the thick soft smoke spread sideways in a sudden little gust of wind
and half obscured his figure.
The people burst out of their ordered ranks; they laughed, shouted,
sang their spiritual lauds and crowded about the huge costly bonfire
in a press of delirious pleasure; the Piangoni stood near and by the
aid of long poles thrust the vanities deeper into the flames and cast
back any that had slipped, chanting the while the hymns of Girolamo
Benivieni.
The Friar maintained his position; his lips moved as if he ardently
communed with himself; so absorbed was he in his own meditations that
he did not notice a man standing close, and also motionless amid the
circling and excited throng, who was observing him with intense and
peculiar attention.
This man, although he wore the sober mantle of an ordinary citizen,
and though he appeared to be there in sympathy with the general
religious enthusiasm, was nevertheless in air and appearance one of
the Arrabbiati or Compagnacci, who intrigued with the outcast Medici
and hated the Friar, though they submitted to a force they could not
withstand with safety as yet.
He was wrapped so completely in his dark cloak, the hood of which was
well drawn over his face, that had any been free enough to observe him
they would have had difficulty in judging of his person and character;
the thick folds of the common stuff, however, could not disguise the
virile grace of his figure, the beautiful poise of his head and the
delicate shape of his feet and of the hand that clasped his hood at the
chin.
The excited people and friars, breaking into a kind of religious dance,
ran round and about this man, and in between him and Frà Girolamo; but
he did not move nor once take his eyes from the equally still figure of
the Friar, save to occasionally lift them to the pyre of the Vanities,
now a burning cone of flames from base to apex, from which rose thick
columns of sweet, heavy-scented smoke.
The slow Italian dusk was closing in; the sky deepened above the palace
and the towers, the roofs and domes of Florence. The smoke, spreading,
filled the Piazza and gave a cloudy unreality to the moving crowd who
circled the strengthening light of the fire.
On the upper part of the buildings a pale sun-glow lingered; but the
Lion on the Palace steps was absorbed in shade save for the flickering
unearthly glow that the burning vanities emitted and that now and then
touched the surroundings with a murky crimson reflection.
All the while the bells of the Signori were pealing, and the music of
them rose and fell with the hymns. Frà Girolamo suddenly looked up at
the flames, the cracking canvas, shrivelling silks, splitting marbles,
melting gold and silver, flaring scrolls of manuscript and smoking
boxes of perfumes that composed the pyre; then, with bowed head, made
his way quickly and unobserved through the crowd and out of the Piazza.
He was instantly and closely followed by the tall stranger who had
so persistently regarded him, and who now came softly after without
attracting his attention.
The streets were deserted; every one being gathered in or near the
Piazza, and the Friar passed unnoticed before the fronts of the tall,
carved houses; he was swiftly making his way to the Convent of St.
Mark, and had turned down an empty side street, deep in shade, when he
suddenly paused, as if inwardly troubled, and, turning slowly, beheld
the stranger who had also come to a stop a few paces behind him.
Frà Girolamo regarded him earnestly; they were alone in the street at
the bottom of which was a glimpse of the Arno’s arched bridge; behind
them rose the steps and closed door of a hospital, above the garden
wall of which showed cypress trees and branches of laurel.
“You,” said the tall man in sweet and cultivated Tuscan, “you are Frà
Girolamo Savonarola, friar of St. Mark’s and ruler of Florence?”
“Girolamo Savonarola I am,” answered the Friar; “ruler of Florence I am
not, but God’s instrument for some good in this city.”
The other, still speaking from the depths of the coarse hood that
completely concealed his face, made reply–
“Ruler and Master of Florence, Friar, even as Lorenzo was Ruler and
Master, even as the Medici were great are you great, and to-day you
have had proof of it.”
“Who are you?” demanded Frà Girolamo.
“One who loved Lorenzo and found Florence pleasant in his days.”
“I did not hate Lorenzo–I would have saved his soul.”
“You refused him absolution!”
“Because,” replied the Friar, “he would not repent of his sins.”
The stranger laughed impatiently.
“Usurper! You hold his place, while his son, at the Borgia’s footstool,
eats in Rome the husks of charity.”
Frà Girolamo answered sternly, while the light of enthusiasm kindled to
red fire in his eyes.
“Who are you who speak for the wicked? Piero de’ Medici abused his
power; he would have sold our liberty to the French–lustful, vain,
hollow; he was banished Florence for his sins and a price put upon his
head. Woe to this city if he returns! At the Borgia’s footstool, you
say! It is fitting that such a prince should fly to such a Pope!”
The stranger came a short step nearer and loosened his hand on his hood
so that his face was visible to the Friar, who observed that he wore
one of the hideous masks of the Medicean Carnival, mottled and spotted
to represent a plague-stricken countenance; he noticed the Friar’s
start of aversion and laughed again.
“This should have gone to feed yonder pyre!” he said. “Oh, credulous
Friar, do you think that you have burnt all the sins in Florence?”
Girolamo Savonarola answered simply.
“I have done what God put it into my heart to do. Let Him judge me. For
you, ask me what question you would have answered, or if this is but
idleness, let me on my way.”
“This is your day of triumph,” said the other man with a passionate
ring in his voice. “You to-day have burnt all the Medici rejoiced
in–painting, statuary, music, books, poetry, gay dresses, perfumes,
cards and dice; and those people who praised Lorenzo for making this
Florence so beautiful and splendid have danced round your pyre in
gladness!”
Frà Girolamo regarded him steadily.
“Are not you also,” he asked gently, “pleased to see this city brought
a little way to repentance?”
“Friar,” answered the stranger vehemently, “I am your enemy. I stand
for all you would destroy–the lust of the world, the pride of the
beautiful, the power of the devil. I am also a ruined, outcast,
beggared man, one of those your rule has banished from Florence. If I
were discovered I should be murdered, and that would be better than to
starve in Rome.”
“Your name?” interrupted Frà Girolamo. “Are you one whom I know?”
“You know me,” was the haughty response; “but my name is not pleasing
to your ears. _You_ I hate, ay, and all your works; but there is a day
soon when all hates shall be satisfied.”
Girolamo Savonarola made quiet answer.
“If you are a follower of Piero de’ Medici, I warn you to quit
Florence, for I cannot and would not save one of the tyrant’s tools
from the just anger of the People–the People!–in _them_ is my trust
against these evils you threaten me with.”
He turned to pass on his way, but the young man sprang lightly after
him and caught his mantle.
“The People!” he laughed. “Did not the People shout for Lorenzo
yesterday? Will they not shout for Piero to-morrow!”
Frà Girolamo looked at him with serene eyes.
“Never for the Medici,” he answered. “Never for the tyrant. Florence is
free.”
“You are a bold man to say so,” returned the stranger, standing at his
ease, with one foot on the lowest hospital step. “Free! No, Florence
is no freer than she was five years ago; only now it is you who rule
instead of the Magnificent. But not for long, Friar.”
“Again, who are you who stay me in the street with these prophecies?”
The sun had left even the tops of the buildings now, and the lucid
light was fading from the heavens where an early star hung chill and
pale above the Duomo; the black foliage of the cypress and the sharp,
long leaves of the laurel showed clearly over the wall and against the
argent flush of twilight; a little fear crept into the Friar’s heart,
not base fear, or cowardice, or any trembling for himself, but the
shadow of some coming doubt lest after all he had not saved Florence;
in the tall, dark-robed figure of the stranger, now standing with his
arms folded on his breast and regarding him with eyes that shot evil
glimmers from the holes in the mottled green and yellow mask, in this
man with his settled enmity, his mocking composure, he saw testified
all the hatred, scorn and malice that had opposed his life-work.
“Begone!” he said sternly, “and disturb me not.”
The stranger gave him a disdainful salutation and flung up his graceful
head.
“Back to your cell, and pray the people in whom you trust keep
faithful!” he cried lightly.
“Two thousand crowns to-day for the head of Piero de’ Medici–how much
in a year’s time for thine, O Friar, when Alessandro Borgia cries you
excommunicate?”
Frà Girolamo stepped away and his dark eyes lifted to the evening sky.
“The Pope is a broken tool, a vile trader in holy things,” he answered
with great dignity. “And in Florence, where I am beloved, his authority
is worth nothing; here the voice of God alone is strong.”
“And the voice of the People,” returned the stranger mockingly; and
with a low, insulting laugh he moved slowly away and was soon lost in
the shadows.
Girolamo Savonarola gazed after him a moment, then proceeded on his
way, a strange excitement throbbing in his veins and before his eyes a
mistiness of familiar objects, as if an unnatural darkness had fallen.
He walked for a while in this manner, meeting no one, marvelling at the
curious emptiness of the city and the increasing blackness; everything
seemed strange and unusual. He thought he should have reached his
Convent by now, but instead found himself traversing dark, empty
streets that were those of Florence yet unknown to him. He turned to
retrace his steps, but was like one groping in the labyrinth, roads and
houses crossed and recrossed, and he wandered confused. Nowhere was
there any light, in either window or in the heaven; he had lost sight
of the Duomo and the star above it; as if the Plague had crept through
the city was the silence and the loneliness.
Then out of the empty hush came the sound as of harsh wings beating
together, and a voice cried strongly–
“Girolamo Savonarola!”
The Friar cast up his eyes to the blinding mist and answered–
“I am here!”
And the voice made reply–
“Come thou and see how the people of Florence love thee!”
With great rejoicing he said, “I come!”
Forward he pressed through the obscurity, and the darkness began to be
tinged with red and dispelled as from the spreading glow of flames, and
as Frà Girolamo hastened on he found himself suddenly on the Piazza
again, standing apart from a vast crowd that was dancing and singing
about a huge fire that lit the whole black sky and stained the blank
buildings with a lurid colour.
And the voice said, very low and in the Friar’s ear–
“These are the people who sang the songs of Lorenzo de’ Medici, the
people who burnt the vanities. Behold what task they perform now!”
Frà Girolamo looked and saw that the crowd was very brilliantly
dressed, that the women wore jewels and paints, the men fine silks and
rich weapons, and that they danced in a mad profane style; many were
masked and all wreathed with flowers, and the heavy scents they were
anointed with hung in the thick air; nor did they sing hymns, but the
wanton carnival songs of Lorenzo de’ Medici.
And in the midst of their reckless rejoicing flared and blazed the
vivid devouring flames, soaring one above the other until they far
overtopped the dark palace; the deep crimson glow of them picked out
from the darkness the painted, leering faces, the evil masks, the
leaping, dancing, abandoned forms.
“This is not Florence,” murmured the Friar.
“This is Florence,” came the answer. “And these are the people–thy
people—”
Frà Girolamo felt a hand on his shoulder, and withdrawing his horrified
eyes from the devilish crowd, saw at his side the tall figure of the
stranger who had accosted him before the hospital.
“Look closer,” he urged. “Look closer. What vain things do they burn
now? Not cards, lutes and paintings. Look closer.”
The Friar again gazed at the Piazza, and this time discerned above
the flames the outline of a huge gallows from which depended several
bodies, hung by the necks, and the blood of these men rained down on to
the fire, for the crowd with jeering and laughter threw stones at them
that broke their flesh.
“They wear monks’ habits,” said Frà Girolamo, and he strained forward.
At this moment the fire consumed the rope holding one of the victims,
and as the crowd gave a shout of rejoicing he fell into the white heat
of the fire. In that second the Friar had caught sight of the face;
it was the dead tortured countenance of his beloved disciple, Frà
Domenico. He gave a cry of anguish, and would have thrown himself into
the crowd, but the tall stranger held him back.
And now his maddened eyes noticed a man in scarlet and purple, mounted
on a white mule, who rode round the edge of the pyre and urged on the
crowd with ribald triumph. This man was old, and wore a triple crown;
and at his bridle were two younger men, like him in the face–horribly
beautiful, wearing extravagant garments.
“Alessandro Borgia,” said the stranger in the Friar’s ear, “and his two
sons, Francesco and Cesare.”
Frà Girolamo tried to speak, but his tongue refused to move.
“Look again,” urged the voice, low, insistent and mocking.
The Friar gazed up through the smoke and flame, and in the horrid blaze
saw another figure dangle at the rope’s end, then drop; again, in the
instant’s downward fall he saw the face–livid and despairing.
This time his own. His–face and figure.
“See how the people of Florence burn Girolamo Savonarola!” cried the
stranger. “These people who wept to hear you preach in the Duomo!”
Frà Girolamo fell back a step and raised a shuddering hand to shut out
the awful fire.
The other flung back his mantle, and the great glow of the fire caught
the embroideries on the gay dress hitherto concealed beneath.
“You dethroned the Medici,” he said; “these,”–he pointed to the
crowd–“will dethrone you.”
Soft blackness rose up, choking the bright flames, blotting out the
shouting people, the dim outline of the buildings swirling round the
feet of Frà Girolamo and mounting to his eyes. He cast himself on his
knees and seemed to sink forward on nothingness; his senses broke and
forsook him; he flung out his hands and made an effort to hurl off the
darkness as if it were a mantle tossed over his head; he felt his knees
strike stone, the blackness rent, tore, lifted and disappeared; he
found himself lying up the hospital steps; before him the low wall, the
cypress tree, the laurel branches; beyond, the darkening pure sky. And
beside him the tall stranger staring at him through the holes of his
hideous mask.
The Friar staggered to his feet.
“I have had a vision,” he said under his breath. “Methought you were my
guide. Who are you?”
The other tore off the mask, snapping the orange ribbons that bound it
to his head, and disclosing a superb face framed in clusters of brown
curls, flushed with crimson.
“I am Piero!” he cried. “I am the Medici! And after the burning of
Girolamo Savonarola I shall rule again in Florence!”
“Then it was no vision,” answered Frà Girolamo, “but a Devil’s fantasy—”
“A fantasy,” said Piero; “but you shall test its truth.”
The Friar leant against the wall of the hospital and closed his eyes to
shut out the picture of the wicked face and red eyes he had last seen
with that same smiling expression casting hate on him from beside the
death-bed of Lorenzo the Magnificent.
“Lord! Lord!” he cried strongly. “Save me from the snares and delusions
of evil!”
Now he opened his eyes and saw about him his own cell in St. Mark,
and he lay on his bed, and beside him sat his beloved disciple, Frà
Domenico, and he shuddered as one waking from a terrible dream.
“How got I here from the Piazza?” he asked, sitting up. And they told
him that a faintness had come over him as would often happen in the
pulpit, and that so insensible he had been brought to the Convent.
“Truly,” said Frà Domenico, with love beaming in his eyes, “this was
the day of your glory–for all the vanities in Florence were burnt to
ashes–yes, even to nothingness was all that wantonness reduced.”
Girolamo Savonarola looked at Frà Domenico, then at his own body.
“To ashes, to nothingness!” he murmured. “Oh, God, make the spirit
strong!”
The disciple asked tenderly–
“Father, what troubled you?”
Frà Girolamo made the sign of the cross and replied with a sweet
composure–
“Nought–but in the crowd methought that I did see–Piero de’ Medici.”
A WOMAN OF THE PEOPLE
MADAME LA COMTESSE DU BARRY
“Among all the noble and ignoble sufferers by the guillotine
there is no record of cowardice on the part of any–save only in
the case of Madame du Barry, a woman of the people who had been
mistress of France during the most extravagant years of the
reign of Louis XV.”–_History of France._
On the third day of November, 1793, Madame la Comtesse du Barry,
arrested for “supplying the Emigrants with money,” and for this offence
sentenced to death, was brought to the prison of the Concièrgerie.
There were many prisoners that day, among them Philippe, one time Duc
d’Orleans, recently Philippe Égalité, the man who had voted for the
death of his cousin, the King, and was now to die the same way himself.
Madame du Barry and her companions were conducted through a large
Gothic hall, dark and low, down a long stone corridor, also dark and
low, and half open one side to grim vaults, through two squat doors
and across a courtyard narrowed and cobbled, into another building, up
gloomy straight stairs and into a narrow corridor. While the jailer was
unlocking doors Madame du Barry looked round her; she perceived that
only one of her companions remained–a woman as young and beautiful as
herself, with black hair and dusky eyes and a face twisted with terror.
“What is your name?” whispered Madame du Barry.
“Josephine Beauharnais,” answered the dark beauty in a feeble voice.
“And for God’s sake tell me–are we to die–to die?”
“No–no,” whispered the fair woman eagerly.
Madame Beauharnais smiled foolishly.
“A wise woman once said that I should be a queen and more,” she replied
brokenly, “therefore I cannot be going to die—”
“No, no,” repeated the Countess, shaking her blonde head.
The jailer came and roughly separated them. Madame du Barry saw the
pallid, dazed face of her companion and heard her shriek as she was
thrust into a room and the key turned; then she herself was pushed
through an open door and locked in.
She stumbled across the threshold and nearly fell, recovered herself
and went straight to the window and looked out.
The window was heavily and closely barred from top to bottom, and faced
the other portion of the prison through which she had just come, which
was only a few yards distant. A small portion of sky was visible and a
small strip of cobbled courtyard; nothing else.
The sky was grey with the sullen snows of November, and the cobbles
and the walls were splashed and stained with dark patches; Madame du
Barry knew what they were: a few days before the Girondists had been
gathered in the chapel of the Concièrgerie and then driven out into the
courtyard to be massacred.
She had heard a man say that the blood had been ankle-deep.
A peculiar, terrible and sickening smell filled the prison; she had
noticed it as soon as she had stepped down into the dark entrance hall.
It was very strong in this room where they had put her. She tried to
forget what it was.
“I must think,” she said to herself; “I must think.”
She had been saying that all day. Holding on to her senses and saying
to herself that as soon as this horrible and bewildering tumult was
over, as soon as she was alone and quiet, away from the abuse, the
staring, the rough handling, she would think–straighten things out in
her mind, decide what must be done.
And now she was alone she found she could not think; she had acted on
impulse, not reflection, all her life; besides, she was rather stupid.
Her mind wandered off to trivial things: the details that had made her
life still chiefly interested her; she noticed the dull small room, the
wooden bed with a rough coverlet, the broken chair. She pulled out the
bed pillow and shuddered to see that it was soiled. Then she began to
consider her own dress.
She wore the gown she had been arrested in, a plain yellow taffeta
with muslin ruffles at the throat and elbows and a dark green pelerine
with a cape.
Her hat had gone; on putting her hands up to her fair curls she found
that her hair ribbon had gone too. Her dress was torn and muddy round
the hem, and one of her light boots was broken.
She put her hand to her bosom and drew out a string of pearls that she
had, the moment before her arrest at her country château, snatched up
mechanically and concealed in her dress. The soft lustre and colour of
them gave her pleasure and comfort; she handled them lovingly and laid
them next her cheek.
She remembered that she had worn them on the occasion when King Louis,
at the review, had stood bare-headed at the door of her sedan, her
lacquey before the eyes of France.
And she was still as beautiful as she had been then–perhaps more
beautiful; therefore it could not be that they were going to murder
her. Beauty like hers was a power. The men who had put her here could
not have noticed her.
She looked round, hoping for a mirror, but there was none.
She put her hand to her face, felt her smooth skin, her glossy hair,
her delicate neck, the curve of her lips.…
“If I were a plain woman I might be afraid,” she murmured; “but they
will not touch _me_.”
Rising impatiently, she moved about the room; she began to be indignant
that they had put her in such a place. She knocked on the door and
called out, demanding a better apartment–food–clean sheets.
It was absurd that she should be treated thus; they had forgotten who
she was, she told herself.
There was no answer to her cries. She began to tremble, and presently
returned to the window.
She must think.
She was condemned to death; she had heard the man wearing the tricolor
sash and cocked hat say so; but at the time the words had meant little
or nothing: they had only been one detail more in the tumult of horror
and terror by which she had been surrounded since her arrest. She knew
that people were sentenced and left months in prison or set free the
next morning; besides, she was not an aristocrat, but a woman of the
people. Despite her rapid rise and the brilliance of her shining, she
was by birth no better than the draggled women who had shouted at her
as she was dragged before the tribunal.
Yes, she was one with these people; the great aristocrats had always
scorned her. M. de Choiseul had lost his place for a disdainful word of
her; they had all recognised that she was, however gilded by the homage
of Louis, only a common creature.
She tried to recall the years of her glory when she had ruled France,
and to search in her mind for any cause of offence given to the
People who were now the masters. She thought that her conscience was
clear: she had never meddled with politics; she had been kind to
those dependent on her; she had done her best to amuse a King who
was “unamusable.” True, she had used the public treasury as her own,
but she had robbed no one, for the money would only have gone to some
other woman. No, she could not see that she had done more than fill
her part. Certainly, when she had ruled France it had not floated in
blood as it was floating now; she had not pulled down God and profaned
His Churches; she had not imprisoned the innocent and massacred the
helpless.
With the thought that the People had no crime to charge her with she
consoled herself, and she was not afraid of the actual charge on which
she was condemned, for it was vague and feeble.