A Masque of the Furies.
The next day was Palm Sunday, or Olive Sunday, as it was chiefly called
in the olive-growing Valdarno; and the morning sun shone with a more
delicious clearness for the yesterday’s rain. Once more Savonarola
mounted the pulpit in San Marco, and saw a flock around him whose faith
in him was still unshaken; and this morning in calm and sad sincerity
he declared himself ready to die: in front of all visions he saw his
own doom. Once more he uttered the benediction, and saw the faces of
men and women lifted towards him in venerating love. Then he descended
the steps of the pulpit and turned away from that sight for ever.
For before the sun had set Florence was in an uproar. The passions
which had been roused the day before had been smouldering through that
quiet morning, and had now burst out again with a fury not unassisted
by design, and not without official connivance. The uproar had begun at
the Duomo in an attempt of some Compagnacci to hinder the evening
sermon, which the Piagnoni had assembled to hear. But no sooner had
men’s blood mounted and the disturbances had become an affray than the
cry arose, “To San Marco! the fire to San Marco!”
And long before the daylight had died, both the church and convent were
being besieged by an enraged and continually increasing multitude. Not
without resistance. For the monks, long conscious of growing hostility
without, had arms within their walls, and some of them fought as
vigorously in their long white tunics as if they had been Knights
Templars. Even the command of Savonarola could not prevail against the
impulse to self-defence in arms that were still muscular under the
Dominican serge. There were laymen too who had not chosen to depart,
and some of them fought fiercely: there was firing from the high altar
close by the great crucifix, there was pouring of stones and hot embers
from the convent roof, there was close fighting with swords in the
cloisters. Notwithstanding the force of the assailants, the attack
lasted till deep night.
The demonstrations of the Government had all been against the convent;
early in the attack guards had been sent for, not to disperse the
assailants, but to command all within the convent to lay down their
arms, all laymen to depart from it, and Savonarola himself to quit the
Florentine territory within twelve hours. Had Savonarola quitted the
convent then, he could hardly have escaped being torn to pieces; he was
willing to go, but his friends hindered him. It was felt to be a great
risk even for some laymen of high name to depart by the garden wall,
but among those who had chosen to do so was Francesco Valori, who hoped
to raise rescue from without.
And now when it was deep night—when the struggle could hardly have
lasted much longer, and the Compagnacci might soon have carried their
swords into the library, where Savonarola was praying with the Brethren
who had either not taken up arms or had laid them down at his
command—there came a second body of guards, commissioned by the
Signoria to demand the persons of Fra Girolamo and his two coadjutors,
Fra Domenico and Fra Salvestro.
Loud was the roar of triumphant hate when the light of lanterns showed
the Frate issuing from the door of the convent with a guard who
promised him no other safety than that of the prison. The struggle now
was, who should get first in the stream that rushed up the narrow
street to see the Prophet carried back in ignominy to the Piazza where
he had braved it yesterday—who should be in the best place for reaching
his ear with insult, nay, if possible, for smiting him and kicking him.
This was not difficult for some of the armed Compagnacci who were not
prevented from mixing themselves with the guards.
When Savonarola felt himself dragged and pushed along in the midst of
that hooting multitude; when lanterns were lifted to show him deriding
faces; when he felt himself spit upon, smitten and kicked with grossest
words of insult, it seemed to him that the worst bitterness of life was
past. If men judged him guilty, and were bent on having his blood, it
was only death that awaited him. But the worst drop of bitterness can
never be wrung on to our lips from without: the lowest depth of
resignation is not to be found in martyrdom; it is only to be found
when we have covered our heads in silence and felt, “I am not worthy to
be a martyr; the Truth shall prosper, but not by me.”
But that brief imperfect triumph of insulting the Frate, who had soon
disappeared under the doorway of the Old Palace, was only like the
taste of blood to the tiger. Were there not the houses of the
hypocrite’s friends to be sacked? Already one-half of the armed
multitude, too much in the rear to share greatly in the siege of the
convent, had been employed in the more profitable work of attacking
rich houses, not with planless desire for plunder, but with that
discriminating selection of such as belonged to chief Piagnoni, which
showed that the riot was under guidance, and that the rabble with clubs
and staves was well officered by sword-girt Compagnacci. Was there
not—next criminal after the Frate—the ambitious Francesco Valori,
suspected of wanting with the Frate’s help to make himself a Doge or
Gonfaloniere for life? And the grey-haired man who, eight months ago,
had lifted his arm and his voice in such ferocious demand for justice
on five of his fellow-citizens, only escaped from San Marco to
experience what _others_ called justice—to see his house surrounded by
an angry, greedy multitude, to see his wife shot dead with an arrow,
and to be himself murdered, as he was on his way to answer a summons to
the Palazzo, by the swords of men named Ridolfi and Tornabuoni.
In this way that Masque of the Furies, called Riot, was played on in
Florence through the hours of night and early morning.
But the chief director was not visible: he had his reasons for issuing
his orders from a private retreat, being of rather too high a name to
let his red feather be seen waving amongst all the work that was to be
done before the dawn. The retreat was the same house and the same room
in a quiet street between Santa Croce and San Marco, where we have seen
Tito paying a secret visit to Dolfo Spini. Here the Captain of the
Compagnacci sat through this memorable night, receiving visitors who
came and went, and went and came, some of them in the guise of armed
Compagnacci, others dressed obscurely and without visible arms. There
was abundant wine on the table, with drinking-cups for chance comers
and though Spini was on his guard against excessive drinking, he took
enough from time to time to heighten the excitement produced by the
news that was being brought to him continually.
Among the obscurely-dressed visitors Ser Ceccone was one of the most
frequent, and as the hours advanced towards the morning twilight he had
remained as Spini’s constant companion, together with Francesco Cei,
who was then in rather careless hiding in Florence, expecting to have
his banishment revoked when the Frate’s fall had been accomplished.
The tapers had burnt themselves into low shapeless masses, and holes in
the shutters were just marked by a sombre outward light, when Spini,
who had started from his seat and walked up and down with an angry
flush on his face at some talk that had been going forward with those
two unmilitary companions, burst out—
“The devil spit him! he shall pay for it, though. Ha, ha! the claws
shall be down on him when he little thinks of them. So _he_ was to be
the great man after all! He’s been pretending to chuck everything
towards my cap, as if I were a blind beggarman, and all the while he’s
been winking and filling his own scarsella. I should like to hang skins
about him and set my hounds on him! And he’s got that fine ruby of
mine, I was fool enough to give him yesterday. Malediction! And he was
laughing at me in his sleeve two years ago, and spoiling the best plan
that ever was laid. I was a fool for trusting myself with a rascal who
had long-twisted contrivances that nobody could see to the end of but
himself.”
“A Greek, too, who dropped into Florence with gems packed about him,”
said Francesco Cei, who had a slight smile of amusement on his face at
Spini’s fuming. “You did _not_ choose your confidant very wisely, my
Dolfo.”
“He’s a cursed deal cleverer than you, Francesco, and handsomer too,”
said Spini, turning on his associate with a general desire to worry
anything that presented itself.
“I humbly conceive,” said Ser Ceccone, “that Messer Francesco’s poetic
genius will outweigh—”
“Yes, yes, rub your hands! I hate that notary’s trick of yours,”
interrupted Spini, whose patronage consisted largely in this sort of
frankness. “But there comes Taddeo, or somebody: now’s the time! What
news, eh?” he went on, as two Compagnacci entered with heated looks.
“Bad!” said one. “The people have made up their minds they were going
to have the sacking of Soderini’s house, and now they have been balked
we shall have them turning on us, if we don’t take care. I suspect
there are some Mediceans buzzing about among them, and we may see them
attacking your palace over the bridge before long, unless we can find a
bait for them another way.”
“I have it!” said Spini, and seizing Taddeo by the belt he drew him
aside to give him directions, while the other went on telling Cei how
the Signoria had interfered about Soderini’s house.
“Ecco!” exclaimed Spini, presently, giving Taddeo a slight push towards
the door. “Go, and make quick work.”