The lion shall not again trust the chase to the jackal!”
“Walter, thou speakest of the fate of Rienzi, let it warn thee!”
“Rienzi!” replied Montreal; “I know the man! In peaceful times or with
an honest people, he would have founded a great dynasty. But he dreamt
of laws and liberty for men who despise the first and will not protect
the last. We, of a harder race, know that a new throne must be built by
the feudal and not the civil system; and into the city we must
transport the camp. It is by the multitude that the proud Tribune gained
power,--by the multitude he lost it; it is by the sword that I will win
it, and by the sword will I keep it!”
“Rienzi was too cruel, he should not have incensed the Barons,” said
Brettone, about to finish the flask, when the strong hand of his brother
plucked it from him, and anticipated the design.
“Pooh,” said Montreal, finishing the draught with a long sigh, “he was
not cruel enough. He sought only to be just, and not to distinguish
between noble and peasant. He should have distinguished! He should have
exterminated the nobles root and branch. But this no Italian can do.
This is reserved for me.”
“Thou wouldst not butcher all the best blood of Rome?”
“Butcher! No, but I would seize their lands, and endow with them a new
nobility, the hardy and fierce nobility of the North, who well know how
to guard their prince, and will guard him, as the fountain of their own
power. Enough of this now. And talking of Rienzi--rots he still in his
dungeon?”
“Why, this morning, ere I left, I heard strange news. The town was
astir, groups in every corner. They said that Rienzi’s trial was to be
today, and from the names of the judges chosen, it is suspected that
acquittal is already determined on.”
“Ha! thou shouldst have told me of this before.”
“Should he be restored to Rome, would it militate against thy plans?”
“Humph! I know not--deep thought and dexterous management would be
needed. I would fain not leave this spot till I hear what is decided
on.”
“Surely, Walter, it would have been wiser and safer to have stayed
with thy soldiery, and intrusted me with the absolute conduct of this
affair.”
“Not so,” answered Montreal; “thou art a bold fellow enough, and a
cunning--but my head in these matters is better than thine. Besides,”
continued the Knight, lowering his voice, and shading his face, “I had
vowed a pilgrimage to the beloved river, and the old trysting-place. Ah
me!--But all this, Brettone, thou understandest not--let it pass. As for
my safety, since we have come to this amnesty with Albornoz, I fear but
little danger even if discovered: besides, I want the florins. There are
those in this country, Germans, who could eat an Italian army at a meal,
whom I would fain engage, and their leaders want earnest-money--the
griping knaves!--How are the Cardinal’s florins to be paid?”
“Half now--half when thy troops are before Rimini!”
“Rimini! the thought whets my sword. Rememberest thou how that
accursed Malatesta drove me from Aversa, (This Malatesta, a signior of
illustrious family, was one of the most skilful warriors in Italy. He
and his brother Galeotto had been raised to the joint-tyranny of Rimini
by the voice of its citizens. After being long the foes of the Church,
they were ultimately named as its captains by the Cardinal Albornoz.)
broke up my camp, and made me render to him all my booty? There fell the
work of years! But for that, my banner now would be floating over St.
Angelo. I will pay back the debt with fire and sword, ere the summer has
shed its leaves.”
The fair countenance of Montreal grew terrible as he uttered these
words; his hands griped the handle of his sword, and his strong frame
heaved visibly; tokens of the fierce and unsparing passions, by the aid
of which a life of rapine and revenge had corrupted a nature originally
full no less of the mercy than the courage of Provencal chivalry.
Such was the fearful man who now (the wildness of his youth sobered, and
his ambition hardened and concentered) was the rival with Rienzi for the
mastery of Rome.