Walter de Montreal was buried in the church of St. Maria dell’ Araceli.
But the “evil that he did lived after him!” Although the vulgar
had, until his apprehension, murmured against Rienzi for allowing so
notorious a freebooter to be at large, he was scarcely dead ere they
compassionated the object of their terror. With that singular species of
piety which Montreal had always cultivated, as if a decorous and natural
part of the character of a warrior, no sooner was his sentence fixed,
than he had surrendered himself to the devout preparation for death.
With the Augustine Friar he consumed the brief remainder of the night
in prayer and confession, comforted his brothers, and passed to the
scaffold with the step of a hero and the self-acquittal of a martyr. In
the wonderful delusions of the human heart, far from feeling remorse at
a life of professional rapine and slaughter, almost the last words
of the brave warrior were in proud commendation of his own deeds. “Be
valiant like me,” he said to his brothers, “and remember that ye are now
the heirs to the Humbler of Apulia, Tuscany, and La Marca.”
(Pregovi che vi amiate e siate valorosi al mondo, come fui
io, che mi feci fare obbedienza a la Puglia, Toscana, e a La
Marca.”--“Vita di Cola di Rienzi”, lib. ii. cap. 22. “I pray
you love one another, and be valorous as was I, who made
Apulia, Tuscany and La Marca own obedience to me.”--“Life of
Cola di Rienzi”.)
This confidence in himself continued at the scaffold. “I die,” he said,
addressing the Romans--“I die contented, since my bones shall rest in
the Holy City of St. Peter and St. Paul, and the Soldier of Christ shall
have the burial-place of the Apostles. But I die unjustly. My wealth is
my crime--the poverty of your state my accuser. Senator of Rome,
thou mayst envy my last hour--men like Walter de Montreal perish not
unavenged.” So saying, he turned to the East, murmured a brief prayer,
knelt down deliberately, and said as to himself, “Rome guard my
ashes!--Earth my memory--Fate my revenge;--and, now, Heaven receive my
soul!--Strike!” At the first blow, the head was severed from the body.
His treason but imperfectly known, the fear of him forgotten, all that
remained of the recollection of Walter de Montreal (The military renown
and bold exploits of Montreal are acknowledged by all the Italian
authorities. One of them declares that since the time of Caesar, Italy
had never known so great a Captain. The biographer of Rienzi, forgetting
all the offences of the splendid and knightly robber, seems to feel only
commiseration for his fate. He informs us, moreover, that at Tivoli
one of his servants (perhaps our friend, Rodolf of Saxony), hearing his
death, died of grief the following day.) in Rome, was admiration for
his heroism, and compassion for his end. The fate of Pandulfo di Guido,
which followed some days afterwards, excited a yet deeper, though more
quiet, sentiment, against the Senator. “He was once Rienzi’s friend!”
said one man; “He was an honest, upright citizen!” muttered another;
“He was an advocate of the people!” growled Cecco del Vecchio. But the
Senator had wound himself up to a resolve to be inflexibly just, and to
regard every peril to Rome as became a Roman. Rienzi remembered that he
had never confided but he had been betrayed; he had never forgiven but
to sharpen enmity. He was amidst a ferocious people, uncertain friends,
wily enemies; and misplaced mercy would be but a premium to conspiracy.
Yet the struggle he underwent was visible in the hysterical emotions he
betrayed. He now wept bitterly, now laughed wildly. “Can I never again
have the luxury to forgive?” said he. The coarse spectators of that
passion deemed it,--some imbecility, some hypocrisy. But the execution
produced the momentary effect intended. All sedition ceased, terror
crept throughout the city, order and peace rose to the surface; but
beneath, in the strong expression of a contemporaneous writer, “Lo
mormorito quetamente suonava.” (“The murmur quietly sounded.”)
On examining dispassionately the conduct of Rienzi at this awful period
of his life, it is scarcely possible to condemn it of a single error
in point of policy. Cured of his faults, he exhibited no unnecessary
ostentation--he indulged in no exhibitions of intoxicated pride--that
gorgeous imagination rather than vanity, which had led the Tribune into
spectacle and pomp, was now lulled to rest, by the sober memory of grave
vicissitudes, and the stern calmness of a maturer intellect. Frugal,
provident, watchful, self-collected, ‘never was seen,’ observes no
partial witness, ‘so extraordinary a man.’ (“Vita di Cola di Rienzi”,
lib. ii. c. 23.) ‘In him was concentrated every thought for every want
of Rome. Indefatigably occupied, he inspected, ordained, regulated all
things; in the city, in the army, for peace, or for war. But he was
feebly supported, and those he employed were lukewarm and lethargic.’
Still his arms prospered. Place after place, fortress after fortress,
yielded to the Lieutenant of the Senator: and the cession of Palestrina
itself was hourly expected. His art and address were always strikingly
exhibited in difficult situations, and the reader cannot fail to have
noticed how conspicuously they were displayed in delivering himself from
the iron tutelage of his foreign mercenaries. Montreal executed, his
brothers imprisoned, (though their lives were spared,) a fear that
induced respect was stricken into the breasts of those bandit soldiers.
Removed from Rome, and, under Annibaldi, engaged against the Barons,
constant action and constant success, withheld those necessary fiends
from falling on their Master; while Rienzi, willing to yield to the
natural antipathy of the Romans, thus kept the Northmen from all contact
with the city; and as he boasted, was the only chief in Italy who
reigned in his palace guarded only by his citizens.
Despite his perilous situation--despite his suspicions, and his fears,
no wanton cruelty stained his stern justice--Montreal and Pandulfo di
Guido were the only state victims he demanded. If, according to the
dark Machiavelism of Italian wisdom, the death of those enemies was
impolitic, it was not in the act, but the mode of doing it. A prince
of Bologna, or of Milan would have avoided the sympathy excited by
the scaffold, and the drug or the dagger would have been the safer
substitute for the axe. But with all his faults, real and imputed, no
single act of that foul and murtherous policy, which made the science
of the more fortunate princes of Italy, ever advanced the ambition or
promoted the security of the Last of the Roman Tribunes. Whatever his
errors, he lived and died as became a man, who dreamed the vain but
glorious dream, that in a corrupt and dastard populace he could revive
the genius of the old Republic.
Of all who attended on the Senator, the most assiduous and the most
honoured was still Angelo Villani. Promoted to a high civil station,
Rienzi felt it as a return of youth, to find one person entitled to his
gratitude;--he loved and confided in the youth as a son. Villani was
never absent from his side, except in intercourse with the various
popular leaders in the various quarters of the city; and in this
intercourse his zeal was indefatigable--it seemed even to prey upon
his health; and Rienzi chid him fondly, whenever starting from his own
reveries, he beheld the abstracted eye and the livid paleness which had
succeeded the sparkle and bloom of youth.
Such chiding the young man answered only by the same unvarying words.
“Senator, I have a great trust to fulfil;”--and at these words he
smiled.
One day Villani, while with the Senator, said rather abruptly, “Do you
remember, my Lord, that before Viterbo, I acquitted myself so in arms,
that even the Cardinal d’Albornoz was pleased to notice me?”
“I remember your valour well, Angelo; but why the question?”
“My Lord, Bellini, the Captain of the Guard of the Capitol is
dangerously ill.”
“I know it.”
“Whom can my Lord trust at the post?”
“Why, the Lieutenant.”
“What!--a soldier that has served under the Orsini!”
“True. Well! There is Tommaso Filangieri.”
“An excellent man; but is he not kin by blood to Pandulfo di Guido?”
“Ay--is he so? It must be thought of. Hast thou any friend to name?”
said the Senator, smiling, “Methinks thy cavils point that way.”
“My Lord,” replied Villani, colouring; “I am too young perhaps; but the
post is one that demands fidelity more than it does years. Shall I own
it?--My tastes are rather to serve thee with my sword than with my pen.”
“Wilt thou, indeed, accept the office? It is of less dignity and
emolument than the one you hold; and you are full young to lead these
stubborn spirits.”
“Senator, I led taller men than they are to the assault at Viterbo. But,
be it as seems best to your superior wisdom. Whatever you do, I pray you
to be cautious. If you select a traitor to the command of the Capitol
Guard!--I tremble at the thought!”
“By my faith, thou dost turn pale at it, dear boy; thy affection is
a sweet drop in a bitter draught. Whom can I choose better than
thee?--thou shalt have the post, at least during Bellini’s illness. I
will attend to it today. The business, too, will less fatigue thy young
mind than that which now employs thee. Thou art over-laboured in our
cause.”
“Senator, I can but repeat my usual answer--I have a great trust to
fulfil!”