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RIENZI

THE LAST OF THE ROMAN TRIBUNES

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
(LORD LYTTON)

NEW YORK
THE MERSHON COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

ALESSANDRO MANZONI,

TO THE GENIUS OF THE PLACE

ARE DEDICATED
THESE FRUITS,

GATHERED ON

THE SOIL OF ITALIAN FICTION.

London, Dec. i, 1835.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION OF
RIENZI.

I BEGAN this tale two years ago at Rome. On removing to Naples, I
threw it aside for " The Last Days of Pompeii," which required more than
" Rienzi " the advantage of residence within reach of the scenes described.
The fate of the Roman Tribune continued, however, to haunt and impress
me, and, some time after " Pompeii" was published, I renewed my earlier
undertaking. I regarded the completion of these volumes, indeed, as a kind
of duty ; for having had occasion to read the original authorities from which
modern historians have drawn their accounts of the life of Rienzi, I was led
to believe that a very remarkable man had been superficially judged, and a
very important period crudely examined.* And this belief was sufficiently
strong to induce me at first to meditate a more serious work upon the life
and times of Rienzi. f Various reasons concurred against this project and
I renounced the biography to commence the fiction. I have still, however,
adhered, with a greater fidelity than is customary in Romance, to all the
leading events of the public life of the Roman Tribune ; and the reader will
peihaps find in these pages a more full and detailed account of the rise and
fall of Rienzi, than in any English work of which I am aware. I have, it
is true, taken a view of his character different in some respects from that of
Gibbon or Sismondi. But it is a view, in all its main features, which I be-
lieve (and think I could prove) myself to be warranted in taking, not less by
the facts of history than the laws of fiction. In the mean while, as I have
given the facts from which I have drawn my interpretation of the principal
agent, the reader has sufficient data for his own judgment. In the picture
of the Roman populace, as in that of the Roman nobles of the fourteenth
century, I follow literally the descriptions left to us ; they are not flattering,
but they are faithful, likenesses.

Preserving generally the real chronology of Rienzi's life, the plot of this
work extends over a space of some years, and embraces the variety of charac-
ters necessary to a true delineation of events. The story, therefore, cannot
have precisely that order of interest found in fictions strictly and genuinely
dramatic, in which (to my judgment, at least) the time ought to be as limited
as possible, and the characters as few no new character of importance to
the catastrophe being admissible towards the end of the work. If I may use
the word epic in its most modest and unassuming acceptation, this fiction, in
short, though indulging in dramatic situations, belongs, as a whole, rather to
the epic than the dramatic school.

I cannot conclude without rendering the tribute of my praise and homage

* See Appendix, Nos. I. and II.

t I have adopted the termination of RiensA instead of Rienzo, as being more familiar to
the general reader. But the latter is perhaps the more accurate reading, since the nam*
was a popular corruption from Lorenzo.

vi FKEFACE.

to the versatile and gifted author of the beautiful Tragedy of Rienzi. Con-
sidering that our hero be the same considering that we had the same
materials from which to choose our several stories I trust I shall be found
to have little, if at all, trespassed upon ground previously occupied. With
the single exception of a love-intrigue between a relative of Rienzi and one
of the antagonist party, which makes the plot of Miss Mitford's tragedy, and
is little more than an episode in my romance, having slight effect on the con-
duct and none on the fate of the hero, I am not aware of any resemblance
between the two works ; and even this coincidence I could easily have re-
moved, had I deemed it the least advisable but it would be almost dis-
creditable if I had nothing that resembled a performance possessing so much
it were an honor to imitate.

In fact, the prodigal materials of the story the rich and exuberant com-
plexities of Rienzi's character joined to the advantage possessed by the
novelist of embracing all that the dramatist must reject * are sufficient to
prevent dramatist and novelist from interfering with each other.

London, December i, 1835.

* Thus the slender space permitted to the dramatist does not allow Miss Mitford to be
very faithful to facts ; to distinguish between Rienzi's earlier and his later period of power;
r tn detail the true, but somewhat intricate, causes of his rise, his splendor, and his fall.

PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION,

1848.

FROM the time of its first appearance, " Rienzi " has had the good fortune
to rank high amongst my most popular works, though its interest is rather
drawn from a faithful narration of historical facts, than from the inventions
of fancy. And the success of this experiment confirms me in my belief,
that the true mode of employing history in the service of romance is to study
diligently the materials as history ; conform to such views of the facts as the
author would adopt, if he related them in the dry character of historian ; and
obtain that warmer interest which fiction bestows, by tracing the causes of the
facts in the characters and emotions of the personages of the time. The
events of his work are thus already shaped to his hand the characters al-
ready created what remains for him is the inner, not outer, history of man
the chronicle of the human heart ; and it is by this that he introduces a new
harmony between character and event, and adds the completer solution of
what is actual and true, by those speculations of what is natural and prob-
able, which are out of the province of history, but belong especially to the
philosophy of romance. And if it be permitted the tale-teller to
come reverently for instruction in his art to the mightiest teacher of
all, who, whether in the page or on the scene, would give to airy fancies
the breath and the form of life such, we may observe, is the lesson
the humblest craftsman in historical romance may glean from the historical
plays of Shakespeare. Necessarily, Shakespeare consulted history according
to the imperfect lights, and from the popular authorities, of his age ; and I
do not say, therefore, that as an historian we can rely upon Shakespeare as
correct. But to that in which he believed he rigidly adhered : nor did he
seek, as lesser artists (such as Victor Hugo and his disciples), seek now, to
turn perforce the historical into the poetical, but leaving history as he found
it, to call forth from its arid prose the flower of the latent poem. Nay, even
in the more imaginative plays which he has founded upon novels and legends
popular in his time, it is curious and instructive to see how little he has al-
tered the original ground-work, taking for granted the main materials of the
story, and reserving all his matchless resources of wisdom and invention to
illustrate, from mental analysis, the creations whose outline he was content
to borrow. He receives, as a literal fact not to be altered, the somewhat in-
credible assertion of the novelist, that the pure and delicate and high-born
Venetian loves the swarthy Moor ; and that Romeo, fresh from his " woes
for Rosaline," becomes suddenly enamoured of Juliet : he found the Improb-
able, and employed his art to make it truthful.

That "Rienzi" should have attracted peculiar attention in Italy is ot
course to be attributed to the choice of the subject, rather than to the skill
of the author. It has been translated into the Italian language by eminent
writers ; and the authorities for the new view of Rienzi's times and character
which the author deemed himself warranted to take, have been compared with
his text by careful critics and illustrious scholars, in those states in which the

vii

Viii PREFACE.

work has been permitted to circulate.* I may say, I trust without unworthy
pride, that the result has confirmed the accuracy of delineations which Eng-
lish readers, relying only on the brilliant but disparaging account in Gibbon,
deemed too favorable ; and has tended to restore the great Tribune to his
long forgotten claims to the love and reverence of the Italian land. Nor, if
I may trust to the assurances that have reached me from many now engaged
in the aim of political regeneration, has the effect of that revival of the
honors due to a national hero, leading to the ennobling study of great ex-
amples, been wholly without its influence upon the rising generation of
Italian youth, and thereby upon those stirring events which have recently
drawn the eyes of Europe to the men and the lands beyond the Alps.

In preparing for the press this edition of a work illustrative of the exer-
tions of a Roman, in advance of his time, for the political freedom of his
country, and of those struggles between contending principles, of which Italy
was the most stirring field in the Middle Ages, it is not out of place or sea-
son to add a few sober words, whether as a student of the Italian past, or as
an observer, with some experience of the social elements of Italy as it now
exists, upon the state of affairs in that country.

It is nothing new to see the Papal Church i the capacity of a popular re-
former, and in contra-position to the despotic potentates of the several states,
as well as to the German Emperor, who nominally inherits the sceptre of the
Caesars. Such was its common character under its more illustrious pontiffs ;
and the old Republics of Italy grew up under the shadow of the Papal
throne, harboring ever two factions the one for the Emperor, the one for the
Pope the latter the more naturally allied to Italian independence. On the
modern stage, we almost see the repetition of many an ancient drama. But
the past should teach us to doubt the continuous and steadfast progress of
any single line of policy under a principality so constituted as that of the
Papal Church a principality in which no race can be perpetuated, in which
no objects can be permanent ; in which the successor is chosen by a select
ecclesiastical synod, under a variety of foreign as well as of national influ-
ences ; in which the chief usually ascends the throne at an age that ill adapts
his mind to the idea of human progress, and the active direction of mundane
affairs ; a principality in which the peculiar sanctity that wraps the person
of the sovereign exonerates him from the healthful liabilities of &. power
purely temporal, and directly accountable to man. A reforming pope is a
lucky accident, and dull indeed must be the brain which believes in the pos-
sibility of a long succession of feforming popes, or which can regard as other
than precarious and unstable the discordant combination of a constitutional
government with an infallible head.

It is as true as it is trite that political freedom is not the growth of a day
it is not a flower without a stalk and it must gradually develop itself from
amidst the unfolding leaves of kindred institutions.

In one respect the Austrian domination, fairly considered, has been bene-
ficial to the states over which it has been directly exercised, and may be even
said to have unconsciously schooled them to the capacity for freedom. In
those states the personal rights which depend on impartial and incorrupt ad-
ministration of the law are infinitely more secure than in most of the courts
of Italy. Bribery, which shamefully predominates in the judicature of cer-
tain principalities, is as unknown in the juridical courts of Austrian Italy as
in England. The Emperor himself is often involved in legal disputes with
A subject, and justice is as free and as firm for the humblest suitor, as if his

* In the Papal States, I believe, it was, neithar prudently nor effectually, proscribed.

PREFACE. IX

antagonist were his equal. Austria, indeed, but holds together the motley
and inharmonious members of its vast domain on either side the Alps, by a
general character of paternal mildness and forbearance in all that great
circle of good government which lies without the one principle of constitu-
tional liberty. It asks but of its subjects to submit to be well governed,
without agitating the question " how and by what means that government is
carried on." For every man, except the politician, the innovator, Austria is
no harsh stepmother. But it is obviously clear that the better in other res-
pects the administration of a state, it does but foster the more the desire for
that political security which is only found in constitutional freedom ' the
reverence paid to personal rights but begets the passion for political ; and
under a mild despotism are already half matured the germs of a popular con-
stitution. But it is si ill a grave question whether Italy is ripe for self-gov-
ernment, and whether, were it possible that the Austrian domination could
be shaken off, the very passions so excited, the very bloodshed so poured
forth, would not ultimately place the larger portion of Italy under auspices
less favorable to the sure growth of freedom than those which silently brighten
under the sway of the German Caesar.

The two kingdoms, at the opposite extremes of Italy, to which circum-
stance and nature seem to assign the main ascendancy, are Naples and Sar-
dinia. Looking to the former, it is impossible to discover on the face of the
earth a country more adapted for commercial prosperity. Nature formed it
as the garden of Europe, and the mart of the Mediterranean. Its soil and
climate could unite the products of the East with those of the Western hemi-
sphere. The rich island of Sicily should be the great corn granary of the
modern nations, as it was of the ancient ; the figs, the olives, the oranges, of
both the Sicilies, under skilful cultivation, should equal the produce of Spain
and the Orient, and the harbors of the kingdom (the keys to three-quarters
of the globe) should be crowded with the sails and busy with the life of com-
merce. But, in the character of its population, Naples has been invariably
in the rear of Italian progress ; it caught but partial inspiration from the free
republics, or even the wise tyrannies, of the Middle Ages ; the theatre of
frequent revolutions without fruit ; and all rational enthusiasm created by
that insurrection, which has lately bestowed on Naples the boon of a repre-
sentative system, cannot but be tempered by the conviction that, of all the
states in Italy, this is the one which least warrants the belief of permanence
to political freedom, or of capacity to retain with vigor what may be seized
by passion.*

Far otherwise is it with Sardinia. Many years since, the writer of these
pages ventured to predict that the time must come when Sardinia would lead
the van of Italian civilization, and take proud place amongst the greater
nations of Europe. In the great portion of this population there is visible

* If the Electoral Chamber in the new Neapolitan Constitution give a fair share of
icmbers to the Island of Sicily, it will be rich in the inevitable elements of discord, and

KMAMa L/^lwt-11 LIIG IWV t-UUlllI 1CA, UUl U111C1 CllUCd 111 Ulldi <AUIC1 , dllU UCglCC clllU IJUtfllLy V71

civilization, national jealousies, historical memories, have trebled the space of the seas that
roll between them. More easy to unite under one free Parliament Spain with Flanders ;
or re-annex to England its old domains of Aquitaine and Normandy, than to unite in one
Council Chamber truly popular, the passions, interests, and prejudices of Sicily and
Naples. Time will show. And now, in May, 1849, Time has already shown the impracti-
cability of the first scheme proposed for cordial union between Naples and Sicily, and has
rendered it utterly impossible, by mutual recollections of hatred, bequeathed by a civil war
of singular barbarism, that Naples should permanently retain Sicily by any other hold than
(he brute force of conquest.

X PREFACE.

the new blood of a young race ; it is not, as with other Italian states, a worn-
out stock ; you do not see there a people fallen, pioud of the past, and lazy
amidst ruins, but a people rising, practical, industrious, active : there, in a
word, is an eager youth to be formed to mature development, not a decrepit
age to be restored to bloom and muscle. Progress is the great characteristic
of the Sardinian state. Leave it for five years ; visit it again, and you behold
improvement. When you enter the kingdom and find, by the very skirts of
its admirable roads, a raised footpath for the passengers and travelers from
town to town, you become suddenly aware that you are in a land where close
attention to the humbler classes is within the duties of a government. As
you pass on from the more purely Italian part of the population from the
Genoese country into that of Piedmont the difference between a new people
and an old, on which I have dwelt, becomes visible in the improved cultiva-
tion of the soil, the better habitations of the laborer, the neater aspect of the
towns, the greater activity in the thoroughfares. To the extraordinary
virtues of the King, as king, justice is scarcely done, whether in England or
abroad. Certainly, despite his recent concessions, Charles Albert is not,
and cannot be at heart, much of a constitutional reformer ; and his strong
religious tendencies, which, perhaps unjustly, have procured him in philo-
sophical quarters the character of a bigot, may link him more than his
political, with the cause of the Father of his Church. But he is nobly and
pre-eminently national, careful of the prosperity and jealous of the honor of
his own state, while conscientiously desirous of the independence of Italy.
His attention to business is indefatigable. Nothing escapes his vigilance.
Over all departments of the kingdom is the eye of a man ever anxious to
improve. Already the silk manufactures of Sardinia almost rival those of
Lyons : in their own departments the tradesmen of Turin exhibit an artistic
elegance and elaborate finish scarcely exceeded in the wares of London and
Paris. The King's internal regulations are admirable ; his laws administered
with the most impartial justice ; his forts and defences are in that order,
without which, at least on the Continent, no land is safe ; his army is the
most perfect in Italy. His wise genius extends itself to the elegant as to the
useful arts an encouragement that shames England, and even France, is
bestowed upon the School for Painters, which has become one of the orna-
ments of his illustrious reign. The character of the main part of the popula-
tion, and the geographical position of his country, assist the monarch, and
must force on himself, or his successors, in the career of improvement so
signally begun. In the character of the people the vigor of the Northman
ennobles the ardor and fancy of the West. In the position of the country
the public mind is brought into constant communication with the new ideas
in the free lands of Europe. Civilization sets in direct currents towards the
streets and marts of Turin. Whatever the result of the present crisis in
Italy, no power and no chance which statesmen can predict can preclude
Sardinia from ultimately heading all that is best in Italy. The King may im-
prove his present position, or peculiar prejudices, inseparable perhaps from
the heritage of absolute monarchy, and which the raw and rude councils of
an Electoral Chamber newly called into life must often irritate and alarm,
may check his own progress towards the master throne of the Ausonian land.
But the people themselves, sooner or later, will do the work of the King.
And in now looking around Italy for a race worthy of Rienzi, and able to
accomplish his proud dreams, I see but one for which the time is ripe or ripen-
ing, and I place the hopes of Italy in the men of Piedmont and Sardinia

L.QNDON, February 1

CONTENTS.

PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1835,
PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1848,

BOOK I

CHAP.

I. The Brothers 13

II. An Historical Survey Not to be Passed over, except by those who dislike to

Understand what they Read, 23

III. The Brawl 28

IV. An Adventure, ............. 35

V. The Description of a Conspirator, and the Dawn of the Conspiracy, . . .47

VI. Irene in the Palace of Adrian di Castello, 57

VI 1 . Upon Love and Lovers, 60

VIII. The Enthusiastic Man judged by the Discreet Man 63

IX. When the People saw this Picture, every one Marvelled 66

X. A Rough Spirit Raised, which may hereafter Rend the Wizard, ... 70

XI. Nina di Raselli 74

XII. The Strange Adventures that befell Walter de Montreal, .... 81

BOOK II.

I. The King of Provence, and his Proposal, 87

II. The Interview, and the Doubt, .......... 99

III The Situation of a Popular Patrician in Times of Popular Discontent Scene of

the Lateran, 102

IV. The Ambitious Citizen, and the Ambitious Soldier, ..... 117

V. The Procession of the Barons The Beginning of the End, .... 127

VI. The Conspirator becomes the Magistrate) ....... 130

VII. Looking after the Halter when the Mare is Stolen, 134

I'll I. The Attack the Retreat the Election and the Adhesion, .... 135

BOOK III.

I. The Return of Walter de Montreal to his Fortress, 143

II. The Life of Love and War The Messenger of Peace The Joust, . . 147
III. The Conversation between the Roman and the Provenjal Adeline's History

The Moon-lit Sea The Lute and the Song, ....... 163

BOOK IV.

I. The Boy Angelo The Dream of Nina fulfilled, 174

II. The Blessing of a Councillor whose Interests and Heart are our own The

Straws thrown upward, do they portend a Storm ? 185

III. The Actor Unmasked, ............ 197

IV. The Enemy's Camp, 202

V. The Night and its Incidents, 205

VI. The Celebrated Citation, 214

VU. The Festival, , , . y

xii

CONTENTS.

BOOK V.

CHAP. PAGE

I. The Judgment of the Tribune, ........ . 222

II. The Flight, ..." .......... 230

III. The Battle ............... 234

IV. The Mellowness of the Base, .......... 242

V. The Rottenness of the Edifice, .......... 248

VI. The Fall of the Temple, ....... .... 253

VII. The Successors of an Unsuccessful Revolution Who is to Blame, the For-

saken One or the Forsakers ? .......... 258

BOOK VI.

I. The Retreat of the Lover, ........... 261

;. The Seeker, ............. 264

III. The Flowers amidst the Tombs, .......... 274

iV. We Obtain what we Seek, and Know it not, ....... 280

V. The Error, .............. 284

BOOK VII.

I. Avignon The two Pages The Stranger Beauty, ...... 294

II. The Character of a Warrior Priest An Interview The Intrigue and Counter-

intrigue of Courts, . ....... 301

III. Holy Men Sagacious Deliberations Just Resolves And Sordid Motives

to All, .............. 306

IV. The Lady and the Page, ........... 311

V. The Inmate of the Tower, . . . . . . . . . . -313

VI. The Scent does not Lie The Priest and the Soldier ...... 320

VII. Vaucluse and its Genius Loci Old Acquaintance Renewed, . ' . .321

VIII. The Crowd The Trial The Verdict The Soldier and the Page, . . 326

IX. Albornoz and Nina, ...... . ..... 329

BOOK VIII.

I. The Encampment, .......... ... 335

II. Adrian once more the Guest of Montreal, ....... 344

III. Faithful and Ill-fated Love The Aspirations Survive the Affections, . . 349

BOOK IX.

I. The Triumphal Entrance, ......... , 357

II. The Masquerade, ............ 361

III. Adrian's Adventures at Palestrina, ......... 371

IV. The Position of the Senator The Work of Years The Reward of Ambition, 376

V. The Biter Bit .............. 383

VI. The Events Gather to the End, ......... 386

BOOK X.

I. The Conjunction of Hostile Planets in the House of Death ..... 39*

II. Montreal at Rome His reception of Angelo Villani, ..... 392

III. Montreal's Banquet, ............ 396

IV. The Sentence of Walter de Montreal ......... 402

V. The Discovery, ............. 407

VI. The Suspense, .............411

VII. The Tax ................ 415

VIII. The Threshold of the Event, .......... 417

CHAPTER THB LAST. The Close of the Chas, ........ 421

RIENZI,

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES.

BOOK I.
THE TIME, THE PLACE, AND THE MEN.

" Fu da sua gioventudine nutricato di latte di eloquenza; buono gram-
matico, megliore rettorico, autorista buono. . . . Oh, come spesso diceva,
' Dove sono quest! buoni Roinani ? Dov'e loro somma giustizia ? Poterommi
trovare in tempo che questi fioriscano?' Era bell 'omo. . . . Accadde che
uno suo frate fu ucciso, e non ne fu fatta vendetla di sua morte ; ' non lo
pote6 aiutare ; pensa lungo mano vendicare '1 sangue di suo frate : pensa
lunga mano dirizzare la cittate di Roma male guidata. ' Vita di Cola di
Kienzi. Ed. 1828. Forli.

" From his youth he was nourished with the milk of eloquence; a good
grammarian, a bt tt r rhetorician, well versed in the writings of authors. . .
Oh, how often would he say, 'Where are those good Romans? Where is
their supreme justice ? Shall I ever behold such times as those in which
they flourished?' He was a handsome man. ... It happened that a
brother of his was slain, and no retribution was made for his death : he
could not help him : long did he ponder how to avenge his brother's blood :
long did he ponder how to direct the ill-guided state of Rome." Life oj
Cola di Rienzi.

CHAPTER I.

THE BROTHERS.

THE celebrated name which forms the title to this work will
sufficiently apprise the reader that it is in the earlier half of
the fourteenth century that my story opens.

It was on a summer evening that two youths might be seen
walking beside the banks of the Tiber, not far from that part of
its winding course which sweeps by the base of Mount Aven-
tine. The path they had selected was remote and tranquil.
It was only at a distance that were seen the scattered and

14 RIENZt, <

squalid houses that bordered the river, from amidst which rose,
dark and frequent, the high roof and enormous towers which
marked the fortified mansion of some Roman baron. On one
side of the river, behind the cottages of the fishermen, soared
Mount Janiculum, dark with massive foliage, from which
gleamed, at frequent intervals, the gray walls of many a castel-
lated palace, and the spires and columns of a hundred
churches ; on the other side, the deserted Aventine rose ab-
rupt and steep, covered with thick brushwood ; while, on the
height, from concealed but numerous convents, rolled, not un-
musically, along the quiet landscape and rippling waves, the
sound of the holy bell.

Ot the young men introduced in this scene, the elder, who
might have somewhat passed his twentieth year, was of a tall
and even commanding stature ; and there was that in his pres-
ence remarkable and almost noble, despite the homeliness of
his garb, which consisted of the long, loose gown and the plain
tunic, both of dark-gray serge which distinguished, at that
time, the dress of humbler scholars who frequented the monas-
teries for such rude knowledge as then yielded a scanty return
for intense toil. His countenance was handsome, and would
have been rather gay than thoughtful in its expression, but for
that vague and abstracted dreaminess of eye which so usually
denotes a propensity to revery and contemplation, and betrays
that the past or the future is more congenial to the mind than
the enjoyment and action of the present hour.

The younger, who was yet a boy, had nothing striking in his
appearance or countenance, unless an expression of great
sweetness and gentleness could be so called ; and there was
something almost feminine in the tender deference with which
he appeared to listen to his companion. His dress was that
usually worn by the hr.mbler classes, though somewhat neater,
perhaps, and newer ; and the fond vanity of a mother might
be detected in the care with which the long and silky ringlets
had been smoothed and parted as they escaped from his cap
and flowed midway down his shoulders.

As they thus sauntered on, beside the whispering reeds of
the river, each with his arm round the form of his comrade,
there was a grace in the bearing, in the youth, and in the evi-
dent affection of the brothers for such their connection
which elevated the lowliness of their apparent condition.

" Dear brother," said the elder, " 1 cannot express to tliee
how I enjoy these evening hours. To you alone I feel as if I
were not a mere visionary and idler when I talk of the uncer-

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 15

tain future, and build up my castles of the air. Our parents
listen to me as if I were uttering fine things out of a book ;
and my dear mother, Heaven bless her ! wipes her eyes, and
says, ' Hark, what a scholar he is.' As for the monks, if ever I
dare look from my Livy, and cry, ' Thus should Rome be again ! '
they stare, and gape, and frown, as though 1 had broached an
heresy. But you, sweet brother, though you share not my
studies, sympathize so kindly with all their results you seem
to approve my wild schemes, and to encourage my ambitious
hopes that sometimes I forget our birth, our fortunes, and
think and dare as if no blood save that of the Teuton Emperor
flowed through our veins."

" Methinks, dear Cola," said the younger brother, " that Na-
ture played us an unfair trick ; to you she transmitted the
royal soul, derived from our father's parentage ; and to me
only the quiet and lovely spirit of my mother's humble lineage."

"Nay," answered Cola quickly, "you would then have the
brighter share, for I should have but the barbarian origin, and
you the Roman. Time was, when to be a simple Roman was
to be nobler than a northern king. Well, well, we may live to
see great changes ! "

"I shall live to see thee a great man, and that will content
me," said the younger, smiling affectionately ; " a great scholar
all confess you to be already : our mother predicts your for-
tunes every time she hears of your welcome visits to the
Colonna."

"The Colonna!" said Cola with a bitter smile; "the
Colonna the pedants ! They affect, dull souls, the knowl-
edge of the past, play the patron, and misquote Latin over
their cups ! They are pleased to welcome me at their board,
because the Roman doctors call me learned, and because
Nature gave me a wild wit, which to them is pleasanter
than the stale jests of a hired buffoon. Yes, they would ad-
vance my fortunes but how ? by some place in the public
offices, which would fill a dishonest coffer, by wringing, yet
more sternly, the hard-earned coins from our famishing citi-
zens ! If there be a vile thing in the world, it is a plebeian, ad-
vanced by patricians, not for the purpose of righting his own
order, but for playing the pander to the worst interests of theirs.
He who is of the people but makes himself a traitor to his birth,
if he furnishes the excuse for these tyrant hypocrites to lift up
their hands and cry, ' See what liberty exists in Rome, when we,
the patricians, thus elevate a plebeian ? ' Did they ever elevate
a plebeian if he sympathized with plebeians ? No, brother ;

16 RIENZI,

should I be lifted above our condition, I will be raised by the
arms of my countrymen, and not upon their necks."

" All I hope is, Cola, that you will not, in your zeal for your
fellow-citizens, forget how dear you are to us. No greatness
could ever reconcile me to the thought that it brought you
danger."

" And / could laugh at all danger, if it led to greatness.
But greatness greatness ! Vain drearn ! Let us keep it for
our night sleep. Enough of my plans ; now, dearest brother,
of yours."

And, with the sanguine and cheerful elasticity which
belonged to him, the young Cola, dismissing all wilder thoughts,
bent his mind to listen, and to enter into, the humbler pro-
jects of his brother. The new boat and the holiday dress, and
the cot removed to a quarter more secure from the oppression
of the barons, and such distant pictures of love as a dark eye
and a merry lip conjure up to the vague sentiments of a boy
to schemes and aspirations of which such objects made the
limit, did the scholar listen, with a relaxed brow and a tender
smile ; and often, in later life did that conversation occur to
him, when he shrank from asking his own heart which ambition
was the wiser.

"And then," continued the younger brother, " by degrees I
might save enough to purchase such a vessel as that which we
now see, laden, doubtless, with corn and merchandise, bringing,
oh, such a good return that I could fill your room with books,
and never hear you complain that you were not rich enough to
purchase some crumbling old monkish manuscript. Ah, that
would make me so happy ! " Cola smiled, as he pressed his
brother closer to his breast.

" Dear boy," said he, " may it rather be mine to provide for
your wishes ! Yet methinks the masters of yon vessel have no
enviable possession ; see how anxiously the men look round,
and behind, and before : peaceful traders though they be,
they fear, it seems, even in this city (once the emporium of the
civilized world), some pirate in pursuit ; and ere the voyage be
over, they may find that pirate in a Roman noble. Alas, to
what are we reduced ! "

The vessel thus referred to was speeding rapidly down the
river, and some three or four armed men on deck were indeed
intently surveying the quiet banks on either side, as if antici-
pating a foe. The bark soon, however, glided out of sight, and
the brothers fell back upon those themes which require only
the future for a text to become attractive to the young.

THE LAST OP THE TRIBUNES. tj

At length, as the evening darkened, they remembered that
it was past the usual hour in which they returned home, and
they began to retrace their steps.

" Stay," said Cola abruptly ; " how our talk has beguiled me !
Father Uberto promised me a rare manuscript, which the good
friar confesses hath puzzled the whole convent. I was to seek
his cell for it this evening. Tarry here a few minutes, it is
but half-way up the Aventine. I shall soon return."

" Can I not accompany you ?"

" Nay," returned Cola, with considerate kindness, " you have
borne toil all the day, and must be wearied ; my labors, of the
body, at least, have been light enough. You are delicate, too,
and seem fatigued already ; the rest will refresh you. I shall
not be long."

The boy acquiesced, though he rather wished to accompany
his brother ; but he was of a meek and yielding temper, and
seldom resisted the lightest command of those he loved. He
sat him down on a little bank by the river-side, and the firm
step and towering form of his brother were soon hid from his
gaze by the thick and melancholy foliage.

At first he sat very quietly, enjoying the cool air, and think-
ing over all the stories of ancient Rome that his brother had
told him in their walk. At length he recollected that his lit-
tle sister, Irene, had begged him to bring her home some
flowers ; and, gathering such as he could find at hand (and
many a flower grew, wild and clustering, over that desolate spot),
he again seated himself, and began weaving them into one of
those garlands for which the southern peasantry still retain
their ancient affection, and something of their classic skill.

While the boy was thus engaged, the tramp of horses and
the loud shouting of the men were heard at a distance. They
came near, and nearer.

" Some baron's procession, perhaps, returning from a feast,"
thought the boy. "It will be a pretty sight their white
plumes and scarlet mantles ! I love to see such sights, but I
will just move out of their way."

So, still mechanically platting his garland, but with eyes
turned towards the quarter of the expected procession, the
young Roman moved yet nearer towards the river.

Presently the train came in view, a gallant company, in
truth ; horsemen in front, riding two abreast, where the path
permitted, their steeds caparisoned superbly, their plumes
waving gaily, and the gleam of their corselets glittering through
the shades of the dusky twilight. A large and miscellaneous

l8 RIENZI,

crowd, all armed, some with pikes and mail, others with less
warlike or worse fashioned weapons, followed the cavaliers ;
and high above plume and pike floated the blood-red banner of
the Orsini, with the motto and device (in which was ostenta-
tiously displayed the Guelfic badge of the keys of St. Peter)
wrought in burnished gold. A momentary fear crossed the
boy's mind, for at that time, and in that city, a nobleman
begirt with his swordsmen was more dreaded than a wild beast
by the plebeians ; but it was already too late to fly the train
were upon him.

"Ho, boy! "cried the leader of the horsemen, Martino
di Porto, one of the great House of the Orsini ; " hast thou
seen a boat pass up the river? But thou must have seen it
how long since ? "

" I saw a large boat about a half an hour ago," answered the
boy, terrified by the rough voice and imperious bearing of the
cavalier.

" Sailing right ahead, with a green flag at the stern?"

"The same, noble sir."

" On, then ! we will stop her course ere the moon rise,"
said the baron. " On ! Let the boy go with us, lest he prove
traitor, and alarm the Colonna."

" An Orsini, an Orsini ! " shouted the multitude ; "on, on ! "
and despite the prayers and remonstrances of the boy, he was
placed in the thickest of the crowd, and borne, or rather
dragged, along with the rest frightened, breathless, almost
weeping, with his poor little garland still hanging on his arm,
while a sling was thrust into his unwilling hand. Still he
felt, through all his alarm, a kind of childish curiosity to see the
result of the pursuit.

By the loud and eager conversation of those about him, he
learned that the vessel he had seen contained a supply of corn
destined to a fortress up the river held by the Colonna, then
at deadly feud with the Orsini ; and it was the object of the
expedition in which the boy had been thus lucklessly
entrained to intercept the provision, and divert it to the garri-
son of Martino di Porto. This news somewhat increased his
consternation, for the boy belonged to a family that claimed
the patronage of the Colonna.

Anxiously and tearfully he looked with every moment up the
steep ascent of the Aventine ; but his guardian, his protector,
still delayed his appearance.

They had now proceeded some way, when a winding in the
road suddenly brought before them the object of their pursuit,

THE LAST Of THE TRIBUNES. 19

as, seen by the light of the earliest stars, it scudded rapidly
down the stream.

" Now, the Saints be blessed !" quoth the chief ; "she is ours."

" Hold ! " said a captain (a German) riding next to Martino,
in a half-whisper ; " I hear sounds which I like not, by yonder
trees hark ! the neigh of a horse ! By my faith, too, there is
the gleam of a corselet."

" Push on, my masters," cried Martino ; " the heron shall
not balk the eagle push on ! "

With renewed shouts, those on foot pushed forward, till, as
they had nearly gained the copse referred to by the German, a
small, compact body of horsemen, armed cap-a-pie, dashed
from amidst the trees, and, with spears in their rests, charged
into the ranks of the pursuers.

" A Colonna ! a Colonna ! " " An Orsini ! an Orsini ! " were
shouts loudly and fiercely interchanged. Martino di Porto, a
man of great bulk and ferocity, and his cavaliers, who were
chiefly German mercenaries, met the encounter unshaken.
" Beware the bear's hug," cried the Orsini, as down went his
antagonist, rider and steed, before his lance.

The contest was short and fierce ; the complete armor of the
horsemen protected them on either side from wounds ; not so
unscathed fared the half-armed foot-followers of the Orsini, as
they pressed, each pushed on by the other, against the Colonna.
After a shower of stones and darts, which fell but as hailstones
against the thick mail of the horsemen, they closed in, and, by
their number, obstructed the movements of the steeds, while
the spear, sword, and battle-axe of their opponents made ruth-
less havoc among their undisciplined ranks. And Martino,,
who cared little how many of his mere mob were butchered,
seeing that his foes were for the moment embarrassed by the
wild rush and gathering circle of his foot-train (for the place
of conflict, though wider than the previous road, was confined
and narrow), made a sign to some of his horsemen, and was
about to ride forward towards the boat, now nearly out of sight,
when a bugle at some distance was answered by one of his
enemy at hand; and the shout of "Colonna to the rescue!"
was echoed afar off. A few moments brought in view a
numerous train of horse at full speed, with the banners of the
Colonna waving gallantly in the front.

" A plague on the wizards ! Who would have imagined they
had divined us so craftily !" muttered Martino ; "we must not
abide these odds"; and the hand that he had first raised for
advance now gave the signal of retreat.

Serried breast to breast and in complete order, the horsemen
of Martino turned to fly; the foot rabble who had come for the
spoil, remained but for slaughter. They endeavored to imitate
their leaders ; but how could they all elude the rushing charg-
ers and sharp lances of their antagonists, whose blood was
heated by the affray, and who regarded the lives at their mercy
as a boy regards the wasp's nest he destroys? The crowd dis-
persing in all directions, some, indeed, escaped up the hills,
where the footing was impracticable to the horses ; some plunged
into the river and swam across to the opposite bank, those
less cool or experienced, who fled right onwards, served, by
clogging the way of the enemy, to facilitate the flight of their
leaders, but fell themselves, corpse upon corpse, butchered in
the unrelenting and unresisted pursuit.

" No quarter to the ruffians every Orsini slain is a robber
the less strike for God, the Emperor, and the Colonna ! "
Such were the shouts which rung the knell of the dismayed
and falling fugitives. Among those who fled onward, in the
very path most accessible to the cavalry, was the young brother
of Cola, so innocently mixed with the affray. Fast he fled,
dizzy with terror poor boy, scarce before ever parted from
his parents' or his brother's side ! the trees glided past him
the banks receded ; on he sped, and fast behind came the
tramp of the hoofs the shouts the curses the fierce
laughter of the foe, as they bounded over the dead and
dying in their path. He was now at the spot in which his
brother had left him ; hastily he glanced behind him, and saw
the couched lance and horrent crest of the horseman close at
his rear ; despairingly he looked up, and, behold ! his brother
bursting through the tangled brakes that clothed the moun-
tain, and bounding to his succor.

" Save me ! save me, brother!" he shrieked aloud, and the
shriek reached Cola's ear. The snort of the fiery charger
breathed hot upon him ; a moment more, and with one wild,
shrill cry of " Mercy, mercy," he fell to the ground a corpse ;
the lance of the pursuer passing through and through him, from
back to breast, and nailing him on the very sod where he had
sate, full of young life and careless hope, not an hour ago.

The horseman plucked forth his spear, and passed on in
pursuit of new victims ; his comrades following. Cola had de-
scended was on the spot kneeling by his murdered brother.
Presently, to the sound of horn and trumpet, came by a nobler
company than most of those hitherto engaged ; who had been,
indeed, but the advanced-guard of the Colonna. At their

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 21

head rode a man in years, whose long white hair escaped from
his plumed cap and mingled with his venerable beard. "How
is this ? " said the chief, reigning in his steed, " young
Rienzi !"

The youth looked up as he heard that voice, and then flung
himself before the steed of the old noble, and, clasping his
hands, cried out in a scarce articulate voice : "It is my brother,
noble Stephen, a boy, a mere child ! the best the mildest !
See how his blood dabbles the grass back, back your
horse's hoofs are in the stream ! Justice, my lord, justice !
you are a great man."

"Who slew him? an Orsini, doubtless; you shall have jus-
tice."

"Thanks, thanks," murmured Rienzi, as he tottered once
more to his brother's side, turned his face from the grass, and
strove wildly to feel the puke of his heart ; he drew back his
hand hastily, for it was crimsoned with blood, and lifting that
hand on high, shrieked out again, "Justice ! justice ! "

The group round the old Stephen Colonna, hardened as they
were in such scenes, were affected by the sight. A handsome
boy, whose tears ran fast down his cheeks, and who rode his
palfrey close by the side of the Colonna, drew forth his sword.
" My lord," said he, half sobbing, "an Orsini only could have
butchered a harmless lad like this ; let us lose not a moment,
let us on after the ruffians."

" No, Adrian, no ! " cried Stephen, laying his hand on the
boy's shoulder ; your zeal is to be lauded, but we must beware
an ambush. Our men have ventured too far. What, ho,
there ! sound a return.''

The bugles in a few minutes brought back the pursuers,
among them, the horseman whose spear had been so fatally
misused. He was the leader of those engaged in the conflict
with Martino di Porto ; and the gold wrought into his armor,
with the gorgeous trappings of his charger, betokened his rank.

"Thanks, my son, thanks," said the old Colonna to this
cavalier, "you have done well and bravely. But tell me,
knowest thou, for thou hast an eagle eye, which of the Orsini
slew this poor boy ? a foul deed ; his family, too, our
clients ! "

"Who? yon lad ?" replied the horseman, lifting the helmet
from his head, and wiping his heated brow ; "say you so ! how
came he, then, with Martino's rascals ? I fear me the mistake
hath cost him dear. I could but suppose him of the Orsini
rabble, and so and so "

22 RIENZI,

" You slew him ! " cried Rienzi, in a voice of thunder,
starting from the ground. " Justice ! then, my Lord Stephen,
justice ! you promised me justice, and I will have it ! "

" My poor youth," said the old man compassionately, "you
should have had justice against the Orsini ; but see you not
this has been an error ? I do not wonder you are too grieved
to listen to reason now, We must make this up to you."

" And let this pay for masses for the boy's soul ; I grieve me
much for the accident," said the younger Colonna, flinging
down a purse of gold. " Ay, see us at the palace next week,
young Cola next week. My father, we had best return to-
wards the boat ; its safeguard may require us yet."

" Right, Gianni ; stay, some two of you, and see to the poor
lad's corpse ; a grievous accident ! how could it chance ? "

The company passed back the way they came, two of the
common soldiers alone remaining, except the boy Adrian, who
lingered behind a few moments, striving to console Rienzi, who,
as one bereft of sense, remained motionless, gazing on the
proud array as it swept along, and muttered to himself, " Jus-
tice, justice ! I will have it yet."

The loud voice of the elder Colonna summoned Adrian, re-
luctantly and weeping, away. " Let me be your brother," said
the gallant boy, affectionately pressing the scholar's hand to
his heart ; " I want a brother like you."

Rienzi made no reply ; he did not heed or hear him ; dark
and stern thoughts thoughts in which were the germ of a
mighty revolution were at his heart. He woke from them
with a start, as the soldiers were now arranging their bucklers
so as to make a kind of bier for the corpse, and then burst into
tears as he fiercely motioned them away, and clasped the clay
to his breast till he was literally soaked with the oozing
blood.

The poor child's garland had not dropped from his arm
even when he fell, and, entangled by his dress, it still clung
around him. It was a sight that recalled to Cola all the
gentleness, the kind heart, and winning graces of his only
brother his only friend ! It was a sight that seemed to make
yet more inhuman the untimely and unmerited fate of that in-
nocent boy. " My brother ! my brother ! " groaned the sur-
vivor ; how shall I meet our mother ? How shall I meet even
night and solitude again ? so young, so harmless ! See ye,
sirs, he was but too gentle. And they will not give us justice
because his murderer was a noble and a Colonna. And this
gold, too gold for a brother's blood ! Will they not " and

THE LAST OP THE TRIBUNES. 23

the young man's eyes glared like fire "will they not give us
justice? Time shall show!" So saying, he bent his head
over the corpse ; his lips muttered, as with some prayer or in-
vocation ; and then rising, his face was as pale as the dead
beside him, but it was no longer pale with grief !

From that bloody clay and that inward prayer, Cola di
Rienzi rose a new being. With his young brother died his own
youth. But for that event, the future liberator of Rome might
have been but a dreamer, a scholar, a poet ; the peaceful rival
of Petrarch ; a man of thoughts, not deeds. But from that
time, all his faculties, energies, fancies, genius, became con-
centrated into a single point ; and 'patriotism, before a vision,
leapt into the life and vigor of a passion, lastingly kindled,
stubbornly hardened, and awfully consecrated, by revenge !

CHAPTER II.

AN HISTORICAL SURVEY NOT TO BE PASSED OVER, EXCEPT BY
THOSE WHO DISLIKE TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY READ.

YEARS had passed away, and the death of the Roman boy,
amidst more noble and less excusable slaughter, was soon for-
gotten, forgotten almost by the parents of the slain, in the
growing fame and fortunes of their eldest son, forgotten and
forgiven never by that son himself. But, between that pro-
logue of blood, and the political drama which ensues,
between the fading interest, as it were, of a dream, and the
more busy, actual, and continuous excitements of sterner
life, this may be the most fitting time to place before the
reader a short and rapid outline of the state and circumstances
of that city in which the principal scenes of this story are laid :
an outline necessary, perhaps, to many, for a full comprehen-
sion of the motives of the actors, and the vicissitudes of the plot.

Despite the miscellaneous and mongrel tribes that had
forced their settlements in the City of the Caesars, the Roman
population retained an inordinate notion of their own supre-
macy over the rest of the world ; and degenerated from the
iron virtues of the Republic, possessed all the insolent and un-
ruly turbulence which characterized the Plebs of the ancient
Forum. Amongst a ferocious, yet not a brave, populace, the
nobles supported themselves less as sagacious tyrants than as
relentless banditti. The popes had struggled in vain against
these stubborn and stern patricians. Their state derided,

their command defied, their persons publicly outraged, the
pontiff-sovereigns of the rest of Europe resided, at the
Vatican, as prisoners under terror of execution. When,
thirty-eight years before the date of the events we are about
to witness, a Frenchman, under the name of Clement V., had
ascended the chair of St. Peter, the new pope, with more pru-
dence than valor, had deserted Rome for the tranquil retreat
of Avignon ; and the luxurious town of a foreign province be-
came the court of the Roman pontiff, and the throne of the
Christian Church.

Thus deprived of even the nominal check of the papal pres-
ence, the power of the nobles might be said to have no limits,
save their own caprice, or their mutual jealousies and feuds.
Though arrogating through fabulous genealogies their descent
from the ancient Romans, they were, in reality, for the most
part, the sons of the bolder barbarians of the North ; and,
contaminated by the craft of Italy, rather than imbued with
its national affections, they retained the disdain of their foreign
ancestors for a conquered soil and a degenerate people. While
the rest of Italy, especially in Florence, in Venice, and in
Milan, was fast and far advancing beyond the other states of
Europe in civilization and in art, the Romans appeared rather
to recede than to improve ; unblest by laws, unvisited by art,
strangers at once to the chivalry of a warlike, and the graces
of a peaceful, people. But they still possessed the sense and
desire of liberty, and, by ferocious paroxysms and desperate
struggles, sought to vindicate for their city the title it still
assumed of " the Metropolis of the World." For the last two
centuries they had known various revolutions, brief, often
bloody, and always unsuccessful. Still, there was the empty
pageant of a popular form of government. The thirteen quar-
ters of the city named each a chief ; and the assembly of these
magistrates, called Caporioni, by theory possessed an authority
they had neither the power nor the courage to exert. Still
there was the proud name of Senator ; but, at the present time,
the office was confined to one or to two persons, sometimes
elected by the pope, sometimes by the nobles. The authority
attached to the name seems to have had no definite limit ; it
was that of a stern dictator, or an indolent puppet, according
as he who held it had the power to enforce the dignity he
assumed. It was never conceded but to nobles, and it was by
the nobles that all the outrages were committed. Private
enmity alone was gratified whenever public justice was invoked :
and the vindication of order was but the excution of revenge.

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 25

Holding their palaces as the castles and fortresses of princes,
each asserting his own independency of all authority and law,
and planting fortifications, and claiming principalities in the
patrimonial territories of the Church, the barons of Rome
made their state still more secure, and still more odious, by
the maintenance of troops of foreign (chiefly of German)
mercenaries, at once braver in disposition, more disciplined in
service, and more skilful in arms, than even the freest Italians
of that time. Thus they united the judicial and the military
force, not for the protection, but for the ruin of Rome. Of
these barons, the most powerful were the Orsini and Colonna ;
their feuds were hereditary and incessant, and every day wit-
nessed the fruits of their lawless warfare, in bloodshed, in
rape, and in conflagration. The flattery or the friendship of
Petrarch, too credulously believed by modern historians, has
invested the Colonna, especially of the date now entered upon,
with an elegance and a dignity not their own. Outrage, fraud,
and assassination, a sordid avarice in securing lucrative offices
to themselves, an insolent oppression of their citizens, and the
most dastardly cringing to power superior to their own (with
but few exceptions), mark the character of the first family of
Rome. But, wealthier than the rest of the barons, they were,
therefore, more luxurious, and, perhaps, more intellectual ; and
their pride was flattered in being patrons of those arts of which
they could never have become the professors. From these
multiplied oppressors the Roman citizens turned with fond and
impatient regret to their ignorant and dark notions of departed
liberty and greatness. They confounded the times of the
Empire with those of the Republic ; and often looked to the
Teutonic king, who obtained his election from beyond the
Alps, but his title of emperor from the Romans, as the deserter
of his legitimate trust and proper home ; vainly imagining that,
if both the Emperor and the Pontiff fixed their residence in
Rome, Liberty and Law would again seek their natural shelter
beneath the resuscitated majesty of the Roman people.

The absence of the pope and the papal court served greatly
to impoverish the citizens ; and they had suffered yet more
visibly by the depredations of hordes of robbers, numerous
and unsparing, who invested Romagna, obstructing all the pub-
lic ways, and were, sometimes secretly, sometimes openly, pro-
tected by the barons, who often recruited their banditti garri-
sons by banditti soldiers.

But besides the lesser and ignobler robbers, there had risen
in Jtaly a far more fprmidable description of freebooters. A

26 RIENZI,

German, who assumed the lofty title of the Duke Werner, had,
a few years prior to the period we approach, enlisted and
organized a considerable force, styled " The Great Company,"
with which he besieged cities and invaded states, without any
object less shameless than that of pillage. His example was
soon imitated: numerous "Companies," similarly constituted,
devastated the distracted and divided land. They appeared,
suddenly raised, as if by magic, before the walls of a city, and
demanded immense sums as the purchase of peace. Neither
tyrant nor commonwealth maintained a force sufficient to resist
them ; and if other northern mercenaries were engaged to
oppose them, it was only to recruit the standards of the free-
booters with deserters. Mercenary fought not mercenary, nor
German, German : and greater pay, and more unbridled rapine,
made the tents of the "Companies" far more attractive than
the regulated stipends of a city, or the dull fortress and impov-
erished coffers of a chief. Werner, the most implacable and
ferocious of all these adventurers, and who had so openly
gloried in his enormities as to wear upon his breast a silver
plate, engraved with the words, " Enemy to God, to Pity, and
to Mercy," had not long since ravaged Romagna with fire and
sword. But, whether induced by money, or unable to control
the fierce spirits he had raised, he afterwards led the bulk of
his company back to Germany. Small detachments, however,
remained, scattered throughout the land, waiting only an able
leader once more to reunite them ; amongst those who appeared
most fitted for that destiny was Walter de Montreal, a Knight
of St. John, and gentleman of Provence, whose valor and mili-
tary genius had already, though yet young, raised his name into
dreaded celebrity ; and whose ambition, experience, and sagac-
ity, relieved by certain chivalric and noble qualities, were
suited to enterprises far greater and more important than the
violent depredations of the atrocious Werner. From these
scourges no state had suffered more grievously than Rome.
The patrimonial territories of the pope in part wrested from
him by petty tyrants, in part laid waste by these foreign rob-
bers yielded but a scanty supply to the necessities of Clement
VI., the most accomplished gentleman and the most graceful
voluptuary of his time ; and the good father had devised a
plan, whereby to enrich at once the Romans and their pontiff.
Nearly fifty years before the time we enter upon, in order
both to replenish the papal coffers and pacify the starving
Romans, Boniface VIII. had instituted the Festival of the Ju-
bilee, or Holy Year ; in fact, a revival of a Pagan ceremonial,

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 2"J

A plenary indulgence was promised to every Catholic who, in
that year, and in the first year of every succeeding century,
should visit the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul. An im-
mense concourse of pilgrims, from every part of Christendom,
had attested the wisdom of the invention ; " and two priests
stood night and day, with rakes in their hands, to collect with-
out counting the heaps of gold and silver that were poured on
the altar of St. Paul." *

It is not to be wondered at that this most lucrative festival
should, ere this next century was half expired, appear to a dis-
creet pontiff to be too long postponed. And both pope and
city agreed in thinking it might well bear a less distant
renewal. Accordingly, Clement VI. had proclaimed, under the
name of the Mosaic Jubilee, a second Holy Year for 1350, viz.,
three years distant from that date at which, in the next chapter,
my narrative will commence. This circumstance had a great
effect in whetting the popular indignation against the barons,
and preparing the events I shall relate ; for the roads were, as
I before said, infested by the banditti, the creatures and allies
of the barons. And if the roads were not cleared, the pilgrims
might not attend. It was the object of the pope's vicar,
Raimond, bishop of Orvietto (bad politician and good
canonist), to seek, by every means, to remove all impediment
between the offerings of devotion and the treasury of St.
Peter.

Such, in brief, was the state of Rome at the period we are
about to examine. Her ancient mantle of renown still, in the
eyes of Italy and of Europe, cloaked her ruins. In name, at
least, she was still the queen of the earth ; and from her hands
came the crown of the emperor of the north, and the keys of
the father of the church. Her situation was precisely that
which presented a vast and glittering triumph to bold ambition,
an inspiring, if mournful, spectacle to determined patriotism,
and a fitting stage for that more august tragedy which seeks its
incidents, selects its actors, and shapes its moral, amidst the
vicissitudes and crimes of nations.

* Gibbon, vol. xii. c. 55.

28 RIENZI,

CHAPTER III.

THE BRAWL.

ON an evening in April, 1347, and in one of those wide
spaces in which Modern and Ancient Rome seemed blent
together, equally desolate and equally in ruins, a miscel-
laneous and indignant populace were assembled. That morn-
ing the house of a Roman jeweller had been forcibly entered
and pillaged by the soldiers of Martino di Porto, with a daring
effrontery which surpassed even the ordinary license of the
barons. The sympathy and sensation throughout the city
were deep and ominous.

' Never will I submit to this tyranny !"

' Nor I ! "

' Nor, by the bones of St. Peter, will I !

' And what, my friends, is this tyranny to which you will not
submit ? " said a young nobleman, addressing himself to the
crowd of citizens, who, heated, angry, half-armed, and with
the vehement gestures of Italian passion, were now sweeping
down the long and narrow street that led to the gloomy quarter
occupied by the Orsini.

" Ah, my lord ! " cried two or three of the citizens in a
breath, " you will right us ; you will see justice done to us ;
you are a Colonna."

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed scornfully one man of gigantic
frame, and wielding on high a huge hammer, indicative of his
trade. " Justice and Colonna ! body of God ! those names are
not often found together."

" Down with him ! down with him ! he is an Orsinist, down
with him ! " cried at least ten of the throng : but no hand was
raised against the giant.

" He speaks the truth," said a second voice firmly.

"Ay, that doth he," said a third, knitting his brows, and
unsheathing his knife, "and we will abide by it. The Orsini
are tyrants, and the Colonnas are, at the best, as bad."

"Thou liest in thy teeth, ruffian !" cried the young noble,
advancing into the press and confronting the last asperser of
the Colonna.

Before the flashing eye and menacing gesture of the cavalier,
the worthy brawler retreated some steps, so as to leave an open
space between the towering form of the smith and the small,
sJQrder f but vigorous frame of the young npbje,,

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. iQ

Taught from their birth to despise the courage of the
plebeians, even while careless of much reputation as to their
own, the patricians of Rome were not unaccustomed to the
rude fellowship of these brawls ; nor was it unoften that the
mere presence of a noble sufficed to scatter whole crowds, that
had the moment before been breathing vengeance against his
order and his house.

Waving his hand, therefore, to the smith, and utterly un-
heeding either his brandished weapon or his vast stature, the
young Adrian di Castello, a distant kinsman of the Colonna,
haughtily bade him give way.

"To your homes, friends! and know," he added, with some
dignity, " that ye wrong us much, if ye imagine we share the
evil-doings of the Orsini, or are pandering solely to our own
passions in the feud between their house and ours. May the
Holy Mother so judge me," continued he, devoutly lifting up
his eyes, "as I now with truth declare, that it is for your
wrongs, and for the wrongs of Rome, that I have drawn this
sword against the Orsini."

"So say all the tyrants," rejoined the smith hardily, as he
leant his hammer against a fragment of stone some remnant
of ancient Rome " they never fight against each other, but it
is for our good. One Colonna cuts me the throat of Orsini's
baker it is for our good ! another Colonna seizes on the
daughter of Orsini's tailor it is for our good ! our good yes,
for the good of the people ! The good of the bakers and
tailors, eh ?"

"Fellow," said the young nobleman gravely, "if a Colonna
did thus, he did wrong ; but the holiest cause may have bad
supporters."

" Yes, the holy Church itself is propped on very indifferent
columns," answered the smith, in a rude witticism on the
affection of the pope for the Colonna.

" He blasphemes ! the smith blasphemes ! " cried the parti-
sans of that powerful house. " A Colonna, a Colonna ! "

" An Orsini, an Orsini !" was no less promptly the counter cry.

" THE PEOPLE ! " shouted the smith, waving his formidable
weapon far above the heads of the group.

In an instant the whole throng, who had at first united
against the aggression of one man, were divided by the heredi-
tary wrath of faction. At the cry of Orsini, several new parti-
sans hurried to the spot ; the friends of the Colonna drew
themselves on one side, the defenders of the Orsini on the other \
and the few who agreed with the smith that both factions were

30 RIEN2I,

equally odious and the people was the sole legitimate cry in a
popular commotion, would have withdrawn themselves from
the approaching #/<?//<?, if the smith himself, who was looked
upon by them as an authority of great influence, had not
whether from resentment at the haughty bearing of the young
Colonna, or from that appetite of contest not uncommon in
men of a bulk and force which assure them in all personal
affrays the lofty pleasure of superiority if, I say, the smith
himself had not, after a pause of indecision, retired among the
Orsini, and entrained, by his example, the alliance of his
friends with the favorers of that faction.

In popular commotions, each man is whirled along with the
herd, often half against his own approbation or assent. The
few words of peace by which Adrian di Castello commenced an
address to his friends were drowned amidst their shouts. Proud
to find in their ranks one of the most beloved, and one of the
noblest of that name, the partisans of the Colonna placed him
in their front, and charged impetuously on their foes. Adrian,
however, who had acquired from circumstances something of
that chivalrous code which he certainly could not have owed to
his Roman birth, disdained at first to assault men, among whom
he recognized no equal, either in rank or the practice of arms.
He contented himself with putting aside the few strokes thai
were aimed at him in the gathering confusion of the conflict
few, for those who recognized him, even amidst the bitterest
partisans of the Orsini, were not willing to expose themselves
to the danger and odium of spilling the blood of a man who, in
addition to his great birth and the terrible power of his connec-
tions, was possessed of a personal popularity which he owed
rather to a comparison with the vices of his relatives than to
any remarkable virtues hitherto displayed by himself. The
smith alone, who had as yet taken no active part in the fray,
seemed to gather himself up in determined opposition as the
cavalier now advanced within a few steps of him.

" Did we not tell thee," quoth the giant, frowning, "that the
Colonna were, not less than the Oisini, the foes of the people?
Look at thy followers and clieats : are they not cutting the
throats of humble men by way of vengeance for the crime of a
great one ? But that is the way one patrician always scourges
the insolence of another. He lays the rod on the backs of the
people, and then cries, 'See how just I am ! ' '

" I do not answer thee now," answered Adrian ; " but if thou
regrettest with me this waste of blood, join with me in attempt-
ing to prevent it."

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 3!

" I not I ! Let the blood of the slaves flow to-day : the time
is fast coming when it shall be washed away by the blood of the
lords."

"Away, ruffian ! " said Adrian, seeking no farther parley, and
touching the smith with the flat side of his sword. In an in-
stant the hammer of the smith swung in the air, and, but for
the active spring of the young noble, would infallibly have
crushed him to the earth. Ere the smith could gain time for a
second blow, Adrian's sword passed twice through his right
arm, and the weapon fell heavily to the ground.

"Slay him, slay him ! " cried several of the clients of the Co-
lonna, now pressing, dastard-like, round the disarmed and dis-
abled smith.

"Ay, slay him !" said, in tolerable Italian, but with a bar-
barous accent, one man, half-clad in armor, who had but just
joined the group, and who was one of those wild German ban-
dits whom the Colonna held in their pay ; " he belongs to a hor-
rible gang of miscreants sworn against all order and peace. He
is one of Rienzi's followers, and, bless the Three Kings ! raves
about the People."

" Thou sayest right, barbarian," said the sturdy smith, in a
loud voice, and tearing aside the vest from his breast with his
left hand ; "come all Colonna and Orsini dig to this heart
with your sharp blades, and when you have reached the centre,
you will find there the object of your common hatred, ' Rienzi
and the People ! "

As he uttered these words, in language that would have
seemed above his station (if a certain glow and exaggeration of
phrase and sentiment were not common, when excited, to all
the Romans), the loudness of his voice rose above the noise
immediately round him, and stilled, for an instant, the general
din ; and when at last the words, " Rienzi and the People "
rang forth, they penetrated midway through the increasing
crowd, and were answered, as by an echo, with a hundred voices,
" Rienzi and the People ! "

But whatever impression the words of the mechanic made on
others, it was equally visible in the young Colonna. At the
name of Rienzi the glow of excitement vanished from his cheek;
he started back, muttered to himself, and for a moment seemed,
even in the midst of that stirring commotion, to be lost in a
moody and distant revery. He recovered, as the shout died
away ; and saying to the smith, in a low tone, " Friend, I am
sorry for thy wound ; but seek me on the morrow, and thou
shalt find thou hast wronged me"; he beckoned to the Ger

J2 RIENZI,

man to follow him, and threaded his way through the crowd,
which generally gave back as he advanced. For the bitterest
hatred to the order of the nobles was at that time in Rome
mingled with a servile respect for their persons, and a myste-
rious awe of their uncontrollable power.

As Adrian passed through that part of the crowd in which
the fray had not yet commenced, the murmurs that followed
him were not those which many of his race could have heard.

"A Colonna," said one.

" Yet no ravisher," said another, laughing wildly.

"Nor murtherer," muttered a third, pressing his hand to his
breast. "'Tis not against him that my father's blood cries
aloud."

"Bless him," said a fourth, "for as yet no man curses
him ! "

" Ah, God help us ! " said an old man, with a long gray beard,
leaning on his staff: "the serpent's young yet ; the fangs will
show by and by."

" For shame, father ! he is a comely youth, and not proud in
the least. What a smile he hath ! " quoth a fair matron, who
kept on the outskirts of the ///<?//<?.

" Farewell to a man's honor when a noble smiles on his wife ! "
was the answer.

"Nay," said Luigi, a jolly butcher, with a roguish eye, "what
a man can win fairly from maid or wife, that let him do, whether
plebeian or noble ; that's my morality ; but when an ugly old
patrician finds fair words will not win fair looks, and carries
me off a dame on the back of a German boar, with a stab in the
side for comfort to the spouse, then, I say, he is a wicked man
and an adulterer."

While such were the comments and the murmurs that fol-
lowed the noble, very different were the looks and words that
attended the German soldier.

Equally, nay, with even greater promptitude, did the crowd
make way at his armed and heavy tread ; but not with looks of
reverence : the eye glared as he approached, but the cheek
grew pale, the head bowed, the lip quivered ; each man felt a
shudder of hate and fear, as recognizing a dread and mortal
foe. And well and wrathfully did the fierce mercenary note
the signs of the general aversion. He pushed on rudely, half-
smiling in contempt, half-frowning in revenge, as he looked from
side to side ; and his long, matted, light hair, tavny-colored
mustache, and brawny front, contrasted strongly with the dark
eyes, raven locks, and slender frames of the Italian?.

THE LAST OP THE TRIBUNES. 35

" May Lucifer double damn those German cut-throats ! "
muttered, between his teeth, one of the citizens.

" Amen ! " answered, heartily, another.

" Hush ! " said a third, timorously looking round ; " if one of
them hear thee, thou art a lost man."

"Oh, Rome ! Rome ! to what art thou fallen ! " said bitterly
one citizen, clothed in black, and of a higher seeming than the
rest ; "when thou shudderest in thy streets at the tread of a
hired barbarian ! "

" Hark to one of our learned men, and rich citizens ! " said
the butcher reverently.

" 'Tis a friend of Rienzi's," quoth another of the group, lift-
ing his cap.

With downcast eyes, and a face in which grief, shame, and
wrath were visibly expressed, Pandulfo di Guido, a citizen of
birth and repute, swept slowly through the crowd, and disap-
peared.

Meanwhile, Adrian, having gained a street which, though in
the neighborhood of the crowd, was empty and desolate, turned
to his fierce comrade. " Rodolph ! " said he, " mark ! no vio-
lence to the citizens. Return to the crowd, collect the friends
of our house, withdraw them from the scene ; let not the
Colonna be blamed for this day's violence ; and assure our
followers, in my name, that I swear, by the knighthood I re-
ceived at the Emperor's hands, that by my sword shall Martino
di Porto be punished for his outrage. Fain would I, in per-
son, allay the tumult, but my presence only seems to sanction
it. Go thou hast weight with them all."

" Ay, Signer, the weight of blows ! " answered the grim sol-
dier. " But the command is hard ; I would fain let their pud-
dle-blood flow an hour or two longer. Yet, pardon me ; in
obeying thy orders, do I obey those of my master, thy kinsman ?
It is old Stephen Colonna, who seldom spares blood or treas-
ure, God bless him (save his own ! ) whose money I hold, and
to whose hests I am sworn."

" Diavolo ! " muttered the cavalier, and the angry spot was
on his cheek ; but, with the habitual self-control of the Italian
nobles, he smothered his rising choler, and said aloud, with
calmness, but dignity :

" Do as I bid thee ; check this tumult ; make us the forbear-
ing party. Let all be still within one hour hence, and call on me
to-rnorrow for thy reward ; be this purse an earnest of my fu-
ture thanks. As for my kinsman, whom I command thee to
name more reverently, 'tis in his name I speak ; Hark ! the

34 RIENZI,

din increases the contest swells ! Go lose not another mo-
ment."

Somewhat awed by the quiet firmness of the patrician,
Rodolf nodded, without answer, slid the money into his bosom,
and stalked away into the thickest of the throng. But, even
ere he arrived, a sudden reaction had taken place.

The young cavalier, left alone, in that spot, followed with his
eyes the receding form of the mercenary, as the sun, now set-
ting, shone slant upon his glittering casque, and said bitterly
to himself : " Unfortunate city, fountain of all mighty mem-
ories, fallen queen of a thousand nations, how art thou de-
crowned and spoiled by thy recreant and apostate children !
Thy nobles divided against themselves ; thy people cursing thy
nobles ; thy priests, who should sow peace, planting discord ;
the father of thy church deserting thy stately walls, his home a
refuge, his mitre a fief, his court a Gallic village ; and we !
we, of the haughtiest blood of Rome we, the sons of Caesars,
and of the lineage of demigods, guarding an insolent and ab-
horred state by the swords of hirelings, who mock our coward-
ice while they receive our pay ; who keep our citizens slaves,
and lord it over their very masters in return ! Oh, that we, the
hereditary chiefs of Rome, could but feel oh, that we could
but find, our only legitimate safeguard, in the grateful hearts of
our countrymen ! "

So deeply did the young Adrian feel the galling truth of all
he uttered, that the indignant tears rolled down his cheeks
he spoke. He felt no shame as he dashed them away ; for ...^t
weakness which weeps for a fallen race is the tenderness, not
of women but of angels.

As he turned slowly to quit the spot, his steps were suddei.,y
arrested by a loud shout : " Rienzi ! Rienzi !" smote the air.
From the walls of the Capitol to the bed of the glittering
Tiber, that name echoed far and wide ; and, as the shout died
away, it was swallowed up in a silence so profound, so univer-
sal, so breathless, that you might have imagined that death it-
self had fallen over the city. And now, at the extreme end of
the crowd, and elevated above their level, on vast fragments of
stone which had been dragged from the ruins of Rome in i ;
of the late frequent tumults between contending factions, to
serve as a barricade for citizens against citizens, on these
silent memorials of the past grandeur, the present misery, of
Rome. stood that extraordinary man, who, above all his race,
was the most penetrated with the glories of the one time, with
the degradation of the other.

THE LASt Of THE TRIBUNES. 55

From the distance at which he stood from the scene, Adrian
t- uld only distinguish the dark outline of Rienzi's form ; he
could only hear the faint sound of his mighty voice ; he could
only perceive, in the subdued yet waving sea of human beings
that spread around, their heads bared in the last rays of the
sun, the unutterable effect which an eloquence described by
contemporaries almost as miraculous, but in reality less so
from the genius of the man than the sympathy of the audience,
created in all who drank into their hearts and souls the
stream of its burning thoughts.

It was but for a short time that that form was visible to the
earnest eye, that that voice at intervals reached the straining
ear, of Adrian di Castello ; but that time sufficed to produce
all the effect which Adrian himself had desired.

Another shout, more earnest, more prolonged than the first
a shout in which spoke the release of swelling thoughts, of
intense excitement betokened the close of the harangue ; and
then you might see, after a minute's pause, the crowd breaking
in all directions and pouring down the avenues in various
knots and groups, each testifying the strong and lasting im-
pression made upon the multitude by that address. Every
cheek was flushed, every tongue spoke ; the animation of the
orator had passed, like a living spirit, into the breasts of the
audience. He had thundered against the disorders of the pa-
" cians, yet, by a word, he had disarmed the anger of the
t p[^beians ; he had preached freedom, yet he had opposed
license. He had calmed the present, by a promise of the fu-
ture. He had chid their quarrels, yet had supported their
r ise. He had mastered the revenge of to-day, by a solemn
a .surance that there should come justice for the morrow. So
great may be the power, so mighty the eloquence, so formidable
the genius, of one man, without arms, without rank, without
tword, or ermine, who addresses himself to a people that is oi>
pressed !

3no CHAPTER IV.

AN ADVENTURE.

AVOIDING the broken streams of the dispersed crowd, Adrian
Colonna strode rapidly down one of the narrow streets leading
to his palace, which was situated at no inconsiderable distance
from the place in which the late contest had occurred. The
education of his life made him feel a profound interest, not

$6 RIEN2I,

only in the divisions and disputes of his country, but also in the
scene he had just witnessed, and the authority exercised bv
Rienzi.

An orphan of a younger, but opulent branch of the Colonna,
Adrian had been brought up under the care and guardianship
of his kinsman, that astute, yet valiant, Stephen Colonna, who,
of all the nobles of Rome, was the most powerful, alike from the
favor of the pope, and the number of 'armed hirelings whom his
wealth enabled him to maintain. Adrian had early manifested
what in that age was considered an extraordinary disposition
towards intellectual pursuits, and had acquired much of the
little that was then known of the ancient language and the
ancient history of his country.

Though Adrian was but a boy at the time in which, first
presented to the reader, he witnessed the emotions of Rienzi at
the death of his brother, his kind heart had been penetrated with
sympathy for Cola's affliction, and shame for the apathy of his
kinsmen at the result of their own feuds. He had earnestly
sought the friendship of Rienzi, and, despite his years, had be-
come aware of the power and energy of his character. But
though Rienzi, after a short time, had appeared to think no
more of his brother's death though he again entered the halls
of the Colonna, and shared their disdainful hospitalities, he
maintained a certain distance and reserve of manner, which
even Adrian could only partially overcome. He rejected every
offer of service, favor, or promotion ; and any unwonted proof
of kindness from Adrian seemed, instead of making him more
familiar, to offend him into colder distance. The easy humor
and conversational vivacity which had first rendered him a wel-
come guest with those who passed their lives between fighting
and feasting, had changed into a vein ironical, cynical, and
severe. But the dull barons were equally amused at his wit,
and Adrian was almost the only one who detected the serpent
couched beneath the smile.

Often Rienzi sat at the feast, silent, but observant, as if watch-
ing every look, weighing every word, taking gauge and measure-
ment of the intellect, policy, temperament, of every guest ; and
i\hen he had seemed to satisfy himself, his spirits would rise,
his words flow, and while his dazzling but bitter wit lit up the
revel, none saw that the unmirthful flash was the token of the
coming storm. But all the while he neglected no occasion to
mix with the humbler citizens, to stir up their minds, to
inflame their imaginations, to kindle their emulation, with pic-
tures of the present and with legends of the past. He grew in

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 37

popularity and repute, and was yet more in power with the
herd, because in favor with the nobles. Perhaps it was for that
reason that he had continued the guest of the Colonna.

When, six years before the present date, the Capitol of the Cae-
sars witnessed the triumph of Petrarch, the scholastic fame of the
young Rienzi had attracted the friendship of the poet a friend-
ship that continued, with slight interruption, to the last, through
careers so widely different ; and afterwards, one among the Roman
Deputies to Avignon, he had been conjoined with Petrarch* to
supplicate Clement VI. to remove the Holy See from Avignon to
Rome. It was in this mission that, for the first time, he evinced his
extraordinary powers of eloquence and persuasion. The pontiff,
indeed, more desirous of ease than glory, was not convinced by
the arguments, but he was enchanted with the pleader; and Ri-
enzi returned to Rome loaded with honors, and clothed with the
dignity of high and responsible office. No longer the inactive
scholar, the gay companion, he rose at once to pre-eminence
above all his fellow-citizens. Never before had authority been
borne with so austere an integrity, so uncorrupt a zeal. He
had sought to impregnate his colleagues with the same loftiness
of principle ; he had failed. Now secure in his footing, he had
begun openly to appeal to the people ; and already a new spirit
seemed to animate the populace of Rome.

While these were the fortunes of Rienzi, Adrian had been
long separated from him, and absent from Rome.

The Colonna were staunch supporters of the imperial party,
and Adrian di Castello had received and obeyed an invitation
to the Emperor's court. Under that monarch he had initiated
himself in arms, and among the knights of Germany he had
learned to temper the natural Italian shrewdness with the chivalry
of northern valor.

In leaving Bavaria he had sojourned a short time in the soli-
tude of one of his estates by the fairest lake of northern Italy ;
and thence, with a mind improved alike by action and study,
had visited many of the free Italian states, imbibed sentiments
less prejudiced than those of his order, and acquired an
early reputation for himself while inly marking the char-
acters and deeds of others. In him the best qualities of the
Italian noble were united. Passionately addicted to the cultiva-
tion of letters, subtle and profound in policy, gentle and bland of
manner, dignifying a love of pleasure with a certain elevation
of taste, he yet possessed a gallantry of conduct, and purity of

* According to the modern historians: but it seems more probable that Rienzi's mission
to Avicrnon wis posterior to that of Petrarch. However this be, it was at Avignon that
Petrarch and Rienzi became most intimate, as Petrarch himself observes in one of his letters.

3 RIENZI,

honor, and an aversion from cruelty, which were then very rarely
found in the Italian temperament, and which even the Chivalry
of the North, while maintaining among themselves, usually
abandoned the moment they came into contact with the
systematic craft and disdain of honesty which made the char-
acter of the ferocious, yet wily, South. With these qualities he
combined, indeed, the softer passions of his countrymen ; he
adored Beauty and he made a deity of Love.

He had but a few weeks returned to his native city, whither
his reputation had already preceded him, and where his early
affection for letters and gentleness of bearing were still remem-
bered. He returned to find the position of Rienzi far more
altered than his own. Adrian had not yet sought the scholar.
He wished first to judge with his own eyes, and at a distance, of
the motives and object of his conduct ; for partly he caught
the suspicions which his own order entertained of Rienzi, and
partly he shared in the trustful enthusiasm of the people.

" Certainly," said he now to himself, as he walked musingly on-
ward, " certainly, no man has it more in his power to reform
our diseased state, to heal our divisions, to awaken our citizens
to the recollections of ancestral virtue. But that very power,
how dangerous is it ! Have I not seen, in the free states of
Italy, men called into authority for the sake of preserving the
people, honest themselves at first, and then, drunk with the
sudden rank, betraying the very cause which had exalted them ?
True, those men were chiefs and nobles ; but are plebeians less
human ? Howbeit I have heard and seen enough from afar ;
I will now approach and examine the man himself."

While thus soliloquizing, Adrian but little noted the various
passengers, who, more and more rarely as the evening waned,
hastened homeward. Among these were two females, who now
alone shared with Adrian the long and gloomy street into which
he had entered. The moon was already bright in the heavens,
and as the women passed the cavalier with a light and quick
step, the younger one turned back and regarded him by the
clear light with an eager yet timid glance.

" Why dost thou tremble, my pretty one? "said her com-
panion, who might have told some five-and-forty years, and
whose garb and voice bespoke her of inferior rank to the
younger female. " The streets seem quiet enough now, and,
the Virgin be praised ! we are not so far from home either."

"Oh ! Benedetta, it is he ! it is the young signor ! it is
Adrian ! "

"That is fortunate," said the nurse, for such was her condi-

THE LAST OP THE TRIBUNES. 39

rion, "since they say he is as bold as a Northman, and a? the
Palazzo Colonna is not very far hence, we shall be within reach
of his aid should we want it ; that is to say, sweet one, if you
will walk a little slower than you have yet done."

The young lady slackened her pace, and sighed.

" He is certainly very handsome," quoth the nurse; "but
thou must not think more of him ; he is too far above thee for
marriage, and for aught else thou art too honest, and thy
brother too proud "

" And thou, Benedetta, art too quick with thy tongue. How
canst thou talk thus, when thou knowest he hath never, since
at least I was a mere child, even addressed me ; nay, he scarce
knows of my very existence. He, the Lord Adrian di Castello,
dream of poor Irene ! the mere thought is madness ! "

"Then why," said the nurse briskly, "dost thou dream of
him ? "

Her companion sighed again, more deeply than at first.

" Holy St. Catharine !" continued Benedetta, "if there were
but one man in the world, I would die single ere I would think
of him, until, at least, he had kissed my hand twice, and left it
my own fault if it were not my lips instead."

The young lady still replied not.

" But how didst thou contrive to love him ? " asked the
nurse. " Thou canst not have seen him very often ; it is but
some four or five weeks since his return to Rome."

" Oh, how dull thou art !" answered the fair Irene. "Have I
not told thee again and again that I loved him six years ago?"

"When thou hadst told but thy tenth year, and a doll would
have been thy most suitable lover ! As I am a Christian, Sig-
nora, thou hast made good use of thy time."

"And during his absence," continued the girl fondly, yet
sadly, "did I not hear him spoken of,and was not the mere sound
of his name like a love-gift that bade me remember? And
when they praised him, have I not rejoiced? and when they
blamed him, have I not resented? and when they said that his
lance was victorious in the tourney, did I not weep with pride ?
and when they whispered that his vows were welcome in the
bower, wept I not as fervently with grief ? Have not the six
years of his absence been a dream, and was not his return a
waking into light a morning of glory and the sun ? And I
see him now in the church, when he wots not of me ; and on
his happy steed as he passes by my lattice : and is not that
enough of happiness for love?"

"But if he loves not thee ?"

" Fool, I ask not that ; nay, I know not if I wish it. Per-
haps I would rather dream of him, such as I would have him,
than know him for what he is. He might be unkind, or un-
generous, or love me but little ; rather would I not be loved at
all, than loved coldly, and eat away my heart by comparing it
with his. I can love him now as something abstract, unreal,
and divine ; but what would be my shame, my grief, if I were
to find him less than I have imagined ! Then, indeed, my life
would have been wasted ; then, indeed, the beauty of the earth
would be gone ! "

The good nurse was not very capable of sympathizing with
sentiments like these. Even had their characters been more
alike, their disparity of age would have rendered such sym-
pathy impossible. What but youth can echo back the soul of
youth all the music of its wild vanities and romantic follies?
The good nurse did not sympathize with the sentiments of
her young lady, but she sympathized with the deep earnestness
with which they were expressed. She thought it wondrous silly,
but wondrous moving ; she wiped her eyes with the corner of
her veil, and hoped in her secret heart that her young charge
would soon get a real husband to put such unsubstantial fanta-
sies out of her head. There was a short pause in their conver-
sation, when, just where two streets crossed one another, there
was a loud noise of laughing voices and trampling feet.
Torches were seen on high, affronting the pale light of the
moon ; and, at a very short distance from the two females, in
the cross street, advanced a company of seven or eight men,
bearing, as seen by the red light of the torches, the formidable
badge of the Orsini.

Amidst the other disorders of the time, it was no unfrequent
custom for the younger or more dissolute of the nobles, in
small and armed companies, to parade the streets at night,
seeking occasion for a licentious gallantry among the cowering
citizens, or a skirmish at arms with some rival stragglers of
their own order. Such a band had Irene and her companion
now chanced to encounter.

" Holy mother ! " cried Benedetta, turning pale, and half
running, " what curse has befallen us ? How could we have
been so foolish us to tarry so late at the lady Nina's? Run,
Signora, run, or we shall fall into their hands !"

But the advice of Benedetta came too late ; the fluttering
garments of the women had been already descried : in a mo-
ment more they were surrounded by the marauders. A rude
hand tore aside Benedetta's veil, and at sight of features which

THE LAST OP THE TRIBUNES. 41

if time had not spared, it could never very materially injure, the
rough aggressor cast the poor nurse against the wall with i
curse, which was echoed by a loud laugh from his comrades.

" Thou hast a fine fortune in faces, Giuseppe !"

" Yes ; it was but the other day that he seized on a girl of
sixty."

"And then, by way of improving her beauty, cut her across
the face with his dagger, because she was not sixteen ! "

" Hush, fellows ! whom have we here ? " said the chief of the
party, a man richly dressed, and who, though bordering upon
middle age, had only the more accustomed himself to the ex-
cesses of youth ; as he spoke, he snatched the trembling Irene
from the grasp of his followers. " Ho, there ! the torches !
Oh, che bella faccia ! what blushes ! what eyes ! nay, look not
down, pretty one ; thou needst not be ashamed to win the love
of an Orsini yes ; know the triumph thou hast achieved : it is
Martino di Porto who bids thee smile upon him ! "

"For the blest Mother's sake, release me! Nay, sir, this
must not be ; I am not unfriended ; this insult shall not pass ! "

" Hark to her silver chiding ; it is better than my best hound's
bay ! This adventure is worth a month's watching. What !
will you not come ? restive shrieks too ! Francesco, Pietro,
ye are the gentlest of the band. Wrap her veil around her,
muffle this music so ! bear her before me to the palace, and
to-morrow, sweet one, thou shalt go home with a basket of
florins which thou mayest say thou hast bought at market."

But Irene's shrieks, Irene's struggles, had already brought
succor to her side, and, as Adrian approached the spot, the
nurse flung herself on her knees before him.

" Oh, sweet signor, for Christ's grace save us ! deliver my
young mistress her friends love you well ! We are all for the
Colonna ! Save the kin of your own clients, gracious
signor ! "

" It is enough that she is a woman, "answered Adrian, adding,
between his teeth, " and that an Orsini is her assailant." He
strode haughtily into the thickest of the group ; the servitors
laid hands on their swords, but gave way before him as they
recognized his person ; he reached the two men who had al-
ready seized Irene ; in one moment he struck the foremost to
the ground, in another he had passed his left arm round the
light and slender form of the maiden, and stood confronting the
Orsini with his drawn blade, which, however, he pointed to the
ground.

" For shame, my lord, for shame ! " said he indignantly.

42 RIENZI,

''Will you force Rome to rise, to a man, against our order?
Vex not too far the lion, chained though he be ; war against us
if ye will ! draw your blades upon men, though they be of your
own race, and speak your own tongue : but if ye would sleep
at nights, and not dread the avenger's gripe ; if ye would walk
the market-place secure, wrong not a Roman woman ! Yes,
the very walls around us preach to you the punishment of such
a deed : for that offence fell the Tarquins ; for that offence
were swept away the Decemvirs ; for that offence, if ye rush
upon it, the blood of your whole house may flow like water.
Cease, then, my lord, from this mad attempt, so unworthy your
great name; cease, and thank even a Colonna that he has come
between you and a moment's frenzy ! "

, So noble, so lofty were the air and gesture of Adrian, as he
thus spoke, that even the rude servitors felt a thrill of appro-
bation and remorse not so Martino di Porto. He had been
struck with the beauty of the prey thus suddenly snatched from
him ; he had been accustomed to long outrage and to long im-
punity ; the very sight, the very voice of a Colonna, was a
blight to his eye and a discord to his ear ; what, then, when a
Colonna interfered with his lusts and rebuked his vices ?

" Pedant ! " he cried, with quivering lips, " prate not to me
of thy vain legends and gossip's tales ! think not to snatch
from me my possession in another, when thine own life is in
my hands. Unhand the maiden ! throw down thy sword ! re-
turn home without further parley, or, by my faith, and the blades
of my followers (look at them well !) thou diest ! "

" Signor," said Adrian calmly, yet while he spoke he re-
treated gradually with his fair burthen towards the neighboring
wall, so as at least to leave only his front exposed to those
fearful odds, " thou wilt not so misuse the present chances,
and wrong thyself in men's mouths, as to attack with eight
swords even thy hereditary foe, thus cumbered, too, as he is.
But nay hold ! if thou art so proposed, bethink thee well,
one cry of my voice would soon turn the odds against thee.
Thou art now in the quarter of my tribe ; thou art surrounded
by the habitations of the Colonna : yon palace swarms with
men who sleep not, save with harness on their backs ; men
whom my voice can reach even now, but from whom, if they
once taste of blood, it could not save thee ! "

" He speaks true, noble lord," said one of the band : " we
have wandered too far out of our beat ; we are in their very
den ; the palace of old Stephen Colonna is within call ; and, to
my knowledge," added he t in a whisper, " eighteen fresh men*

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 43

of-arms ay, and Northmen too marched through its gates
this day."

" Were there eight hundred men at arm's length," answered
Martino furiously, " I would not be thus bearded amidst mine
own train ! Away with yon woman ! To the attack ! to the
attack ! "

Thus saying, he made a desperate lunge at Adrian, who, hav-
ing kept his eye cautiously on the movements of his eneny,
was not unprepared for the assault. As he put aside the blade
with his own, he shouted with a loud voice, "Colonna! to the
rescue, Colonna ! "

Nor had it been without an ulterior object that the acute and
self-controlling mind of Adrian had hitherto sought to prolong
the parley. Even as he first addressed Orsini, he had per-
ceived, by the moonlight, the glitter of armor upon two men
advancing from the far end of the street, and judged at once,
by the neighborhood, that they must be among the mercenaries
of the Colonna.

Gently he suffered the form of Irene, which now, for she had
swooned with the terror, pressed too heavily upon him, to slide
from his left arm, and standing over her form, while sheltered
from behind by the wall which he had so warily gained, he
contented himself with parrying the blows hastily aimed at him,
without attempting to retaliate. Few of the Romans, however
accustomed to such desultory warfare, were then well and dex-
terously practiced in the use of arms ; and the science Adrian
had acquired in the schools of the martial North befriended
him now, even against such odds. It is true, indeed, that the
followers of Orsini did not share the fury of their lord ; partly
ifraid of the consequence to themselves should the blood of so
ftigh-born a signor be spilt by their hands, partly embarrassed
with the apprehension that they should see themselves sud-
denly beset with the ruthless hirelings so close within hearing,
they struck but aimless and randon blows, looking every mo-
ment behind and aside, and rather prepared for flight than
slaughter. Echoing the cry of " Colonna," poor Benedetta fled
At the first clash of swords. She ran down the dreary street,
still shrieking that cry, and passed the very portals of Stephen's
palace (where some grim forms yet loitered) without arresting
her steps there, so great were her confusion and terror.

Meanwhile, the two armed men whom Adrian had descried
preceded leisurely up the street. The one was of a rude and
common mould ; his arms and his complexion testified his call-
ing and race ; and by the great respect he paid to his eompari'

44 RIENZI,

ion, it was evident that that companion was no native of Italy.
For the brigands of the North, while they served the vices of
the Southern, scarce affected to disguise their contempt for his
cowardice.

The companion of the brigand was a man of a martial, yet
easy air. He wore no helmet, but a cap of crimson velvet, set
off with a white plume ; on his mantle, or surcoat, which was
one of scarlet, was wrought a broad white cross, both at back
and breast ; and so brilliant was the polish of his corselet,
that, as from time to time the mantle waved aside and exposed
it to the moonbeams, it glittered like light itself.

" Nay, Rodolf," said he, if thou hast so good a lot of it here
with that hoary schemer, Heaven forbid that I should wish to
draw thee back again to our merry band. But tell me this
Rienzi, thinkest thou he has any solid and formidable power ? "

" Pshaw ! noble chieftain, not a whit of it. He pleases the
mob ; but as for the nobles, they laugh at him ; and as for the
soldiers, he has no money ! "

" He pleases the mob, then ? "

" Ay, that doth he ; and when he speaks aloud to them, all
the roar of Rome is hushed."

" Humph ! When nobles are hated, and soldiers are bought,
a mob may, in any hour, become the master. An honest
people and a weak mob ; a corrupt people and a strong mob,"
said the other, rather to himself than to his comrade, and
scarce, perhaps, conscious of the eternal truth of his aphorism.
" He is no mere brawler, this Rienzi, I suspect. I must see
to it. Hark ! what noise is that ? By the holy Sepulchre, it
is the ring of our own metal ! "

" And that cry ' a Colonna ! '" exclaimed Rodolf. " Par-
don me, master, I must away to the rescue ! "

" Ay, it is the duty of thy hire ; run ; yet stay, I will accom
pany thee, gratis for once, and from pure passion for mischief.
By this hand, there is no music like clashing steel ! "

Still Adrian continued gallantly and unwounded to defend
himself, though his arm now grew tired, his breath well-nigh
spent, and his eyes began to wink and reel beneath the glare
of the tossing torches. Orsini himself, exhausted by his fury,
had paused for an instant, fronting his foe with a heaving
breast and savage looks, when, suddenly, his followers ex-
claimed, "Fly! fly! the bandits approach ! we are surround-
ed !" and two of the servitors, without further parley, took
fairly to their heels. The other five remained irresolute, and
but the command of their master, when he of the whit?

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 45

plume, whom I have just described, thrust himself into the

" What ! gentles," said he, " have ye finished already ? Nay,
let us not mar the sport ; begin again, I beseech you. What
are the odds ? Ho ! six to one ! Nay, no wonder that ye
have waited for fairer play. See, we two will take the weaker
side. Now then, let us begin again."

" Insolent ! " cried the Orsini. " Knowest thou him whom
thou addressest thus arrogantly ? I am Martino di Porto.
Who art thou ? "

" Walter de Montreal, gentleman of Provence, and Knight
of St. John ! " answered the other carelessly.

At that redoubted name the name of one of the boldest
warriors and of the most accomplished freebooter of his time
even Martino's cheek grew pale, and his followers uttered a
cry of terror.

" And this my comrade," continued the knight, "for we
may as well complete the introduction, is probably better
known to you than I am, gentles of Rome ; and you doubtless
recognize in him Rodolf of Saxony, a brave man and a true,
where he is properly paid for his services."

" Signer," said Adrian to his enemy, who, aghast and dumb,
remained staring vacantly at the two new-comers, "you are
now in my power. See, our own people, too, are ap-
proaching."

And, indeed, from the palace of Stephen Colonna torches
began to blaze, and armed men were seen rapidly advancing to
the spot.

" Go home in peace, and if, to-morrow, or any day more
suitable to thee, thou wilt meet me alone, and lance to lance,
as is the wont of the knights of the empire ; or with band to
band, and man for man, as is rather the Roman custom; I will
not fail thee there is my gage."

" Nobly spoken," said Montreal ; "and if ye choose the lat-
ter, by your leave, I will be one of the party."

Martino answered not ; he took up the glove, thrust it in his
bosom, and strode hastily away ; only, when he had got some
paces down the street, he turned back, and, shaking his
clenched hand at Adrian, exclaimed in a voice trembling with
impotent rage, " Faithful to death ! "

The words made one of the mottoes of the Orsini ; and,
whatever its earlier signification, had long passed into current
proverb, to signify their hatred to the Colonna.

Adrian, now engaged in raising, and attempting to revive,

46 RIENZI,

Irene, who was still insensible, disdainfully left it to Montreal
to reply.

" I doubt nQt, Signor," said the latter coolly, " that thou wilt
be faithful to Death : for Death, God wot, is the only contract
which men, however ingenious, are unable to break or evade."

" Pardon me, gentle Knight," said Adrian, looking up from
his charge, " if I do not yet give myself wholly to gratitude. I
have learned enough of knighthood to feel that thou wilt ac-
knowledge that my first duty is here "

" Oh, a lady, then, was the cause of the quarrel ! I need
not ask who was in the right, when a man brings to the rivalry
such odds as yon caitiff."

" Thou mistakest a little, Sir Knight ; it is but a lamb I
have rescued from the wolf."

" For thy own table ! Be it so ! " returned the Knight gaily

Adrian smiled gravely, and shook his head in denial. In
truth, he was somewhat embarrassed by his situation. Though
habitually gallant, he was not willing to expose to misconstruc-
tion the disinterestedness of his late conduct, and (for it was
his policy to conciliate popularity) to sully the credit which his
bravery would give him among the citizens, by conveying Irene
(whose beauty, too, as yet, he had scarcely noted) to his own
dwelling ; and yet, in her present situation, there was no alter-
native. She evinced no sign of life. He knew not her home,
nor parentage. Benedetta had vanished. He could not leave
her in the streets; he could not resign her to the care of anoth-
er ; and as she lay now upon his breast, he felt her already en-
deared to him by that sense of protection which is so grateful
to the human heart. He briefly, therefore, explained to those
now gathered round him his present situation, and the cause
of the past conflict ; and bade the torch-bearers precede him to
his home.

" You, Sir Knight," added he, turning to Montreal, "if not
already more pleasantly lodged, will, I trust, deign to be my
guest ? "

" Thanks, Signor," answered Montreal maliciously, " but I,
also, perhaps, have my own affairs to watch over. Adieu ! I
shall seek you at the earliest occasion. Fair night and gentle
dreams !

' Robers Bertrams qui estoit tors
Mais a ceval estoit mult fore
Cil avoit o lui grans effors
Multi ot 'homes per lui mors.' " *

* An ill-favored man, but a stout horseman, was Robert Bertram. Great deeds werf
his, and many a man died by his hand.

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 47

And, muttering this rugged chant from the old " Roman de
Ron," the Provenal, followed by Rodolf, pursued his way.

The vast extent of Rome, and the thinness of its population,
left many of the streets utterly deserted. The principal nobles
were thus enabled to possess themselves of a wide range of
buildings, which they fortified, partly against each other, partly
against the people ; their numerous relatives and clients lived
around them, forming, as it were, petty courts and cities in
themselves.

Almost opposite to the principal palace of the Colonna (oc-
cupied by his powerful kinsman, Stephen) was the mansion of
Adrian. Heavily swung back the massive gates at his approach ;
he ascended the broad staircase, and bore his charge into an
apartment which his tastes had decorated in a fashion not as
yet common in that age. Ancient statues and busts were
arranged around ; the pictured arras of Lombardy decorated
the walls, and covered the massive seats.

" What, ho ! Lights here, and wine ! " cried the Seneschal.

" Leave us alone," said Adrian, gazing passionately on the
pale cheek of Irene, as he now, by the clear light, beheld all
its beauty ; and a sweet yet burning hope crept into his heart

CHAPTER V.

THE DESCRIPTION OF A CONSPIRATOR, AND THE DAWN OP

THE CONSPIRACY.

ALONE by a table covered with various papers sat a man in
the prime of life. The chamber was low and long ; many
antique and disfigured bas-reliefs and torsos were placed around
the wall, interspersed, here and there, with the short sword and
close casque, time-worn relics of the prowess of ancient Rome.
Right above the table at which he sat the moonlight streamed
through a high and narrow casement, deep sunk in the massy
wall. In a niche to the right of this window, guarded by a
sliding door, which was now partially drawn aside, but which,
by its solid substance, and the sheet of iron with which it was
plated, testified how valuable, in the eyes of the owner, was the
treasure it protected, were ranged some thirty or forty volumes,
then deemed no inconsiderable library ; and being, for the
most part, the laborious copies in manuscript by the hand of
the owner from immortal originals.

Leaning his cheek on his hand, his brow somewhat knit, his

48 RIENZI,

lip slightly compressed, that personage indulged in meditations
far other than the indolent dreams of scholars. As the high
and still moonlight shone upon his countenance, it gave an ad-
ditional and solemn dignity to features which were naturally of
a grave and majestic cast. Thick and auburn hair, the color
of which, not common to the Romans, was ascribed to his
descent from the Teuton emperor, clustered in large curls
above a high and expansive forehead ; and even the present
thoughtful compression of the brow could not mar the aspect
of latent power, which it derived from that great breadth be-
tween the eyes, in which the Grecian sculptors of old so ad-
mirably conveyed the expression of authority, and the silent
energy of command. But his features were not cast in the
Grecian, still less in the Teuton, mould. The iron jaw, the
aquiline nose, the somewhat sunken cheek, strikingly recalled
the character of the hard Roman race, and might not inaptly
have suggested to a painter a model for the younger Brutus.

The marked outline of the face, and the short, firm upper
lip, were not concealed by the beard and mustachios usually
then worn ; and, in the faded portrait of the person now de-
scribed, still extant at Rome, may be traced a certain resem-
blance to the popular pictures of Napoleon ; not indeed in the
features, which are more stern and prominent in the portrait of
the Roman, but in that peculiar expression of concentrated and
tranquil power which so nearly realizes the ideal of intellectual
majesty. Though still young, the personal advantages most
peculiar to youth the bloom and glow, the rounded cheek in
which care has not yet ploughed its lines, the full, tmsunken
eye, and the slender delicacy of frame these were not the
characteristics of that solitary student. And, though consid-
ered by his contemporaries as eminently handsome, the judg-
ment was probably formed less from the more vulgar claims to
euch distinction, than from the height of the stature, an ad-
vantage at that time more esteemed than at present, and that
nobler order of beauty which cultivated genius and command-
ing character usually stamp upon even homely features ; the
jnore rare in an age so rugged.

The character of Rienzi (for the youth presented to the
reader in the first chapter of this history is now again before
him in maturer years) had acquired greater hardness and
energy with each stepping-stone to power. There was a circum-
stance attendant on his birth which had, probably, exercised
great and early influence on his ambition. Though his parents
were in humble circumstances, and of lowly calling, his father

THE LAST Of THE TRIBUNES. 49

was the natural son of the Emperor, Henry VII.;* and it was
the pride of the parents that probably gave to Rienzi the un-
wonted advantages of education. This pride transmitted to
himself his descent from royalty dinned into his ear, infused
into his thoughts, from his cradle made him, even in his
earliest youth, deem himself the equal of the Roman signors,
and half unconsciously aspire to be their superior. But as the
literature of Rome was unfolded to his eager eye and ambitious
heart, he became imbued with that pride of country which is
nobler than the pride of birth ; and, save when stung by allu-
sions to his origin, he unaffectedly valued himself more on
being a Roman plebeian than the descendant of a Teuton king.
His brother's death, and the vicissitudes he himself had al-
ready undergone, deepened the earnest and solemn qualities of
his character ; and, at length, all the faculties of a very uncom-
mon intellect were concentrated into one object, which borrowed
from a mind strongly and mystically religious, as well as
patriotic, a sacred aspect, and grew at once a duty and a
passion.

" Yes," said Rienzi, breaking suddenly from his revery, "yes,
the day is at hand when Rome shall rise again from her ashes ;
Justice shall dethrone Oppression ; men shall walk safe in their
ancient Forum. We will rouse from his forgotten tomb the in-
domitable soul of Cato ! There shall be a people once more in
Rome ! And I I shall be the instrument of that triumph,
the restorer of my race ! mine shall be the first voice to swell
the battle-cry of freedom ; mine the first hand to rear her
banner. Yes, from the height of my own soul as from a
mountain, I see already rising the liberties and the grandeur of
the New Rome ; and on the corner-stone of the mighty fabric
posterity shall read my name."

Uttering these lofty boasts, the whole person of the speaker
seemed instinct with his ambition. He strode the gloomy
chamber with light and rapid steps, as if on air ; his breast
heaved, his eyes glowed. He felt that love itself can scarcely
bestow a rapture equal to that which is felt, in his first virgin
enthusiasm, by a patriot who knows himself sincere !

There was a slight knock at the door, and a servitor, in the
,'ich liveries worn by the pope's officials,* presented himself.

* De Sade supposes that the mother of Rienzi was the daughter of an illegitimate son
of Henry VII., supporting his opinion from a MS. in the Vatican. But, according to the
contemporaneous biographer, Kienzi, in addressing Charles, king of Bohemia, claims the
relationship from his father " Di vostro legnaggio sono figlio di bastardo d' Enrico imper-
atore," etc. A more recent writer, il Padre Gabrini, cites an inscription in support of this
descent: "Nicolaus Tribunus .... I.aurentii Teutonici Filius," etc.

* Not the present hideous habiliments, which are said to have been the invention of
Michael Angelo.

50 RIENZt,

" Signer, said he, " my lord, the Bishop of Orvietto, is
without."

" Ha ! that is fortunate. Lights there ! My lord, this is an
honor which I can estimate better than express."

" Tut, tut ! my good friend," said the Bishop, entering, and
seating himself familiarly, " no ceremonies between the servants
of the Church ; and never, I ween well, had she greater need
of true friends than now. These unholy tumults, these licen-
tious contentions, in the very shrine and city of St. Peter, are
sufficient to scandalize all Christendom."

" And so will it be," said Rienzi, " until his Holiness himself
shall be graciously persuaded to fix his residence in the seat of
his predecessors, and curb with a strong arm the excesses of
the nobles."

"Alas, man!" said the Bishop, "thou knowest that these
words are but as wind ; for were the Pope to fulfil thy wishes,
and remove from Avignon to Rome, by the blood of St. Peter !
he would not curb the nobles, but the nobles would curb him.
Thou knowest well that until his blessed predecessor, of pious
memory, conceived the wise design of escaping to Avignon,
the Father of the Christian world was but like many other
fathers in their old age, controlled and guarded by his re-
bellious children. Recollectest thou not how the holy Boniface
himself, a man of great heart, and nerves of iron, was kept in
thraldom by the ancestors of the Orsini ; his entrances and
exits made but at their will, so that, like a caged eagle, he
beat himself against his bars and died ? Verily, thou talkest
of the memories of Rome ; these are not the memories that
are very attractive to popes."

"Well," said Rienzi, laughing gently, and drawing his seat
nearer to the Bishop's, " my lord has certainly the best of the
argument at present ; and I must own that strong, licentious,
and unhallowed as the order of nobility was then, it is yet
more so now."

" Even I," rejoined Raimond, coloring as he spoke, " tTiough
Vicar of the Pope, and representative of his spiritual authority,
was, but three days ago, subjected to a coarse affront from that
very Stephen Colonna who has ever received such favor and
tenderness from the Holy See. His servitors jostled mine in
the open streets, and I myself I, the delegate of the sire of
kings was forced to draw aside to the wall, and wait until the
hoary insolent swept by. Nor were blaspheming words wanting
to complete the insult. 'Pardon, Lord Bishop,' said he, as

THE LAST OK THE TRIBUNES. t

he passed me ; but this world, thou knowest, must necessarily
take precedence of the other.' "

" Dared he so high ? " said Rienzi, shading his face with his
hand, as a very peculiar smile scarcely itself joyous, though it
made others gay, and which completely changed the character
of his face, naturally grave even to sternness played round
his lips. " Then it is time for thee, holy father, as for us, to "

*' To what?" interrupted the Bishop quickly. "Can we
effect aught ! Dismiss thy enthusiastic dreamings ; descend to
the real earth ; look soberly round us. Against men so power-
ful, what can we do ? "

"My lord," answered Rienzi gravely, "it is the misfortune
of signers of your rank never to know the people, or the accu-
rate signs of the time. As those who pass over the heights of
mountains see the clouds sweep below, veiling the plains and
valleys from their gaze, while they, only a little above the level,
survey the movements and the homes of men ; even so from
your lofty eminence ye behold but the indistinct and sullen
vapors, while from my humbler station I see the preparations
of the shepherds to shelter themselves and herds from the
storm which those clouds betoken. Despair not, my lord ;
endurance goes but to a certain limit ; to that limit it is already
stretched ; Rome waits but the occasion (it will soon come, but
not suddenly) to rise simultaneously against her oppressors."

The great secret of eloquence is to be in earnest ; the great
secret of Rienzi's eloquence was in the mightiness of
his enthusiasm. He never spoke as one who doubted of
success. Perhaps, like most men who undertake high and
great actions, he himself was never thoroughly aware of the
obstacles in his way. He saw the end, bright and clear, and
overleaped, in the vision of his soul, the crosses and the length
of the path ; thus the deep convictions of his own mind
stamped themselves irresistibly upon others. He seemed less
to promise than to prophesy.

The Bishop of Orvietto, not over-wise, yet a man of cool
temperament and much worldly experience, was forcibly im-
pressed by the energy of his companion ; perhaps, indeed, the
more so, inasmuch as his own pride and his own passions were
also enlisted against the arrogance and license of the nobles.
He paused ere he replied to Rienzi.

" But is it," he asked at length, " only the plebeians who will
rise ? Thou knowest how they are caitiff and uncertain."

"My lord," answered Rienzi, "judge by one fact, how
strongly I am sarrounded by friends of no common class : thou

5 R1EN2I,

knowest how loudly I speak against the nobles ; I cite them by
their name ; I beard the Savelli, the Orsini, the Colonna, in
their very hearing. Thinkest thou they forgive me ? thinkest
thou that, were only the plebeians my safeguard and my
favorers, they would not seize me by open force ; that I had
not long ere this found a gag in their dungeons, or been
swallowed up in the eternal dumbness of the grave? Observe,"
continued he, as, reading the Vicar's countenance, he perceived
the impression he had made; "observe, that, throughout the
whole world, a great revolution has begun. The barbaric
darkness of centuries has been broken ; the KNOWLEDGE which
made men as demigods in the past time has been called from
her urn ; a Power subtler than brute force, and mightier than
armed men, is at work ; we have begun once more to do
homage to the Royalty of Mind. Yes, that same Power which,
a few years ago, crowned Petrarch in the Capitol, when it wit-
nessed, after the silence of twelve centuries, the glories of a
TRIUMPH ; which heaped upon a man of obscure birth, and
unknown in arms, the same honors given of old to emperors
and the vanquishers of kings ; which united in one act of
homage even the rival houses of Colonna and Orsini ; which
made the haughtiest patricians emulous to bear the train, to
touch but the purple robe, of the son of the Florentine ple-
beian ; which still draws the eyes of Europe to the lowly cot-
tage of Vaucluse ; which gives to the humbler student the
all-acknowledged license to admonish tyrants, and approach,
with haughty prayers, even the Father of the Church yes,
that same Power, which, working silently throughout Italy,
murmurs under the solid base of the Venetian oligarchy ;*
which, beyond the Alps, has wakened into visible and sudden
life in Spain, in Germany, in Flanders ; and which, even in
that barbarous isle, conquered by the Norman sword, ruled by
the bravest of living kings, f has roused a spirit Norman cannot
break kings to rule over must rule by yes, that same power
is everywhere abroad: it speaks, it conquers in the voice even of
him who is before you ; it unites in his cause all on whom one
glimmering of light has burst, all in whom one generous desire
can be kindled ! Know, Lord Vicar, that there is not a man in
Rome, save our oppressors themselves not a. man who has

* It was about eight years afterwards that the long-smothered hate of the Venetian
people to that wisest and most vigilant of all oligarchies, the Sparta of Italy, broke out in
the conspiracy under Marino Faliero.

t Edward III., in whose reign opinions far more popular than those of the' following
century began to work. The Civil Wars threw back the action into the blood. It was
indeed an age throughout the world which put forth abundant blossoms, but crude and
uiirioened fruit ; a singular leap, followed by as singular a pause.

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES 53

learned one syllable of our ancient tongue whose heart and
sword are not with me. The peaceful cultivators of letters
the proud nobles of the second order the rising race, wiser
than their slothful sires ; above all, my lord, the humbler
ministers of religion, priests and monks, whom luxury hath not
blinded, pomp hath not deafened, to the monstrous outrage to
Christianity daily and nightly perpetrated in the Christian
Capital ; these, all these, are linked with the merchant and
the artisan in one indissoluble bond, waiting but the signal to
fall or to conquer, to live freemen or to die martyrs, with
Rienzi and their country! "

"Sayest thou so in truth?" said the Bishop, startled, and
half rising. "Prove but thy words, and thou shalt not find the
ministers of God are less eager than their lay brethren for the
happiness of men."

"What I say," rejoined Rienzi, in a cooler tone, "that can I
show ; but I may only prove it to those who will be with us."

"Fear me not," answered Raimond ; "I know well the
secret mind of his Holiness, whose delegate and representative
I am ; and could he see but the legitimate and natural limit
set to the power of the patricians, who, in their arrogance,
have set at nought the authority of the Church itself, be sure
that he would smile on the hand that drew the line. Nay, so
certain of this am I, that if ye succeed, I, his responsible but
\in\vorthy vicar, will myself sanction the success. But beware
of crude attempts ; the Church must not be weakened by link-
iny itself to failure."

" Right, my lord," answered Rienzi ; "and in this, the policy
of religion is that of freedom. Judge of my prudence by my
long delay. He who can see all around him impatient him-
self not less so and yet suppress the signal, and bide the
hour, is not likely to lose his cause by rashness."

" More, then, of this anon," said the Bishop, resettling him-
self in his seat. " As ti y plans mature, fear not to communi-
cate with me. Believe hat Rome has no firmer friend than he
who, ordained to preseive order, finds himself impotent against
aggression. Meanwhile, to the object of my present visit,
which links itself, in some measure, perhaps, with the topics on
which we have conversed. Thou knowest that when his Holi-
ness intrusted thee with thy present office, he bade thee also
announce his beneficent intention of granting a general Jubilee
at Rome for the year 1350 ; a most admirable design for two
reasons, sufficiently apparent to thyself : first, that every
Christian soul that may undertake the pilgrimage to Rome on

54 RIENZI,

that occasion may thus obtain a general remission of sins ; and
secondly, because, to speak carnally, the concourse of pilgrims
so assembled, usually, by the donations and offerings their
piety suggests, very materially add to the revenues of the Holy
See : at this time, by the way, in no very flourishing condition.
This thou knowest, dear Rienzi."

Rienzi bowed his head in assent, and the prelate continued :

"Well, it is with the greatest grief that his Holiness per-
ceives that his pious intentions are likely to be frustrated ; for
so fierce and numerous are now the brigands in the public
approaches to Rome, that, verily, the boldest pilgrim may
tremble a little to undertake the journey ; and those who do
so venture will, probably, be composed of the poorest of the
Christian community, men who, bringing with them neither
gold, nor silver, nor precious offerings, will have little to fear
from the rapacity of the brigands. Hence arise two conse-
quences : on the one hand, the rich whom, Heaven knows,
and the Gospel has, indeed, expressly declared, have the most
need of a remission of sins will be deprived of this glorious
occasion for absolution ; and, on the other hand, the coffers of
the Church will be impiously defrauded of that wealth which
it would otherwise doubtless obtain from the zeal of her
children."

" Nothing can be more logically manifest, my lord," said
Rienzi.

The Vicar continued : " Now, in letters received five days
since from his Holiness, he bade me expose these fearful
consequences to Christianity to the various patricians who are
legitimately fiefs of the Church, and command their resolute
combination against the marauders of the road. With these
have I conferred, and vainly."

" For by the aid, and from the troops, of those very brigands,
these patricians have fortified their palaces against each
other," added Rienzi.

"Exactly for that reason," rejoined the Bishop. "Nay,
Stephen Colonna himself had the audacity to confess it.
Utterly unmoved by the loss to so many precious souls, and, I
may add, to the papal treasury, which ought to be little less
dear to right-discerning men, they refuse to advance a step
against the bandits. Now, then, hearken the second mandate
of his Holiness : ' Failing the nobles,' saith he, in his prophetic
sagacity, 'confer with Cola di Rienzi. He is a bold man, and
a pious, and, thou tellest me, of great weight with the people ;
and say to him, that if his wit can devise the method for

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 55

extirpating these sons of Belial, and rendering a safe passage
along the public ways, largely, indeed, will he merit at our
hands lasting will be the gratitude we shall owe to him ; and
whatever succor thou, and the servants of our See, can render
to him, let it not be stinted."

" Said his Holiness thus ! " exclaimed Rienzi. " I ask no more ;
the gratitude is mine that he hath thought thus of his servant,
and intrusted me with his charge ; at once I accept it at
once I pledge myself to success. Let us, my lord, let us,
then, clearly understand the limits ordained to my discretion.
To curb the brigands without the walls, I must have authority
over those within. If I undertake, at peril of my life, to clear
all the avenues of Rome of the robbers who now infest it, shall
I have full license for conduct bold, peremptory, and severe ? "

" Such conduct the very nature of the charge demands," re-
plied Raimond.

" Ay, even though it be exercised against the arch offenders
against the supporters of the brigands against the haughtiest
of the nobles themselves?"

The Bishop paused, and looked hard in the face of the
speaker. " I repeat," said he at length, sinking his voice, and
with a significant tone, "in these bold attempts, success is the
sole sanction. Succeed, and we will excuse thee all, even to
the"

" Death of a Colonna or an Orsini, should justice demand
it ; and provided it be according to the law, and only incurred
by a violation of the law ! " added Rienzi firmly.

The Bishop did not reply in words, but a slight motion of
his head was sufficient answer to Rienzi.

" My lord," said he, " from this time, then, all is well ; I date
the revolution the restoration of erder, of the state from
this hour, this very conference. Till now, knowing that jus-
tice must never wink upon great offenders, I had hesitated
through fear lest thou and his Holiness might deem it severity,
and blame him who replaces the law, because he smites the
violators of law. Now I judge thee more rightly. Your hand,
my lord."

The Bishop extended his hand ; Rienzi grasped it firmly,
and then raised it respectfully to his lips. Both felt that the
compact was sealed.

This conference, so long in recital, was short in reality ; but
its object was already finished, and the Bishop rose to depart.
The outer portal of the house was opened, the numerous ser-
vitors of the Bishop held on high their torches, and he had just

$6 R1EN2I,

turned from Rienzi. who had attended him to the gate, when
a female passed hastily through the prelate's train, and, start-
ing as she beheld Rienzi, flung herself at his feet.

" Oh, hasten, sir, hasten, for the love of God, hasten ! or
the young Signora is lost forever ! "

" The Signora ! Heaven and earth, Benedetta, of whom
do you speak ? Of my sister of Irene ? is she not within ? "

" Oh, sir the Orsini the Orsini ! "

" What of them ? Speak, woman ! "

Here, breathlessly, and with many a break, Benedetta, re-
counted to Rienzi, in whom the reader has already recognized
the brother of Irene, so far of the adventure with Martino di
Porto as she had witnessed : of the termination and result of the
contest she knew naught.

Rienzi listened in silence ; but the deadly paleness of his
countenance, and the writhing of the nether lip, testified the
emotions to which he gave no audible vent.

" You hear, my Lord Bishop ; you hear," said he, when Ben-
edetta had concluded ; and turning to the Bishop, whose de-
parture the narrative had delayed, "you hear to what outrage
the citizens of Rome are subjected. My hat and sword ! in-
stantly ! My lord, forgive my abruptness."

" Whither art thou bent, then ? " asked Raimond.

"Whither! whither! Ay, I forget, my lord, you have no
sister. Perhaps, too, you had no brother ? No, no ; one vic-
tim at least I will live to save. Whither, you ask me ? To the
palace of Martino di Porto."

" To an Orsini alone, and for justice ? "

" Alone, and for justice! No!" shouted Rienzi, in a loud
voice, as he seized his sword, now brought to him by one of
his servants, and rushed, from the house ; " but one man is
sufficient for revenge ! "

The Bishop paused for a moment's deliberation. " He must
not be lost," muttered he, " as he well may be, if exposed thus
solitary to the wolf's rage. What, ho ! " he cried aloud ; "ad-
vance the torches ! Quick, quick ! We ourself we, the Vicar
of the Pope will see to this. Calm yourselves, good people ;
your young Signora shall be restored. On ! to the palace of
Martino di Porto ! "

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 57

CHAPTER VI.

IHENE IN THE PALACE OF ADRIAN DI CASTELLO.

As the Cyprian gazed on the image in which he had em-
bodied a youth of dreams, what time the living hues flushed
slowly beneath the marble, so gazed the young and passionate
Adrian upon the form reclined before him, reawakening grad-
ually to life. And, if the beauty of that face were not of the
loftiest or the most dazzling order, if its soft and quiet char-
acter might be outshone by many, of loveliness less really per-
fect, yet never was there a countenance that, to some eyes,
would have seemed more charming, and never one in which
more eloquently was wrought that ineffable and virgin expres-
sion which Italian art seeks for its models ; in which modesty
is the outward, and tenderness the latent, expression ; the
bloom of youth, both of form and heart, ere the first frail and
delicate freshness of either is brushed away : and when even
love itself, the only unquiet visitant that should be known at
such an age, is but a sentiment, and not a passion !

"Benedetta !" murmured Irene, at length opening her eyes,
unconsciously, upon him who knelt beside her, eyes of that
uncertain, that most liquid hue, on which you might gaze for
years and never learn the secret of th color, so changed it
with the dilating pupil, darkening in the shade, and brightening
into azure in the light :

"Benedetta," said Irene, " where art thou ? Oh, Benedetta t
I have had such a dream."

"And I too such a vision ! " thought Adrian.

"Where am I?" cried Irene, rising from the couch. "This
room these hangings ! Holy Virgin"! do I dream still ! And
you ! Heavens ! it is the Lord Adrian di Castello ! "

"Is that a name thou hast been taught to fear?" said
Adrian ; "if so, I will forswear it."

If Irene now blushed deeply, it was not in that wild delight
with which her romantic heart might have foretold that she
would listen to the first words of homage from Adrian di Cas-
tello. Bewildered and confused, terrified at the strangeness of
the place, and shrinking even from the thought of finding her-
self alone with one who for years had been present to her
fancies, alarm and distress were the emotions she felt the most,
and which most were impressed upon her speaking countenance ;
and as Adrian now drew near to her, despite the gentleness of
his voice and the respect of his looks, her fears, not the Ic^s

58 RIENZI,

strong that they were vague, increased upon her : she retreated
to the further end of the room, looked wildly round her, and
then covering her face with her hands, burst into a paroxysm
of tears.

Moved himself by these tears, and divining her thoughts,
Adrian forgot for a moment all the more daring wishes he had
formed.

"Fear not, sweet lady," said he earnestly: "recollect thy-
self, I beseech thee : no peril, no evil, can reach thee here : it
was this hand that saved thee from the outrage of the Orsini ;
this roof is but the shelter of a friend ! Tell me, then, fair
wonder, thy name and residence, and I will summon my servi-
tors, and guard thee to thy home at once."

Perhaps the relief of tears, even more than Adrian's words,
restored Irene to herself, and enabled her to comprehend her
novel situation ; and as her senses, thus cleared, told her what
she owed to him whom her dreams had so long imagined as the
ideal of all excellence, she recovered her self-possession, and
uttered her thanks with a grace not the less winning, if it still
partook of embarrassment.

" Thank me not," answered Adrian passionately. " I have
touched thy hand I am repaid. Repaid ! nay, all gratitude,
all homage is for me to render !"

Blushing again, but with far different emotions than before,
Irene, after a momentary pause, replied, "Yet, my lord, I must
consider it a debt the more weighty that you speak of it so
lightly. And now, complete the obligation. I do not see my
companion ; suffer her to accompany me home ; it is but a
short way hence."

"Blessed, then, is the air that I have breathed so uncon-
sciously ! " said Adrian. " But thy companion, dear lady, is not
here. She fled, I imagine, in the confusion of the conflict ; and
not knowing thy name, nor being able, in thy then state, to
learn it from thy lips, it was my happy necessity to convey thee
hither ; but I will be thy companion. Nay, why that timid
glance ? My people, also, shall attend us."

"My thanks, noble lord, are of little worth ; my brother, who
is not unknown to thee, will thank thee more fittingly. May I
depart ? " and Irene, as she spoke, was already at the door.

"Art thou so eager to leave me? "answered Adrian sadly.
" Alas ! when thou hast departed from my eyes, it will seem as
if the moon had left the night ! But it is happiness to obey thy
wishes, even though they tear thee from me."

A, slight smile parted Irene's lips, and Adrian's heart beat

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 59

audibly to himself, as he drew from that smile, and those down-
cast eyes, no unfavorable omen.

Reluctantly and slowly he turned towards the door, and sum-
moned his attendants. "But," said he, as they stood on the
lofty staircase, " thou sayest, sweet lady, that thy brother's
name is not unknown to me. Heaven grant that he be, indeed,
a friend of the Colonna ! "

" His boast," answered Irene evasively ; " the boast of Cola
di Rienzi is, to be a friend to the friends of Rome."

" Holy Virgin of Ara Coeli ! is thy brother that extraordinary
man ? " exclaimed Adrian, as he foresaw, at the mention of that
name, a barrier to his sudden passion. " Alas ! in a Colonna,
in a noble, he will see no merit ; even though thy fortunate
deliverer, sweet maiden, sought to be his early friend ! "

" Thou wrongest him much, my lord," returned Irene
warmly ; " he is a man above all others to sympathize with thy
generous valor, even had it been exerted in defence of the hum-
blest woman in Rome, how much more, then, when in pro-
tection of his sister ! "

"The times are, indeed, diseased," answered Adrian thought-
fully, as they now found themselves in the open street, "when
men who alike mourn for the woes of their country are yet sus-
picious of each other ; when to be a patrician is to be regarded
as an enemy to the people ; when to be termed the friend of the
people is to be considered a foe to the patricians ; but come
what may, oh ! let me hope, dear lady, that no doubts, no divis-
ions, shall banish from thy breast one gentle memory of me ! "

" Ah ! little, little do you know me ! " began Irene, and
stopped suddenly short.

" Speak! speak again! Of what music has this envious silence
deprived my soul ! Thou wilt not, then, forget me ? And,"
continued Adrian, " we shall meet again ? It is to Rienzi's
house we are bound now ; to-morrow I shall visit my old com-
panion, to-morrow I shall see thee. Will it not be so ?"

In Irene's silence was her answer.

" And as thou hast told me thy brother's name, make it
sweet to my ear, and add to it thine own."

" They call me Irene."

" Irene, Irene ! Let me repeat it. It is a soft name, and
dwells upon the lips as if loath to leave them a fitting name
for one like thee."

Thus making his welcome court to Irene, in that flowered and
glowing language which, if more peculiar to that age and to
(he gallantry of the South, is also the language in which the

60 RIENZI,

poetry of youthful passion would, in all times and lands, utter
its rich extravagance, could heart speak to heart, Adrian con-
veyed homeward his beautiful charge, taking, however, the most
circuitous and lengthened route ; an artifice which Irene either
perceived not, or silently forgave. They were now within sight
of the street in which Rienzi dwelt, when a party of men, bear-
ing torches, came unexpectedly upon them. It was the train of
the Bishop of Orvietto, returning from the palace of Martino di
Porto, and in their way (accompanied by Rienzi) to that of
Adrian. They had learned at the former, without an interview
with the Orsini, from the retainers in the court below, the for-
tune of the conflict, and the name of Irene's champion ; and,
despite Adrian's general reputation for gallantry, Rienzi knew
enough of his character, and the nobleness of his temper, to
feel assured that Irene was safe in his protection. Alas ! in
that very safety to the person is often the most danger to
the heart. Woman never so dangerously loves, as when he
who loves her, for her sake, subdues himself.

Clasped to her brother's breast, Irene bade him thank her
deliverer : and Rienzi, with that fascinating frankness which
sits so well on those usually reserved, and which all who
would rule the hearts of their fellow-men must at times com-
mand, advanced to the young Colonna, and poured forth his
gratitude and praise.

" We have been severed too long, we must know each other
again," replied Adrian. " I shall seek thee, ere long, be
assured."

Turning to take his leave of Irene, he conveyed her hand to
his lips, and pressing it, as it dropped from his clasp, was he
deceived in thinking that those delicate fingers lightly, involun-
tarily, returned the pressure ?

CHAPTER VII.

UPON LOVE AND LOVERS.

IF in adopting the legendary love-tale of Romeo and Juliet,
Shakespeare had changed the scene in which it is cast for a
more northern clime, we may doubt whether the art of Shake-
speare himself could have reconciled us at once to the sudden-
ness and the strength of Juliet's passion. And, even as it is,
perhaps there are few of our rational and sober-minded isl-
anders who would not honestly confess, if fairly questioned,

THE LAST OP THE TRIBUNES. 6l

that they deem the romance and fervor of those ill-starred
lovers of Verona exaggerated and over-drawn. Yet, in Italy,
the picture of that affection born of a night, but "strong as
death," is one to which the veriest commonplaces of life would
afford parallels without number. As in different ages, so in
different climes, love varies wonderfully in the shapes it takes.
And even at this day, beneath Italian skies, many a simple girl
would feel as Juliet, and many a homely gallant would rival
the extravagance of Romeo. Long suits in that sunny land,
wherein, as whereof, I now write, are unknown. In no other
land, perhaps, is there found so commonly the love at first
sight, which in France is a jest, and in England a doubt ; in
no other land, too, is love, though so suddenly conceived, more
faithfully preserved. That which is ri"pened in fancy comes at
once to passion, yet is embalmed through all time by senti-
ment. And this must be my and their excuse, if the love of
Adrian seem too prematurely formed, and that of Irene too
romantically conceived ; it is the excuse which they take from
the air and sun, from the customs of their ancestors, from the
soft contagion of example. But while they yielded to the dic-
tates of their hearts, it was with a certain though secret sadness
a presentiment that had, perhaps, its charm, though it was
of cross and evil. Born of so proud a race, Adrian could
scarcely dream of marriage with the sister of a plebeian ; and
Irene, unconscious of the future glory of her brother, could
hardiy have cherished any hope, save that of being loved. Yet
these adverse circumstances, which, in the harder, the more
prudent, the more self-denying, perhaps the more virtuous
minds, that are formed beneath the northern skies, would have
been an inducement to wrestle against love so placed only
contributed to feed and to strengthen theirs by an opposition
which has ever its attraction for romance. They found fre-
quent, though short, opportunities of meeting, not quite alone,
but only in the conniving presence of Benedetta ; sometimes in
the public gardens, sometimes amidst the vast and deserted
ruins by which the house of Rienzi was surrounded. They
surrendered themselves, without much question of the future,
to the excitement the elysium of the hour; they lived but
from day to day ; their future was the next time they should
meet ; beyond that epoch, the very mists of their youthful love
closed in obscurity and shadow which they sought not to
penetrate : and as yet they had not arrived at that period of
affection when there was danger of their fall ; their love had
not passed the golden portal where Heaven ceases and Earth

6* RIEN21,

begins. Everything for them was the poetry, the vagiienness,
the refinement, not the power, the concentration, the mortality,
of desire ! The look, the whisper, the brief pressure of the
hand, at most, the first kisses of love, rare and few, these
marked the human limits of that sentiment which filled them
with a new life, which elevated them as with a new soul.

The roving tendencies of Adrian were at once fixed and
centered : the dreams of his tender mistress had awakened to a
life, dreaming still, but " rounded with a truth" All that
earnestness, and energy, and fervor of emotion, which, in her
brother, broke forth in the schemes of patriotism and the as-
pirations of power, were, in Irene, softened down into one object
of existence, one concentration of soul, and that was love.
Yet, in this range of thought and action, so apparently limited,
there was, in reality, no less boundless a sphere than in the
wide space of her brother's many-pathed ambition. Not the
less had she the power and scope for all the loftiest capacities
granted to our clay. Equal was her enthusiasm for her idol ;
equal, had she been equally tried, would have been her gener-
osity, her devotion ; greater, be sure, her courage ; more
inalienable her worship ; more unsullied by selfish purposes
and sordid views. Time, change, misfortune, ingratitude,
would have left her the same ! What state could fall, what
liberty decay, if the zeal of man's noisy patriotism were as pure
as the silent loyalty of a woman's love ?

In them everything was young! The heart unchilled, un-
blighted, that fullness and luxuriance of life's life which has
in it something of divine. At that age, when it seems as if we
could never die, how deathless, how flushed and mighty as
with the youngness of a god, is all that our hearts create ! Our
own youth is like that of the earth itself, when it peopled the
woods and waters with divinities : when life ran riot, and yet
only gave birth to beauty all its shapes, of poetry, all its airs,
the melodies of Arcady and Olympus ! The Golden Age never
leaves the world ; it exists still, and shall exist, till love, health,
poetry, are no more ; but only for the young !

If I now dwell, though but for a moment, on this interlude
in a drama calling forth more masculine passions than that of
love, it is because I foresee that the occasion will but rarely
recur. If I linger on the description of Irene and her hidden
affection, rather than wait for circumstances to portray them
better than the author's words can, it is because 1 foresee that
that loving and lovely image must continue to the last rather
a shadow than a portrait, thrown in the background, as is

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 63

the real destiny of such natures, by bolder figures and more
gorgeous colors ; a something whose presence is rather felt than
seen, and whose very harmony with the whole consists in its
retiring and subdued repose.

CHAPTER VIIL

THE ENTHUSIASTIC MAN JUDGED BY THE DISCREET MAN.

"THOU wrongest me," said Rienzi, warmly, to Adrian, as
they sat alone, towards the close of a long conference ; " I do
not play the part of a mere demagogue ; I wish not to stir
the great deeps in order that my lees of fortune may rise to the
surface. So long have I brooded over the past, that it seems
to me as if I had become a part of it as if I had no separate
existence. I have coined my whole soul into one master pas-
sion ; and its end is the restoration of Rome."

" But by what means ? "

" My lord ! my lord ! there is but one way to restore the
greatness of a people it is an appeal to the people themselves.
It is not in the power of princes and barons to make a state
permanently glorious ; they raise themselves, but they raise not
the people with them. All great regenerations are the univer-
sal movement of the mass."

" Nay," answered Adrian, " then have we read history differ-
ently. To me, all great regenerations seem to have been the
work of the few, and tacitly accepted by the multitude. But
let us not dispute after the manner of the schools. Thou sayest
loudly that a vast crisis is at hand ; that the Good Estate
(buono statd) shall be established. How ? where are your arms ?
your soldiers ? Are the nobles less strong than heretofore? is
the mob more bold, more constant \ H nven knows that I
speak not with the prejudices of my orae* I weep for the de-
basement of my country ! I am a Roman, and in that namel
forget that I am a noble. But I tremble at the storm you would
raise so hazardously If your insurrection succeed, it will be
violent : it will be purchased by blood by the blood of all the
loftiest names of Rome. You will aim at a second expulsion
of the Tarquins; but it will be more like a second proscrip-
tion of Sylla. Massacres and disorders never pave the way to
peace. If, on the other hand, you fail, the chains of Rome are
riveted for ever : an ineffectual struggle to escape is but an
excuse for additional tortures to the slave."

64 RIENZI,

" And what, then, would the Lord Adrian have us do ? " said
Rienzi, with that peculiar and sarcastic smile which has before
been noted. " Shall we wait till the Colonna and Orsini quar
rel no more ? shall we ask the Colonna for liberty, and the
Orsini for justice ? My lord, we cannot appeal to the nobles
against the nobles. We must not ask them to moderate their
power ; we must restore to ourselves that power. There may
be danger in the attempt, but we attempt it amongst the monu-
ments of the Forum : and if we fall, we shall perish worthy of
our sires ! Ye have high descent, and sounding titles, and
wide lands, and you talk of your ancestral honors ! We, too,
we plebeians of Rome, we have ours ! Our fathers were free-
men ! Where is our heritage? not sold, not given away : but
stolen from us, now by fraud, now by force ; filched from us
in our sleep; or wrung from us with fierce hands, amidst our
cries and struggles. My lord, we but ask that lawful heritage
to be restored to us : to us nay, to you it is the same ; your
liberty, alike, is gone. Can you dwell in your father's house,
without towers, and fortresses, and the bought swords of
bravos ? can you walk in the streets at dark without arms and
followers ? True, you, a noble, may retaliate ; though we dare
not. You, in your turn, may terrify and outrage others ; but
does license compensate for liberty ? They have given you
pomp and power, but the safety of equal laws were a better
gift. Oh, were I you were I Stephen Colonna himself I
should pant, ay, thirstily as I do now, for that free air which
comes not through bars and bulwarks against my fellow-citi-
zens, but in the open space of Heaven ; safe, because protected
by the silent Providence of Law, and not by the lean fears and
hollow-eyed suspicions which are the comrades of a hated
power. The tyrant thinks he is free, because he commands
slaves : the meanest peasant in a free state is more free than he
is. Oh, my lord, that you the brave, the generous, the en-
lightened you, almost alone amidst your order, in the knowl-
edge that we had a country oh, would that you, who can
sympathize with our sufferings, would strike with us for their
redress"! "

" Thou wilt war against Stephen Colonna, my kinsman ; and
though I have seen him but little, nor, truth to say, esteem him
much, yet he is the boast of our house ; how can I join thee ? "

" His life will be safe, his possessions safe, his rank safe.
What do we war against ? His power to do wrong to others."

" Should he discover that thou hast force beyond words, he
would be less merciful to thee,"

THE LAST OP THE TRIBUNES. 0$

" And has he not discovered that ? Do not the shouts of the
people tell him that I am a man whom he should f ear ? Docs
he the cautious, the wily, the profound does he build for-
tresses, and erect towers, and not see from his battlements the
mighty fabric that I, too, have erected ?"

"You ! where, Rienzi?"

"In the hearts of Rome! Does he not Se?" continued
Rienzi. "No, no; he all, all his tribe are blind. Is it
not so ?"

"Of a certainty, my kinsman has no belief in your power,
else he would have crushed you long ere this. Nay, it was but
three days ago that he said, gravely, he would rather you ad-
dressed the populace than the best priest in Christendom ; for
that other orators inflamed the crowd, and no man so stilled
and dispersed them as you did."

"And I called him profound ! Does not Heaven hush the
air most when most it prepares the storm ? Ay, my lord, I
understand. Stephen Colonna despises me. 1 have been "
(here, as he continued, a deep blush mantled over his cheek)
"you remember it at his palace in my younger days, and
pleased him with witty tales and light apophthegms. Nay, ha !
ha ! he would call me, I think, sometimes, in gay compliment,
his jester, his buffoon ! I have brooked his insult ; I have even
bowed to his applause. I would undergo the same penance,
stoop to the same shame, for the same motive, and in the same
cause. What did I desire to effect ? Can you tell me ? No !
I will whisper it, then, to you : it was the contempt of Stephen
Colonna. Under that contempt I was protected, till protection
became no longer necessary. I desired not to be thought for-
midable by the patricians, in order that, quietly and unsus-
pected, I might make my way amongst the people. I have
done so ; I now throw aside the mask. Face to face with
Stephen Colonna, I could tell him, this very hour, that I brave
his anger ; that I laugh at his dungeons and armed men. But
if he think me the same Rienzi as of old, let him ; I can wait
my hour."

" Yet," said Adrian, waiving an answer to the haughty lan-
guage of his companion, " tell me, what dost thou ask for the
people, in order to avoid an appeal to their passions? Ignorant
and capricious as they are, thou canst not appeal to their
reason."

" I ask full justice and safety for all men. I will be contented
with no less a compromise. I ask the nobles to dismantle their
fortresses : to disband their armed retainers : to acknowledge

66 R1EN21,

no impunity for crime in high lineage ; to claim no protection
save in the courts of the common law."

" Vain desire ! " said Adrian. " Ask what may yet be
granted."

" Ha ! ha ! " replied Rienzi, laughing bitterly, " did I not tell
you it was a vain dream to ask for law and justice at the hands
of the great? Gan you blame me, then, that I ask it else-
where?" Then, suddenly changing his tone and manner, he
added with great solemnity, " Waking life hath false and vain
dreams ; but sleep is sometimes a mighty prophet. By sleep
it is that Heaven mysteriously communes with its creatures,
and guides and sustains its earthly agents in the path to which
its providence leads them on."

Adrian made no reply. This was not the first time he had
noted that Rienzi's strong intellect was conjoined with a deep
and mystical superstition. And this yet more inclined the
young noble, who, though sufficiently devout, yielded but little
to the wilder credulities of the time, to doubt the success of
the schemer's projects. In this he erred greatly, though his
error was that of the worldly wise. For nothing ever so inspires
human daring as the fond belief that it is the agent of a Di-
viner Wisdom. Revenge and patriotism, united in one man of
genius and ambition such are the Archimedian levers, that
find, in FANATICISM, the spot out of the world by which to
move the world. The prudent man may direct a state ; but it
is the enthusiast who regenerates it, or ruins.

CHAPTER IX.
"WHEN THE PEOPLE SAW THIS PICTURE, EVERY ONE MAR*

YELLED."

BEFORE the market-place, and at the foot of v the Capitol, an
immense crowd was assembled. Each man sought to push
before his neighbor ; each struggled to gain access to one par-
ticular spot, round which the crowd was wedged thick and
dense.

" Corpo di Dio ! " said a man of huge stature, pressing on-
ward, like some bulky ship, casting the noisy waves right and
left from its prow, " this is hot work ; but for what, in the holy
Mother's name, do ye crowd so ? See you not, Sir Ribald, that
my right arm is disabled, swathed, and bandaged, so that I can-

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 67

not help myself better than a baby ! and yet you push against
me as if I were an old wall ! "

"Ah, Cecco del Vecchio ! What, man ! we must make way
for you ; you are too small and tender to bustle through a
crowd ! Come, I will protect you ! " said a dwarf of some
four feet high, glancing up at the giant.

" Faith," said the grim smith, looking round on the mob,
who laughed loud at the dwarf's proffer, " we all do want pro-
tection, big and small. What do you laugh for, ye apes ? Ay,
you don't understand parables."

" And yet it is a parable we are come to gaze upon," said
one of the mob, with a slight sneer.

" Pleasant day to you, Signor Baroncelli," answered Cecco
del Vecchio ; you are a good man, and love the people ; it
make's one's heart smile to see you. What's all this pother
for?"

" Why, the Pope's Notary hath set up a great picture in the
market-place, and the gapers say it relates to Rome ; so they
are melting their brains out, this hot day, to guess at the
riddle."

" Ho ! ho ! " said the smith, pushing on so vigorously that
he left the speaker suddenly in the rear ; " if Cola di Rienzi
hath aught in the matter, I would break through stone rocks
to get to it."

" Much good will a dead daub do us," said Baroncelli sourly,
and turning to his neighbors ; but no man listened to him, and
he, a would-be demagogue, gnawed his lip in envy.

Amidst half-awed groans and curses from the men whom he
jostled aside, and open objurgations and shrill cries from the
women, to whose robes and head-gear he showed as little re-
spect, the sturdy smith won his way to a space fenced round
by chains, in the centre of which was placed a huge picture.

" How came it hither?" cried one ; " I was first at the mar-
ket."

"We found it here at daybreak," said a vender of fruit:
u no one was by."

" But why do you fancy Rienzi had a hand in it?"

"Why, who else could ?" answered twenty voices.

" True ! Who else ! " echoed the gaunt smith. " I dare
be sworn the good man spent the whole night in painting it
himself. Blood of St. Peter ! but it is mighty fine ! What is
it about ! "

"That's the riddle," said a meditative fish-woman; "if I
could make it out. I should die happy."

68 ftlENZI,

"It is something about liberty and taxes, no doubt," said
Luigi, the butcher, leaning over the chains. "Ah, if Rienzi
were minded, every poor man would have his bit of meat in
his pot."

" And as much bread as he could eat," added a pale baker.

"Chut! bread and meat; everybody has that now! But
what wine the poor folks drink ! One has no encouragement
to take pains with one's vineyard," said a vine-dresser.

" Ho, hollo ! Long life to Pandulfo di Guido ! make way
for master Pandulfo ; he is a learned man ; he is a friend of the
great Notary's ; he will tell us all about the picture ; make
way, there, make way."

Slowly and modestly, Pandulfo di Guido, a quiet, wealthy
and honest man of letters, whom naught save the violence of
the times could have roused from his tranquil home, or his
studious closet, passed to the chains. He looked long and
hard at the picture, which was bright with new and yet moist
colors, and exhibited somewhat of the reviving art, which,
though hard and harsh in its features, was about that time
visible, and, carried to a far higher degree, we yet gaze upon in
the paintings of Perugino, who flourished during the succeed-
ing generation. The people pressed around the learned man,
with open mouths ; now turning their eyes to the picture, now
to Pandulfo.

" Know you not," at length said Pandulfo, "the easy and
palpable meaning of this design? Behold how the painter has-
presented to you a vast and stormy sea; mark how its
waves "

" Speak louder ! louder ! " shouted the impatient crowd.

*' Hush ! " cried those in the immediate vicinity of Pandulfo,
"the worthy signor is perfectly audible ! "

Meanwhile, some of the more witty, pushing towards a stall
in the market-place, bore from it a rough table, from which they
besought Pandulfo to address the people. The pale citizen,
with some pain and shame, for he was no practiced spokesman,
was obliged to assent ; but when he cast his eyes over the vast
and breathless crowd, his own deep sympathy with their cause
inspired and emboldened him. A light broke from his eyes,
his voice swelled into power ; and his head, usually buried in
his breast, became erect and commanding in its air.

" You see before you in the picture" (he began again) "a
mighty and tempestuous sea : upon its waves you behold five
ships ; four of them are already wrecks, their masts are
broken, the waves are dashing through the rent planks, they

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 69

are past all aid and hope : on each of these ships lies the corpse
of a woman. See you not, in the wan face and livid limbs,
how faithfully the limner hath painted the hues and loathsome-
ness of death ? Below each of these ships is a word that ap-
ples the metaphor to truth. Yonder, you see the name of
Carthage ; the other three are Troy, Jerusalem, and Babylon.
To these four is one common inscription: 'To exhaustion
were we brought by injustice ! ' Turn now your eyes to the
middle of the sea ; there you behold the fifth ship, tossed
amidst the waves, her mast broken, her rudder gone, her sails
shivered, but not yet a wreck like the rest, though she soon may
be. On her deck kneels a female, clothed in mourning ; mark
the woe upon her countenance, how cunningly the artist has
conveyed its depth and desolation ; she stretches out her arms
in prayer, she implores your and Heaven's assistance. Mark
now the superscription: 'This is Rome!" Yes, it is your
country that addresses you in this emblem ! "

The crowd waved to and fro, and a deep murmur crept
gathering over the silence which they had hitherto kept.

" Now," continued Pandulfo, "turn your gaze to the right of
the picture, and you will behold the cause of the tempest ; you
will see why the fifth vessel is thus perilled, and her sisters are
thus wrecked. Mark, four different kinds of animals, who,
from their horrid jaws, send forth the winds and storms which
torture and rack the sea. The first are the lions, the wolves,
the bears. These, the inscription tells you, are the lawless and
savage signers of the state. The next are the dogs and swine ;
these are the evil counsellors and parasites. Thirdly, you be-
hold the dragons and the foxes ; and these are false judges and
notaries, and they who sell justice. Fourthly, in the hares, the
goats, the apes, that assist in creating the storm, you perceive,
by the inscription, the emblems of the popular thieves and hom-
icides, ravishers, and spoliators. Are ye bewildered still, O
Romans ! or have ye mastered the riddle of the picture ?"

Far in their massive palaces the Savelli and Orsini heard the
echo of the shouts that answered the question of Pandulfo.

"Are ye, then, without hope !" resumed the scholar, as the
shout ceased, and hushing, with the first sound of his voice,
the ejaculations and speeches which each man had turned to
utter to his neighbor. " Are ye without hope ? Doth the pic-
ture, which shows your tribulation, promise you no redemp-
tion ? Behold, above that angry sea, the heavens open, and the
majesty of God descends gloriously, as to judgment : and, from
the rays that surround the spirit of God extend two flaming

70 RIENZI,

swords, and on those swords stand, in wrath, but in deliverance,
the two patron saints the two mighty guardians of your city !
People of Rome, farewell ! the parable is finished."*

CHAPTER X.

A ROUGH SPIRIT RAISED, WHICH MAY HEREAFTER REND THE

WIZARD.

WHILE thus animated was the scene around the Capitol,
within one of the apartments of the palace sat the agent and
prime cause of that excitement. In the company of his quiet
scribes, Rienzi appeared absorbed in the patient details of his
avocation. While the murmur and the hum, the shout and the
tramp, of multitudes rolled to his chamber, he seemed not to
heed them, nor to rouse himself a moment from his task. With
the unbroken regularity of an automaton he continued to enter
in his large book, and with the clear and beautiful characters
of the period, those damning figures which taught him, better
than declamations, the frauds practiced on the people, and
armed him with that weapon of plain fact which it is so difficult
for abuse to parry.

" Page 2, Vol. B.," said he, in the tranquil voice of business,
to the clerks ; "see there, the profits of the salt duty ; depart-
ment No. 3 very well. Page 9, Vol. D.; what is the account
rendered by Vescobaldi, the collector ? What ! twelve thou-
sand florins ? no more ! Unconscionable rascal !" (Here was
a loud shout without of ' Pandulfo ! long live Pandulfo ! ') " Pas-
trucci, my friend, your head wanders ; you are listening to the
noise without ; please to amuse yourself with the calculation I
entrusted to you. Santi, what is the entry given in by Antonio
Tralli?"

A slight tap was heard at the door, and Pandulfo entered.

The clerks continued their labor, though they looked up
hastily at the pale and respectable visitor, whose name, to their
great astonishment, had thus become a popular cry.

"Ah, my friend," said Rienzi, calmly enough in voice, but
his hands trembled with ill-suppressed emotion, " you would
speak with me alone, eh ? well, well, this way." Thus saying,

* M. Sismondi attributes to Rienzi a fine oration at the showing of the picture, in which
be thundered against the vices of the patricians. The contemporary biographer of Rienzi
ays nothing of this harangue. But, apparently (since history has its liberties as well as
fiction), M. Sismondi has thought it convenient to confound two occasions very distinct ia
themselves.

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 71

Hie led the citizen into a small cabinet in the rear of the room
of office, carefully shut the door, and then giving himself up to
the natural impatience of his character, seized Pandulfo by the
hand : "Speak ! " cried he ; "do they take the interpretation ?
have you made it plain and palpable enough ? has it sunk deep
into their souls?"

"Oh, by St. Peter! yes! " returned the citizen, whose spirits
were elevated by his recent discovery that he, too, was an
orator a luxurious pleasure for a timid man. " They swal-
lowed every word of the interpretation ; they are moved to the
marrow ;* you might lead them this very hour to battle, and find
them heroes. As for the sturdy smith "

" What ! Cecco del Vecchio ?" interrupted Rienzi ; " ah, his
heart is wrought in bronze ! What did he ?"

" Why, he caught me by the hem of my robe as I descended
my rostrum (oh ! would you could have seen me ! per fede I
had caught your mantle ! I was a secondjw* /), and said, weep-
ing like a child, ' Ah, Signer, I am but a poor man, and of
little worth ; but if every drop of blood in this body were a life,
I would give it for my country ! "

"Brave soul," said Rienzi, with emotion ; " would Rome had
but fifty such ! No man hath done us more good among his
own class than Cecco del Vecchio."

" They feel a protection in his very size," said Pandulfo.
" It is something to hear such big words from such a big
fellow."

" Were there any voices lifted in disapprobation of the pic-
ture and its sentiment ? "

"None."

" The time is nearly ripe, then ; a few suns more, and the
fruit must be gathered. The Aventine, the Lateran, and
then the solitary trumpet /" Thus saying, Rienzi, with folded
arms and downcast eyes, seemed sunk into a reverie.

"By the way," said Pandulfo, "I had almost forgot to tell
thee that the crowd would have poured themselves hither, so
impatient were they to see thee ; but I bade Cecco del Vecchio
mount the rostrum, and tell them, in his blunt way, that it
would be unseemly at the present time, when thou wert en-
gaged in the Capitol on civil and holy affairs, to rush in so
great a body into thy presence. Did I not right ?"

"Most right, my Pandulfo."

" But Cecco del Vecchio says he must come and kiss thy
hand : and thou mayst expect him here the moment he can
escape unobserved from the crowd."

" He is welcome ! " said Rienzi, half mechanically, for he
was still absorbed in thought.

"And, lo! here he is," as one of the scribes announced
the visit of the smith.

"Let him be admitted !" said Rienzi, seating himself com-
posedly.

When the huge smith found himself in the presence of
Rienzi, it amused Pandulfo to perceive the wonderful influ-
ence of mind over matter. That fierce and sturdy giant,
who, in all popular commotions, towered above his tribe, with
thews of stone, and nerves of iron, the rallying-point and
bulwark of the rest, stood now coloring and trembling before
the intellect, which (so had the eloquent spirit of Rienzi waked
and fanned the spark which, till then, had lain dormant in that
rough bosom) might almost be said to have created his own.
And he, indeed, who first arouses in the bondsman the sense
and soul of freedom, comes as near as is permitted to man,
nearer than the philosopher, nearer even than the poet, to the
great creative attribute of God ! But, if the breast be unedu-
cated, the gift may curse the giver ; and he who passes at once
from the slave to the freeman may pass as rapidly from the
freeman to the ruffian.

" Approach, my friend," said Rienzi, after a moment's pause ;
"I know all that thou hast done, and wouldst do, for Rome !
Thou art worthy of her best days, and thou art born to share
in their return."

The smith dropped at the feet of Rienzi, who held out his
hand to raise him, which Cecco del Vecchio seized, and rev-
erently kissed.

"This kiss does not betray," said Rienzi, smiling; "but
rise, my friend, this posture is only due to God and his saints !"

"He is a saint who helps us at need!" said the smith
bluntly, "and that no man has done as thou hast. But when,"
he added, sinking his voice and fixing his eyes hard on Rienzi,
as one may do who waits a signal to strike a blow, "when
when shall we make the great effort?"

"Thou hast spoken to all the brave men in thy neighbor-
hood ; are they well prepared?"

"To live or die, as Rienzi bids them !"

"I must have the list the number names houses and
callings, this night."

"Thou shall."

"Each man must sign his name or mark with his own hand."

"It shall be done."

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 73

"Then, harkye ! attend Pandulfo di Guido at his house this
evening, at sunset. He shall instruct thee where to meet this
night some brave hearts ; thou art worthy to be ranked amongst
them. Thou wilt not fail ! "

" By the holy Stairs ! I will count every minute till then,"
said the smith, his swarthy face lighted with pride at the
confidence shown him.

" Meanwhile, watch all your neighbors ; let no man flag or
grow faint-hearted ; none of thy friends must be branded as a
traitor."

" I will cut his throat, were he my own mother's son, if I
find one pledged man flinch ! " said the fierce smith.

" Ha, ha ! " rejoined Rienzi, with that strange laugh which
belonged to him ; "a miracle ! a miracle ! The Picture speaks
now ! "

It was already nearly dusk when Rienzi left the Capitol.
The broad space before its walls was empty and deserted, and
wrapping his mantle closely round him, he walked musingly on.

"I have almost climbed the height," thought he, "and now
the precipice yawns before me. If I fail, what a fall ! The
last hope of my country falls with me. Never will a noble
rise against nobles. Never will another plebeian have the op-
portunities and the power that I have ! Rome is bound up
with me with a single life. The liberties of all time are fixed
to a reed that a wind may uproot. But oh, Providence ! hast
thou not reserved and marked me for great deeds ? How,
step by step, have I been led on to this solemn enterprise !
How has each hour prepared its successor ! And yet what
danger ! if the inconstant people, made cowardly by long
thraldom, do but waver in the crisis, I am swept away !"

As he spoke, he raised his eyes, and lo, before him, the first
star of twilight shone calmly down upon the crumbling rem-
nants of the Tarpeian Rock. It was no favoring omen, and
Rienzi's heart beat quicker as that dark and ruined mass
frowned thus suddenly on his gaze.

" Dread monument," thought he, "of what dark catastrophes,
to what unknown schemes, hast thou been the witness ! To
how many enterprises, on which history is dumb, hast thou set
the seal ! How know we whether they were criminal or just?
How know we whether he, thus doomed as a traitor, would
not, if successful, be immortalized as a deliverer ? If I fall,
who will write my chronicle ? One of the people ? alas !
blinded and ignorant, they furnish forth no minds that can
appeal to posterity. One pf the patricians ? jn w'nat cg}or

74 RIENZI,

then shall I be painted ! No tomb will rise for me amidst the
wrecks ; no hand scatter flowers upon my grave ! "

Thus meditating on the verge of that mighty enterprise to
which he had devoted himself, Rienzi pursued his way. He
gained the Tiber, and paused for a few moments beside its
legendary stream, over which the purple and star-lit heaven
shone deeply down. He crossed the bridge which leads to
the quarter of the Trastevere, whose haughty inhabitants yet
boast themselves the sole true descendants of the ancient
Romans. Here his step grew quicker and more light ; brighter,
if less solemn, thoughts crowded upon his breast ; and ambi-
tion, lulled for a moment, left his strained and over-labored
mind to the reign of a softer passion.

CHAPTER XI.

NIKA DI RASELLI.

"'I TELL you, Lucia, I do not love those stuffs ; they do not
become me. Saw you ever so poor a dye ? this purple, in-
deed ! that crimson ! Why did you let the man leave them ?
Let him take them elsewhere to-morrow. They may suit the
signoras on the other side the Tiber, who imagine everything
Venetian must be perfect ; but I, Lucia, / see with my own
eyes, and judge from my own mind."

" Ah, dear lady," said the serving-maid, " if you were, as you
doubtless will be, some time or other, a grand signora, how
worthily you would wear the honors ! Santa Cecilia ! no other
dame in Rome would be looked at while the Lady Nina were
by !"

" Would we not teach them what pomp was ? " answered
Nina. " Oh, what festivals would we hold ! Saw you not
from the gallery the revels given last week by the Lady Giulia
Savelli?"

" Ay, signora ; and when you walked up the hall in your sil-
ver and pearl tissue, there ran such a murmur through *he
gallery ; every one cried, ' The Savelli have entertained in
angel ! "

" Pish ! Lucia ; no flattery, girl."

" It is naked truth, lady. But that was a revel, was it not ?
There was grandeur ! fifty servitors in scarlet and gold ! Mid
the music playing all the while, The minstrels were sent oj

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 75

from- Bergamo. Did not that festival please you ? Ah, I war-
rant many were the fine speeches made to you that day ! "

" Heigho ! no, there was one voice wanting, and all the
music was marred. But, girl, were / the Lady Giulia, I would
not have been contented with so poor a revel."

" How, poor ! Why all the nobles say it outdid the proud-
est marriage-feast of the Colonna. Nay, a Neapolitan who sat
next me, and who had served under the young Queen Joanna,
at her marriage, says that even Naples was outshone."

" That may be. I know naught of Naples ; but I know what
my court should have been, were I what what I am not, and
may never be ! The banquet vessels should have been of gold ;
the cups jewelled to the brim ; not an inch of the rude pave-
ment should have been visible ; all should have glowed with
cloth of gold. The fountain in the court should have showered
up the perfumes of the East ; my pages should not have been
rough youths, blushing at their own uncouthness, but fair boys,
who had not told their twelfth year, culled from the daintiest
palaces of Rome ; and, as for the music, oh, Lucia ! each
musician should have worn a chaplet, and deserved it ; and he
who played best should have had a reward to inspire all the
rest a rose from me. Saw you, too, the Lady Giulia's robe ?
What colors ! they might have put out the sun at noonday J
yellow, and blue, and orange, and scarlet ! Oh, sweet Saints J
but my eyes ached all the next day ! "

" Doubtless, the Lady Giulia lacks your skill in the mixture
of colors," said the complaisant waiting-woman.

" And then, too, what a mien ! no royalty in it ! She moved
along the hall, so that her train well-nigh tripped her every
moment ; and then she said, with a foolish laugh, ' These holy
day robes are but troublesome luxuries.' Troth, for the great
there should be no holyday robes ; 'tis for myself, not for
others, that I would attire ! Every day should have its new
robe, more gorgeous than the last every day should be a
holyday ! "

" Methought," said Lucia, " that the Lord Giovanni Orsini
seemed very devoted to my lady."

" He ! the bear ! "

" Bear, he may be ! but he has a costly skin. His riches
are untold."

" And the fool knows not how to spend them."

"Was not that the young Lord Adrian who spoke to you just
by the column s, where the music played ? "

"It might be, J forget."

76 RIENZI,

" Yet, I hear that few ladies forget when Lord Adrian di
Castello woos them."

" There was but one man whose company seemed to me
worth the recollection," answered Nina, unheeding the insinu-
ation of the artful handmaid.

" And who was he ? " asked Lucia.

" The old scholar from Avignon ! "

" What ! he with the gray beard ? Oh, Signora ! "

" Yes," said Nina, with a grave and sad voice ; " when he
spoke, the scene vanished from my eyes, for he spoke to me of
HIM ! "

As she said this, the Signora sighed deeply, and the tears
gathered to her eyes.

The waiting-woman raised her lips in disdain, and her looks
in wonder ; but she did not dare to venture a reply.

" Open the lattice," said Nina, after a pause, " and give me
yon paper. Not that, girl, but the verses sent me yesterday.
What ! art thou Italian, and dost thou not know, by instinct,
that I spoke of the rhyme of Petrarch ? "

Seated by the open casement, through which the moonlight
stole soft and sheen, with one lamp beside her, from which she
seemed to shade her eyes, though in reality she sought to hide
her countenance from Lucia, the young Signora appeared ab-
sorbed in one of those tender sonnets which then turned the
brains and inflamed the hearts of Italy.*

Born of an impoverished house, which, though boasting its
descent from a consular race of Rome, scarcely at that day
maintained a rank amongst the inferior order of nobility, Nina
di Raselli was the spoiled child the idol and the tyrant of
her parents. The energetic and self-willed character of her
mind made her rule where she should have obeyed ; and as in
all ages dispositions can conquer custom, she had, though in a
clime and land where the young and unmarried of her sex are
usually chained and fettered, assumed, and by assuming won,
the prerogative of independence. She possessed, it is true,
more learning and more genius than generally fell to the share
of women in that day ; and enough of both to be deemed a
miracle by her parents ; she had, also, what they valued more,
a surpassing beauty ; and, what they feared more, an indomi-
table haughtiness a haughtiness mixed with a thousand soft

* Although it is true that the love sonnets of Petrarch were not then, as now, the most
esteemed of his works, yet it has been a great, though a common error, to represent them
as little known and coldly admired. Their effect was, in reality, prodigious and universal.
Every ballad-singer sung them in the streets, and (says Filippo Villani), " Gravissimj
abstjnere "-" Even the gravest could not abstain from Uen}."

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 77

and endearing qualities where she loved ; and which, indeed,
where she loved, seemed to vanish. At once vain yet high-
minded, resolute yet impassioned, there was a gorgeous mag-
nificence in her very vanity and splendor, an ideality in her
waywardness : her defects made a part of her brilliancy ;
without them she would have seemed less woman ; and, know-
ing her, you would have compared all women by her standard.
Softer qualities beside her seemed not more charming, but
more insipid. She had no vulgar ambition, for she had ob-
stinately refused many alliances which the daughter of Raselli
could scarcely have hoped to form. The untutored minds and
savage power of the Roman nobles seemed to her imagination,
which was full of \\\Q poetry of rank, its luxury, and its graces,
as something barbarous and revolting, at once to be dreaded
and despised. She had, therefore, passed her twentieth year
unmarried, but not without love. The faults, themselves, of
her character, elevated that ideal of love which she had formed.
She required some being round whom all her vainer qualities
could rally ; she felt that where she loved she must adore ; she
demanded no common idol before which to humble so strong
and imperious a mind. Unlike women of a gentler mould, who
desire, for a short period, to exercise the caprices of sweet em-
pire, when she loved she must cease to command ; and pride,
at once, be humbled to devotion. So rare were the qualities
that could attract her ; so imperiously did her haughtiness re-
quire that those qualities should be above her own, yet of the
same order ; that her love elevated its object like a god.
Accustomed to despise, she felt all the luxury it is to venerate
And if it were her lot to be united with one thus loved, hei
nature was that which might become elevated by the nature
that it gazed on. For her beauty Reader, shouldst thou ever
go to Rome, thou wilt see in the Capitol the picture of the
Cumsean Sibyl, which, often copied, no copy can even faintly
represent. I beseech thee, mistake not this sibyl for another,
for the Roman galleries abound in sibyls.* The sibyl I speak
of is dark, and the face has an Eastern cast : the robe and
turban, gorgeous though they be, grow dim before the rich, but
transparent, roses of the cheek ; the hair would be black, save
for that golden glow which mellows it to a hue and lustre never
seen but in the South, and even in the South most rare ; the
features, not Grecian, are yet faultless ; the mouth, the brow,

* The sibyl referred to is the well-known one by Domenichino. As a mere work of
art, that by Guercino, called the Persian sibyl, in the same collection, is perhaps superior ;
but in beauty, in character, ihere is no comparison.

78 RtENZI,

the ripe and exquisite contour, all are human and voluptuous ;
the expression, the aspect, is something more ; the form is,
perhaps, too full for the perfection of loveliness, for the pro-
portions of sculpture, for the delicacy of Athenian models ; but
the luxuriant fault has a majesty. Gaze long upon that picture ;
it charms, yet commands the eye. While you gaze, you call
back five centuries. You see before you the breathing image
of Nina di Raselli !

But it was not those ingenious and elaborate conceits in
which Petrarch, great poet though he be, has so often mistaken
pedantry for passion, that absorbed at that moment the atten-
tion of the beautiful Nina. Her eyes rested not on the page,
but on the garden that stretched below the casement. Over
the old fruit-trees and hanging vines fell the moonshine : and
in the centre of the green, but half-neglected sward, the waters
of a small and circular fountain, whose perfect proportions
spoke of days long passed, played and sparkled in the starlight.
The scene was still and beautiful ; but neither of its stillness
nor its beauty thought Nina : towards one, the gloomiest and
most rugged, spot in the whole garden, turned her gaze ;
there, the trees stood densely s massed together, and shut from
view the low but heavy wall which encircled the mansion of
Raselli. The boughs on those trees stirred gently, but Nina
saw them wave ; and now from the copse emerged, slowly and
cautiously, a solitary figure, whose shadow threw itself, long
and dark, over the sward. It approached the window, and a
low voice breathed Nina's name.

" Quick, Lucia ! " cried she breathlessly, turning to her
handmaid: "quick! the rope-ladder! it is he! he is come!
How slow you are ! Haste, girl, he may be discovered !
There, O joy, O joy ! My lover ! my hero ! my Rienzi !"

"It is you ! " said Rienzi, as, now entering the chamber, he
wound his arms around her half-averted form, " and what is
night to others is day to me ! "

The first sweet moments of welcome were over; and Rienzi
was seated at the feet of his mistress : his head rested on her
knees, his face looking up to hers, their hands clasped each in
each.

"And for me thou bravest these dangers ! " said the lover ;
"the shame of discovery, the wrath of thy parents ! "

"But what are my perils to thine? Oh, Heaven! if my
father found thee here thou wouldst die ! "

" He would think it then so great a humiliation, that thou,
beautiful Nina, who mightst match with the haughtiest names

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 79

of Rome, shouldst waste thy love on a plebeian even though
the grandson of an emperor ! "

The proud heart of Nina could sympathize well with the
wounded pride of her lover : she detected the soreness which
lurked beneath his answer, carelessly as it was uttered.

" Hast thou not told me," she said, " of that great Marius,
who was no noble, but from whom the loftiest Colonna would
rejoice to claim his descent ? and do I not know in thee one
who shall yet eclipse the power of Marius, unsullied by his
vices?"

" Delicious flattery ! sweet prophet ! " said Rienzi, with a
melancholy smile; "never were thy supporting promises of
the future more welcome to me than now ; for to thee I will
say what I would utter to none else : my soul half sinks beneath
the mighty burthen I have heaped upon it. I want new
courage as the dread hour approaches ; and from thy words
and looks I drink it."

" Oh ! " answered Nina, blushing as she spoke, " glorious
indeed the lot which I have bought by my love for thee :
glorious to share thy schemes, to cheer thee in doubt, to
whisper hope to thee in danger."

*' And give grace to me in triumph ! " added Rienzi
passionately. " Ah ! should the future ever place upon these
brows the laurel-wreath due to one who has saved his country,
what joy, what recompense to lay it at thy feet ! Perhaps, in
those long and solitary hours of languor and exhaustion which
fill up the interstices of time, the dull space for sober thought
between the epochs of exciting action, perhaps I should have
failed and flagged, and renounced even my dreams for Rome,
had they not been linked also with my dreams for thee ! had I
not pictured to myself the hour when my fate should elevate
me beyond my birth ; when thy sire would deem it no dis-
grace to give thee to my arms ; when thou, too, shouldst stand
amidst the dames of Rome, more honored, as more beautiful,
than all ; and when I should see that pomp, which my own
soul disdains,* made dear and grateful to me because asso-
ciated with thee ! Yes, it is these thoughts that have inspired
me, when sterner ones have shrunk back appalled from the
spectres that surround their goal. And oh ! my Nina, sacred,
strong, enduring must be, indeed, the love which lives in the
same pure and elevated air as that which sustains my hopes of
liberty and fame ! "

* " Quern semper abhorrui sicut cenum" is the expression used by Rienzi, in his letter
to his friend at Avignon, and which was probably sincere. Men rarely act according to
the bias of their own tastes.

80 RIENZI,

This was the language which, more even than the vows of
fidelity and the dear adulation which springs from the heart's
exuberance, had bound the proud and vain soul of Nina to the
chains that it so willingly wore. Perhaps, indeed, in the ab-
sence of Rienzi, her weaker nature pictured to herself the
triumph of humbling the high-born signoras, and eclipsing
the barbarous magnificence of the chiefs of Rome ; but in his
presence, and listening to his more elevated and generous am-
bition, as yet all unsullied by one private feeling save the hope
of her, her higher sympathies were enlisted with his schemes,
her mind aspired to raise itself to the height of his, and she
thought less of her own rise than of his glory. It was sweet
to her pride to be the sole confidante of his most secret
thoughts, as of his most hardy undertakings ; to see bared be-
fore her that intricate and plotting spirit ; to be admitted even
to the knowledge of its doubts and weakness, as of its heroism
and power.

Nothing could be more contrasted than the loves of Rienzi
and Nina, and those of Adrian and Irene : in the latter, all
were the dreams, the phantasies, the extravagance, of youth ;
they never talked of the future ; they mingled no other as-
pirations with those of love. Ambition, glory, the world's
high objects, were nothing to them when together ; their
love had swallowed up the world, and left nothing visible be-
neath the sun, save itself. But the passion of Nina and her
lover was that of more complicated natures and more mature
years : it was made up of more than a thousand feelings, each
naturally severed from each, but compelled into one focus by
the mighty concentration of love ; their talk was of the world ;
it was from the world That they drew the aliment which sus-
tained it ; it was of the future they spoke and thought ; of its
dreams and imagined glories they made themselves a home
and altar ; their love had in it more of the Intellectual than
that of Adrian and Irene ; it was more fitted for this
hard earth ; it had in it, also, more of the leaven of the
later and iron days, and less of poetry and the first
golden age.

"And must thou leave me now ? " said Nina, her cheek no
more averted from his lips, nor her form from his parting em-
brace. " The moon is high yet ; it is but a little hour thou
hast given me. "

" An hour ! Alas ! " said Rienzi, "it is near upon midnight ;
our friends await me."

" Go, then, my soul's best half J go ; Nina shall not detain

THE LAST OP THE TRIBUNES. 8l

thee one moment from those higher objects which make thee
so dear to Nina. When when shall we meet again ! "

"Not," said Rienzi proudly, and with all his soul upon his
brow, "not thus, by stealth ! no ! nor as I thus have met thee,
the obscure and contemned bondsman ! When next thou
seest me, it shall be at the head of the sons of Rome ! her
champion ! her restorer ! or " said he, sinking his voice

"There is no or!" interrupted Nina, weaving her arms
round him, and catching his enthusiasm ; " thou hast uttered
thine own destiny ! "

" One kiss more ! farewell ! The tenth day from the mor-
row shines upon the restoration of Rome ! "

CHAPTER XII.

THE STRANGE ADVENTURES THAT BEFEL WALTER DE MONTREAL.

IT was upon that same evening, and while the earlier stars
yet shone over the city, that Walter de Montreal, returning,
alone, to the convent then associated with the church of Santa
Maria del Priorata (both of which belonged to the Knights of
the Hospital, and in the first of which Montreal had taken his
lodgment), paused amidst the ruins and desolation which lay
around his path. Though little skilled in the classic memories
and associations of the spot, he could not but be impressed
with the surrounding witnesses of departed empire ; the vast
skeleton, as it were, of the dead giantess.

"Now," thought he, as he gazed around upon the roofless
columns and shattered walls, everywhere visible, over which
the starlight shone, ghastly and transparent, backed by the
frowning and embattled fortresses of the Frangipani, half hid
by the dark foliage that sprung up amidst the very fanes and
palaces of old Nature exulting over the frailer Art ; "now,"
thought he, " bookmen would be inspired by this scene with
fantastic and dreaming visions of the past. But to me these
monuments of high ambition and royal splendor create only
images of the future. Rome may yet be, with her seven-
hilled diadem, as Rome has been before, the prize of the
strongest hand and the boldest warrior, revived, not by her
own degenerate sons, but the infused blood of a new race.
William the Bastard could scarce have found the hardy Eng-
lishers so easy a conquest as Walter the Well-born may find
these eunuch Romans. And which conquest were the more

8a RIEN2I,

glorious, the barbarous isle, or the Metropolis of the World ?
Short step from the general to the podesta, shorter step from
the podesta to the king ! "

While thus revolving his wild, yet not altogether chimerical,
ambition, a quick, light step was heard amidst the long herb-
age, and, looking up, Montreal perceived the figure of a tall
female descending from that part of the hill then covered by
many convents, towards the base of the Aventine. She sup-
ported her steps with a long staff, and moved with such elas-
ticity and erectness, that now, as her face became visible by the
starlight, it was surprising to perceive that it was the face of
one advanced in years a harsh, proud countenance, withered,
and deeply wrinkled, but not without a certain regularity of
outline.

" Merciful Virgin ! " cried Montreal, starting back as that
face gleamed upon him : " is it possible ? It is she ! it is "

He sprung forward, and stood right before the old woman,
who seemed equally surprised, though more dismayed, at the
sight of Montreal.

" I have sought thee for years," said the Knight, first break-
ing the silence ; "years, long years; thy conscience can tell
thee why."

" Mine, man of blood ! " cried the female, trembling with
rage or fear ; " darest thou talk of conscience ? Thou, the dis-
honorer the robber the professed homicide ! Thou, disgrace
to knighthood and to birth ! Thou, with the cross of chastity
and of peace upon thy breast ! Thou talk of conscience,
hypocrite ! thou ? "

" Lady, lady ! " said Montreal deprecatingly, and almost
quailing beneath the fiery passion of that feeble woman, " I have
sinned against thee and thine. But remember all my excuses!
early love fatal obstacles rash vow irresistible tempta-
tion ! Perhaps," he added, in a more haughty tone, "perhaps,
yet, I may have the power to atone my error, and wring, with
mailed hand, from the successor of St. Peter, who hath power
to loose as to bind "

"Perjured and abandoned ! " interrupted the female ; "dost,
thou dream that violence can purchase absolution, or that thou
canst ever atone the past ? a noble name disgraced, a father's
broken heart and dying curse ! Yes, that curse, I hear it now !
it rings upon me thrillingly, as when I watched the expiring
clay ! it cleaves to thee ; it pursues thee ; it shall pierce thee
through thy corselet ; it shall smite thee in the meridian of thy
power ! Genius wasted, ambition blasted, penitence deferred ;

THE LAST OP THE TRIBUNES. 83

a life of brawls, and a death of shame thy destruction the off-
spring of thy crime ! TO this, to this, an old man's curse hath
doomed thee ! AND THOU ART DOOMED ! "

These words were rather shrieked than spoken : and the
flashing eye, the lifted hand, the dilated form of the speaker ;
the hour, the solitude of the ruins around all conspired to
give to the fearful execration the character of prophecy. The
warrier, against whose undaunted breast a hundred spears had
shivered in vain, fell appalled and humbled to the ground.
He seized the hem of his fierce denouncer's robe, and cried, in
a choked and hollow voice, " Spare me ! spare me ! "

" Spare thee ! " said the unrelenting crone ; " hast thou ever
spared man in thy hatred, or woman in thy lust ? Ah, grovel
in the dust ! crouch crouch ! wild beast as thou art ! whose
sleek skin and beautiful hues have taught the unwary to be
blind to the talons that rend, and the grinders that devour ;
crouch, that the foot of the old and impotent may spurn thee ! "

" Hag ! " cried Montreal, in the reaction of sudden fury and
maddened pride, springing up to the full height of his stature.
"Hag! thou hast passed the limits to which, remembering who
thou art, my forbearance gave thee license. I had well-nigh
forgot that thou hadst assumed my part / am the Accuser !
Woman ! the boy ! shrink not ! equivocate not ! lie not ! thou
wert the thief ! "

" I was. Thou taughtest me the lesson how to steal a "

" Render restore him ! " interrupted Montreal, stamping
on the ground with such force that the splinters of the marble
fragments on which he stood shivered under his armed heel.

The woman little heeded a violence at which the fiercest
warrior of Italy might have trembled ; but she did not make
an immediate answer. The character of her countenance
altered from passion into an expression of grave, intent, and
melancholy thought. At length she replied to Montreal, whose
hand had wandered to his dagger-hilt, with the instinct of long
habit, whenever enraged or thwarted, rather than from any
design of blood ; which, stern and vindictive as he was, he
would have been incapable of forming against any woman,
much less against the one then before him.

" Walter de Montreal," said she, in a voice so calm that it
almost sounded like that of compassion, " the boy, I think,
has never known brother or sister : the only child of a once
haughty and lordly race, on both sides, though now on both
dishonored nay, why so impatient ? thou wilt soon learn the
worst the boy is dead J "

84 fctENZt,

" Dead ! " repeated Montreal, recoiling and growing pale ;
"dead ! No, no say not that ! He has a mother, you know
ne has ! a fond, meekhearted, anxious, hoping mother ! No !
no, he is not dead ! "

" Thou canst feel, then, for a mother ! " said the old woman,
seemingly touched by the tone of the Proven9al. "Yet, be-
think thee ; is it not better that the grave should save him from
a life of riot, of bloodshed, and crime ? Better to sleep with
God than to wake with the fiends ! "

" Dead ! " echoed Montreal ; " dead ! the pretty one ! so
young ! those eyes the mother's eyes closed so soon ! "

" Hast thou aught else to say ? Thy sight scares my very
womanhood from my soul ! Let me be gone."

"Dead! May I believe thee? or dost thou mock me?
Thou hast uttered thy curse, hearken to my warning : If thou
hast lied in this, thy last hour shall dismay thee, and thy death-
bed shall be the death-bed of despair ! "

" Thy lips," replied the female, with a scornful smile, "are
better adapted for lewd vows to unhappy maidens, than for the
denunciations which sound solemn only when coming from the
good. Farewell ! "

" Stay ! inexorable woman ! stay ! Where sleeps he ?
Masses shall be sung ! priests shall pray ! The sins of the
father shall not be visited on that young head ! "

"At Florence!" returned the woman hastily. "But no
stone records the departed ! The dead boy had no name ! "

Waiting for no further questionings, the woman now passed
on, pursued her way ; and the long herbage, and the winding
descent, soon snatched her ill-omened apparition from the
desolate landscape.

Montreal, thus alone, sunk with a deep and heavy sigh upon
the ground, covered his face with his hands, and burst into an
agony of grief : his chest heaved, his whole frame trembled,
and he wept and sobbed aloud, with all the fearful vehemence
of a man whose passions are strong and fierce, but to whom the
violence of grief alone is novel and unfamiliar.

He remained thus, prostrate and unmanned, for a consider-
able time, growing slowly and gradually more calm as tears
relieved his emotion ; and, at length, rather indulginga gloomy
reverie than a passionate grief. The moon was high and the
hour late when he arose, and then few traces of the past ex-
citement remained upon his countenance ; for Walter de Mon
trealwasnot of that mould in which woe can force a settlement,
or to which any affliction can bring the continued and habitual

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 8$

melancholy that darkens those who feel more enduringly,
though with emotions less stormy. His were the elements
of the true Franc character, though carried to excess : his
sternest and his deepest qualities were mingled with fickleness
and caprice ; his profound sagacity often frustrated by a
whim ; his towering ambition deserted for some frivolous temp-
tation ; and his elastic, sanguine, and high-spirited nature,
faithful only to the desire of military glory, to the poetry of a
daring and stormy life, and to the susceptibilities of that tender
passion without whose colorings no portrait of chivalry is com-
plete, and in which he was capable of a sentiment, a tenderness,
and a loyal devotion, which could hardly have been supposed
compatible with his reckless levity and his undisciplined
career.

" Well," said he, as he rose slowly, folded his mantle round
him, and resumed his way, " it was not for myself I grieved
thus. But the pang is past, and the worst is known. Now,
then, back to those things that never die restless projects and
daring schemes. That hag's curse keeps my blood cold still,
and this solitude has something in it weird and awful. Ha !
what sudden light is that ? "

The light which caught Montreal's eye broke forth almost
like a star, scarcely larger, indeed, but more red and intense in
its ray. Of itself it was nothing uncommon, and might have
shone either from convent or cottage. But it streamed from a
part of the Aventine which contained no habitations of the
living, but only the empty ruins and shattered porticoes of which
even the names and memories of the ancient inhabitants were
dead. Aware of this, Montreal felt a slight awe (as the beam
threw its steady light over the dreary landscape) ; for he was
not without the knightly superstitions of the age, and it was
now the witching hour consecrated to ghost and spirit. Buf
fear, whether of this world or the next, could not long daunt
the mind of the hardy freebooter ; and after a short hesitation
he resolved to make digression from his way, and ascertain the
cause of the phenomenon. Unconsciously the martial tread
of the barbarian passed over the site of the famed, or infamous,
Temple of Isis, which had once witnessed those wildest orgies
commemorated by Juvenal ; and came at last to a thick and
dark copse, from an opening in the centre of which gleamed
the mysterious light. Penetrating the gloomy foliage, the Knight
now found himself before a large ruin, gray and roofless, from
within which came, indistinct and muffled, the sound of voices.
Through a rent in the wall, forming a kind of casement, and

86 R1ENZI.

about ten feet from the ground, the light now broke over *h A
matted and rank soil, embedded, as it were, in vast masses of
shade, and streaming through a mouldering portico hard at
hand. The Provencal stood, though he knew it not, on the
very place once consecrated by the Temple : the Portico and
the Library of Liberty (the first public library instituted in
Rome). The wall of the ruin was covered with innumerable
creepers and wild brushwood, and it required but little agility
on the part of Montreal, by the help of these, to raise himself
to the height of the aperture, and, concealed by the luxuriant
foliage, to gaze within. He saw a table lighted with tapers, in
the centre of which was a crucifix ; a dagger, unsheathed ; an
open scroll, which the event proved to be of sacred character ;
and a brazen bowl. About a hundred men, in cloaks, and with
black vizards, stood motionless around ; and one, taller than
the rest, without disguise or mask whose pale brow and stern
features seemed by that light yet paler and yet more stern
appeared to be concluding some address to his companions.

" Yes," said he, " in the church of the Lateran I will make
the last appeal to the people. Supported by the Vicar of the
Pope, myself an officer of the Pontiff, it will be seen that
Religion and Liberty the heroes and the martyrs are united
in one cause. After that time, words are idle : action must be-
gin. By this crucifix I pledge my faith, on this blade I devote
my life, to the regeneration of Rome ! And you (then no need
for mask or mantle !), when the solitary trump is heard, when
the solitary horseman is seen, you swear to rally round the
standard of the Republic, and resist with heart and hand,
with life and soul, in defiance of death, and in hope of redemp-
tion the arms of the oppressor ! "

" We swear ! we swear ! " exclaimed every voice : and crowd-
ing toward cross and weapon, the tapers were obscured by the
intervening throng, and Montreal could not perceive the cere-
mony, nor hear the muttered formula of the oath : but he could
guess that the rite then common to conspiracies and which
required each conspirator to shed some drops of his own blood,
in token that life itself was devoted to the enterprise had not
been omitted, when, the group again receding, the same figure
as before had addressed the meeting, holding on high the bowl
with both hands, while from the left arm, which was bared,
the blood weltered slowly, and trickled, drop by drop, upon
the ground, said, in a solemn voice and upturned eyes :

" Amidst the ruins of thy temple, O Liberty ! we, Romans,
dedicate to thee this libation ! We, befriended and inspired

by no unreal and fabled idols, but by the Lord of Hosts, and
Him who, descending to earth, appealed not to emperors and to
princes, but to the fisherman and the peasant, giving to the
lowly and the poor the mission of Revelation." Then turning
suddenly to his companions, as his features, singularly varying
in their character and expression, brightened, from solemn
awe, into a martial and kindling enthusiasm, he cried aloud,
" Death to the Tyranny ! Life to the Republic ! " The effect
of the transition was startling. Each man, as by an involun-
tary and irresistible impulse, laid his hand upon his sword, as
ne echoed the sentiment : some, indeed, drew forth their blades,
AS if for instant action.

" I have seen enow : they will break up anon," said Montreal
<o himself : " and I would rather face an army of thousands,
than even half a dozen enthusiasts, so enflamed, and I thus
detected." And, with this thought he dropped on the ground,
and glided away, as once again, through the still midnight air,
broke upon his ear the muffled shout, " DEATH TO THE

t YRANNY ! LIFE TO THE REPUBLIC ! "

BOOK II.

THE REVOLUTION.

* Ogni Lascivia, ogni male, nulla giustizia, nullo freno. Non c'era piu
remedia, ogni persona periva. Allora Cola di Rienzi," etc. Vita di Cola
di Rienzi, lib. i. chap. 2.

" Every kind of lewdness, every form of evil ; no justice, no restraint.
Remedy there was none ; perdition fell on all. Then Cola di Rienzi," etc.
Life of Cola di Rienzi.

CHAPTER I.

THE KNIGHT OF PROVENCE, AND HIS PROPOSAL.

IT was nearly noon as Adrian entered the gates of the palace
of Stephen Colonna. The palaces of the nobles were not then as
we see them now, receptacles for the immortal canvas of Italian,
and the imperishable sculpture of Grecian, Art ; but still to

this day are retained the massive walls, and barred windows,
and spacious courts, which at that time protected their rude re-
tainers. High above the gates rose a lofty and solid tower,
whose height commanded a wide view of the mutilated remains
of Rome ; the gate itself was adorned and strengthened on
either side by columns of granite, whose Doric capitals be-
trayed the sacrilege that had torn them from one of the many
temples that had formerly crowded the sacred Forum. From
the same spoils came, too, the vast fragments of travertine
which made the walls of the outer court. So common at that
day were these barbarous appropriations of the most precious
monuments of art, that the columns and domes of earlier Rome
were regarded by all classes but as quarries, from which every
man was free to gather the materials, whether for his castle or
his cottage, a wantonness of outrage far greater than the
Goths', to whom a later age would fain have attributed all the
disgrace, and which, more perhaps than even heavier offences,
excited the classical indignation of Petrarch, and made him
sympathize with Rienzi in his hopes of Rome. Still may you
see the churches of that, or even earlier, dates, of the most
shapeless architecture, built on the sites, and from the marbles,
consecrating (rather than consecrated by) the names of Venus,
of Jupiter, of Minerva. The palace of the Prince of the Orsini,
duke of Gravina, is yet reared above the graceful arches, still
visible, of the theatre of Marcellus; then a fortress of the
Savelli.

As Adrian passed the court, a heavy wagon blocked up
the way, laden with huge marbles, dug from the unexhausted
mine of the Golden House of Nero ; they were intended for
an additional tower, by which Stephen Colonna proposed yet
more to strengthen the tasteless and barbarous edifice in
which the old noble maintained the dignity of outraging the law.

The friend of Petrarch and the pupil of Rienzi sighed deeply
as he passed this vehicle of new spoliations, and as a pillar of
fluted alabaster, rolling carelessly from the wagon, fell with a
loud crash upon the pavement. At the foot of the stairs
grouped some dozen of the bandits whom the old Colonna en"
tertained : they were playing at dice upon an ancient tomb,
the clear and deep inscription on which (so different from the
slovenly character of the later empire) bespoke it a memorial
of the most powerful age of Rome, and which now empty even
of ashes, and upset, served for a table to these foreign savages,
and was strewn, even at that early hour, with fragments of
and flasks of wine. They scarcely stirred, they scarcely

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 89

looked up, as the young noble passed them ; and their fierce
oaths and loud ejaculations, uttered in a northern patois^
grated harsh upon his ear as he mounted, with a slow step,
the lofty and unclean stairs. He came into a vast ante-cham-
ber, which was half filled with the higher class of the patrician's
retainers ; some five or six pages, chosen from the inferior no-
blesse, congregated by a narrow and deep sunk casement, were
discussing the grave matters of gallantry and intrigue ; three
petty chieftains of the band below, with their corselets donned,
and their swords and casques beside them, were sitting, stolid
and silent, at a table in the middle of the room, and might
have been taken for automatons, save for the solemn regularity
with which they ever and anon lifted to their moustachioed lips
their several goblets, and then, with a complacent grunt, re-set-
tled to their contemplations. Striking was the contrast which
their northern phlegm presented to a crowd of Italian clients,
and petitioners, and parasites, who walked restlessly to and fro,
talking loudly to each other, with all the vehement gestures and
varying physiognomy of southern vivacity. There was a gen-
eral stir and sensation as Adrian broke upon this miscellaneous
company. The bandit captains nodded their heads mechanic-
ally ; the pages bowed, and admired the fashion of his plume
and hose ; the clients, and petitioners, and parasites, crowded
round him, each with a separate request for interest with his
potent kinsman. Great need had Adrian of his wonted urban-
ity and address, in extricating himself from their grasp ; and
painfully did he win, at last, the low and narrow door, at which
stood a tall servitor, who admitted or rejected the applicants,
according to his interest or caprice.

"Is the Baron alone?" asked Adrian.

" Why, no, my lord ; a foreign signor is with him but to
you he is of course visible."

"Well, you may admit me. I would inquire of his health."

The servitor opened the door through whose aperture
peered many a jealous and wistful eye and consigned Adrian
to the guidance of a page, who, older and of greater esteem
than the loiterers in the ante-room was the especial henchman
of the Lord of the Castle. Passing another, but empty cham-
ber, vast and dreary, Adrian found himself in a small cabinet,
and in the presence of his kinsman.

Before a table bearing the implements of writing sate the old
Colonna ; a robe of rich furs and velvet hung loose upon his
tall and stately frame ; from a round skull-cap, of comforting
Warmth and crimson hue, a few gray locks descended, and

90 R1ENZ1,

mixed with a long and reverent beard. The countenance of the
aged noble, who had long passed his eightieth year, still re-
tained the traces of a comeliness for which in earlier man-
hood he was remarkable. His eyes, if deep sunken, were still
keen and lively, and sparkled with all the fire of youth ; his
mouth curved upward in a pleasant, though half-satiric, smile ;
and his appearance on the whole was prepossessing and com-
manding, indicating rather the high blood, the shrewd wit, and
the gallant valor of the patrician, than his craft, hypocrisy, and
habitual but disdainful spirit of oppression.

Stephen Colonna, without being absolutely a hero, was in-
deed far braver than most of the Romans, though he held fast
to the Italian maxim, never to fight an enemy while it is possible
to cheat him. Two faults, however, marred the effect of his
sagacity : a supreme insolence of disposition, and a profound
belief in the lights of his experience. He was incapable of
analogy. What had never happened in his time, he was perfect-
ly persuaded never could happen. Thus, though generally
esteemed an able diplomatist, he had the cunning of the in-
triguant, and not the providence of a statesman. If, however,
pride made him arrogant in prosperity, it supported him in
misfortune. And in the earlier vicissitudes of a life which had
partly been consumed in exile, he had developed many noble
qualities of fortitude, endurance, and real greatness of soul ;
which showed that his failings were rather acquired by circum-
stance than derived from nature. His numerous and high-
born race were proud of their chief ; and with justice ; for he
was the ablest and most honored, not only of the direct branch of
the Colonna, but also, perhaps, of all the more powerful barons.

Seated at the same table with Stephen Colonna was a man
of noble presence, of about three or four and thirty years of age,
in whom Adrian instantly recognized Walter de Montreal. This
celebrated knight was scarcely of the personal appearance which
might have corresponded with the terror his name generally
excited. His face was handsome, almost to the extreme of
womanish delicacy. His fair hair waved long and freely over
a white and unwrinkled forehead : the life of a camp and the
suns of Italy had but little embrowned his clear and healthful
complexion, which retained much of the bloom of youth. His
features were aquiline and regular ; his eyes, of a light hazel,
were large, bright, and penetrating ; and a short, but curled
beard and moustachio, trimmed with soldier-like precision, and
very little darker than the hair, gave indeed a martial expression
to his comely countenance, but rather the expression which r '^ht

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 91

have suited the hero of courts and tournaments, than the chief
of a brigand's camp. The aspect, manner, and bearing, of the
Provencal were those which captivate rather than awe ; blend-
ing, as they did, a certain military frankness with the easy
and graceful dignity of one conscious of gentle birth, and ac-
customed to mix, on equal terms, with the great and noble.
His form happily contrasted and elevated the character of a
countenance which required strength and stature to free its un-
common beauty from the charge of effeminacy, being of great
height and remarkable muscular power, without the least
approach to clumsy and unwieldy bulk : it erred, indeed, rather
to the side of leanness than flesh, at once robust and slender.
But the chief personal distinction of this warrior, the most
redoubted lance of Italy, was an air and carriage of chivalric
and heroic grace, greatly set off at this time by his splendid
dress, which was of brown velvet sown with pearls, over which
hung the surcoat worn by the Knight of the Hospital, whereon
was wrought, in white, the eight-pointed cross that made the
badge of his order. The Knight's attitude was that of earnest
conversation, bending slightly forward towards the Colonr.a,
and resting both his hands which (according to the usual dis-
tinction of the old Norman race * from whom, though born in
Provence, Montreal boasted his descent) were small and delicate,
the fingers being covered with jewels, as was the fashion of the
day upon the golden hilt of an enormous sword, on the sheath
of which was elaborately wrought the silver lilies that made the
device of the Proven9al Brotherhood of Jerusalem.

" Good, morrow, fair kinsman !" said Stephen. "Seat thy-
self, I pray ; and know in this knightly visitor the celebrated
Sieur de Montreal."

" Ah, my lord," said Montreal, smiling, as he saluted Adrian ;
"and how is my lady at home ?"

" You mistake, Sir Knight," quoth Stephen ; " my young
kinsman is not yet married : 'faith, as Pope Boniface remarked
when he lay stretched on a sick bed, and his confessor talked
to him about Abraham's bosom, ' that is a pleasure the greater
for being deferred.' "

" The Signor will pardon my mistake," returned Mon-
treal.

"But not," said Adrian, "the neglect of Sir Walter in not
ascertaining the fact in person. My thanks to him, noble kins-

* Small hands and feet, however disproportioned to Ae rest of the person, were at that
time deemed no less a distinction of the well-born than they have been in a more refined
age. Many readers will remember the pain occasioned to Petrarch by his tight shoes. The
Opposed beauty of this peculiarity is more derived from the feudal than the classic {inje,

92 RIENZI,

man, are greater than you weet of ; and he promised to visit me,
that he might receive them at leisure."

" I assure you, Signer," answered Montreal, "that I have
not forgotten the invitation ; but so weighty hitherto have been
my affairs at Rome, that I have been obliged to parley with my
impatience to better our acquaintance."

"Oh, ye knew each other before?" said Stephen. "And
how?"

" My lord, there is a damsel in the case ! " replied Montreal.
"Excuse my silence."

"Ah, Adrian, Adrian ! when will you learn my continence !"
said Stephen, solemnly stroking his gray beard. "What an
example I set you ! But a truce to this light conversation,
let us resume our theme. You must know, Adrian, that it is
to the brave band of rny guest I am indebted for those valiant
gentlemen below, who keep Rome so quiet, though my poor
habitation so noisy. He has called to proffer more assistance,
if need be ; and to advise me on the affairs of Northern Italy.
Continue, I pray thee, Sir Knight; I have no disguises from
my kinsman."

"Thou seest," said Montreal, fixing his penetrating eyes on
Adrian, "thou seest, doubtless, my lord, that Italy at this
moment presents to us a remarkable spectacle. It is a contest
between two opposing powers, which shall destroy the other.
The one power is that of the unruly and turbulent people a
power which they call 'Liberty'; the other power is that of
the chiefs and princes a power which they more appropriately
call 'Order.' Between these parties the cities of Italy are
divided. In Florence, in Genoa, in Pisa, for instance, is es-
tablished a Free State a Republic, God wot ! and a more
riotous, unhappy state of government cannot well be imagined."

"That is perfectly true," quoth Stephen; "they banished
my own first cousin from Genoa."

" A perpetual strife in short," continued Montreal, " be
tween the great families ; an alternation of prosecutions, and
confiscations, and banishments : to-day the Guelfs proscribe
the Ghibellines ; to-morrow the Ghibellines drive out the
Guelfs. This may be liberty, but it is the liberty of the
strong against the weak. In the other cities, as Milan, as
Verona, as Bologna, the people are under the rule of one man,
who calls himself a prince, and whom his enemies call a tyrant.
Having more force than any other citizen, he preserves a firm
government ; having more constant demand on his intellect and
than the pther citizens, he also preserves a wie one.

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 93

These two orders of government are enlisted against each
other : whenever the people in the one rebel against their
prince, the people of the other that is, the free States send
arms and money to their assistance."

" You hear, Adrian, how wicked those last are," quoth
Stephen.

" Now it seems to me," continued Montreal, " that this con-
test must end some time or other. All Italy must become re-
publican or monarchical. It is easy to predict which will be
the result."

" Yes, Liberty must conquer in the end ! " said Adrian
warmly.

" Pardon me, young lord ; my opinion is entirely the re-
verse. You perceive that these republics are commercial, are
traders ; they esteem wealth, they despise valor, they cultivate
all trades save that of the armorer. Accordingly, how do
they maintain themselves in war ? By their own citizens ?
Not a whit of it ! Either they send to some foreign chief,
and promise, if he grant them his protection, the principality
of the city for five or ten years in return ; or else they bor-
row from some hardy adventurer, like myself, as many troops
as they can afford to pay for. Is it not so, Lord Adrian ? "

Adrian nodded his reluctant assent.

" Well, then, it is the fault of the foreign chief if he do
not make his power permanent ; as has been already done in
States once free by the Visconti and the Scala : or else it is
the fault of the captain of the mercenaries if he do not con-
vert his brigands into senators, and himself into a king. These
are events so natural, that one day or other they will occur
throughout all Italy. And all Italy will then become mo-
narchical. Now it seems to me the interest of all the powerful
families your own, at Rome, as that of the Visconti at Milan
to expedite this epoch, and to check, while you yet may with
ease, that rebellious contagion amongst the people which is
now rapidly spreading, and which ends in the fever of license
to them, but in the corruption of death to you. In these free
States, the nobles are the first to suffer : first your priviliges,
then your property, are swept away. Nay, in Florence, as ye
well know, my lords, no noble is even capable of holding the
meanest office in the State ! "

"Villains!" said Colonna. "they violate the first law of
nature ! "

" At this moment," resumed Montreal, who, engrossed with
his subject, little heeded the interruptions he received from the

94 RIENZI,

holy indignation of the Baron: "at this moment, there are
many the wisest, perhaps, in the free States who desire to
renew the old Lombard leagues, in defence of their common free-
dom everywhere, and against whosoever shall aspire to be prince.
Fortunately, the deadly jealousies between these merchant
States, the base plebeian jealousies, more of trade than of glory,
interpose at present an irresistible obstacle to this design ; and
Florence, the most stirring and the most esteemed of all, is
happily so reduced by reverses of commerce as to be utterly
unable to follow out so great an undertaking. Now, then, is
the time for us, my lords ; while these obstacles are so great for
our foes, now is the time for us to form and cement a counter-
league between all the princes of Italy. To you, noble Stephen,
I have come as your rank demands, alone, of all the barons
of Rome, to propose to you this honorable union. Observe
what advantages it proffers to your house. The popes have
abandoned Rome forever ; there is no counterpoise to your
ambition ; there need be none to your power. You see before
you the examples of Visconti and Taddeodi Pepoli. You may
found in Rome, the first city of Italy, a supreme and un-
controlled principality, subjugate utterly your weaker rivals,
the Savelli, the Malatesta, the Orsini, and leave to your sons'
sons an hereditary kingdom that may aspire once more, per-
haps, to the empire of the world."

Stephen shaded his face with his hands as he answered :
" But this, noble Montreal, requires means money and men."

" Of the last you can command from me enow ; my small
company, the best disciplined, can (whenever I please) swell
to the most numerous in Italy : in the first, noble Baron, the
rich House of Colonna cannot fail ; and even a mortgage
on its vast estates may be well repaid when you have possessed
yourselves of the whole revenues of Rome. You see," con-
tinued Montreal, turning to Adrian, in whose youth he ex-
pected a more warm ally than in his hoary kinsman : " you
see, at a glance, how feasible is this project, and what a mighty
field it opens to your House."

" Sir Walter de Montreal," said Adrian, rising from his
seat, and giving vent to the indignation he had with difficulty
suppressed, "1 grieve much that, beneath the roof of the first
citizen of Rome, a stranger should attempt thus calmly, and
without interruption, to excite the ambition of emulating the
execrated celebrity of a Visconti or a Pepoli. Speak, my
lord ! (turning to Stephen) speak, noble kinsman ! and tell
this Knight of Provence, that if by a Colonna the ancient

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 95

grandeur of Rome cannot be restored, it shall not be, at least,
by a Colonna that her last wrecks of liberty shall be swept
away."

" How now, Adrian ! how now, sweet kinsman ! " said
Stephen, thus suddenly appealed to, "calm thyself, I prythee.
Noble Sir Walter, he is young young, and hasty he means
not to offend thee."

"Of that I am persuaded," returned Montreal coldly, but
with great and courteous command of temper. " He speaks
from the impulse of the moment a praiseworthy fault in
youth. It was mine at his age, and many a time have I nearly
lost my life for the rashness. Nay, Signer, nay ! touch not
your sword so meaningly, as if you fancied I intimated a
threat ; far from me such presumption. I have learned suf-
ficient caution, believe me, in the wars, not wantonly to draw
against me a blade which I have seen wielded against such
odds."

Touched, despite himself, by the courtesy of the Knight,
and the allusion to a scene in which, perhaps, his life had been
preserved by Montreal, Adrian extended his hand to the latter.

" I was to blame for my haste," said he frankly ; " but
know, by my very heat," he added more gravely, " that your
project will find no friends among the Colonna. Nay, in the
presence of my noble kinsman, I dare to tell you, that could even
his high sanction lend itself to such a scheme, the best hearts
of his house would desert him ; and I myself, his kinsman,
would man yonder castle against so unnatural an ambition ! "

A slight and scarce perceptible cloud passed over Montreal't
countenance at these words ; and he bit his lip ere he replied :

" Yet if the Orsini be less scrupulous, their first exertion of
power would be heard in the crashing house of the Colonna."

" Know you," returned Adrian, that one of our mottoes is
this haughty address to the Romans, ' If we fall, ye fall also ' ?
And better that fate, than a rise upon the wrecks of our native
city."

" Well, well, well ! " said Montreal, reseating himself, " I see
that I must leave Rome to herself ; the League must thrive
without her aid. I did but jest touching the Orsini, for they
have not the power that would make their efforts safe. Let us
sweep, then, our past conference from our recollection. It is
the nineteenth, I think, Lord Colonna, on which you propose
to repair to Corneto, with your friends and retainers, and on
which you have invited my attendance ?"

" It is on that day, Sir Knight," replied the Baron, evidently

96 RIENZI,

much relieved by the turn the conversation had assumed.
"The fact is that we have been so charged with indifference to
the interests of the good people, that I strain a point in this
expedition to contradict the assertion ; and we propose, there-
fore, to escort and protect, against the robbers of the road, a
convoy of corn to Corneto. In truth, I may add another
reason, besides fear of the robbers, that makes me desire as
numerous a train as possible. I wish to show my enemies, and
the people generally, the solid and growing power of my house ;
the display of such an armed band as I hope to levy will be a
magnificent occasion to strike awe into the riotous and refrac-
tory. Adrian, you will collect your servitors, I trust, on that
day ; we would not be without you."

" And as we ride along, fair signor," said Montreal, inclin-
ing to Adrian, " we will find at least one subject on which we
can agree : all brave men and true knights have one common
topic, and its name is Woman. You must make me ac-
quainted with the names of the fairest dames of Rome ; and we
will discuss old adventures in the Parliament of Love, and hope
for new. By the way, I suppose, Lord Adrian, you, with the
rest of your countrymen, are Petrarch-stricken?"

" Do you not share our enthusiasm ? Slur not so your gallan-
try, I pray you,"

" Come, we must not again disagree ; but, by my halidame
I think one troubadour roundel worth all that Petrarch ever
wrote. He has but borrowed from our knightly poesy, to dis-
guise it like a carpet coxcomb."

" Well," said Adrian gaily, " for every line of the trouba-
dours that you quote I will cite you another. I will forgive
you for injustice to Petrarch, if you are just to the trouba-
dours."

" Just ! " cried Montreal, with real enthusiasm : " I am of
the land, nay, the very blood, of the troubadour ! But we
grow too light for your noble kinsman ; and it is time for me
to bid you, for the present, farewell. My Lord Colon na, peace
be with you ; farewell, Sir Adrian, brother mine in knighthood,
remember your challenge."

And with an easy and careless grace the Knight of St. John
took his leave. The old Baron, making a dumb sign of excuse
to Adrian, followed Montreal into the adjoining room.

" Sir Knight ! " said he, " Sir Knight ! " as he closed the door
upon Adrian, and then drew Montreal to the recess of the
casement, " a word in your ear. Think not I slight your offer,
but these young men must be managed ; the plot is great, no-

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 0?

hie, grateful to my heart, but it requires time and caution. I
have many of my house, scrupulous as yon hot-skull, to win
over ; the way is pleasant, but must be sounded well and care-
fully ; you understand ? "

From under his bent brows Montreal darted one keen glance
at Stephen, and then answered :

" My friendship for you dictated my offer. The League may
stand without the Colonna ; beware a time when the Colonna
cannot stand without the League. My lord, look well around
you ; there are more freemen ay, bold and stirring ones, too
in Rome, than you imagine. Beware Rienzi ! Adieu, we
meet soon again."

Thus saying, Montreal departed, soliloquizing as he passed
with his careless step through the crowded ante-room :

" I shall fail here ! these caitiff nobles have neither the cour-
age to be great, nor the wisdom to be honest. Let them fall !
I may find an adventurer from the people, an adventurer like
myself, worth them all."

No sooner had Stephen returned to Adrian than he flung his
arms affectionately round his ward, who was preparing his
pride for some sharp rebuke for his petulance.

" Nobly feigned, admirable, admirable !" cried the Baron ;
"you have learned the true art of a statesman at the Empe-
ror's court. I always thought you would, always said it. You
saw the dilemma I was in, thus taken by surprise by that bar-
barian s mad scheme ; afraid to refuse, more afraid to accept.
You extricated me with consummate address : that passion, so
natural to your age, was a famous feint ; drew off the attack ;
gave me time to breathe ; allowed me to play with the savage.
But we must not offend him, you know : all my retainers would
desert me, or sell me to the Orsini, or cut my throat, if he but
held up his finger. Oh ! it was admirably managed, Adrian,
admirably ! "

" Thank Heaven ! " said Adrian, with some difficulty re-
covering the breath which his astonishment had taken away,
" you do not think of embracing that black proposition ? "

" Think of it ! no, indeed ! " said Stephen, throwing himself
back on his chair. "Why, do you not know my age, boy?
Hard on my ninetieth year, I should be a fool indeed to throw
myself into such a whirl of turbulence and agitation. I want
want to keep what I have, not risk it by grasping more. Am I
not the beloved of the Pope ? shall I hazard his excommunica-
tion ? Am I not the most powerful of the nobles? should I be
more if I were a king ? At my age to talk to me of such stuff !

98 RIEN21,

i:he man's an idiot. Besides," added the old man, sinking his
/oice, and looking fearfully round, "if I were a king my sons
might poison me for the succession. They are good lads,
Adrian, very ! But such a temptation ! I would not throw it
in their way ; these gray hairs have experience ! Tyrants
don't die a natural death ; no, no ! Plague on the Knight, say
I ; he has already cast me into a cold sweat."

Adrian gazed on the working features of the old man, whose
selfishness thus preserved him from crime. He listened to his
concluding words, full of the dark truth of the times ; and as
the high and pure ambition of Rienzi flashed upon him in con-
trast, he felt that he could not blame its fervor, or wonder at its
excess.

"And then, too," resumed the Baron, speaking more deliber-
ately as he recovered his self-possession, "this man, by way of
a warning, shows me, at a glance, his whole ignorance of the
state. What think you ? he has mingled with the mob, and
taken their rank breath for power ; yes, he thinks words are
soldiers, and bade me me, Stephen Colonna beware of
whom, think you ? No, you will never guess ! of that speech-
maker, Rienzi ! my own old jesting guest ! Ha ! ha ! ha ! the
ignorance of these barbarians ! ha ! ha ! ha ! " and the old
man laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks.

" Yet many of the nobles fear that same Rienzi," said Adrian
gravely,

"Ah ! let them ! let them ! they have not our experience,
our knowledge of the world, Adrian. Tut, man, when did decla-
mation ever overthrow castles, and conquer soldiery ? I like
Rienzi to harangue the mob about old Rome, and such stuff ;
it gives them something to think of and prate about, and so all
their fierceness evaporates in words ; they might burn a house
if they did not hear a speech. But, now I am on that score, I
must own the pedant has grown impudent in his new office ;
here, here, I received this paper ere I rose to-day. I hear a
sir/iilar insolence has been shown to all the nobles. Read it,
will you," and the Colonna put a scroll into his kinsman's
hand.

" I have received the like," said Adrian, glancing at it.
" It is a request of Rienzi's to attend at the Church of St. John
of Lateran, to hear explained the inscription on a Table just
discovered. It bears, he saith, the most intimate connection
with the welfare and state of Rome."

"Very entertaining, I dare to say, to professors and book-
men. Pardon me, kinsman ; I forgot your taste for these

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 99

things ; and my son, Gianni, too, shares your fantasy. Well,
well ! it is innocent enough ! Go ; the man talks well."

" Will you not attend too ? "

" I, my dear boy I ! " said the old man Colonna, opening
his eyes in such astonishment that Adrian could not help laugh-
ing at the simplicity of his own question.

CHAPTER II.

THE INTERVIEW, AND THE DOUBT.

As Adrian turned from the palace of his guardian and bent
his way in the direction of the Forum, he came somewhat un-
expectedly upon Raimond, Bishop of Orvietto, who, mounted
upon a low palfrey, and accompanied by some three or four of his
waiting-men, halted abruptly when he recognized the young
noble.

" Ah, my son ! it is seldom that I see thee : how fares it with
thee ? well ? So, so ! I rejoice to hear it. Alas ! what a state
of society is ours, when compared to the tranquil pleasures of
Avignon ! There all men who, like us, are fond of the same
pursuits, the same studies, delicice tnusarum, hum ! hum ! (the
Bishop was proud of an occasional quotation, right or wrong),
are brought easily and naturally together. But here we scarce-
ly dare stir out of our houses, save upon great occasions. But
talking of great occasions and the Muses reminds me of our
good Rienzi's invitation to the Lateran : of course, you will at-
tend ; 'tis a mighty knotty piece of Latin he proposes to solve;
so I hear, at least ; very interesting to us, my son, very."

" It is to-morrow," answered Adrian. " Yes, assuredly ; I
will be there."

" And, harkye, my son," said the Bishop, resting his hand
affectionately on Adrian's shoulder, " I have reason to hope
that he will remind our poor citizens of the Jubilee for the
year Fifty, and stir them towards clearing the road of the
brigands : a necessary injunction, and one to be heeded time-
ously ; for who will come here for absolution when he stands
a chance of rushing unannealed upon purgatory by the way ?
You have heard Rienzi, ay ? quite a Cicero ay ! Well,
Heaven bless you, my son ! you will not fail ?"

" Nay, not I."

" Yet, stay ; a word with you ; just suggest to all whom you

160 R1ENZI,

may meet the advisability of a full meeting ; it looks well fof
the city to show respect to letters."

" To say nothing of the Jubilee," added Adrian, smiling.

" Ah, to say nothing of the Jubilee very good ! Adieu for
the present ! " And the Bishop, resettling himself on his sad-
dle, ambled solemnly on to visit his various friends, and press
them to the meeting.

Meanwhile Adrian continued his course till he had passed
the Capitol, the Arch of Severus, the crumbling columns of
the fane of Jupiter, and found himself amidst the long grass,
the whispering reeds, and the neglected vines, that wave over
the now-vanished pomp of the Golden House of Nero. Seat-
ing himself on a fallen pillar, by that spot where the traveller de-
scends to the (so called) Baths of Livia, he looked impatiently
to the sun, as to blame it for the slowness of its march.

Not long, however, had he to wait before a light step was
heard crushing the fragrant grass ; and presently through the
arching vines gleamed a face that might well have seemed the
nymph, the goddess of the scene.

" My beautiful ! my Irene ! how shall I thank thee ? "

It was long before the delighted lover suffered himself to ob-
serve upon Irene's face a sadness that did not usually cloud it
in his presence. Her voice, too, trembled ; her words seemed
constrained and cold.

" Have I offended thee ? " he asked ; " or what less misfor-
tune hath occurred ! "

Irene raised her eyes to her lover's, and said, looking at him
earnestly, " Tell me, my lord, in sober and simple truth, tell
me, would it grieve thee much were this to be our last
meeting ?"

Paler than the marble at his feet grew the dark cheek of
Adrian. It was some moments ere he could reply, and he did
so then with a forced smile and a quivering lip.

" Jest not so, Irene ! Last ! that is not a word for us ! "

"But hear me, my lord "

" Why so cold ? Cull me Adrian ! friend ! lover ! or be
dumb ! "

" Well, then, my soul's soul ! my all of hope ! my life's
life ! " exclaimed Irene passionately, " hear me ! I fear that
we stand at this moment upon some gulf whose depth I see not,
but which may divide us forever ! Thou knowest the real
nature of my brother, and dost not misread him as many do.
Long has he planned, and schemed, and communed with hirr-
self, and, feeling his way amidst the people, prepared the path

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. IOI

to some great design. But now (thou wilt not betray ; thou
wilt not injure him ? he is thy friend !) "

"And thy brother ! I would give my life for his ! Say on!"

"But now, then," resumed Irene, "the time for that enter-
prise, whatever it be, is coming fast. I know not of its exact
nature, but I know that it is against the nobles against thy
order against thy house itself ! If it succeed, oh, Adrian !
thou thyself mayst not be free from danger ; and my name, at
least, will be coupled with the name of thy foes. If it fail,
my brother, my bold brother, is swept away ! He will fall a
victim to revenge or justice, call it as you will. Your kinsman
may be his judge his executioner ; and I even if I should yet
live to mourn over the boast and glory of my humble line could
I permit myself to love, to see, one in whose veins flowed the
blood of his destroyer ? Oh ! I am wretched, wretched !
these thoughts make me well-nigh mad!" and, wringing her
hands bitterly, Irene sobbed aloud.

Adrian himself was struck forcibly by the picture thus pre-
sented to him, although the alternative it embraced had often
before forced itself dimly on his mind. It was true, however,
that, not seeing the schemes of Rienzi backed by any physical
power, and never yet having witnessed the mighty force of
a moral revolution, he did not conceive that any rise to which
he might instigate the people could be permanently successful:
and, as for his punishment, in that city, where all justice was
the slave of interest, Adrian knew himself powerful enough to
obtain forgiveness even for the greatest of all crimes armed
insurrection against the nobles. As these thoughts recurred
to him, he gained the courage to console and cheer Irene.
But his efforts were only partially successful. Awakened by
her fears to that consideration of the future which hitherto
she had forgotten, Irene, for the first time, seemed deaf to the
charmer's voice.

"Alas ! " said she sadly, "even at the best, what can this
love, that we have so blindly encouraged, what can it end in ?
Thou must not wed with one like me ; and I ! how foolish I
have been ! "

" Recall thy senses then, Irene," said Adrian proudly, part-
ly perhaps in anger, partly in his experience of the sex.
" Love another, and more wisely, if thou wilt ; cancel thy
vows with me, and continue to think it a crime to love, and a
folly to be true ! "

" Cruel ! " said Irene falteringly, and in her turn alarmed
"* Dost thou speak in earnest ? "

103 RIENZ1,

" Tell me, ere I answer you, tell me this : come death, come
anguish, come a whole life of sorrow, as the end of this love,
wouldst thou yet repent that thou hast loved ? If so, thou
knowest not the love that I feel for thee."

" Never ! never can I repent ! " said Irene, falling upon
Adrian's neck ; "forgive me ! "

" But is there, in truth," said Adrian, a little while after this
lover-like quarrel and reconciliation, " is there, in truth, so
marked a difference between thy brother's past and his present
bearing ? How knowest thou that the time for action is so
near?"

" Because now he sits closeted whole nights with all ranks of
men ; he shuts up his books, he reads no more ; but, when
alone, walks to and fro his chamber, muttering to himself.
Sometimes he pauses before the calendar, which of late he has
fixed with his own hand against the wall, and passes his finger
over the letters, till he comes to some chosen date, and then he
plays with his sword and smiles. But two nights since, arms,
too, in great number were brought to the house ; and I heard
the chief of the men who brought them a grim giant, known
well amongst the people say, as he .wiped his brow, ' These
will see work soon ! ' '

"Arms? Are you sure of that?" said Adrian anxiously.
" Nay, then, there is more in these schemes than 1 imagined !
But (observing Irene's gaze bent fearfully on him as his voice
changed, he added, more gaily) but come what may, believe
me, my beautiful ! my adored ! that while I live, thy brother
shall not suffer from the wrath he may provoke, nor I, though
he forget our ancient friendship cease to love thee less."

" Signora ! Signora ! child ! it is time ! we must go ! " said
the shrill voice of Benedetta, now peering through the foliage.,
" The working-men pass home this way ; I see them approach-
ing."

The lovers parted ; for the first time the serpent had pene-
trated into their Eden ; they had conversed, they had thought,
of other things than Love.

CHAPTER III.

THE SITUATION OF A POPULAR PATRICIAN IN TIMES OF POPU-
LAR DISCONTENT. SCENE OF THE LATERAN.

THE situation of a patrician who honestly loves the people
is, in those evil times when power oppresses and freedom

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 103

struggles, when the two divisions of men are wrestling against
each other, the most irksome and perplexing that destiny
can possibly contrive. Shall he take part with the nobles? he
betrays his conscience ! With the people ? he deserts his
friends. But that consequence of the last alternative is not
the sole, nor, perhaps, to a strong mind, the most severe. All
men are swayed ^ind chained by public opinion ; it is the public
judge ; but public opinion is not the same for all ranks. The
public opinion that excites or deters the plebeian is the opinion
of the plebeians, of those whom he sees, and meets, and
knows ; of those with whom he is brought in contact ; those
with whom he has mixed from childhood ; those whose praises
are daily heard ; whose censure frowns upon him with every hour.*
So, also, the public opinion of the great is the opinion of their
equals, of those whom birth and accident cast forever in their
way. This distinction is full of important practical deduc-
tions ; it is one which, more than most maxims, should never
be forgotten by a politician who desires to be profound. It is,
then, an ordeal terrible to pass, which few plebeians ever pass,
which it is therefore unjust to expect patricians to cross unfal-
teringly ; the ordeal of opposing the public opinion which
exists for them. They cannot help doubting their own judg-
ment ; they cannot help thinking the voice of wisdom or of
virtue speaks in those sounds which have been deemed oracles
from their cradle. In the tribunal of Sectarian Prejudice they
imagine they recognize the court of the universal Conscience.
Another powerful antidote to the activity of a patrician so
placed, is in the certainty that to the last the motives of such
activity will be alike misconstrued by the aristocracy he deserts
and the people he joins. It seems so unnatural in a man to
fly in the face of his own order, that the world is willing to sup-
pose any clue to the mystery save that of honest conviction
or lofty patriotism. " Ambition ! " says one. " Disappoint-
ment ! " cries another. " Some private grudge ! "hints a third.
" Mob-courting vanity ! " sneers a fourth. The people admire
at first, but suspect afterwards. The moment he thwarts a
popular wish there is no redemption for him ; he is accused of
having acted the hypocrite of having worn the sheep's fleece :

* It is the same in still smaller divisions. The public opinion for lawyers is that of law-
yers ; of sbldiers, that of the army ; of scholars, it is that of men of literature and science.
And to the susceptible amongst the latter, the hostile criticism of learning has been more
stinging than the severest moral censures of the vulgar. Many'a man has done a great act:
or composed a great work, solely to please the two or three persons constantly present to
him. Their voice was his public opinion. The public opinion that operated on Bishop, the
murderer, was the opinion of the Burkers, his comrades. Did that condemn him ? No I
He knew no other public opinion till he came to be hanged and caught the loathing cye%
and heard the hissing execrations, ef the crowd below his gibbet.

and now, say they, " See ! the wolf's teeth peep out ! " Is he
familiar with the people ? it is cajolery ! Is he distant ? it is
pride ! What, then, sustains a man in such a situation, following
his own conscience, with his eyes open to all the perils of the
path ? Away with the cant of public opinion ; away with the
poor delusion of posthumous justice ; he will offend the first,
he will never obtain the last. What sustains him ? His OWN
SOU-L ! A man thoroughly great has a certain contempt for
his kind while he aids them : their weal or woe are all their
applause, their blame, are nothing to him. He walks forth from
the circle of birth and habit ; he is deaf to the little motives of
little men. High, through the widest space his orbit may de-
scribe, he holds on his course to guide or to enlighten ; but the
noises below reach him not ! Until the wheel is broken; until
the dark void swallow up the star, it makes melody night and
day, to his own ear : thirsting for no sound from the earth it
illumines, anxious for no companionship in the path through
which it rolls, conscious of its own glory, and contented, there-
fore, to be alone !

But minds of this order are rare. All ages cannot produce
them. They are exceptions to the ordinary and human virtue,
which is influenced and regulated by external circumstance.
At a time when to be merely susceptible to the voice of fame
was a great pre-eminence in moral energies over the rest of
mankind, it would be impossible that any one should ever have
formed the conception of that more refined and metaphysical
sentiment, that purer excitement to high deeds, that glory in
one's own heart, which is so immeasurably above the desire of
a renown that lackeys the heels of others. In fact, before we
can dispense with the world, we must, by a long and severe
novitiate ; by the probation of much thought, and much sor-
row, by deep and sad conviction of the vanity of all that the
world can give us, have raised ourselves not in the fervor of
an hour, but habitually above the world : an abstraction an
idealism which, in our wise age, how few even of the wisest
can attain ! Yet, till we are thus fortunate, we know not the
true divinity of contemplation, nor the all-sufficing mightiness
of conscience ; nor can we retreat with solemn footsteps into
that Holy of Holies in our own souls, wherein we know, and
feel, how much our nature is capable of the self-existence of a
God!

But to return to the things and thoughts of earth. Those
considerations, and those links of circumstance, which in a
similar situation have changed so many honest and courageous

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 105

minds, changed also the mind of Adrian. He felt in a false
position. His reason and conscience shared in the schemes of
Rienzi, and his natural hardihood and love of enterprise would
have led him actively to share the danger of their execution.
But this, all his associations, his friendships, his private and
household ties, loudly forbade. Against his order, against his
house, against the companions of his youth, how could he plot
secretly, or act sternly? By the goal to which he was impelled
by patriotism, stood hypocrisy and ingratitude. Who would
believe him the honest champion of his country who was a
traitor to his friends ? Thus, indeed,

" The native hue of resolution
Was sickled o'er with the pale cast of thought ! "

And he who should have been by nature a leader of the time
became only its spectator. Yet Adrian endeavored to console
himself for his present passiveness in a conviction of the policy
of his conduct. He who takes no share in the commencement
of civil revolutions can often become, with the most effect, a
mediator between the passions and the parties subsequently
formed. Perhaps, under Adrian's circumstances, delay was
really the part of a prudent statesman ; the very position which
cripples at the first, often gives authority before the end. Clear
from the excesses, and saved from the jealousies, of rival fac-
tions, all men are willing to look with complaisance and respect
to a new actor in a turbulent drama ; his moderation may make
Viim trusted by the people ; his rank enable him to be a fitting
mediator with the nobles ; and thus the qualities that would
have rendered him a martyr at one period of the revolution,
raise him perhaps into a saviour at another.

Silent, therefore, and passive, Adrian waited the progress of
events. If the projects of Rienzi failed, he might by that in-
activity the better preserve the people from new chains, and
their champion from death. If those projects succeeded, he
might equally save his house from the popular wrath, and, ad-
vocating liberty, check disorder. Such, at least, were his hopes ;
and thus did the Italian sagacity and caution of his character
control and pacify the enthusiasm of youth and courage.

The sun shone calm and cloudless upon the vast concourse
gathered before the broad space that surrounds the Church of
St. John of Lateran. Partly by curiosity, partly by the desire of
the Bishop of Orvietto, partly because it was an occasion in
which they could display the pomp of their retinues, many of
the principal Barons of Rome had gathered to this spot.

106 RIENZI,

On one of the steps ascending to the church, with his mantle
folded round him, stood Walter de Montreal, gazing on the vari-
ous parties that, one after another, swept through the lane which
the soldiers of the Church preserved unimpeded, in the middle
of the crowd, for the access of the principal nobles. He
watched with interest, though with his usual carelessness of air
and roving glance, the different marks and looks of welcome
given by the populace to the different personages of note. Ban-
ners and pennons preceded each signer, and, as they waved
aloft, the witticisms or nicknames the brief words of praise or
censure, that imply so much which passed to and fro among
that lively crowd, were treasured carefully in his recollection.

" Make way, there ! way for my Lord Martino Orsini
Baron di Porto ! "

" Peace, minion ! draw back ! way for the Signor Adrian
Colonna, Baron di Castello, and Knight of the Empire."

And at those two rival shouts, you saw waving on high the
golden bear of the Orsini, with the motto, "Beware my em-
brace !" and the solitary column on an azure ground, of the
Colonna, with Adrian's especial device, " Sad, but strong."
The train of Martino Orsini was much more numerous than
that of Adrian, which last consisted but of ten servitors. But
Adrian's men attracted far greater admiration amongst the
crowd, and pleased more the experienced eye of the warlike
Knight of St. John. Their arms were polished like mirrors ;
their height was to an inch the same ; their march was regular
and sedate ; their mien erect ; they looked neither to the right
nor left ; they betrayed that ineffable discipline that harmony
of order which Adrian had learned to impart to his men dur-
ing his own apprenticeship of arms. But the disorderly train of
the Lord of Porto was composed of men of all heights. Their
arms were ill-polished and ill-fashioned, and they pressed con-
fusedly on each other ; they laughed and spoke aloud ; and in
their mien and bearing expressed all the insolence of men who
despised alike the master they served and the people they awed.
The two bands coming unexpectedly on each other through
this narrow defile, the jealousy of the two houses presently de-
clared itself. Each pressed forward for the precedence ; and,
as the quiet regularity of Adrian's train, and even its compact
paucity of numbers, enabled it to pass before the servitors of
his rival, the populace set up a loud shout, " A Colonna for-
ever ! " " Let the Bear dance after the Column ! "

" On, ye knaves ! " said Orsini aloud to his men. " How
have ye suffered this affront?" And passing himself to the

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. IO7

head of his men, he would have advanced through the midst of
his rival's train, had not a tall guard, in the Pope's livery,
placed his baton in the way.

" Pardon, my lord ! we have the Vicar's express commands
to suffer no struggling of the different trains one with an-
other."

"Knave ! dost thou bandy words with me ?" said the fierce
Orsini ; and with his sword he clove the baton in two.

"In the Vicar's name, I command you to fall back ! " said
the sturdy guard, now placing his huge bulk in the very front
of the noble's path.

"It is Cecco del Vecchio !" cried those of the populace who
were near enough to perceive the interruption and its cause.

" Ay," said one, " the good Vicar has put many of the stout-
est fellows in the Pope's livery, in order the better to keep
peace. He could have chosen none better than Cecco."

" But he must not fall ! " cried another, as Orsini, glaring on
the smith, drew back his sword as if to plunge it through his
bosom.

" Shame ! shame ! shall the Pope be thus insulted in his own
city ? " cried several voices. " Down with the sacrilegious
down ! " And, as if by a preconcerted plan, a whole body of
the mob broke at once through the lane, and swept like a tor-
rent over Orsini and his jostled and ill-assorted train. Orsini
himself was thrown on the ground with violence, and trampled
upon by a hundred footsteps ; his men, huddled and struggling
as much against themselves as against the mob, were scattered
and overset ; and when, by a great effort of the guards, headed
by the smith himself, order was again restored and the line re-
formed, Orsini, well-nigh choked with his rage and humiliation,
and greatly bruised by the rude assaults he had received,
could scarcely stir from the ground. The officers of the Pope
raised him, and, when he was on his legs, he looked wildly
around for his sword, which, falling from his hand, had been
kicked amongst the crowd, and seeing it not, he said, between
his ground teeth, to Cecco del Vecchio :

" Fellow, thy neck shall answer this outrage, or may God
desert me ! " and passed along through the space ; while a
half-suppressed and exultant hoot from the bystanders followed
his path.

" Way there I " cried the smith, " for the Lord Martino di
Porto, and may all the people know that he has threatened to
take my life for the discharge of my duty in obedienge to the
Pope's Vi<?ar { "

J08 RIENZI,

" He dare not ! " shouted out a thousand voices ; the people
can protect their own ! "

This scene had not been lost on the Provencal, who well
knew how to construe the wind by the direction of straws, and
saw at once, by the boldness of the populace, that they them-
selves were conscious of a coining tempest. " Par Dieu" said
he, as he saluted Adrian, who, gravely, and without looking
behind, had now won the steps of the church, "yon tall fellow
has a brave heart, and many friends, too. What think you," he
added, in a low whisper, " is not this scene a proof that the
nobles are less safe than they wot of?"

" The beast begins to kick against the spur, Sir Knight,"
answered Adrian ; " a wise horseman should, in such a case,
take care how he pull the rein too tight, lest the beast should
rear, and he be overthrown ; yet that is the policy thou wouldst
recommend."

"You mistake," returned Montreal ; "my wish was to give
Rome one sovereign instead of many tyrants ; but hark ! what
means that bell ? "

" The ceremony is about to begin," answered Adrian. " Shall
we enter the church together ?"

Seldom had a temple consecrated to God witnessed so
singular a spectacle as that which now animated the solemn
space of the Lateran.

In the centre of the church seats were raised in an amphi-
theatre, at the far end of which was a scaffolding, a little higher
than the rest ; below this spot, but high enough to be in sight
of all the concourse, was placed a vast table of iron, on which
was graven an ancient inscription, and bearing in its centre a
clear and prominent device, presently to be explained.

The seats were covered with cloth and rich tapestry. In the
rear of the church was drawn a purple curtain. Around the
amphitheatre were the officers of the Church, in the party-col-
ored liveries of the Pope. To the right of the scaffold sate
Raimond, Bishop of Orvietto, in his robes of state. On the
benches round him you saw all the marked personages of Rome:
the judges, the men of letters, the nobles, from the lofty rank
of the Savelli to the inferior grade of a Raselli. The space be-
yond the amphitheatre was filled with people, who now poured
fast in, stream after stream ; all the while rang, clear and loud,
the great bell of the church.

At length, as Adrian and Montreal seated themselves at a
little distance from Raimond, the bell suddenly ceased, the
murmurs of the people were stilled, the purple curtain was

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. ^69

withdrawn, and Rienzi came forth with slow and majestic
steps. He came, but not in his usual sombre and plain attire.
Over his broad breast he wore a vest of dazzling whiteness ; ?
long robe, in the ample fashion of the toga, descended to his
feet and swept the floor. On his head he wore a fold of white
cloth, in the centre of which shone a golden crown. But the
crown was divided, or cloven, as it were, by the mystic orna-
ment of a silver sword, which, attracting the universal atten-
tion, testified at once that this strange garb was worn, not from
the vanity of display, but for the sake of presenting to the con-
course in the person of the citizen a type and emblem of
that state of the city on which he was about to descant.

" Faith ! " whispered one of the old nobles to his neighbor,
"the plebeian assumes it bravely."

" It will be rare sport," said a second. " I trust the good
man will put some jests in his discourse."

" What showman's tricks are these ?" said a third.

" He is certainly crazed ! " said a fourth.

" How handsome he is ! " said the women mixed with the
populace.

" This is a man who has learned the people by heart," ob-
served Montreal to Adrian. " He knows he must speak to the
eye, in order to win the mind : a knave, a wise knave ! "

And now Rienzi had ascended the scaffold ; and as he looked
long and steadfastly around the meeting, the high and thought-
ful repose of his majestic countenance, its deep and solemn
gravity, hushed all the murmurs, and made its effect equally
felt by the sneering nobles as the impatient populace.

" Signors. of Rome," said he at length, "and ye, friends and
citizens, you have heard why we are met together this day ;
and, you, my Lord Bishop of Orvietto, and ye, fellow-laborers
with me in the field of letters, ye, too, are aware that it is upon
some matter relative to that ancient Rome, the rise and the
decline of whose past power and glories we have spent our
youth in endeavoring to comprehend. But this, believe me, is
no vain enigma of erudition, useful but to the studious, re-
ferring but to the dead. Let the past perish ! Let darkness
shroud it ! let it sleep forever over the crumbling temples and
desolate tombs of its forgotten sons, if it cannot afford us,
from its disburied secrets, a guide for the present and the
future. What, my lords, ye have thought that it was for the
sake of antiquity alone that we have wasted our nights and days
in studying what antiquity can teach us ! You are mistaken ;
it is nothing to know what we have been, unless it is with the

110 RIENZI,

desire of knowing that which we ought to be. Our ancestors
are mere dust and ashes, save when they speak to our poster-
ity ; and then their voices resound, not from the earth below,
but the heaven above. There is an eloquence in Memory, be-
cause it is the nurse of Hope. There is a sanctity in the Past,
but only because of the chronicles it retains, chronicles of
the progress of mankind, stepping-stones in civilization, in
liberty, and in knowledge. Our fathers forbid us to recede,
they teach us what is our rightful heritage ; they bid us reclaim,
they bid us augment that heritage, preserve their virtues, and
avoid their errors. These are the true uses of the past. Like
the sacred edifice in which we are, it is a tomb upon which to
rear a temple. I see that you marvel at this long beginning ;
ye look to each other ye ask to what it tends. Behold this
broad plate of iron ; upon it is graven an inscription but
lately disinterred from the heaps of stone and ruin, which,
O shame to Rome ! were once the palaces of empire, and the
arches of triumphant power. The device in the centre of the
table, which you behold, conveys the act of the Roman Sena-
tors, who are conferring upon Vespasian the imperial authori-
ty. It is this inscription which I have invited you to hear read !
It specifies the very terms and limits of the authority thus con-
ferred. To the Emperor was confided the power of making
laws and alliances with whatsoever nation, of increasing or
of diminishing the limits of towns and districts ; of mark
this, my lords ! exalting men to the rank of dukes and kings,
ay, and of deposing and degrading them ; of making cities
and of unmaking ; in short of all the attributes of imperial
power. Yes, to that Emperor was confided this vast authority;
but by whom ? Heed, listen, I pray you let not a word be
lost ; by whom, I say ? By the Roman Senate ! What was
the Roman Senate ? The representative of the Roman
People! "

"I knew he would come to that!" said the smith, who
stood at the door with his fellows, but to whose ear, clear and
distinct, rolled the silver voice of Rienzi.

" Brave fellow ! and this, too, in the hearing of the lords ! "

" Ay, you see what the people were ; and we should never
have known this but for him."

" Peace, fellows ! " said the officer to those of the crowd
from whom came these whispered sentences.

Rienzi continued : " Yes, it is the people who intrusted this
power to the people, therefore, it belongs ! " Did the
haughty Emperor arrogate the crown ? Could he assume the

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. Ill

authority of himself? Was it born with him ? Did he derive
it, my Lord Barons, from the possession of towered castles
of lofty lineage ? No ! all-powerful as he was, he had no right
to one atom of that power, save from the voice and trust of
the Roman people. Such, O my countrymen ! such was, even
at that day, when Liberty was but the shadow of her former
self, such was the acknowledged prerogative of your fathers !
All power was the gift of the people. What have ye to give
now ? Who, who, I say, what single person, what petty
chief, asks you for the authority he assumes ? His senate is
his sword ; his chart of license is written, not with ink, but
blood. The people ! there is no people ! Oh ! would to God
that we might disentomb the spirit of the Past as easily as her
records ! "

" If I were your kinsman," whispered Montreal to Adrian,
" I would give this man short breathing-time between his pero-
ration and confession."

"What is your Emperor?" continued Rienzi ; "a stranger!
What the great head of your Church ? an exile ! Ye are
without your lawful chiefs ; and why ? Because ye are
not without your law-defying tyrants ! The license of your
nobles, their discords, their dissensions, have driven our Holy
Father from the heritage of St. Peter ; they have bathed your
streets in your own blood ; they have wasted the wealth of
your labors on private quarrels and the maintenance of hire-
ling ruffians ! Your forces are exhausted against yourselves.
You have made a mockery of your country, once the mistress
of the world. You have steeped her lips in gall ; ye have set
a crown of thorns upon her head! What, my lords!" cried
he, turning sharply round towards the Savelli and Orsini, who,
endeavoring to shake off the thrill which the fiery eloquence of
Rienzi had stricken to their hearts, now, by contemptuous
gestures and scornful smiles, testified the displeasure they did
not dare loudly to utter in the presence of the Vicar and the
people. " What ! even while I speak not the sanctity of this
place restrains you ! I am an humble man a citizen of Rome ;
but I have this distinction : I have raised against myself many
foes and scoffers for that which I have done for Rome. I am
hated, because I love my country ; I am despised, because I
would exalt her. I retaliate I shall be avenged. Three trai-
tors in your own palaces shall betray you ; their names are-
Luxury, Envy, and Dissension ! "

" There he had them on the hip ! "

" Ha ! ha ! by the Holy Cross, that was good ! "

112 RIENZI,

" I would go to the hangman for such another keen stroke as
that."

"It is a shame if we are cowards, when one man is thus
brave," said the smith.

" This is the man we have always wanted ! '*

"Silence! " proclaimed the officer.

*' O Romans !" resumed Rienzi passionately; "awake! I
conjure you ! Let this memorial of your former power your
ancient liberties sink deep into your souls. In a propitious
hour, if ye seize it in an evil one, if ye suffer the golden op-
portunity to escape has this record of the past been unfolded
to your eyes. Recollect that the Jubilee approaches."

The Bishop of Orvietto smiled, and bowed approvingly ; the
people, the citizens, the inferior nobles, noted well those signs
of encouragement ; and, to their minds, the Pope himself, in
the person of his Vicar, looked benignly on the daring of
Rienzi.

" The Jubilee approaches ; the eyes of all Christendom will
be directed hither. Here, where, from all quarters of the globe,
men come for peace, shall they find discord ? seeking absolu-
tion, shall they perceive but crime ? In the centre of God's
dominion, shall they weep at your weakness ? in the seat of the
martyred saints, shall they shudder at your vices-? in the foun-
tain and source of Christ's law, shall they find all law unknown ?
You were the glory of the world ; will you be its by-word ?
You were its example; will you be its warning? Rise, while
it is yet time ! clear your roads from the bandits that infest
them ! your walls from the hirelings that they harbor ! Banish
these civil discords, or the men how proud, how great, soever-
who maintain them ! Pluck the scales from the hand of
Fraud ! the sword from the hand of Violence ! The balance
and the sword are the ancient attributes of Justice ! restore
them to her again ! This be your high task ; these be your
great ends ! Deem any man who opposes them a traitor to his
country. Gain a victory greater than those of the Caesars a
victory over yourselves ! Let the pilgrims of the wo r ld behold
the resurrection of Rome ! Make one epoch of the Jubilee of
Religion and the Restoration of Law ! Lay the sacrifice of
your vanquished passions the first-fruits of your renovated
liberties upon the very altar that these walls contain ! and
never ! oh, never ! since the world began, shall men have made
a more grateful offering to their God !"

So intense was the sensation these words created in the
audience ; so breathless and overpowered did they leave the

THE LAST OF 1 THE TRIBUNES. tl^

SOuls which they took by storm ; that Rienzi had descended
*he scaffold, and already disappeared behind the curtain from
which he had emerged, ere the crowd were lully aware that he
had ceased.

The singularity of this sudden apparhion robed in myste-
rious splendor, and vanishing the moment its errand was ful-
filled gave additional effect to the words it had uttered. The
whole character of that bold address became invested with a
something preternatural and inspired ; to the minds of the vul-
gar the mortal was converted into the oracle ; and, marvelling
at the unhesitating courage with which their idol had rebuked
and conjured the haughty barons, each of whom they re-
garded in the light of sanctioned executioners, whose anger
could be made manifest at once by the gibbet or the axe, the
people could not but superstitiously imagine that nothing less
than authority from above could have gifted their leader with
such hardihood, and preserved him from the danger it incurred.
In fact, it was in this very courage of Rienzi that his
safety consisted ; he was placed in those circumstances where
audacity is prudence. Had he been less bold, the nobles would
have been more severe ; but so great a license of speech in an
officer of the Holy See, they naturally imagined was not unau-
thorized by the assent of the Pope, as well as by the approba-
tion of the people. Those who did not (like Stephen Colonna)
despise words as wind, shrank back from the task of punishing
one \\hose voice might be the mere echo of the wishes of the
pontiff. The dissensions of the nobles among each other were
no less favorable to Rienzi. He attacked a body, the members
of which had no union.

" It is not my duty to slay him ! " said one.

"I am not the representative of the barons!" said
another.

" If Stephen Colonna heeds him not, it would be absurd, as
well as dangerous, in a meaner man to make himself the cham-
pion of the order ! " said a third.

Then Colonna smiled approval when Rienzi denounced an
Orsini ; an O'sini laughed aloud when the eloquence burst over
a Colonna. The lesser nobles were well pleased to hear attacks
upon both : while, on the other hand, the Bishop, by the long
impunity of Rienzi, had taken courage to sanction the conduct
of his fellow-officer. He affected, indeed, at times, to blame
the excess of his fervor, but it was always accompanied by the
praises of his honesty ; and the approbation of the Pope's Vicar
confirmed the impression of the nobles as to the approbation

114 RIEN2I,

of the Pope. Thus from the very rashness of his enthusiasm
had grown his security and success.

Still, however, when the barons had a little recovered from
the stupor into which Rienzi had cast them, they looked round
to each other ; and their looks confessed their sense of the
insolence of the orator, and the affront offered to themselves.

" Per fede ! " quoth Reginaldo di Orsini, "this is past bear-
ing ; the plebeian has gone too far ! "

" Look at the populace below ! how they murmur and gape ;
and how their eyes sparkle ; and what looks they bend at us ! "
said Luca di Savellito his mortal enemy, Castruccio Malatesta :
the sense of a common danger united in one moment, but only
for a moment, the enmity of years.

" Diavolo ! " muttered Raselli (Nina's father) to a baron,
equally poor, " but the clerk has truth in his lips. 'Tis a pity
he is not noble."

" What a clever brain marred ! " said a Florentine merchant.
"That man might be something if he were sufficiently rich."

Adrian and Montreal were silent : the first seemed lost in
thought ; the last was watching the various effects produced
upon the audience.

" Silence ! " proclaimed the officers. " Silence, for my Lord
Vicar."

At this announcement every eye turned to Raimond, who,
rising with much clerical importance, thus addressed the
assembly :

" Although, Barons and Citizens of Rome, my well-beloved
flock, and children, I, no more than yourselves, anticipated the
exact nature of the address ye have just heard ; and albeit I
cannot feel unalloyed contentment at the manner, nor, I may
say, at the whole matter of that fervent exhortation ; yet (laying
great emphasis on the last word), I cannot suffer you to depart
without adding to the prayers of our Holy Father's servant,
those, also, of his Holiness's spiritual representative. It is
true ! the Jubilee approaches ! The Jubilee approaches ; and
yet our roads, even to the gates of Rome, are infested with
murderous and godless ruffians ! What pilgrim can venture
across the Apennines to worship at the altars of St. Peter?
The Jubilee approaches : what scandal shall it be to Rome if
these shrines be without pilgrims ! if the timid recoil from, if
the bold fall victims to, the dangers of the way ! Wherefore,
I pray you all, citizens and chiefs alike, I pray you all to lay
aside those unhappy dissensions which have so long consumed
the strength of our sacred city ; and, uniting with each other

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 115

in the ties of amity and brotherhood, to form a blessed league
against the marauders of the road. I see amongst you, my
lords, many of the boasts and pillars of the state ; but, alas !
1 think with grief and dismay on the causeless and idle hatred
that has grown up between you ! a scandal to our city, and re-
flecting, let me add, my lords, no honor on your faith as Chris-
tians, nor on your dignity as defenders of the Church."

Amongst the inferior nobles ; along the seats of the judges
and the men of letters ; through the vast concourse of the peo-
ple ran a loud murmur of approbation at these words. The
greater barons looked proudly, but not contemptuously, at the
countenance of the prelate, and preserved a strict and unre-
vealing silence.

" In this holy spot," continued the Bishop, "let me beseech
you to bury those fruitless animosities which have already cost
enough of blood and treasure ; and let us quit these walls with
one common determination to evince our courage and display
our chivalry only against our universal foes those ruffians who
lay waste our fields, and infest our public ways ; the foes alike
of the people we should protect, and the God whom we should
serve ! "

The Bishop resumed his seat ; the nobles looked at each
other without reply ; the people began to whisper loudly
among themselves ; when, after a short pause, Adrian di Cas-
tello rose.

" Pardon me, my lords, and you, reverend father, if I, inex-
perienced in years and of little mark or dignity amongst you,
presume to be the first to embrace the proposal we have just
heard. Willingly do I renounce all ancient cause of enmity
with any of my compeers. Fortunately for me, my long ab-
sence from Rome has swept from my remembrance the feuds
and rivalries familiar to my early youth ; and in this noble
conclave I see but one man (glancing at Martino di Porto,
who sat sullenly looking down) against whom I have, at any
time, deemed it a duty to draw my sword ; the gage that I
once cast to that noble is yet, I rejoice to think, unredeemed.
I withdraw it. Henceforth my only foes shall be the foes of
Rome !"

" Nobly spoken ! " said the Bishop, aloud.

" And," continued Adrian, casting down his glove amongst
the nobles, "I throw, my lords, the gage, thus resumed,
amongst you all, in challenge to a wider rivalry, and a more
noble field. I invite any man to vie with me in the zeal that
he shall show to restore tranquillity to our roads, and order to

Il6 R1EN21,

our State. It is a contest in which, if I be vanquished with
reluctance, I will yield the prize without envy. In ten days
from this time, reverend Father, I will raise forty horsemen-at-
arms, ready to obey whatever orders shall be agreed upon for
the security of the Roman State. And you, O Romans, dis-
miss, I pray you, from your minds, those eloquent invectives
against your fellow-citizens which ye have lately heard. All
of us, of what rank soever, may have shared in the excesses of
these unhappy times ; let us endeavor, not to avenge nor to
imitate, but to reform and to unite. And may the people
hereafter find, that the true boast of a patrician is, that his
power the better enables him to serve his country."

" Brave words ! " quoth the smith sneeringly.

"If they were all like him ! " said the smith's neighbor.

" He has helped the nobles out of a dilemma," said Pandulfo.

" He has shown gray wit under young hairs," said an aged
Malatesta.

"You have turned the tide, but not stemmed it, noble
Adrian," whispered the ever-boding Montreal, as, amidst the
murmurs of the general approbation, the young Colonna re-
sumed his seat.

"How mean you?" said Adrian.

"That your soft words, like all patrician conciliations, have
come too late."

Not another noble stirred, though they felt, perhaps, dis-
posed to join in the general feeling of amnesty, and appeared,
by signs and whispers, to applaud the speech of Adrian. They
were too habituated to the ungracefulness of an unlettered
pride, to bow themselves to address conciliating language
either to the people or their foes. And Raimond, glancing
round, and not willing that their unseemly silence should be
long remarked, rose at once, to give it the best construction in
his power.

" My son, thou hast spoken as a patriot and a Christian ; by
the approving silence of your peers we all feel that they share
your sentiments. Break we up the meeting ; its end is ob-
tained. The manner of our proceeding against the leagued
robbers of the road requires maturer consideration elsewhere.
This day shall be an epoch in our history."

" It shall," quoth Cecco del Vecchio gruffly, between his
teeth.

"Children, my blessing upon you all!" concluded the
Vicar, spreading his arms.

And in a few minutes more the crowd poured from the

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. H7

church. The different servitors and flag-bearers ranged them-
selves on the steps without, each train anxious for their
master's precedence ; and the nobles, gravely collecting in
small knots, in the which was no mixture of rival blood, fol-
lowed the crowd down the aisles. Soon rose again the din,
and the noise, and the wrangling, and the oaths, of the hostile
bands, as, with pain and labor, the Vicar's officers marshalled
them in "order most disorderly."

But so true were Montreal's words to Adrian, that the popu-
lace already half forgot the young noble's generous appeal,
and were only bitterly commenting on the ungracious silence
of his brother lords. What, too, to them was this crusade
against the robbers of the road ? They blamed the good
Bishop for not saying boldly to the nobles : " Ye are the first
robbers we must march against ! " The popular discontents
had gone far beyond palliatives ; they had arrived at that
point when the people longed less for reform than change.
There are times when a revolution cannot be warded off ; it
must come come alike by resistance or by concession. Woe
to that race in which a revolution produces no fruits ! in
which the thunderbolt smites the high place, but does not
purify the air ! To suffer^in vain is often the lot of the noblest
individuals : but when a People suffer in vain, let them curse
themselves !

CHAPTER IV.

THE AMBITIOUS CITIZEN, AND THE AMBITIOUS SOLDIER.

THE Bishop of Orvietto lingered last, to confer with Rienzi,
who awaited him in the recesses of the Lateran. Raimond
had the penetration not to be seduced into believing that the
late scene could effect any reformation amongst the nobles, heal
their divisions, or lead them actively against the infestors of the
Campagna. But, as he detailed to Rienzi all that had occurred
subsequent to the departure of that hero of the scene, he con-
cluded with saying :

"You will perceive from this, one good result will be pro-
duced : the first armed dissension the first fray among the
nobles will seem like a breach of promise ; and, td the people
and to the Pope, a reasonable excuse for despairing of all
amendment amongst the Barons an excuse which will sanction
the efforts of the first, and the approval of the last."

" For such a fray we shall not long wait." answered Rienzi.

Il8 RIENZI,

"I believe the prophecy," answered Raimond, smiling; "at
present all runs well. Go you with us homeward ?"

" Nay, I think it better to tarry here till the crowd is en-
tirely dispersed ; for if they were to see me, in their present
excitement, they might insist on some rash and hasty enter-
prise. Besides, my lord," added Rienzi, "with an ignorant
people, however honest and enthusiastic, this rule must be
rigidly observed stale not your presence by custom. Never
may men like me, who have no external rank, appear amongst
the crowd, save on those occasions when the mind is itself
a rank."

"That is true, as you have no train," answered Raimond,
thinking of his own well-liveried menials. "Adieu, then! we
shall meet soon."

"Ay, at Philippi, my lord. Reverend Father, your bless-
ing ! "

It was some time subsequent to this conference that Rienzi
quitted the sacred edifice. As he stood on the steps of the
church now silent and deserted the hour that precedes the
brief twilight of the South lent its magic to the view. There
he beheld the sweeping arches of the mighty Aqueduct extend-
ing far along the scene, and backed by the distant and purpled
hills. Before, to the right, rose the gate which took its Roman
name from the Coelian Mount, at whose declivity it yet stands.
Beyond, from the height of the steps, he saw the villages scat-
tered through the gray Campagna, whitening in the sloped sun ;
and in the furthest distance the mountain shadows began to
darken over the roofs of the ancient Tusculum, and the second
Alban* city, which yet rises, in desolate neglect, above the van-
ished palaces of Pompey and Domitian.

The Roman stood absorbed and motionless for some moments,
gazing on the scene, and inhaling the sweet balm of the mellow
air. It was the soft spring-time the season of flowers, and
green leaves, and whispering winds the pastoral May of Italia's
poets : but hushed was the voice of song on the banks of the
Tiber ; the reeds gave music no more. From the sacred
Mount in which Saturn held his home, the Dryad and the
Nymph, and Italy's native Sylvan, were gone forever. Rienzi's
original nature its enthusiasm ; its veneration for the past ;
its love of the beautiful and the great ; that very attachment
to the graces and pomp which give so florid a character to the
harsh realities of life, and which power afterwards too luxuri-

* The first Alba the Alba Longa whose origin Fable ascribes to Ascanius, was de-
stroyed by Tullus Hostilius. The second Alba, or modern Albano, was erected on the
plain below the ancient town, a little before the time of Nero.

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. Iig

jmtly developed ; the exuberance of thoughts and fancies,
which poured itself from his lips in so brilliant and inexhausti-
ble a flood all bespoke those intellectual and imaginative
biasses, which, in calmer times, might have raised him in
literature to a more indisputable eminence than that to which
action can ever lead ; and something of such consciousness
crossed his spirit at that moment.

" Happier had it been for me," thought he, " had I never
looked out from my own heart upon the world. I had all
within me that makes contentment of the present, because I
had that which can make me forget the present. I had the
power to repeople to create the legends and dreams of old ;
the divine faculty of verse, in which the beautiful superfluities
of the heart can pour themselves these were mine ! Petrarch
chose wisely for himself ! To address the world, but from
without the world ; to persuade ; to excite ; to command for
these are the aim and glory of ambition : but to shun its tu-
mult, and its toil ! His the quiet cell which he fills with the
shapes of beauty ; the solitude, from which he can banish the
evil times whereon we are fallen, but in which he can dream
back the great hearts and the glorious epochs of the past. For
me to what cares I am wedded ! to what labors I am bound I
what instruments I must use ! what disguises I must assume !
to tricks and artifice I must bow my pride ! base are my ene-
mies ; uncertain my friends, and verily, in this struggle with
blinded and mean men, the soul itself becomes warped and
dwarfish. Patient and darkling, the Means creep through
caves and the soiling mire, to gain at last the light which is the
End."

In these reflections there was a truth, the whole gloom and
sadness of which the Roman had not yet experienced. How-
ever august be the object we propose to ourselves, every less
worthy path we take to insure it distorts the mental sight of
our ambition ; and the means by degrees abase the end to
their own standard. This is the true misfortune of a man
nobler than his age that the instruments he must use soil him-
self : half he reforms his times ; but half, too, the times wiU
corrupt the reformer. His own craft undermines his safety ;
the people, whom he himself accustoms to a false excitement,
perpetually crave it ; and when their ruler ceases to seduce
their fancy, he falls their victim. The reform he makes by
these means is hollow and momentary ; it is swept away with
himself : it was but the trick, the show, the wasted genius of a
conjuror : the curtain falls the magic is over the cup and

120 fclN2l,

balls are kicked aside. Better one slow step in enlightenment
which being made by the reason of a whole people, cannot
recede than these sudden flashes in the depth of the general
night, which the darkness, by contrast doubly dark, swallows
up everlastingly again.

As slowly and musingly Rienzi turned to quit the church, he
felt a light touch upon his shoulder.

" Fair evening to you, Sir Scholar," said a frank voice.

"To you I return the courtesy," answered Rienzi, gazing
upon the person who thus suddenly accosted him, and in whose
white cross and martial bearing the reader recognizes the
Knight of St. John.

"You know me not, I think?" said Montreal; "but that
matters little, we may easily commence our acquaintance ; for
me, indeed, I am fortunate enough to have made myself already
acquainted with you."

" Possibly we have met elsewhere, at the house of one of
those nobles to whose rank you seem to belong ? "

" Belong ! no not exactly ! " returned Montreal proudly.
" High-born and great as your magnates deem themselves, I
would not, while the mountains can yield one free spot for my
footstep, change my place in the world's many grades for theirs.
To the brave there is but one sort of plebeian, and that is the
coward. But you, sage Rienzi," continued the knight, in a
gayer tone, " I have seen in more stirring scenes than the hall
of a Roman Baron."

Rienzi glanced keenly at Montreal, who met his eye with an
open brow.

"Yes!" resumed the Knight; "but let us walk on ; suffer
me for a few moments to be your companion. Yes ! I have
listened to you the other eve, when you addressed the popu-
lace, and to-day, when you rebuked the nobles ; and at mid-
night, too, not long since, when (your ear, fair sir! lower, it is
a secret !) at midnight, too, when you administered the oath
of brotherhood to the bold conspirators, on the ruined Aven-
tine !"

As he concluded the Knight drew himself aside to watch^
upon Rienzi's countenance, the effect which his words might
produce.

A slight tremor passed over the frame of the conspirator
for so,, unless the conspiracy succeed, would Rienzi be termed,
by others than Montreal ; he turned abruptly around to con-
front the Knight, and placed his hand involuntarily on his
sword, but presently relinquished the grasp.

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 12*

" Ha ! " said the Roman slowly, " if this be true, fall Rome \
There is treason even among the free ! "

" No treason, brave sir ! " answered Montreal ; " I possess
thy secret, but none have betrayed it to me."

" And is it as friend or foe that thou hast learned it ? "

" That as it may be," returned Montreal carelessly.
" Enough, at present, that I could send thee to the gibbet, if I
said but the word, to show my power to be thy foe ; enough
that I have not done it, to prove my disposition to be thy
friend."

" Thou mistakes!, stranger ! that man does not live who
could shed my blood in the streets of Rome ! The gibbet !
Little dost thou know of the power which surrounds Rienzi."

These words were said with some scorn and bitterness ; but,
after a moment's pause, Rienzi resumed more calmly :

" By the cross on thy mantle thou belongest to one of the
proudest orders of knighthood : thou art a foreigner and a
cavalier. What generous sympathy can convert thee into a
friend of the Roman people ? "

" Cola di Rienzi," returned Montreal, " the sympathies that
unite us are those that unite all men, who, by their own efforts,
rise above the herd. True, I was born noble, but powerless
and poor : at my beck now move, from city to city, the armed
instruments of authority ; my breath is the law of thousands.
This empire I have not inherited ; I won it by a cool brain and
a fearless arm. Know me for Walter de Montreal ; is it not a
name that speaks a spirit kindred to thine own? Is not ambi-
tion a common sentiment between us ? I do not marshal sol-
diers for gain only, though men have termed me avaricious
nor butcher peasants for the love of blood, though men havt
called me cruel. Arms and wealth are the sinews of power ;
it is power that I desire ; thou, bold Rienzi, struggles! thou
not for the same ? Is it the rank breath of the garlic-chewing
mob ; is it the whispered envy of schoolmen ; is it the hollow
mouthing of boys who call thee patriot and freeman words to
trick the ear that will content thee ? These are but //^instru-
ments to power. Have I spoken truly ?"

Whatever distaste Rienzi might conceive at this speech, he
masked effectually. " Certes," said he, " it would be in vain,
renowned captain, to deny that I seek but that power of which
thou speakest. But what union can there be between the am-
bition of a Roman citizen and the leader of paid armies that
take their cruise only according to their hire to-day, fight for
liberty in Florence \ to-morrow, for tyranny in Bologna? Par

1*3 RIENZI,

don my frankness ; for in this age that is deemed no disgrace
which I impute to thy armies. Valor and generalship are held
to consecrate any cause they distinguish ; and he who is the
master of princes may be well honored by them as their
equal."

" We are entering into a less deserted quarter of the town,"
said the Knight: "is there no secret place no Aventine in
this direction, where we can confer ? "

" Hush ! " replied Rienzi, cautiously looking round. " I
thank thee, noble Montreal, for the hint ; nor may it be well
for us to be seen together. Wilt thou deign to follow me to
my home, by the Palatine Bridge ?* there we can converse un-
disturbed and secure."

" Be it so," said Montreal, falling back.

With a quick and hurried step Rienzi passed through the
town, in which, wherever he was discovered, the scattered
citizens saluted him with marked respect ; and turning through
a labyrinth of dark alleys, as if to shun the more public thor-
oughfares, arrived at length at a broad space near the river.
The first stars of night shone down on the ancient temple of
Fortuna Virilis, which the chances of time had already converted
into the Church of St. Mary of Egypt ; and facing the twice-
hallowed edifice stood the house of Rienzi.

" It is a fair omen to have my mansion facing the ancient
Temple of Fortune," said Rienzi, smiling, as Montreal fol-
lowed the Roman into the chamber I have already de-
scribed.

" Yet Valor need never pray to Fortune," said the Knight ;
" the first commands the last."

Long was the conference between these two men, the most
enterprising of their age. Meanwhile, let me make the reader
somewhat better acquainted with the character and designs of
Montreal than the hurry of events has yet permitted him to
become.

Walter de Montreal, generally known in the chronicles of
Italy by the designation of Fra Moreale, had passed into Italy,
a bold adventurer, worthy to become a successor of those rov-
ing Normans (from one of the most eminent of whom, by the
mother's side, he claimed descent) who had formerly played so
strange a part in the chivalric errantry of Europe, realizing

* The picturesque ruins shown at this day as having once been the habitation of the
celebrated Cola di Rienzi were lone asserted by the antiquarians to have belonged to an-
other Cola or Nicola. I believe, however, the dispute has been lately decided ; and, in-
deed, no one but an antiquary, and that a Roman one, could suppose that there were Jwg
' to whom the inscription on the house would apply?

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 123

the fables of Amadis and Palmerin (each knight in himself a
host), winning territories and oversetting thrones ; acknowl-
edging no laws save those of knighthood ; never confounding
themselves with the tribe amongst which they settled ; incap-
able of becoming citizens, and scarcely contented with aspiring
to become kings. At that time Italy was the India of all those
well-born and penniless adventurers who, like Montreal, had
inflamed their imagination by the ballads and legends of the
Roberts and the Godfreys of old ; who had trained themselves
from youth to manage the barb, and bear, through the heats of
summer, the weight of arms ; and who, passing into an effem-
inate and distracted land, had only to exhibit bravery in order to
command wealth. It was considered no disgrace for some
powerful chieftain to collect together a band of these hardy
aliens ; to subsist amidst the mountains on booty and pillage ;
to make war upon tyrant or republic, as interest suggested, and
to sell, at enormous stipends, the immunities of peace. Some-
times they hired themselves to one State to protect it against
the other, and the next year beheld them in the field against
their former employers. These bands of Northern stipendiaries
assumed, therefore, a civil, as well as a military importance ;
they were as indispensable to the safety of one State as they
were destructive to the security of all. But five years before
the Florentine Republic had hired the services of a celebrated
leader of these foreign soldiers, Gualtier, Duke of Athens. By
acclamation the people themselves had elected that warrior to
the state of prince, or tyrant, of their State ; before the
year was completed they revolted against his cruelties, or
rather against his exactions, for, despite all the boasts of
their historians, they felt an attack on their purses more
deeply than an assault on their liberties, they had chased him
from their city, and once more proclaimed themselves a repub-
lic. The bravest and most favored of the soldiers of the Duke
of Athens had been Walter de Montreal ; he had shared the rise
and the downfall of his chief. Amongst popular commotions,
the acute and observant mind of the Knight of St. John had
learned no mean civil experience ; he had learned to sound a
people ; to know how far they would endure ; to construe the
signs of revolution ; to be a reader of the times. After the
downfall of the Duke of Athens, as a Free Companion, in other
words a Freebooter, Montreal had augmented, under the
fierce Werner, his riches and his renown. At present without
employment worthy his spirit of enterprise and intrigue, the
disordered and chiefless state of Rome had attracted him

124 RIENZI,

thither. In the league he had proposed to Colonna ; in the
suggestions he had made to the vanity of that Signer, his own
object was to render his services indispensable to constitute
himself the head of the soldiery whom his proposed designs
would render necessary to the ambition of the Colonna, could
it be excited ; and in the vastness of his hardy genius for enter-
prise, he probably foresaw that the command of such a force
would be, in reality, the command of Rome ; a counter-revolu-
tion might easily unseat the Colonna and elect himself to the
principality. It had sometimes been the custom of Roman, as
of other Italian States, to prefer for a chief magistrate, under
the title of Podesta, a foreigner to a native. And Montreal
hoped that he might possibly become to Rome what the Duke
of Athens had been to Florence an ambition he knew well
enough to be above the gentleman of Provence, but not above
the leader of an army. But, as we have already seen, his
sagacity perceived at once that he could not move the aged
head of the patricians to those hardy and perilous measures
which were necessary to the attainment of supreme power.
Contented with his present station, and taught moderation by
his age and his past reverses, Stephen Colonna was not the
man to risk a scaffold from the hope to gain a throne. The
contempt which the old patrician professed for the people and
their idol also taught the deep-thinking Montreal that, if the
Colonna possessed not the ambition, neither did he possess the
policy, requisite for empire. The Knight found his caution
against Rienzi in vain, and he turned to Rienzi himself. Little
cared the Knight of St. John which party were uppermost
prince or people so that his own objects were attained ; in
fact, he had studied the humors of a people, not in order to
serve, but to rule them ; and, believing all men actuated by a
similar ambition, he imagined that, whether a demagogue or
a patrician reigned, the people were equally to be victims, and
that the cry of "Order " on the one hand, or of " Liberty"
on the other, was but the mere pretext by which the energy of
one man sought to justify his ambition over the herd. Deem-
ing himself one of the most honorable spirits of his age, he
believed in no honor which he was unable to feel ; and, sceptic
in virtue, was therefore credulous of vice.

But the boldness of his own nature inclined him, perhaps,
rather to the adventurous Rienzi than to the self-complacent
Colonna ; and he considered that to the safety of the first he
and his armed minions might be even more necessary than to
that of the last. At present his mai> object was to learn from

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 125

Rienzi the exact strength which he possessed, and how far he
was prepared for any actual revolt.

The acute- Roman took care, on the one hand, how he be
trayed to the Knight more than he yet knew, or he disgusted
him by apparent reserve on the other. Crafty as Montreal
was, he possessed not that wonderful art of mastering others
which was so pre-eminently the gift of the eloquent and pro-
found Rienzi, and the difference between the grades of their
intellect was visible in their present conference.

" I see," said Rienzi, " that amidst all the events which
have lately smiled upon my ambition, none is so favorable as that
which assures me of your countenance and friendship. In
truth, I require some armed reliance. Would you believe it,
our friends, so bold in private meetings, yet shrink from a
public explosion. They fear not the patricians, but the
soldiery of the patricians ; for it is the remarkable feature in
the Italian courage, that they have no terror for each other,
but the casque and sword of a foreign hireling make them quail
like deer."

" They will welcome gladly, then, the assurance that such
hirelings shall be in their service, not against them ; and as
many as you desire for the revolution, so many shall you
receive."

"But the pay and the conditions," said Rienzi, with his dry,
sarcastic smile. " How shall we arrange the first, and what
shall we hold to be the second ? "

" That is an affair easily concluded," replied Montreal.
" For me, to tell you frankly, the glory and excitement of so
great a revolution would alone suffice. I like to feel myself
necessary to the completion of high events. For my men it is
otherwise. Your first act will be to seize the revenues of the
State. Well, whatever they amount to, the product of the first
year, great or small, shall be divided amongst us. You the
one half, I and my men the other half."

" It is much," said Rienzi gravely, and as if in calculation,
" but Rome cannot purchase her liberties too dearly. So be it
then decided."

"Amen! And now, then, what is your force? for these
eighty or a hundred signors of the Aventine worthy men,
doubtless scarce suffice for a revolt ! "

Gazing cautiously round the room, the Roman placed his
hand on Montreal's arm :

" Between you and me, it requires time to cement it. We shall
be unable to stir these five weeks. I have too rashly anticipa'

126 RIENZI,

ted the period. The corn is indeed cut, but I must now,
by private adjuration and address, bind up the scattered
sheaves."

" Five weeks," repeated Montreal, " that is far longer than I
anticipated."

"What I desire," continued Rienzi, fixing his searching eyes
upon Montreal, "is that, in the mean while, we should preserve
a profound calm, we should remove every suspicion. I shall
bury myself in my studies, and convoke no more meetings."

" Well"

"And for yourself, noble Knight, might I venture to dictate,
I would pray you to mix with the nobles : to profess for me
and for the people the profoundest contempt : and to contrib-
ute to rock them yet more in the cradle of their false security.
Meanwhile, you could quietly withdraw as many of the armed
mercenaries as you influence from Rome, and leave the nobles
without their only defenders. Collecting these hardy warriors in
the recesses of the mountains, a day's march from hence, we may
be able to summon them at need, and they shall appear at our
gates, and in the midst of our rising hailed as deliverers by
the nobles, but in reality allies of the people. In the confu-
sion and despair of our enemies at discovering their mistake,
they will fly from the city."

" And its revenues and its empire will become the appanage
of the hardy soldier and the intriguing demagogue ! " cried
Montreal, with a laugh.

"Sir Knight, the division shall be equal."

"Agreed!"

"And now, noble Montreal, a flask of our best vintage}"
said Rienzi, changing his tone.

" You know the Provencals," answered Montreal gayly.

The wine was brought, the conversation became free and
familiar, and Montreal, whose craft was acquired, and whose
frankness was natural, unwittingly committed his secret projects
and ambition more nakedly to Rienzi than he had designed to
do. They parted apparently the best of friends.

" By the way," said Rienzi, as they drained the last goblet,
"Stephen Colonna betakes him to Corneto, with a convoy of
corn, on the ipth. Will it not be as well if you join him ? You
can take that opportunity to whisper discontent to the merce-
naries that accompany him on his mission, and induce them to
our plan."

" I thought of that before," returned Montreal ; it shall be
done. For the present, farewell ! "

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. I7

" 'His barb, and his sword,

And his lady, the peerless,
Are all that are prized
By Orlando the fearless.

" Success to the Norman,
The darling of story :
His glory is pleasure
His pleasure is glory.' "

Chanting this rude ditty as he resumed his mantle, the
Knight waved his hand to Rienzi, and departed.

Rienzi watched the receding form of his guest with an ex-
pression of hate and fear upon his countenance. " Give that
man the power," he muttered, "and he may be a second
Totila. * Methinks I see, in his griping and ferocious nature,
through all the gloss of its gayety and knightly grace, the very
personification of our old Gothic foes. I trust I have lulled
him ! Verily, two suns could no more blaze in one hemisphere
than Walter de Montreal and Cola di Rienzi live in the same
city. The star-seers tell us that we feel a secret and uncontroll-
able antipathy to those whose astral influences destine them
to work us evil ; such antipathy do I feel for yon fair-faced
homicide. Cross not my path, Montreal ! cross not my path !"

With this soliloquy Rienzi turned within, and, retiring to his
apartment, was seen no more that night.

CHAPTER V.

THE PROCESSION OF THE BARONS. THE BEGINNING OF THE

END.

IT was the morning of the igth of May, the air was brisk and
clear, and the sun, which had just risen, shone cherrily upon
the glittering casques and spears of a gallant procession of
armed horsemen, sweeping through the long and principal
street of Rome. The neighing of the horses, the ringing of
the hoofs, the dazzle of the armor, and the tossing to and fro
of the standards, adorned with the proud insignia of the Colonna,
presented one of the gay and brilliant spectacles peculiar to
the Middle Ages.

At the head of the troop, on a stout palfrey, rode Stephen
Colonna. At his right was the Knight of Provence, curbing,
with an easy hand, a slight but faery steed of the Arab race :

* Innocent VI., some years afterwards, proclaimed Montreal to be worse than Totila.

128 RIENZI,

behind him followed two squires, the one leading his war-horse,
the other bearing his lance and helmet. At the left of Stephen
Colonna rode Adrian, grave and silent, and replying only by
monosyllables to the gay bavardageof the Knight of Provence
A considerable number of the flower of the Roman noblei
followed the old Baron ; and the train was closed by a serried
troop of foreign horsemen, completely armed.

There was no crowd in the street ; the citizens looked with
seeming apathy at the procession from their half-closed shops.

"Have these Romans no passion for shows?" asked Mont-
real ; " if they could be more easily amused they would be
more easily governed."

" Oh, Rienzi, and such buffoons, amuse them. We do bet-
ter, we terrify ! " replied Stephen.

"What sings the troubadour, Lord Adrian?" said Montreal

' Smiles, false smiles, should form the school
For those who rise, and those who rule :
The brave they trick, the fair subdne,
Kings deceive, and Sta'es undo.

Smiles, false smiles 1

* Frowns, true frowns, ourselves betray,
The brave arouse, the fair dismay,

Sting the pride, which blood must heal.
Mix the bowl, and point the steel,

Frowns, true frowns ! '

" The lay is of France, Signor ; yet methinks it brings its
wisdom from Italy ; for the serpent smile is your countrymen's
proper distinction, and the frown ill becomes them."

" Sir Knight," replied Adrian sharply, and incensed at the
taunt, "you foreigners have taught us how to frown a virtue
sometimes."

" But not wisdom, unless the hand could maintain what the
brow menaced," returned Montreal, with haughtiness ; for he
had much of the Franc vivacity which often overcame his
prudence ; and he had conceived a secret pique against Adrian
since their interview at Stephen's palace.

" Sir Knight," answered Adrian, coloring, " our conversation
may lead to warmer words than I would desire to have with
one who has rendered me so gallant a service."

" Nay, then, let us go back to the troubadours," said Mont
real indifferently. "Forgive me if I do not think highly, in
general, of Italian honor, or Italian valor ; your valor I ac-
knowledge, for I have witnessed it, and valor and honor go
together, let that suffice ! "

THE LAST OF THE TklfeUNES. 12$

As Adrian was about to answer, his eye fell suddenly on the
burly form of Cecco del Vecchio, who was leaning his bare
and brawny arms over his anvil, and gazing, with a smile, upon
the group. There was something in that smile which turned
the current of Adrian's thoughts, and which he could not con-
template without an unaccountable misgiving.

" A strong villain, that," said Montreal, also eyeing the
smith. " I should like to enlist him. Fellow ! " cried he aloud,
" you have an arm that were as fit to wield the sword as to
fashion it. Desert your anvil, and follow the fortunes of Fra
Mofeale ! "

The smith nodded his head. " Signer Cavalier," said he
gravely, "we poor men have no passion for war; we want not
to kill others : we desire only ourselves to live, if you will
let us ! "

" By the Holy Mother, a slavish answer ! But you Romans"

" Are slaves ! " interrupted the smith, turning away to the
interior of his forge.

" The dog is mutinous ! " said the old Colonna. And as the
band swept on, the rude foreigners, encouraged by their leaders,
had each some taunt or jest, uttered in a barbarous attempt at
the southern patois, for the lazy giant, as he again appeared in
front of his forge, leaning on his anvil as before, and betraying
no sign of attention to his insulters, save by a heightened glow
of his swarthy visage ; and so the gallant procession passed
through the streets, and quitted the Eternal City.

There was a long interval of deep silence of general calm
throughout the whole of Rome : the shops were still but half-
opened ; no man betook himself to his business ; it was like
the commencement of some holyday, when indolence precedes
enjoyment.

About noon a few small knots of men might be seen scattered
about the streets, whispering to each other, but soon dispersing ;
and every now and then a single passenger, generally habited
in the long robes used by the men of letters, or in the more
sombre garb of monks, passed hurriedly up the street towards
the Church of St. Mary of Egypt, once the temple of Fortune.
Then, again, all was solitary and deserted. Suddenly, there
was heard the sorind of a single trumpet! It swelled it gathered
on the ear. Cecco del Vecchio looked up from his anvil ! A
solitary horseman paced slowly by the forge, and wound a long,
loud blast of the trumpet suspended round his neck, as he passed
through the middle of the street. Then might you see a
crowd, suddenly, and as by magic, appear emerging from every

corner ; the street became thronged with multitudes ; but it
was only by the tramp of their feet, and an indistinct and low
murmur, that they broke the silence. Again the horseman
wound his trump, and when the note ceased, he cried aloud :
" Friends and Romans ! to-morrow, at dawn of day let each
man find himself unarmed, before the church of St. Angelo.
Cola di Rienzi convenes the Romans to provide for the good
state of Rome." A shout, that seemed to shake the bases of
the seven hills, broke forth at the end of this brief exhortation :
the horseman rode slowly on, and the crowd followed. This
was the commencement of the Revolution !

CHAPTER VI.

THE CONSPIRATOR BECOMES THE MAGISTRATE.

AT midnight, when the rest of the city seemed hushed in
rest, lights were streaming from the windows of the church of
St. Angelo. Breaking from its echoing aisles, the long and sol-
emn notes of sacred music stole at frequent intervals upon the
air. Rienzi was praying within the church ; thirty masses con-
sumed the hours from night till morn, and all the sanction of
religion was invoked to consecrate the enterprise of Liberty.*
The sun had long risen, and the crowd had long been assem-
bled before the church door, and in vast streams along every
street that led to it, when the bell of. the church tolled out long
and merrily ; and as it ceased, the voices of the choristers
within chanted the following hymn, in which were somewhat
strikingly, though barbarously, blended, the spirit of the classic
patriotism with the fervor of religious zeal :

THE ROMAN HYMN OF LIBERTY.

Let the mountains exult around ! f
On her seven-hill'd throne renown'd,
Once more old Rome is crown'd !

Jubilate !

* In fact, I apprehend that if ever the life of Cola di Rienzi shall be written by a hand
worthy of the task, it will be shown that a strong religious feeling was blended with
the political enthusiasm of the feofile, the religious feeling of a premature and crude
reformation, the legacy of Arnold of Brescia. It was not, however, one excited against
the priests, but favored by them. 1 he principal conventual orders declared for the Rev-
olution.

f'Exultent in circuito Vestro Montes," etc. Let the mountains exult around! So
begins Rienzi's letter to the Senate and Roman people, preserved by Hocsemius.

THE LAST OP THE TRIBUNES. IJ1

Sing out, O Vale and Wave !
Look up from each laurel'd grave,
Bright dust of the deathless brave .'
Jubilate 1

Pale Vision, what art thou ? Lo,

From Time's dark deeps,

Like a Wind, It sweeps,
Like a Wind, when the tempests blow j

A shadowy form as a giant ghost
It stands in the mid>t of the armed host !
The dead man's shroud on Its awful limbs :
And the gloom of Its presence the daylight dims i
And the trembling world looks on aghast
All hail to the SOUL OF THE MIGHTY PAST !
Hail ! all hail I

As we speak as we hallow It move.,, It breathes J
From its clouded crest bud the laurel wreaths
As a Sun that leaps up from the arms of Night,
The Shadow takes shape and the gloom takes light.
Hail ! all hail !

THE SOUL OF THE PAST, again

To its ancient home

In the hearts of Rome,
Hath come to resume its reign !

O Fame, with a prophet's voice,
Bid the ends of the Earth rejoice !
Wherever the Proud are Strong,
And Right is oppress d by wrong ;
Wherever the day dim shines
Through the cell where the captive pines;"
Go forth, with a trumpet's sound !
And tell to the Nations round
On the Hills which the Heroes trod
In the slirines of the saints of God
In the Caesars' hall, and the Martyrs' prison-
That the slumber is broke, and the Sleeper arisen f
That the reign of the Goth and the Vandal is o'er :
And Earth feels the tread of THE ROMAN once more.

As the hymn ended, the gate of the church opened ; the
;ro\vd gave way on either side, and, preceded by three of the
/oung nobles of the inferior order, bearing standards of alle-
gorical design, depicting the triumph of Liberty, Justice, and
Concord, forth issued Rienzi, clad in complete armor, the hel-
met alone excepted. His face was pale with watching and
intense excitement, but stern, grave, and solemnly composed ;
and its expression so repelled any vociferous and vulgar burst
of feeling, that those who beheld it hushed the shout on theii

JJ7 RIENZT,

lips, and stilled, by a simultaneous cry of reproof, the gratula-
tions of the crowd behind. Side by side with Rienzi moved
Raimond, Bishop of Orvietto ; and behind, marching two by
two, followed a hundred men-at-arms. In complete silence
the procession began its way, until, as it approached the Capi-
tol, the awe of the crowd gradually vanished, and thousands
upon thousands of voices rent the air with shouts of exultation
and joy.

Arrived at the foot of the great staircase, which then made
the principal ascent to the square of the Capitol, the procession
halted ; and as the crowd filled up that vast space in front
adorned and hallowed by many of the most majestic columns
of the temples of old Rienzi addressed the Populace, whom
he had suddenly elevated into a People.

He depicted forcibly the servitude and misery of the citizens,
the utter absence of all law, the want even of common security
to life and property. He declared that, undaunted by the
peril he incurred, he devoted his life to the regeneration of
their common country ; and he solemnly appealed to the peo-
ple to assist the enterprise, and at once to sanction and consoli-
date the Revolution by an established code of law and a Con-
stitutional Assembly. He then ordered the chart and outline
of the Constitution he proposed to be read by the Herald to
the multitude.

It created, or rather revived, with new privileges and pow-
ers, a representative Assembly of Councillors. It proclaimed,
as its first law, one that seems simple enough to our happier
times, but never hitherto executed at Rome : Every wilful
homicide, of whatever rank, was to be punished by death. It
enacted, that no private noble or citizen should be suffered to
maintain fortifications and garrisons in the city or the country ;
that the gates and bridges of the State should be under the
control of whomsoever should be elected Chief Magistrate. It
forbade all harbor of brigands, mercenaries, and robbers, on
payment of a thousand marks of silver, and it made the barons
who possessed the neighboring territories responsible for the
safety of the roads, and the transport of merchandise. It took
under the protection of the State the widow and the orphan. It
appointed, in each of the quarters of the city, an armed militia,
whom the tolling of the bell of the Capitol, at any hour, was to
assemble to the protection of the State. It ordained, that in
each harbor of the coast a vessel should be stationed for the
safeguard of commerce. It decreed the sum of one hundred
florins to the heirs of every man who died in the defence of

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. IJJ

Rome ; and it devoted the public revenues to the service and
protection of the State.

Such, moderate at once and effectual, was the outline of the
New Constitution ; and it may amuse the reader to consider
how great must have been the previous disorders of the city,
when the common and elementary provisions of civilization
and security made the character of the code proposed, and the
limit of a popular revolution.

The most rapturous shouts followed this sketch of the New
Constitution ; and, amidst the clamor, up rose the huge form
of Cecco del Vecchio. Despite his condition, he was a man of
great importance at the present crisis : his zeal and his cour-
age, and perhaps still more, his brute passion and stubborn
prejudice, had made him popular. The lower order of me-
chanics looked to him as their head and representative ; out,
then, he spake loud and fearlessly, speaking well, because his
mind was full of what he had to say.

" Countrymen and citizens! This New Constitution meets
with your approbation so it ought. But what are good laws,
if we do not have good men to execute them ? Who can exe-
cute a law so well as the man who designs it ? If you ask me
to give you a notion how to make a good shield, and my no-
tion pleases you, would you ask me or another smith to make
it for you? If you ask another, he may make a good shield,
but it would not be the same as that which I should have
made, and the description of which contented you. Cola di
Rienzi has proposed a Code of Law that shall be our shield.
Who should see that the shield become what he proposes, but
Cola di Rienzi ? Romans ! I suggest that Cola di Rienzi be
intrusted by the people with the authority, by whatsoever name
he pleases, of carrying the New Constitution into effect ; and
whatever be the means, we, the People, will bear him harmless."

"Long life to Rienzi! long live Cecco del Vecchio! He
hath spoken well ! none but the Law-maker shall be the
Governor ! "

Such were the acclamations which greeted the ambitious
heart of the Scholar. The voice of the people invested him
with the supreme power. He had created a Commonwealth
to become, if he desired it, a Despot.

134 RIENZI,

CHAPTER VII.

LOOKING AFTER THE HALTER WHEN THE MARE IS STOLEN.

WHILE such were the events at Rome, a servitor of Stephen
Colonna was already on his way to Corneto. The astonish-
ment with which the old Baron received the intelligence may
be easily imagined. He lost not a moment in convening his
troop ; and while in all the bustle of departure the Knight of
St. John abruptly entered his presence. His mien had lost its
usual frank composure.

" How is this ? " said he hastily : "a revolt? Rienzi sove-
reign of Rome ? Can the news be believed ? "

" It is too true ! " said Colonna, with a bitter smile. " Where
shall we hang him on our return ?"

" Talk not so wildly, Sir Baron," replied Montreal discourt-
eously ; " Rienzi is stronger than you think for. I know what
men are, and you only know what noblemen are ! Where is
your kinsman, Adrian ? "

" He is here, noble Montreal," said Stephen, shrugging his
shoulders, with a half-disdainful smile at the rebuke, which he
thought it more prudent not to resent ; he is here ! see him
tnter ! "

You have heard the news ? " exclaimed Montreal.
I have."

And despise the revolution ? "
I fear it ! "

Then you have some sense in you. But this is none of my
affair : I will not interrupt your consultations. Adieu for the
present ! " and, ere Stephen could prevent him, the Knight
had quitted the chamber.

"What means this demagogue ? " Montreal muttered to him-
self. " Would he trick me? Has he got rid of my presence
in order to monopolize all the profit of the enterprise ? I fear
me so ! the cunning Roman ! We Northern warriors could
never compete with the intellect of these Italians but for their
cowardice. But what shall be done ? I have already bid Ro-
dolf communicate with the brigands, and they are on the eve
of departure from their present lord. Well ! let it be so !
Better that I should first break the power of the Barons, and
then make my own terms, sword in hand, with the plebeian.
And if 1 fail in this, sweet Adeline ! I shall see thee again !
that is some comfort ! And Louis of Hungary will bid high
for the arm and brain of Walter de Montreal. What, ho ! Ro-

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 135

dolf ! " he exclaimed aloud, as the sturdy form of the trooper,
half-armed and half-intoxicated, reeled along the courtyard.
" Knave ! art thou drunk at this hour ? "

"Drunk or sober," answered Rodolf, bending low, " I am at
thy bidding."

" Well said ! Are thy friends ripe for the saddle ?"

" Eighty of them, already tired of idleness and the dull air
of Rome, will fly wherever Sir Walter de Montreal wishes."

" Hasten, then, bid them mount ; we go not hence with the
Colonna ; we leave while they are yet talking ! Bid my squires
attend me ! "

And when Stephen Colonna was settling himself on his pal-
frey, he heard, for the first time, that the Knight of Provence,
Rodolf the trooper, and eighty of the stipendiaries, had already
departed, whither, none knew.

" To precede us to Rome ! gallant barbarian ! " said Colonna.
" Sirs, on ! "

CHAPTER VIII.

THE ATTACK THE RETREAT THE ELECTION AND THE

ADHESION.

ARRIVING at Rome, the company of the Colonna found the
gates barred, and the walls manned. Stephen bade advance
his trumpeters, with one of his captains, imperiously to demand
admittance.

"We have orders," replied the chief of the town-guard, "to
admit none who bear arms, flags, or trumpets. Let the Lords
Colonna dismiss their train, and they are welcome."

" Whose are these insolent mandates?" asked the captain.

" Those of the Lord Bishop of Orvietto and Cola di Rienzi,
joint protectors of the Buono Stato." *

The captain of the Colonna returned to his chief with these
tidings. The rage of Stephen was indescribable. " Go back,"
he cried, as soon as he could summon voice, " and say that, if
the gates are not forthwith opened to me and mine, the blood
of the plebeians be on their own head. As for Raimond,
Vicars of the Pope have high spiritual authority, none tempo-
ral. Let him prescribe a fast, and he shall be obeyed ; but,
for the rash Rienzi, say that Stephen Colonna will seek him in
the Capitol to-morrow, for the purpose of throwing him out of
the highest window."

* Good Estate.

136

These messages the envoy failed not to deliver.

The captain of the Romans was equally stern in his reply.

" Declare to your lord," said he, " that Rome holds him and
his as rebels and traitors ; and that the moment you regain
your troop, our archers receive our command to draw their
bows in the name of the Pope, the City, and the Liberator."

This threat was executed to the letter; and ere the old
Baron had time to draw up his men in the best array, the gates
were thrown open, and a well-armed, if undisciplined, multi-
tude poured forth, with fierce shouts, clashing their arms, and
advancing the azure banners of the Roman State. So desper-
ate their charge, and so great their numbers, that the barons,
after a short and tumultuous conflict, were driven back, and
chased by their pursuers for more than a mile from the walls
of the city.

As soon as the barons recovered their disorder and dismay.
a hasty council was held, at which various and contradictory
opinions were loudly urged. Some were for departing on the
instant to Palestrina, which belonged to the Colonna, and
possessed an almost inaccessible fortress. Others were for
dispersing, and entering peaceably, and in detached parties,
through the other gates. Stephen Colonna himself incensed
and disturbed from his usual self-command was unable to
preserve his authority ; Luca di Savelli, * a timid, though
treacherous and subtle man, already turned his horse's head,
and summoned his men to follow him to his castle in Ro-
magna, when the old Colonna bethought himself of a method
by which to keep his band from a disunion that he had the
sense to perceive would prove fatal to the common cause. He
proposed that they should at once repair to Palestrina, and
there fortify themselves ; while one ot the chiefs should be
selected to enter Rome alone, and apparently submissive, to
examine the strength of Rienzi ; and with the discretionary
power to resist if possible, or to make the best terms he could
for the admission of the rest.

" And who," asked Savelli sneeringly, " will undertake this
dangerous mission ? Who, unarmed and alone, will expose
himself to the rage of the fiercest populace of Italy, and the
caprice of a demagogue in the first flush of his power ? "

The barons and the captains looked at each other in silence.
Savelli laughed.

Hitherto Adrian had taken no part in the conference, and

* The more correct orthography were Luca di Savello, but the one in the text is pre
served as more familiar to the English reader.

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. IJ7

but little in the previous contest. He now came to the sup-
port of his kinsman.

"Signers ! " said he, " I will undertake this mission, but on
mine own account, independently of yours free to act as I may
think best, for the dignity of a Roman noble, and the interests
of a Roman citizen ; free to raise my standard on mine own
tower, or to yield fealty to the new estate."

" Well said ! " cried the old Colonna hastily. " Heaven forbid
we should enter Rome as foes, if to enter it as friends be yet
allowed us ! What say ye, gentles ? "

" A more worthy choice could not be selected," said Savelli ;
" but I should scarce deem it possible that a Colonna could
think there was an option between resistance and fealty to this
upstart revolution."

" Of that, signor, I will judge for myself ; if you demand
an agent for yourselves, choose another. I announce to ye
frankly, that I have seen enough of other States to think the
recent condition of Rome demanded some redress. Whether
Rienzi and Raimond be worthy of the task they have assumed,
I know not."

Savelli was silent. The old Colonna seized the word.

" To Palestrina, then ! Are ye all agreed on this ? At the
worst, or at the best, we should not be divided ! On this con-
dition alone I hazard the safety of my kinsman ! "

The barons murmured a little among themselves ; the expe-
diency of Stephen's proposition was evident, and they at
length assented to it.

Adrian saw them depart, and then, attended only by his
'squire, slowly rode towards a more distant entrance into the
city. On arriving at the gates, his name was demanded ; he
gave it freely.

"Enter, my lord," said the warder, "our orders were to
admit all that came unarmed and unattended. But to the Lord
Adrian di Castello, alone, we had a special injunction to give
the honors due to a citizen and a friend."

Adrian, a little touched by this implied recollection of
friendship, now rode through a long line of armed citizens,
who saluted him respectfully as he passed, and, as he returned
the salutation with courtesy, a loud and approving shout fol-
lowed his horse's steps.

So, save by one attendant, alone, and in peace, the young
patrician proceeded leisurely through the long streets, empty
and deserted, for nearly one-half of the inhabitants were
assembled a{ the walls, an4 nearly the othe. r half were engaged

138 RIENZI,

in a more peaceful duty, until penetrating the interior, the
wide and elevated space of the Capitol broke upon his sight.
The sun was slowly setting over an immense multitude that
overspread the spot, and high above a scaffold raised in the
centre shone, to the western ray, the great Gonfalon of Rome,
studded with silver stars.

Adrian reined in his steed. "This," thought he," is scarcely
the hour thus publicly to confer with Rienzi ; yet fain would
I, mingled with the crowd, judge how far his power is sup-
ported, and in what manner it is borne." Musing a little, he
withdrew into one of the obscurer streets, then wholly deserted,
surrendered his horse to his 'squire, and, borrowing of the
latter his morion and long mantle, passed to one of the more
private entrances of the Capitol, and, enveloped in his cloak,
stood one of the crowd intent upon all that followed.

" And what," he asked of a plainly dressed citizen, " is the
cause of this assembly ? "

" Heard you not the proclamation ?" returned the other in
some surprise. " Do you not know that the Council of the
City and the Guilds of the Artisans have passed a vote to
proffer to Rienzi the title of King of Rome ?"

The Knight of the Emperor to whom belonged that august
dignity drew back in dismay.

"And," resumed the citizen, " this assembly of all the lesser
barons, councillors, and artificers is convened to hear the
answer."

"Of course it will be assent ?"

" I know not there are strange rumors ; hitherto the Lib-
erator has concealed his sentiments."

At that instant a loud flourish of martial music announced
the approach of Rienzi. The crowd tumultuously divided, and
presently, from the Palace of the Capitol to the scaffold, passed
Rienzi, still in complete armor, save the helmet, and with him,
in all the pomp of his episcopal robes, Raimond of Orvietto.

As soon as Rienzi had ascended the platform, and was thus
made visible to the whole concourse, no words can suffice to
paint the enthusiasm of the scene the shouts, the gestures,
the tears, the sobs, the wild laughter, in which the sympathy
of those lively and susceptible children of the South broke
forth. The windows and balconies of the Palace were thronged
with the wives and daughters of the lesser barons and more
opulent citizens; and Adrian, with a slight start, beheld
amongst them, pale, agitated, tearful, the lovely face of his
a face that even thus would, have outshone all present,

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 139

but for one by her side, whose beauty the emotion of the hour
only served to embellish. The dark, large, and flashing eyes
of Nina di Raselli, just bedewed, were fixed proudly on the
hero of her choice : and pride, even more than joy, gave a
richer carnation to her cheek, and the presence of a queen to
her noble and rounded form. The setting sun poured its full
glory over the spot ; the bared heads ; the animated faces of
the crowd ; the gray and vast mass of the Capitol ; and, not
far from the side of Rienzi, it brought into a strange and start-
ling light the sculptured form of a colossal Lion of Basalt,*
which gave its name to a staircase leading to the Capitol. It
was an old Egyptian relic, vast, worn, and grim ; some symbol
of a vanished creed, to whose face the sculptor had imparted some-
thing of the aspect of the human countenance. And this pro-
ducing the effect probably sought, gave at all times a mystic,
preternatural, and fearful expression to the stern features, and
to that solemn and hushed repose, which is so peculiarly the
secret of Egyptian sculpture. The awe which this colossal
and frowning image was calculated to convey was felt yet more
deeply by the vulgar, because " the Staircase of the Lion " was
the wonted place of the state executions, as of the state cere-
monies. And seldom did the stoutest citizen forget to cross
himself, or feel unchilled with a certain terror, whenever, pass-
ing by the place, he caught, suddenly fixed upon him, the stony
gaze and ominous grin of that old monster from the cities of
the Nile.

It was some minutes before the feelings of the assembly al-
lowed Rienzi to be heard. But when, at length, the last shout
closed with a simultaneous cry of "Long live Rienzi! De-
liverer and king of Rome ! " he raised his hand impatiently, and
the curiosity of the crowd procured a sudden silence.

"Deliverer of Rome, my countrymen !" said he. "Yes!
change not that title. I am too ambitious to be a king ! Pre-
serve your obedience to your Pontiff your allegiance to your
Emperor but be faithful to your own liberties. Ye have a
right to your ancient constitution ; but that constitution needed
not a king. Emulous of the name of Brutus, I am above the
titles of a Tarquin ! Romans, awake ! awake ! be inspired
with a nobler love of liberty than that which, if it dethrones
the tyrant of to-day, would madly risk the danger of tyranny

* The exislent Capitol is very different from the building at the time of Rienzi ; and the
reader must not suppose that the present staircase, designed by Michael Angelo, at the base
of which are two marble lions, removed by Pius IV, from the Church of St. Stephen del
Cacco, was the staircase of the Lion of Basalt, which bears so item a connection wit
history of Rienzi, That mute witness of dark dfeds is no >i!i ^

140 RIENZI,

for to-morrow ! Rome wants still a liberator never an
usurper ! Take away yon bauble ! "

There was a pause ; the crowd were deeply affected, but they
uttered no shouts ; they looked anxiously for a reply from
their councillors, or popular leaders.

" Signer," said Pandulfo di Guido, who was one of the
Caporioni, " your answer is worthy of your fame. But in
order to enforce the law, Rome must endow you with a legal
title if not that of King, deign to accept that of Dictator or of
Consul."

" Long live the Consul Rienzi ! " cried several voices.

Rienzi waved his hand for silence.

''Pandulfo di Guido ! and you, honored Councillors of
Rome ! such title is at once too august for my merits, and too
inapplicable to my functions. I am one of the people the
people are my charge ; the nobles can protect themselves.
Dictator and consul are the appellations of patricians. No,"
he continued after a short pause, " if ye deem it necessary, for
the preservation of order, that your fellow-citizen should be
intrusted with a formal title and a recognized power, be it so ;
but let it be such as may attest the nature of our new institu-
tions, the wisdom of the people, and the moderation of their
leaders. Once, my countrymen, the people elected, for the
protectors of their rights and the guardians of their freedom,
certain officers responsible to the people, chosen from the
people, provident for the people. Their power was great, but
it was delegated : a dignity, but a trust. The name of these
officers was that of Tribune. Such is the title that conceded,
not by clamor alone, but in the full Parliament of the people,
and accompanied by such Parliament, ruling with such Parlia-
ment, such is the title I will gratefully accept." *

The speech, the sentiments of Rienzi, were rendered far
more impressive by a manner of earnest and deep sincerity ;
and some of the Romans, despite their corruption, felt a mo-
mentary exultation in the forbearance of their chief. " Long
live the Tribune of Rome ! " was shouted, but less loud than
the cry of " Live the King ! " and the vulgar almost thought
the revolution was incomplete, because the loftier title was not
assumed. To a degenerate and embruted people, liberty

* Gibbon and Sismondi alike (neither of whom appears to have consulted with much at-
tention the original documents preserved by Hocsemius) say nothing of the Representa-
tive Parliament, which it was almost Rienzi's first public act to institute or model. Six
days from the memorable tgth of May he addressed the people of Viterbo in a letter yet
extant. He summons (hem to elect and send (wo syndics, or ambassadors, to the general
Parliament.

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 14!

seems too plain a thing, if unadorned by the pomp of the very
despotism they would dethrone. Revenge is their desire rather
than Release ; and the greater the new power they create, the
greater seems their revenge against the old. Still all that was
most respected, intelligent, and powerful amongst the assembly
were delighted at a temperance which they foresaw would free
Rome from a thousand dangers, whether from the Emperor or
the Pontiff. And their delight was yet increased when Rienzi
added, as soon as returning silence permitted : " And since
we have been equal laborers in the same cause, whatever
honors be awarded to me should be extended also to the Vicar
of the Pope, Raimond, Lord Bishop of Orvietto. Remember,
that both Church and State are properly the rulers of the
people, only because their benefactors. Long live the first
Vicar of a Pope that was ever also the Liberator of a State."

Whether or not Rienzi was only actuated by patriotism in
his moderation, certain it is, that his sagacity was at least equal
to his virtue ; and perhaps nothing could have cemented the
revolution more strongly than thus obtaining for a colleague
the Vicar and Representative of the Pontifical power : it bor-
rowed, for the time, the sanction of the Pope himself thus
made to share the responsibility of the revolution, without
monopolizing the power of the State.

While the crowd hailed the proposition of Rienzi ; while
their shouts yet filled the air ; while Raimond, somewhat taken
by surprise, sought by signs and gestures to convey at once his
gratitude and his humility, the Tribune-Elect, casting his eyes
around, perceived many hitherto attracted by curiosity, and
whom, from their rank and weight, it was desirable to secure in
the first heat of the public enthusiasm. Accordingly, as soon
as Raimond had uttered a short and pompous harangue, in
which his eager acceptance of the honor proposed him was
ludicrously contrasted by his embarrassed desire not to involve
himself or the Pope in any untoward consequences that might
ensue, Rienzi motioned to two heralds that stood behind upor
the platform, and one of these advancing, proclaimed : "That
as it was desirable that all hitherto neuter should now profess
themselves friends or foes, so they were invited to take at once
the oath of obedience to the laws, and subscription to the
Buono Stato."

So great was the popular fervor, and so much had it been re-
fined and deepened in its tone by the addresses of Rienzi, that
even the most indifferent had caught the contagion : and no
man liked to be seen shrinking from the rest : so that the most

142 R1EN21,

neutral, knowing themselves the most marked, were the most
entrapped into allegiance to the Buono Stato. The first who
advanced to the platform and took the oath was the Signor di
Raselli, the father of Nina. Others of the lesser nobility fol-
lowed his example.

The presence of the Pope's Vicar induced the aristocratic ;
the fear of the people urged the selfish ; the encouragement
of shouts and gratulations excited the vain. The space between
Adrian and Rienzi was made clear. The young noble suddenly
felt the eyes of the Tribune were upon him ; he felt that those
eyes recognized and called upon him ; he colored ; he breathed
short. The noble forbearance of Rienzi had touched him to
the heart ; the applause, the pageant, the enthusiasm of the
scene, intoxicated confused him. He lifted his eyes and saw
before him the sister of the Tribune the lady of his love !
His indecision his pause continued, when Raimond, observ-
ing him, and obedient to a whisper from Rienzi, artfully cried
aloud : " Room for the Lord Adrian di Castello ! a Colonna !
a Colonna ! " Retreat was cut off. Mechanically, and as if in
a dream, Adrian ascended to the platform : and to complete
the triumph of the Tribune, the sun's last ray beheld the flower
of the Colonna the best and bravest of the Barons of Rome~
confessing his authority, and subscribing to his laws !

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 143

BOOK III.

THE FREEDOM WITHOUT LAW.

" Ben furo avventurosi i cavalieri
Ch' erano a quella eta, c'ie nei valloni,
Nelle scure spelonche e boschi fieri,
Tane di serpi, d' orsi e di leoni,
Trovavan quel che pel palazzi allied
Appena or trovar pon giudici buoni ;
Donne che nella lor piu fresca etade
Sien degne di aver titol di beltade."

ARIOSTO, Orl. Fur. can. xiii. i.

CHAPTER I.

THE RETURN OF WALTER DE MONTREAL TO HIS FORTRESS.

WHEN Walter de Montreal and his mercenaries quitted Cor-
neto they made the best of their way to Rome ; arriving there,
long before the barons, they met with a similar reception at the
gates, but Montreal prudently forbore all attack and menace,
and contented himself with sending his trusty Rodolf into the
city to seek Rienzi, and to crave permission to enter with his
troop. Rodolf returned in a shorter time than was antici-
pated. " Well," said Montreal impatiently, " you have the
order, I suppose. Shall we bid them open the gates ? "

"Bid them open our graves," replied the Saxon bluntly. "I
trust my next heraldry will be to a more friendly court."

" How ! what mean you ? "

" Briefly this : I found the new governor, or whatever his
title, in the palace of the Capitol, surrounded by guards and
councillors, and in a suit of the finest armor I ever saw out of
Milan."

" Pest on his armor ! give us his answer."

" ' Tell Walter de Montreal,' said he, then, if you will have
it, ' that Rome is no longer a den of thieves ; tell him, that if
he enters, he must abide a trial ' "

" A trial ! " cried Montreal, grinding his teeth.

" ' For participation in the evil doings of Werner and his free-
booters.' "

Ha ! H

" ' Tell him, moreover, that Rome declares war against all

144 RIENZI,

robbers, whether in tent or tower, and that we order him in
forty-eight hours to quit the territories of the Church."

" He thinks, then, not only to deceive, but to menace me ?
Well, proceed."

" That was all his reply to you ; to me, however, he vouch-
safed a caution still more obliging. ' Hark ye, friend,' said he,
' for every German bandit found in Rome after to-morrow, our
welcome will be cord and gibbet ! Begone.'"

" Enough ! enough ! " cried Montreal, coloring with rage
and shame. " Rodolf, you have a skilful eye in these matters :
how many Northmen would it take to give that same gibbet to
the upstart ?''

Rodolf scratched his huge head, and seemed awhile lost in
calculation ; at length he said : "You, captain, must be the best
judge, when I tell you, that twenty thousand Romans are the
least of his force ; so I heard, by the way ; and this evening he
is to accept the crown, and depose the Emperor."

" Ha, hi!" laughed Montreal, " is he so mad ? then he will
want not our aid to hang himself. My friends, let us wait the
result. At present neither barons nor people seem likely to fill
our coffers. Let us across the country to Terracina. Thank the
saints," and Montreal (who was not without a strange kind of
devotion, indeed he deemed that virtue essential to chivalry)
crossed himself piously, " the Free Companions are never long
without quarters ! "

" Hurrah for the Knights of St. John ! " cried the merce-
naries. '* And hurrah for fair Provence and bold Germany ! "
added the Knight, as he waved his hand on high, struck spurs
into his already wearied horse, and, breaking out into his favor-
ite song,

" His steed and his sword.
And his lady the peerless," etc.

Montreal, with his troop, struck gallantly across the Campagna.
The Knight of St. John soon, however, fell into an absorbed
and moody reverie; and his followers imitating the silence of
their chief, in a few minutes the clatter of their arms and the
jingle of their spurs alone disturbed the stillness of the wide
and gloomy plains across which they made towards Terracina.
Montreal was recalling with bitter resentment his conference
with Rienzi ; and, proud of his own sagacity and talent for
scheming, he was humbled and vexed at the discovery that he
had been duped by a wilier intriguer. His ambitious designs
on Rome, too, were crossed, and even crushed for the moment,
by the very means to which he had looked for their execution.

THE LASt OF ?Hfi TRIBUNES. 145

He had seen enough of the Barons to feel assured that while
Stephen Colonna lived, the head of the order, he was not likely
to obtain that mastery in the State, which, if leagued with a
more ambitious or less timid and less potent signor, might re-
ward his aid in expelling Rienzi. Under ill circumstances he
deemed it advisable to remain aloof. Should Rienzi grow
strong, Montreal might make the advantageous terms he de-
sired with the Barons ; should Rienzi's power decay, his pride,
necessarily humbled, might drive him to seek the assistance,
and submit to the proposals, of Montreal. The ambition of
the Provencal, though vast and daring, was not of a consistent
and persevering nature. Action and enterprise were dearer to
him, as yet, than the rewards which they proffered ; and if
baffled in one quarter, he turned himself, with the true spirit
of the knight-errant, to any other field for his achievements.
Louis, King of Hungary, stern, warlike, implacable, seeking
vengeance for the murder of his brother, the ill-fated husband
of Joanna (the beautiful and guilty queen of Naples the
Mary Stuart of Italy), had already prepared himself to subject
the garden of Campania to the Hungarian yoke. Already his
bastard brother had entered Italy ; already some of the Neapoli-
tan states had declared in his favor ; already promises had
been held out by the Northern monarch to the scattered Com-
panies ; and already those fierce mercenaries gathered men-
acingly round the frontiers of that Eden of Italy, attracted, as
vultures to the carcass, by the preparation of war and the hope of
plunder. Such was the field to which the bold mind of Mont-
real now turned his thoughts ; and his soldiers had joyfully con-
jectured his design when they had heard him fix Terracina as
their bourne. Provident of every resource, and refining his auda-
cious and unprincipled valor by a sagacity which promised, when
years had more matured and sobered his restless chivalry, to rank
him among the most dangerous enemies Italy had ever known,
on the first sign of Louis's warlike intentions, Montreal had
seized and fortified a strong castle on that delicious coast beyond
Terracina, by which lies the celebrated pass once held by Fabius
against Hannibal, and which Nature has so favored for war as
for peace, that a handful of armed men might stop the march
of an army. The possession of such a fortress on the very
frontiers of Naples gave Montreal an importance of which he
trusted to avail himself with the Hungarian king ; and now,
thwarted in his more grand and aspiring projects upon Rome,
his sanguine, active, and elastic spirit congratulated itself upon
the resource it had secured.

146 klKN/I,

The band halted at nightfall on this side the Pontine Marshes,
seizing without scruple some huts and sheds, from which they
ejected the miserable tenants, and slaughtering with no greater
ceremony the swine, cattle, and poultry of a neighboring farm.
Shortly after sunrise they crossed those fatal swamps which
had already been partially drained by Boniface VIII. ; and
Montreal, refreshed by sleep, reconciled to his late mortifica-
tion by the advantages opened to him in the approaching war
with Naples, and rejoicing as he approached a home which
held one who alone divided his heart with ambition, had re-
sumed all the gayety which belonged to his Gallic birth and his
reckless habits. And that deadly but consecrated road, where
yet may be seen the labors of Augustus, in the canal which
had witnessed the voyage so humorously described by Horace,
echoed with the loud laughter and frequent snatches of wild
song by which the barbarian robbers enlivened their rapid
march.

It was noon when the company entered upon that romantic
pass I have before referred to the ancient Lantulae. High to
the left rose steep and lofty rocks, then covered by the prodigal
verdure, and the countless flowers, of the closing May ; while
to the right the sea, gentle as a lake, and blue as heaven, rip-
pled musically at their feet. Montreal, who largely possessed
the poetry of his land, which is so eminently allied with a love
of nature, might at another time have enjoyed the beauty of the
scene ; but at that moment less external and more household
images were busy within him.

Abruptly ascending where a winding path up the mountain
offered a rough and painful road to their horses' feet, the band
at length arrived before a strong fortress of gray stone, whose
towers were concealed by the lofty foliage, until they emerged
sullenly and suddenly from the laughing verdure. The sound
of the bugle, the pennon of the knight, the rapid watchword,
produced a loud shout of welcome from a score or two of grim
soldiery on the walls ; the portcullis was raised, and Montreal,
throwing himself hastily from his panting steed, sprung across
the threshold of a jutting porch, and traversed a huge hall,
when a lady young, fair, and richly dressed met him with a
step equally swift, and fell breathless and overjoyed in his
arms.

" My Walter ! my dear, dear Walter ; welcome ten thou-
sand welcomes ! "

" Adeline, my beautiful, my adored I see thee again !"

Such were the greetings interchanged as Montreal pressed

THE LAST OP THE TRIBUNES. 147

his lady to his heart, kissing away her tears, and lifting her
face to his, while he gazed on its delicate bloom with all the
wistful anxiety of affection after absence.

" Fairest," said he tenderly, " thou hast pined, thou hast lost
roundness and color since we parted. Come, come, thou art
too gentle, or too foolish, for a soldier's love."

"Ah, Walter !" replied Adeline, clinging to him, " now thou
art returned, and I shall be well. Thou wilt not leave me
again a long, long time."

" Sweet one, no "; and flinging his arm round her waist, the
lovers for alas ! they were not wedded ! retired to the more
private chambers of the castle.

CHAPTER II.

THE LIFE OF LOVE AND WAR. THE MESSENGER OF PEACE.
THE JOUST.

GIRT with his soldiery, secure In his feudal hold, enchanted
with the beauty of the earth, sky, and sea around, and passion-
ately adoring his Adeline, Montreal for awhile forgot all his
more stirring projects and his ruder occupations. His nature
was capable of great tenderness, as of great ferocity ; and his
heart smote him when he looked at the fair cheek of his lady,
ind saw that even his presence did not suffice to bring back
the smile and the fresh hues of old. Often he cursed that fatal
oath of his knightly order which forbade him to wed, though
with one more than his equal ; and remorse embittered his
happiest hours. That gentle lady in that robber hold, severed
from all she had been taught most to prize nrother, friends,
and fair fame only loved her seducer the more intensely ;
only the more concentrated upon one object all the womanly
and tender feelings denied every other and less sinful vent.
But she felt her shame though she sought to conceal it, and a
yet more gnawing grief than even that of shame contributed
to prey upon her spirits and undermine her health. Yet withal,
in Montreal's presence she was happy, even in regret ; and in
her declining health she had at least a consolation in the hope
to die while his love was undiminished. Sometimes they made
short excursions, for the disturbed state of the country forbade
them to wander far from the castle, through the sunny woods,
and along the glassy sea, which make the charm of that

14^ R1EN2I,

delicious scenery ; and that mixture of the savage with the
tendet, the wild escort, the tent in some green glade in the
woods at noon, the lute and the voice of Adeline, with the fierce
soldiers grouped and listening at the distance, might have well
suited the verse of Ariosto, and harmonized singularly with
that strange, disordered, yet chivalric time, in which the Classic
South became the seat of the Northern Romance. Still, how-
ever, Montreal maintained his secret intercourse with the
Hungarian king, and, plunged into new projects, willingly for-
sook for the present all his designs on Rome. Yet deemed he
that his more august ambition was only delayed, and bright
in the more distant prospects of his adventurous career, rose
the Capitol of Rome and shone the sceptre of the Caesars.

One day, as Montreal, with a small troop in attendance,
passed on horseback near the walls of Terracina, the gates
were suddenly thrown open, and a numerous throng issued
forth, preceded by a singular figure, whose steps they followed
bareheaded and with loud blessings; a train of monks closed
the procession, chanting a hymn, of which the concluding
words were as follows :

Beauteous on the mountains lo,

The feet of him glad tidings gladly bringing ;
The flowers along his pathway grow,

And voices heard aloft, to angel harps are singing :
And strife and slaughter cease

Before thy blessed way, Young Messenger of Peace 1

O'er the mount and through the moor,

Glide thy holy steps secure.

Day and night no fear thou knowest,

Lonely but with God thou goest.

Where the Heathen rage the fiercest,

Through the armed throng thou piercest.

For thy coat of mail bedight

In thy spotless robe of white,

For the sinful sword thy hand

Bearing bright the silver wand :

Through the camp and through the court.

Through the bandit's gloomy fort,

On the mission of the dove,

Speeds the minister of love ;

By a word the wildest taming

And the world to Christ reclaiming :

While, as once the waters trod

By the footsteps of thy God,

War and wrath and rapine cease,
Hush'd round thy charmed path, O Messenger of Peace !

The stranger to whom these honors were paid was a young
unbearded man, clothed in white wrought with silver ; he was

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 149

unarmed and barefooted ; in his hand he held a tall silver
wand. Montreal and his party halted in astonishment and
wonder, and the knight, spurring his horse toward the crowd,
confronted the stranger.

" How, friend," quoth the Provenpal, "is thine a new order
of pilgrims, or what especial holiness has won thee this
homage ! "

" Back, back," cried some of the bolder of the crowd, " let
not the robber dare arrest the Messenger of Peace."

Montreal waved his hand disdainfully.

" I speak not to you, good sirs, and the worthy friars in your
rear know full well that I never injured herald or palmer."

The monks, ceasing from their hymn, advanced hastily to
the spot ; and indeed the devotion of Montreal had ever
induced him to purchase the good-will of whatever monastery
neighbored his wandering home.

" My son," said the eldest of the brethren, "this is a strange
spectacle, and a sacred ; and when thou learnest all, thou
wilt rather give the messenger a passport of safety from the
unthinking courage of thy friends than intercept his path
of peace."

" Ye puzzle still more my simple brain," said Montreal im-
patiently, "let the youth speak for himself; I perceive that on
his mantle are the arms of Rome blended with other quarter-
ings, which are a mystery to me, though sufficiently versed in
heraldic art as befits a noble and a knight."

" Signor," said the youth gravely, " know in me the messen-
ger of Cola di Rienzi, Tribune of Rome, charged with letters
to many a baron and prince in the ways between Rome and
Naples. The arms wrought upon my mantle are those of the
Pontiff, the City, and the Tribune."

" Umph ; thou must have bold nerves to traverse the Cam-
pagna with no other weapon than that stick of silver ! "

" Thou art mistaken, Sir Knight," replied the youth boldly,
" and j udgest of the present by the past ; know that not a single
robber now lurks within the Campagna, the arms of the Tribune
have rendered every road around the city as secure as the
broadest street of the city itself."

"Thou tellest me wonders."

"Through the forest, and in the fortress ; through the wild-
est solitudes ; through the most populous towns, have my
comrades borne this silver wand unmolested and unscathed ;
wherever we pass along thousands hail us, and tears of joy
bless the messengers of him who hat^ expelled the brigand

150 RIENZI,

from his hold, the tyrant from his castle, and ensured the
gains of the merchant and the hut of the peasant."

" Pardicu" said Montreal, with a stern smile, "I ought to
be thankful for the preference shown to me ; I have not yet
received the commands, nor felt the vengeance, of the tribune ;
yet, methinks, my humble castle lies just within the patrimony
of St. Peter."

"Pardon me, Signer Cavalier," said the youth; "but do I
address the renowned Knight of St. John, warrior of the Cross,
yet leader of banditti ? "

"Boy, you are bold ; I am Walter de Montreal."

" I am bound, then, Sir Knight, to your castle."

" Take care how thou reach it before me, or thou standest a
fair chance of a quick exit. How now, my friends ! " seeing
that the crowd at these words gathered closer round the mes-
senger, "think ye that I, who have my mate in kings, would
find a victim in an unarmed boy ? Fie ! give way give way.
Young man, follow me homeward ; you are safe in my castle as
in your mother's arms." So saying, Montreal, with great dig-
nity and deliberate gravity, rode slowly towards his castle, his
soldiers, wondering, at a little distance, and the white-robed
messenger following with the crowd, who refused to depart ; so
great was their enthusiasm, that they even ascended to the
gates of the dreaded castle, and insisted on waiting without
until the return of the youth assured them of his safety.

Montreal, who, however lawless elsewhere, strictly preserved
the rights of the meanest boor in his immediate neighborhood,
and rather affected popularity with the poor, bade the crowd
enter the court-yard, ordered his servitors to provide them with
wine and refreshment, regaled the good monks in his great
hall, and then led the way to a small room, where he received
the messenger.

"This," said the youth, "will best explain my mission," as
he placed a letter before Montreal.

The knight cut the silk with his dagger, and read the epistle
with great composure.

" Your Tribune," said he, when he had finished it, " has
learned the laconic style of power very soon. He orders me
to render this castle, and vacate the Papal Territory within ten
days. He is obliging ; I must have breathing time to consider
the proposal ; be seated, I pray you, young sir. Forgive me,
but I should have imagined that your lord had enough upon
his hands with his Roman barons, to make him a little more,
indulgent to us foreign visitors. Stephen Colcnna "

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 151

" Is returned to Rome, and has taken the oath of allegiance ;
the Savelli, the Orsini, the Frangipani, have all subscribed
their submission to the Buono Stato."

"How ! " cried Montreal, in great surprise.

" Not only have they returned, but they have submitted to
the dispersion of all their mercenaries, and the dismantling of
all their fortifications. The iron of the Orsini palace now bar-
ricades the Capitol, and the stone-work of the Colonna and the
Savelli has added new battlements to the gates of the Lateran
and St. Laurence."

" Wonderful man ! " said Montreal, with reluctant admira-
tion. "By what means was this effected?"

" A stern command and a strong force to back it. At the
first sound of the great bell, twenty thousand Romans rise in
arms. What to such an army are the brigands of an Orsini or
a Colonna? Sir Knight, your valor and renown make even
Rome admire you ; and I, a Roman, bid you beware."

" Well I thank thee ; thy news, friend, robs me of breath.
So the Barons submit, then ? "

" Yes : on the first day, one of the Colonna, the Lord
Adrian, took the oath : within a week Stephen, assured of safe
conduct, left Palestrina, the Savelli in his train ; the Orsini fol-
lowed even Martino di Porto has silently succumbed."

"The Tribune but is that his dignity ? methought he was to
be king '

" He was offered, and he refused, the title. His present
rank, which arrogates no patrician honors, went far to concil-
ate the nobles."

" A wise knave ! I beg pardon, a sagacious prince ! Well,
then, the Tribune lords it mightily, I suppose, over the great
Roman names ?"

" Pardon me, he enforces impartial justice from peasant or
patrician : but he preserves to the nobles all their just priv-
ileges and legal rank."

" Ha ! and the vain puppets, so they keep the semblance,
scarce miss the substance I understand. But this shows
genius. The Tribune is unwed, I think. Does he look among
the Colonna for a wife ? "

" Sir Knight, the Tribune is already married : within three
days after his ascension to power he won and bore home the
daughter of the Baron di Raselli."

" Raselli ! no great name ; he might have done better."

" But it is said, " resumed the youth, smiling, " that the
Tribune will shortly be allied to the Colonna, through

his fair sister the Signora Irene. The Baron di Castelto wo63
her."

'* What, Adrian Colonna ! Enough ! you have convinced me
that a man who contents the people and awes or conciliates the
nobles is born for empire. My answer to this letter I will send
myself. For your news, Sir Messenger, accept this jewel, "and
the knight took from his ringer a gem of some price. " Nay,
shrink not, it was as freely given to me as it is now to thee."

The youth, who had been agreeably surprised and impressed
by the manner of the renowned freebooter, and who was not a
little astonished himself with the ease and familiarity with
which he had been relating to Fra Moreale, in his own fortress,
the news of Rome, bowed low as he accepted the gift.

The astute Proven9al, who saw the evident impression he
had made, perceived also that it might be of advantage in de-
laying the measures he might deem it expedient to adopt.
"Assure the Tribune," said he, on dismissing the messenger,
"shouldst thou return ere my letter arrive, that I admire his
genius, hail his power, and will not fail to consider as favor-
ably as I may of his demand."

" Better," said the messenger warmly (he was of good blood,
and gentle bearing), "better ten tyrants for our enemy, than
one Montreal."

" An enemy ! believe me, sir, I seek no enmity with princes
who know how to govern, or a people that has the wisdom at
once to rule and to obey."

The whole of that day, however, Montreal remained thought-
ful and uneasy ; he despatched trusty messengers to the Gov-
ernor of Aquila (who was then in correspondence with Louis
of Hungary), to Naples, and to Rome the last charged with a
letter to the Tribune, which, without absolutely compromising
himself, affected submission, and demanded only a longer lei-
sure for the preparations of departure. But, at the same time,
fresh fortifications were added to the castle, ample provisions
were laid in, and, night and day, spies and scouts were sta-
tioned along the pass, and in the town of Terracina. Mon-
treal was precisely the chief who prepared most for war when
most he pretended peace.

One morning, the fifth from the appearance of the Roman
messenger, Montreal, after narrowly surveying his outworks and
his stores, and feeling satisfied that he could hold out at least
a month's siege, repaired, with a gayer countenance than he
had lately worn, to the chamber of Adeline.

The lady was seated by the casement of the tower, from

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 153

which might be seen the glorious landscape of woods, and
vales, and orange groves a strange garden for such a palace !
As she leant her face upon her hand, with her profile slightly
turned to Montreal, there was something ineffably graceful in
the bend of her neck, the small head so expressive of gentle
blood, with the locks parted in front in that simple fashion
which modern times have so happily revived. But the expres-
sion of the half-averted face, the abstracted intentness of the
gaze, and the profound stillness of the attitude, were so sad
and mournful, that Montreal's proposed greeting of gallantry
and gladness died upon his lips. He approached in silence, and
laid his hand upon her shoulder.

Adeline turned, and taking the hand in hers, pressed it to
her heart, and smiled away all her sadness. " Dearest," said
Montreal, " could thou know how much any shadow of grief
on thy bright face darkens my heart, thou wouldst never grieve.
But no wonder that in these rude walls no female of equal
rank near thee, and such mirth as Montreal can summon to his
halls, grating to thy ear no wonder that thou repentest thee
of thy choice."

" Ah, no, no, Walter, I never repent. I did but think of our
child as you entered. Alas ! he was our only child ! How
fair he was, Walter ; how he resembled thee ! "

" Nay, he had thine eyes and brow," replied the Knight,
with a faltering voice, and turning away his head.

"Walter," resumed the lady, sighing, "do you remember?
this is his birthday. He is ten years old to-day. We have
loved each other eleven years, and thou hast not tired yet of thy
poor Adeline."

" As well might the saints weary of paradise," replied Mon-
treal, with an enamoured tenderness, which changed into soft-
ness the whole character of his heroic countenance.

" Could I think so, I should indeed be blest ! " answered
Adeline. " But a little while longer, and the few charms I yet
possess must fade ; and what other claim have I on thee ? "

"All claim ; the memory of thy first blushes thy first kiss
of thy devoted sacrifices of thy patient wanderings of thy
uncomplaining love ! Ah, Adeline, we are of Provence, not
of Italy ; and when did Knight of Provence avoid his foe, or
forsake his love ? But enough, dearest, of home and melancholy
for to-day. I come to bid thee forth. I have sent on the ser-
vitors to pitch our tent beside the sea ; we will enjoy the orange
blossoms while we may. Ere another week pass over us we
may have sterner pastime and closer confines,"

154 RIENZI,

" How, dearest Walter ! thou dost not apprehend danger ? "

" Thou speakest, lady-bird," said Montreal, laughing, "as if
danger were novelty ; methinks by this time thou shouldst
know it as the atmosphere we breathe."

" Ah, Walter, is this to last forever ? Thou art now rich and
renowned ; canst thou not abandon this career of strife ? "

" Now, out on thee, Adeline. What are riches and renown
but the means to power ? And for strife, the shield of wan iors
was my cradle pray the saints it be my bier ! These wild and
wizard extremes of life from the bower to the tent ; from the
cavern to the palace ; to-day a wandering exile, to-morrow the
equal of kings make the true element of the chivalry of my
Norman sires. Normandy taught me war, and sweet Provence
love. Kiss me, dear Adeline ; and now let thy handmaids
attire thee. Forget not thy lute, sweet one. We will rouse the
echoes with the songs of Provence."

The ductile temper of Adeline yielded easily to the gaiety
of her lord : and the party soon sallied from the castle towards
the spot in which Montreal had designed their resting place
during the heats of day. But already prepared for all sur-
prise, the castle was left strictly guarded, and besides the do-
mestic servitors of the castle, a detachment of ten soldiers,
completely armed, accompanied the lovers. Montreal himself
wore his corselet, and his 'squires followed with his helmet and
lance. Beyond the narrow defile at the base of the castle, the
road at that day opened into a broad patch of verdure, circled
on all sides, save that open to the sea, by wood, interspersed
with myrtle and orange, and a wilderness of odorous shrubs.
In this space, and sheltered by the broad-spreading and classic
fagus (so improperly translated into the English beech), a gay
pavilion was prepared, which commanded the view of the
sparkling sea ; shaded from the sun, but open to the gentle
breeze. This was poor Adeline's favorite recreation, if recrea-
tion it might be called. She rejoiced to escape from the gloomy
walls of her castellated prison, and to enjoy the sunshine and
the sweets of that voluptuous climate without the fatigue which
of late all exercises occasioned her. It was a gallantry on the
part of Montreal, who foresaw how short an interval might
elapse before the troops of Rienzi besieged his walls ; and who
was himself no less at home in the bower than in the field.

As they reclined within the pavilion the lover and his lady,
of the attendants without, some lounged idly on the beach ;
some prepared the awning of a pleasure-boat against the de-
cline of the sun ; some, in a ruder tent, out of sight in the

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 15$

wood, arranged the midday repast ; while the strings of the
lute, touched by Montreal himself with a careless skill, gave
their music to the dreamy stillness of the noon.

While thus employed, one of Montreal's scouts arrived
breathless and heated at the tent.

" Captain," said he, a company of thirty lances, completely
armed, with a long retinue of 'squires and pages, have just
quitted Terracina. Their banners bear the two-fold insignia
of Rome and the Colonna."

" Ho ! " said Montreal gaily, "such a troop is a welcome ad-
dition to our company ; send our 'squire hither."

The 'squire appeared.

" Hie thee on thy steed towards the procession thou wilt
meet with in the pass (nay, sweet lady mine, no forbiddal !),
seek the chief, and say that the good knight Walter de Mon-
treal sends him greeting, and prays him, in passing our proper
territory, to rest awhile with us a welcome guest ; and stay
add, that if to while an hour or so in gentle pastime be accept-
able to him, Walter de Montreal would rejoice to break a lance
with him, or any knight in his train, in honor of our respective
ladies. Hie thee quick !

" Walter, Walter," began Adeline, who had that keen and
delicate sensitiveness to her situation which her reckless lord
often wantonly forgot ; " Walter, dear Walter, canst thou think
it honor to "

"Hush thee, sweet Fleur de Us ! Thou hast not seen pas-
time this many a day ; I long to convince thee that thou art
still the fairest lady in Italy ay, and of Christendom. But
these Italians are craven knights, and thou needest not fear
that my proffer will be accepted. But in truth, lady mine,I rejoice
for graver objects, that chance throws a Roman noble, perhaps
a Colonna, in my way ; women understand not these matters ;
and aught concerning Rome touches us home at this moment."

With that the knight frowned, as was his wont in thought,
and Adeline ventured to say no more, but retired to the interior
division of the pavilion.

Meanwhile the 'squire approached the procession that had
now reached the middle of the pass : and a stately and gallant
company it was. If the complete harness of the soldiery
seemed to attest a warlike purpose, it was contradicted on the
other hand by a numerous train of unarmed 'squires and pages
gorgeously attired, while the splendid blazon of two heralds
preceding the standard-bearers proclaimed their object as
peaceful, and their path as sacred. It required but a glance $'

156 RIENZI,

the company to tell the leader. Arrayed in a breastplate of
steel, wrought profusely with gold arabesques, over which was
a mantle of dark-green velvet, bordered with pearls, while above
his long dark locks waved a black ostrich plume in a high
Macedonian cap, such as, I believe, is now worn by the Grand
Master of the order of St. Constantine, rode in the front of the
party a young cavalier, distinguished from his immediate com-
rades, partly by his graceful presence and partly by his splendid
dress.

The 'squire approached respectfully, and, dismounting, deliv-
ered himself of his charge.

The young cavalier smiled, as he answered, " Bear back to
Sir Walter de Montreal the greeting of Adrian Colonna, Baron
di Castello, and say, that the solemn object of my present journey
will scarce permit me to encounter the formidable lance of so cele-
brated a knight ; and I regret this the more, inasmuch as I may
not yield to any dame the palm of my liege lady's beauty. I
must live in hope of a happier occasion. For the rest, I will
cheerfully abide for some few hours the guest of so courteous a
host."

The 'squire bowed low. " My master," said he hesitatingly,
" will grieve much to miss so noble an opponent. But my mes-
sage refers to all this knightly and gallant train ; and if the
Lord Adrian di Castello deems himself forbidden the joust by
the object of his present journey, surely one of his comrades
will be his proxy with my master."

Out and quickly spoke a young noble by the side of Adrian,
Riccardo Annibaldi, who afterwards did good service both to
the Tribune and to Rome, and whose valor brought him, in
later life, to an untimely end.

" By the Lord Adrian's permission," cried he, " I will break
a lance with "

" Hush, Annibaldi ! " interrupted Adrian. " And you. Sir
'Squire, know, that Adrian di Castello permits no proxy in arms.
Avise the Knight of St. John that we accept his hospitality, and
if, after some converse on graver matters, he should still desire
so light an entertainment, I will forget tbat I am the ambassa-
dor to Naples, and remember only that I am a Knight of the
Empire. You have your answer."

The 'squire with much ceremony made his obeisance, re-
mounted his steed, and returned in a half-gallop to his master.

"Forgive me, dear Annibaldi," said Adrian, " that I balked
your valor ; and believe me that I never more longed to break a
lance against any man than I do against this boosting French,-

THE LAST OP THE TRIBUNES. t57

man. But bethink you, that though to us, brought up in the
dainty laws of chivalry, Walter de Montreal is the famous
Knight of Provence, to the Tribune of Rome, whose grave
mission we now fulfill, he is but the mercenary captain of a Free
Company. Grievously in his eyes should we sully our dignity
by so wanton and irrelevant a holiday conflict with a declared
and professional brigand."

" For all that," said Annibaldi, " the brigand ought not to
boast that a Roman knight shunned a Provengal lance."

" Cease, I pray thee ! " said Adrian impatiently. In fact,
the young Colonna already chafed bitterly against his discreet
and dignified rejection of Montreal's proffer, and recollecting
with much pique the disparaging manner in which the Proven-
fal had spoken of the Roman chivalry, as well as a certain tone
of superiority, which in all warlike matters Montreal had as-
sumed over him, he now felt his cheek burn, and his lip quiver.
Highly skilled in the martial accomplishments of his time, he
had a natural and excusable desire to prove that he was at
least no unworthy antagonist even of the best lance in Italy ;
and, added to this, the gallantry of the age made him feel it a
sort of treason to his mistress to forego any means of asserting
her perfections.

it was, therefore, with considerable irritation that Adrian, as
the pavilion of Montreal became visible, perceived the 'squire
returning to him. And the reader will judge how much this
was increased when the latter, once more dismounting, accosted
him thus :

"My master, the Knight of St. John, on hearing the courte-
ous answer of the Lord Adrian di Castello, bids me say that
lest the graver converse the Lord Adrian refers to should
mar gentle and friendly sport, he ventures respectfully to sug-
gest that the tilt should preface the converse. The sod before
the tent is so soft and smooth, that even a fall could be
attended with no danger to knight or steed."

" By our Lady ! " cried Adrian and Annibaldi in a breath,
" but thy last words are discourteous ; and " (proceeded Adrian,
recovering himself) " since thy master will have it so, let him
look to his horse's girths. I will not gainsay his fancy."

Montreal, who had thus insisted upon the exhibition, partly,
it may be, from the gay and ruffling bravado common still
amongst his brave countrymen ; partly because he was curious
of exhibiting before those who might soon be his open foes his
singular and unrivalled address in arms, was yet more moved
to it on learning the name of the leader of the Roman Com'

158 RIENZT,

pany ; for his vain and haughty spirit, however it had disguised
resentment at the time, had by no means forgiven certain warm
expressions of Adrian in the palace of Stephen Colonna, and
in the unfortunate journey to Corneto. While Adrian, halting
at the entrance of the defile, aided by his 'squires, indignantly,
but carefully, indued the rest of his armor, and saw, himself,
to the girths, stirrup-leathers, and various buckles in the capar-
ison of his noble charger, Montreal in great glee kissed his lady,
who, though too soft to be angry, was deeply vexed (and yet
her vexation half forgotten in fear for his safety), snatched up
her scarf of blue, which he threw over his breastplate, and com-
pleted his array with the indifference of a man certain of
victory. He was destined, however, to one disadvantage, and
that the greatest ; his armor and lance had been brought from
the castle not his warhorse. His palfrey was too slight to
bear the great weight of his armor, nor amongst his troop was
there one horse that for power and bone could match with
Adrian's. He chose, however, the strongest that was at hand,
and a loud shout from his wild followers testified their admira-
tion when he sprung unaided from the ground into the saddle
a rare and difficult feat 01 agility in a man completely arrayed in
the ponderous armor which issued at that day from the forges of
Milan, and was worn far more weighty in Italy than any other
part of Europe. While both companies grouped slowly and
mingled in a kind of circle round the green turf, and the
Roman heralds, with bustling importance, attempted to marshal
the spectators into order, Montreal rode his charger round the
sward, forcing it into various caracoles, and exhibiting, with
the vanity that belonged to him, his exquisite and practised
horsemanship.

At length, Adrian, his visor down, rode slowly into the green
space, amidst the cheers of his party. The two knights, at
either end, gravely fronted each other ; they made the courtesies
with their lances, which, in friendly and sportive encounters,
were customary ; and, as they thus paused for the signal of en-
counter, the Italians trembled for the honor of their chief ;
Montreal's stately height and g'rth of chest forming a strong
contrast, even in armor, to the form of his opponent, which was
rather under the middle standard, and, though firmly knit,
slightly and slenderly built. But to that perfection was skill in
arms brought in those times, that great strength and size were
far from being either the absolute requisites, or even the usual
attributes, of the more celebrated knights ; in fact, so much
was effected by the power and the management of the steed,

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 159

that a light weight in the rider was often rather to his advan-
tage than his prejudice : and, even at a later period, the most
accomplished victors in the tourney, the French Bayard and
the English Sydney, were far from remarkable either for bulk
or stature.

Whatever the superiority of Montreal in physical power, was,
in much, counterbalanced by the inferiority of his horse, which,
though a thick-built and strong Calabrian, had neither the
blood, bone, nor practised discipline of the northern charger
of the Roman. The shining coat of the latter, coal black, was
set off by a scarlet cloth wrought in gold ; the neck and shoul-
ders were clad in scales of mail ; and from the forehead pro-
jected a long point, like the horn of an unicorn, while on its
crest waved a tall plume of scarlet and white feathers. As the
mission of Adrian to Naples was that of pomp and ceremony
to a court of great splendor, so his array and retinue were be-
fitting the occasion and the passion for show that belonged to
the time ; and the very bridle of his horse, which was three
inches broad, was decorated with gold, and even jewels. The
knight himself was clad in mail which had tested the finest art
of the celebrated Ludovico of Milan ; and, altogether, his ap-
pearance was unusually gallant and splendid, and seemed still
more so beside the plain but brightly polished and artfully
flexible armor of Montreal (adorned only with his lady's scarf)
and the common and rude mail of his charger. This contrast,
however, was not welcome to the Provencal, whose vanity was
especially indulged in warlike equipments ; and who, had he
foreseen the " pastime " that awaited him, would have outshone
even the Colonna.

The trumpeters of either party gave a short blast ; the knights
remained erect as statues of iron ; a second, and each slightly
bent over his saddle-bow ; a third, and with spears couched,
slackened reins, and at full speed, on they rushed, and fiercely
they met midway. With the reckless arrogance which belonged
to him Montreal had imagined that at the first touch of his
lance Adrian would have been unhorsed ; but to his great sur-
prise the young Roman remained firm, and, amidst the shouts
of his party, passed on to the other end of the lists. Montreal
himself was rudely shaken, but lost neither seat nor stirrup.

" This can be no carpet knight," muttered Montreal between
his teeth, as, this time, he summoned all his skill for a second
encounter ; while Adrian, aware of the great superiority of his
charger, resolved to bring it to bear against his opponent. Ac-
cordingly, when the knights again rushed forward, Adrian,

l6o RIENZI,

covering himself well with his buckler, directed his care less
against the combatant, whom he felt no lance wielded by mor-
tal hand was likely to dislodge, than against the less noble ani-
mal he bestrode. The shock of Montreal's charge was like an
avalanche ; his lance shivered into a thousand pieces, Adrian
lost both stirrups, and but for the strong iron bows which
guarded the saddle in front and rear, would have been fairly
unhorsed ; as it was, he was almost doubled back by the en-
counter, and his ears rung and his eyes reeled, so that for a
moment or two he almost lost all consciousness. But his steed
had well repaid its nurture and discipline. Just as the com-
batants closed, the animal, rearing on high, pressed forward
with its mighty crest against its opponent with a force so irre-
sistible as to drive back Montreal's horse several paces ; while
Adrian's lance, poised with exquisite skill, striking against the
Proven9al's helmet, somewhat rudely diverted the knight's at-
tention for the moment from his rein. Montreal, drawing the
curb too tightly in the suddenness of his recovery, the horse
reared on end ; and receiving at that instant, full upon his
breast-plate, the sharp horn and mailed crest of Adrian's
charger, fell back over its rider upon the sward. Montreal dis-
encumbered himself in great rage and shame, as a faint cry
from his pavilion reached his ear, and redoubled his mo'tifica-
tion. He rose with a lightness which astonished the beholders ;
for so heavy was the armor worn at that day, that few knights
once stretched upon the ground could rise without assistance ;
and, drawing his sword, cried out fiercly : '" On foot, Oft foot !
the fall was not mine, but this accursed beast's, that T must
needs for my sins raise to the rank of a charger. Come on."

" Nay, Sir Knight," said Adrian, drawing off his gauntlets
and unbuckling his helmet, which he threw on the ground, " I
come to thee a guest and a friend ; but to fight on foot is the
encounter of mortal foes. Did I accept thy offer, my defeat
would but stain thy knighthood."

Montreal, whose passion had beguiled him for the moment,
sullenly acquiesced in this reasoning. Adrian hastened to
soothe his antagonist. " For the rest," said he, " I cannot pre-
tend to the prize. Your lance lost me my stirrups ; mine left
you unshaken. You say right ; the defeat, if any, was that of
your steed."

" We may meet again when I am more equally horsed," said
Montreal, still chafing.

" Now, our Lady forbid ! " exclaimed Adrian, with so devout
an earnestness that the bystanders could not refrain from laugh-

THE LAST OP THE TRIBUNES. l6l

ing ; and even Montreal grimly and half-reluctantly joined in
the merriment. The courtesy of his foe, however, conciliated
and touched the more frank and soldierly qualities of his
nature, and composing himself, he replied :

" Signor di Castello, I rest your debtor for a courtesy that I
have but little imitated. Howbeit, if thou wouldst bind me to
thee forever, thou wilt suffer me to send for my own charger,
and afford me a chance to retrieve mine honor. With that steed,
or with one equal to thine, which seems to me of the English
breed, I will gage all I possess, lands, castle, and gold, sword
and spurs, to maintain this pass, one by one, against all thy
train."

Fortunately, perhaps, for Adrian, ere he could reply, Riccardo
Annibaldi cried with great warmth : " Sir Knights, I have with
me two steeds well practised in the tourney ; take thy choice
and accept in me a champion of the Roman against the French
chivalry ; there is my gage."

"Signor," replied Montreal, with ill-suppressed delight,
" thy proffer shows so gallant and free a spirit, that it were foul
sin in me to balk it. I accept thy gage, and whichever of
thy steeds thou rejectest, in God's name bring it hither, and
let us waste no words before action."

Adrian, who felt that hitherto the Romans had been more
favored by fortune than merit, vainly endeavored to prevent
this second hazard. But Annibaldi was greatly chafed, and
his high rank rendered it impolitic in Adrian to offend him by
peremptory prohibition : the Colonna reluctantly, therefore,
yielded his assent to the engagement. Annibaldi's steeds
were led to the spot, the one a noble roan, the other a bay, of
somewhat less breeding and bone, but still of great strength
and price. Montreal, rinding the choice pressed upon him,
gallantly selected the latter and less excellent.

Annibaldi was soon arrayed for the encounter, and Adrian
gave the word to the trumpeters. The Roman was of a stat-
ure almost equal to that of Montreal, and though some
years younger, seemed, in his armor, nearly of the same thews
and girth, so that the present antagonists appeared at the first
glance more evenly matched than the last. But this time Mon-
treal, well horsed, inspired to the utmost by shame and pride,
felt himself a match for an army ; and he met the young
Baron with such prowess that, while the very plume on his
casque seemed scarcely stirred, the Italian was thrown several
paces from his steed, and it was not till some moments after
his visor was removed by his 'squires that he recovered his

l62 RIENZI,

senses. This event restored Montreal to all his natural gayety
of humor, and effectually raised the spirits of his followers, who
had felt much humbled by the previous encounter.

He himself assisted Annibaldi to rise with great courtesy,
and a profusion of compliments, which the proud Roman took
in stern silence, and then led the way to the pavilion, loudly
ordering the banquet to be spread. Annibaldi, however,
loitered behind, and Adrian, who penetrated his thoughts, and
who saw that over their cups a quarrel between the Provenal
and his friend was likely to ensue, drawing him aside said :
" Methinks, dear Annibaldi, it would be better if you, with the
chief of our following, were to proceed onward to Fondi,
where I will join you at sunset. My 'squires, and some eight
lances, will suffice for my safeguard here ; and, to say truth,
I desire a few private words with our strange host, in the hope
that he may be peaceably induced to withdraw from hence
without the help of our Roman troops, who have enough else-
where to feed their valor."

Annibaldi pressed his companion's hand: "I understand
thee," he replied with a slight blush, "and, indeed, I could but
ill brook the complacent triumph of the barbarian. I accept
thy offer."

CHAPTER III.

THE CONVERSATION BETWEEN THE ROMAN AND THE PROVEN-
CAL. ADELINE'S HISTORY. THE MOONLIT SEA. THE i UTE

AND THE SONG.

As soon as Annibaldi, with the greater part of the retinue,
was gone, Adrian, divesting himself of his heavy greaves, en-
tered alone the pavilion of the Knight of St. John. Montreal
had already doffed all his armor, save the breastplate, and he
now stepped forward to welcome his guest with the winning
and easy grace which better suited his birth than his profes-
sion. He received Adrian's excuses for the absence of Anni-
baldi and the other knights of his train with a smile that
seemed to prove how readily he divined the cause, and con-
ducted him to the other and more private division of the pa-
vilion in which the repast (rendered acceptable by the late ex-
ercise of the guest and host) was prepared ; and here Adrian
for the first time discovered Adeline. Long inurement to the
various and roving life of her lover, joined to a certain pride

THE LAST OP THE TRIBUNES. 163

which she derived from conscious, though forfeited, rank, gave
to tiie outward manner of that beautiful lady an ease and
freedom which often concealed, even from Montreal, her sensi-
tiveness to her unhappy situation. At times, indeed, when
alone with Montreal, whom she loved with all the devotion of
romance, she was sensible only to the charm of a presence
which consoled her for all things ; but in his frequent absence,
or on the admission of any stranger, the illusion vanished the
reality returned. Poor lady ! Nature had not formed, educa-
tion had not reared, habit had not reconciled, her to the breath
of shame !

The young Colonna was much struck by her beauty, and
more by her gentle and high-born grace. Like her lord she
appeared younger than she was ; time seemed to spare a bloom
which an experienced eye might have told was destined to an
early grave ; and there was something almost girlish in the
lightness of her form, the braided luxuriance of her rich au-
burn hair, and the color that went and came, not only with
every moment, but almost with every word. The contrast be-
tween her and Montreal became them both it was the contrast
of devoted reliance and protecting strength : each looked fairer
in the presence of the other : and as Adrian sate down to
the well-laden board, he thought he had never seen a
pair more formed for the poet legends of their native Trouba-
dours.

Montreal conversed gayly upon a thousand matters pressed
the wine flasks, and selected for his guest the most delicate
portions of the delicious spicola of the neighboring sea, and the
rich flesh of the wild boar of the Pontine Marshes.

" Tell me," said Montreal, as their hunger was now appeased,
" tell me, noble Adrian, how fares your kinsman, Signer
Stephen ? A brave old man for his years."

" He bears him as the youngest of us," answered Adrian.

" Late events must have shocked him a little," said Mon-
treal, with an arch smile. " Ah, you look grave yet commend
my foresight ; I was the first who prophesied to thy kinsman
the rise of Cola di Rienzi ; he seems a great man ; never more
great than in conciliating the Colonna and the Orsini."

" The Tribune," returned Adrian evasively, " is certainly a
man of extraordinary genius. And now, seeing him command,
my only wonder is how he ever brooked to obey ; majesty
seems a very part of him."

" Men who win power easily put on its harness, dignity," an-
swered Montreal ; " and if I hear aright (pledge me to your

164 RIEN2I,

lady's health) the Tribune, if not himself nobly born, will
soon be nobly connected."

" He is already married to a Raselli, an old Roman house,"
replied Adrian.

" You evade my pursuit, Le doulx soupir ! le doulx soupir ! as
the old Cabestan has it," said Montreal, laughing. " Well, you
have pledged me one cup to your lady, pledge another to
the fair Irene, the Tribune's sister, always provided they two are
not one. You smile and shake your head."

"I do not disguise from you, Sir Knight," answered
Adrian, "that when my present embassy is over, I trust the
alliance between the Tribune and a Colonna will go far to-
wards the benefit of both."

" I have heard rightly then," said Montreal, in a grave and
thoughtful tone. " Rienzi's power must, indeed, be great."

"Of that my mission is a proof. Are you aware, Signor de
Montreal, that Louis, King of Hungary "

" How ! what of him ? "

" Has referred the decision of the feud between himself and
Joanna, of Naples, respecting the death of her royal spouse, his
brother, to the fiat of the Tribune ? This is the first time, me-
thinks, since the death of Constantine, that so great a confi-
dence and so high a charge were ever intrusted to a Roman ! "

"By all the saints in the calendar ! " cried Montreal, crossing
himself, " this news is indeed amazing ! The fierce Louis of
Hungary waive the right of the sword, and choose other umpire
than the field of battle ! "

" And this," continued Adrian, in a significant tone, "this it
was which induced me to obey your courteous summons. I
know, brave Montreal, that you hold intercourse with Louis.
Louis has given to the Tribune the best pledge of his amity
and alliance ; will you do wisely if you "

"Wage war with the Hungarian's ally," interrupted Mon-
treal. " This you were about to add ; the same thought crossed
myself. My lord, pardon me Italians sometimes invent what
they wish. On the honor of a Knight of the Empire, these
tidings are the naked truth ?"

" By my honor, and on the Cross," answered Adrian, draw-
ing himself up; "and in proof thereof, I am now bound to
Naples, to settle with the Queen the preliminaries of the ap-
pointed trial."

" Two crowned heads before the tribunal of a plebeian, and
one a defendant against the charge of murther ! " muttered
Montreal ; " the news might well amaze me ! "

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 165

He remained musing and silent a little while, till looking up,
he caught Adeline's tender gaze fixed upon him with that
deep solicitude with which she watched the outward effect of
schemes and projects she was too soft to desire to know, and
too innocent to share.

" Lady mine," said the Provencal fondly, "how sayst thou ?
must we abandon our mountain castle, and these wild wood-
land scenes, for the dull walls of a city ? I fear me so. The
Lady Adeline," he continued, turning to Adrian, "is of a sin-
gular bias ; she hates the gay crowds of streets and thorough-
fares, and esteems no palace like the solitary outlaw's hold.
Yet, methinks, she might outshine all the faces of Italy, thy
mistress, Lord Adrian, of course excepted."

" It is an exception which only a lover, and that too a be-
trothed lover, would dare to make," replied Adrian gallantly.

" Nay," said Adeline, in a voice singularly sweet and clear,
"nay, I know well at what price to value my lord's flattery, and
Signor di Castello's courtesy. But you are bound, Sir Knight,
to a court, that, if fame speak true, boasts in its Queen the
very miracle and mould of beauty."

" It is some years since I saw the Queen of Naples," an-
swered Adrian ; " and I little dreamed then, when I gazed upon
that angel face, that I should live to hear her accused of the
foulest murther that ever stained even Italian royalty."

" And, as if resolved to prove her guilt," said Montreal, "ere
long be sure she will marry the very man who did the deed.
Of this I have certain proof."

Thus conversing, the knights wore away the daylight, and
beheld from the open tent the sun cast his setting glow over
the purple sea. Adeline had long retired from the board, and
they now saw her seated with her handmaids on a mound by
the beach, while the sound of her lute faintly reached their
ears. As Montreal caught the air, he turned from the converse,
and sighing, half shaded his face with his hand. Somehow or
other the two knights had worn away all the little jealousy or
pique which they had conceived against each other at Rome.
Both imbued with the soldier-like spirit of the age, their con-
test in the morning had served to inspire them with that strange
kind of respect, and even cordiality, which one brave man even
still (how much more at that day !) feels for another, whose
courage he has proved while vindicating his own. It is like
the discovery of a congenial sentiment hitherto latent ; and, in
a life of camps, often establishes sudden and lasting friendship
in the very lap of enmity. This feeling had been ripened by

l66 RIENZI,

their subsequent familiar intercourse, and was increased on
Adrian's side by the feeling that, in convincing Montreal of
the policy of withdrawing from the Roman territories, he had
obtained an advantage that well repaid whatever danger and
delay he had undergone.

The sigh and the altered manner of Montreal did not escape
Adrian, and he naturally connected it with something relating
to her whose music had been its evident cause.

" Yon lovely dame," said he gently, " touches the lute with
an exquisite and fairy hand, and that plaintive air seems to my
ear as of the minstrelsy of Provence."

" It is the air I taught her," said Montreal sadly, " married
as it is to indifferent words, with which I first wooed a heart
that should never have given itself to me ! Ay, young Colonna,
many a night has my boat been moored beneath the starlit
Sorgia that washes her proud father's halls, and my voice
awaked the stillness of the waving sedges with a soldier's sere-
nade. Sweet memories ! bitter fruit ! "

"Why bitter ! ye love each other still."

" But I am vowed to celibacy, and Adeline de Cour-
val is leman where she should be wedded dame. Me-
thinks I fret at the thought even more than she dear
Adeline ! "

" Your lady, as all would guess, is then nobly born ? "

" She is," answered Montreal, with a deep and evident feel-
ing which, save in love, rarely, if ever, crossed his hardy breast.
" She is ! our tale is a brief one : We loved each other as
children. Her family was wealthier than mine : we were sep-
arated. I was given to understand that she abandoned me. I
despaired, and in despair I took the cross of St. John. Chance
threw us again together. I learned that her love was unde-
cayed. Poor child! she was even then, sir, but a child ! I, wild,
reckless, and not unskilled, perhaps, in the arts that woo and
win. She could not resist my suit or her own affection ! We
fled. In those words you see the thread of my after-history.
My sword and my Adeline were all my fortune. Society
frowned on us. The Church threatened my soul. The Grand
Master my life. I became a knight of fortune. Fate and my
right hand favored me. I have made those who scorned me
tremble at my name. That name shall yet blaze, a star or a
meteor, in the front of troubled nations, and I may yet win by
force from the Pontiff the dispensation refused to my prayers.
On the same day, 1 may offer Adeline the diadem and the
ring. Eno' of this ; you marked Adeline's cheek ! Seems it

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 167

not delicate ? I like not that changeful flush, and she moves
languidly, her step that was so blithe ! "

" Change of scene and the mild south will soon restore her
health," said Adrian : " and in your peculiar life she is so little
brought into contact with. others, especially of her own sex,
that I trust she is but seldom made aware of whatever is pain-
ful in her own situation. And woman's love, Montreal, as we
both have learned, is a robe that wraps her frorr many a
storm."

"You speak kindly," returned the knight ; " but you know
not all our cause of grief. Adeline's father, a proud sieur,
died they said of a broken heart but old men die of many
another disease than that ! The mother, a dame who boasted
her descent from princes, bore the matter more sternly than
the sire ; clamored for revenge which was odd, for she is as
religious as a Dominican, and revenge is not Christian in a
woman, though it is knightly in a man ! Well, my lord, we
had one boy, our only child ; he was Adeline's solace in my
absence ; his pretty ways were worth the world to her ! She
loved him so, that but he had her eyes and looked like
her when he slept, I should have been jealous ! He grew up in
our wild life, strong and comely ; the young rogue, he would
have been a brave knight ! My evil star led me to Milan,
where I had business with the Visconti. One bright morning
in June our boy was stolen ; verily that June was like a De-
cember to us ! "

" Stolen ? how ? by whom ? "

" The first question is answered easily : the boy was with his
nurse in the courtyard, the idle wench left him for but a min-
ute or two so she avers to fetch him some childish toy :
when she returned he was gone ; not a trace left, save his
pretty cap with the plume in it ! Poor Adeline, many a time
have I found her kissing that relic till it was wet with tears ! "

" A strange fortune, in truth. But what interest could "

"I will tell you," interrupted Montreal, " the only conjecture
I could form : Adeline's mother, on learning that we had a
son, sent to Adeline a letter that well-nigh broke her heart, re-
proaching her for her love to me, and so forth, as if that had
made her the vilest of the sex. She bade her take compassion
on her child, and not bring him up to a robber's life, so was
she pleased to style the bold career of Walter de Montreal.
She offered to rear the child in her own dull halls, and fit him,
no doubt, for a shaven pate and a monk's cowl. She chafed
much that a mother would not part with her treasure ! She

168

alone, partly in revenge, partly in silly compassion for Adeline's
child, partly, it may be, from some pious fanaticism, could, it
so seemed to me, have robbed us of our boy. On inquiry, I
learned from the nurse who, but that she was of the same sex
as Adeline, should have tasted my dagger, that in their walks,
a woman of advanced years, but seemingly humble rank (that
might be disguise !) had often stopped and caressed and ad-
mired the child. I repaired at once to France, sought the old
Castle of De Courval ; it had passed to the next heir, and the
old widow was gone, none knew whither, but, it was conjec-
tured, to take the veil in some remote convent."

" And you never saw her since ? "

" Yes, at Rome," answered Montreal, turning pale ; " when
last there I chanced suddenly upon her ; and then at
length I learned my boy's fate, and the truth of my own
surmise ; she confessed to the theft, and my child was
dead ! I have not dared to tell Adeline of this ; it seems to
me as if it would be like plucking the shaft from the wounded
side and she would die at once, bereft of the uncertainty that
rankles within her. She has still a hope it comforts her ;
though my heart bleeds when I think on its vanity. Let this
pass, my Colonna."

And Montreal started to his feet, as if he strove, by a strong
effort, to shake off the weakness that had crept over him in his
narration.

" Think no more of it. Life is short its thorns are many let
us not neglect any of its flowers. This is piety and wisdom
too ; Nature, that meant me to struggle and to toil, gave me,
happily, the sanguine heart and the elastic soul of France ;
and I have lived long enough to own that to die young is not
an evil. Come, Lord Adrian, let us join my lady ere you part,
if part you must ; the moon will be up soon, and Fondi is but a
short journey hence. You know that though I admire not your
Petrarch, you with more courtesy laud our Provenal ballads,
and you must hear Adeline sing one that you may prize them
the more. The race of the Troubadours is dead, but the min-
strelsy survives the minstrel ! "

Adrian, who scarce knew what comfort to administer to the
affliction of his companion, was somewhat relieved by the
change in his mood, though his more grave and sensitive nature
was a little startled at its suddenness. But, as we have before
seen, Montreal's spirit (and this made perhaps its fascination)
was as a varying and changeful sky ; the gayest sunshine and
the fiercest storm swept over it in rapid alternation ; and ele-

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 169

ments of singular might and grandeur, which, properly di-
rected and concentrated, would have made him the blessing
and glory of his time, were wielded with a boyish levity, roused
into war and desolation, or lulled into repose and smoothness,
with all the suddenness of chance, and all the fickleness of
caprice.

Sauntering down to the beach, the music of Adeline's lute
sounded more distinctly in their ears, and involuntarily they
hushed their steps upon the rich and odorous turf, as in a
voice, though not powerful, marvellously sweet and clear, and
well adapted to the simple fashion of the words and melody,
she sang the following stanzas:

LAY OF THE LADY OF PROVENCE,
i.

Ah, why art thou sad, my heart ? Why

Darksome and lonely ?
Frowns the fr.ce of the happy sky
Over thee only ?

Ah me, ah me !
Render to joy the earth !
Grief shuns, not envies, mirth ;
But leave one quiet spot,
Where mirth may enter not,
To sigh, Ah me !
Ah me !

II.
As a bird, though the sky be clear,

Keels the stonn lower ;
My soul bodes the tempest near
In the sunny hour ;

Ah me, ah me !
Be glad while yet we may !
I bid thee, my heart, be gay ;
And still I know not why,
Thou answerest with a sigh
(Fond heart !) Ah me !
Ah me!

in.
As this twilight o'er the skies,

Doubt brings the sorrow ;
Who knows when the daylight dies,
What waits the morrow ?

Ah me, ah me !
Be blithe, be blithe, my lute,
Thy strings will soon be mute {
Be blithe hark ! while it dies,
The note forewarning, sighs
Its last Ah me !

Ah me !

1 70 RIENZI,

" My own Adeline, my sweetest night-bird," half-whispered
Montreal, and softly approaching, he threw himself at his lady's
feet ; " thy song is too sad for this golden eve."

" No sound ever went to the heart," said Adrian, "whose
arrow was not feathered by sadness. True sentiment, Montreal,
is twin with melancholy, though not with gloom."

The lady looked softly and approvingly up at Adrian's face ;
she was pleased with its expression ; she was pleased yet more
with words of which women rather than men would acknowl-
edge the truth. Adrian returned the look with one of deep and
eloquent sympathy and respect ; in fact, the short story he had
heard from Montreal had interested him deeply in her ; and
never to the brilliant queen, to whose court he was bound, did
his manner wear so chivalric and earnest a homage as it did to
that lone and ill-fated lady on the twilight shores of Terra-
cina.

Adeline blushed slightly and sighed ; and then, to break
the awkwardness of a pause which had stolen over them,
as Montreal, unheeding the last remark of Adrian, was
tuning the strings of the lute, she said: "Of course the
Signer di Castello shares the universal enthusiasm for
Petrarch ?"

"Ay," cried Montreal; "my lady is Petrarch mad, like
the rest of them : but all I know is, that never did belted
knight and honest lover woo in such fantastic and tortured
strains."

" In Italy," answered Adrian, "common language is exag-
geration ; but even your own Troubadour poetry might tell you
that love, ever seeking a new language of its own, cannot but
often run into what to all but lovers seems distortion and
conceit."

" Come, dear signer," said Montreal, placing the lute in
Adrian's hands, " let Adeline be the umpire between us, which
music yours or mine can woo the more blandly."

" Ah," said Adrian, laughing ; I fear me, Sir Knight, you have
already bribed the umpire."

Montreal's eyes and Adeline's met, and in that gaze Adeline
forgot all her sorrows.

With a practised and skilful hand Adrian touched the
strings ; and selecting a song which was less elaborate than
those mostly in vogue amongst his countrymen, though still
conceived in the Italian spirit, and in accordance with the sen-
timent he had previously expressed to Adeline, he sang a
follows ;

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 171

LOVE'S EXCUSE FOR SADNESS.

Chide not, beloved, if oft with thee

I feel not rapture wholly ;
For aye the heart that's fill'd with love,

Runs o'er in melancholy.
To streams that glide in noon, the shade

From summer skies is given ;
So, if my breast reflects the cloud,

"Tit but the cloud of heaven !
Thine image glass'd within my soul,

So well the mirror keepeth ;
That, chide me not, if with the light

The shadow also sleepeth.

"And now," said Adrian, as he concluded, "the lute is to
you ; I but prelude your prize."

The Provencal laughed, and shook his head. " With any
other umpire, I had had my lute broken on my own head, for
my conceit in provoking such a rival ; but I must not shrink
from a contest I have myself provoked, even though in one day
twice defeated." And with that, in a deep and exquisitely melo-
dious voice, which wanted only mere scientific culture to have
challenged any competition, the Knight of St. John poured forth

THE LAY OF THE TROUBADOUR.

Gentle river, the moonbeam is hush'd on thy tide,
On thy pathway of light to my lady I glide.
My boat, where the stream leaves the castle, I moor-
All at rest save the maid and her young Troubadour !
As the stars to the waters that bore

My baik, to my spirit thou art ;
Heaving yet, see it bound to the shore,
So moor'd to thy beauty my heart
BeF amie, bel' amie, bel' amie /

II.

Wilt thou fly from the world ? It hath wealth for the vain ;
But Love breaks his bond when there's gold in the chain ;
Wilt thou fly from the world ? It hath courts for the proud J
But Love, born in caves, pines to death in the crowd.
Were this bosom thy world, dearest one,
Thy world could not fail to be bright ;
For thou shouldst thyself be its sun,

And what spot could be dim in thy light
BeF amie, bel' amie, beF amie?

III.

The rich and the great woo thee dearest ; and poor,
Though his fathers were princes, thy young Troubadour I
But his heart never quail'd save to thee, his adored-

172 RIENZI,

There's no guile in his lute, and no stain on his sword.
Ah, I reck not what sorrows I know,
Could I still on thy solace confide ;
And I care not, though earth be my foe,
If thy soft heart be found by my side,
BeF atnit, beF amie, beF amiej

IV.

The maiden she blush'd, and the maiden she sighed,
Not a cloud in the sky, not a gale on the tide ;
But though tempest had raged on the wave and the wind,
That castle, meihinks, had been still left behind !
Stfeet lily, though bow'd by the blast,

(To this bosom transplanted) since then.
Wouldst thou change, could we call up the past,
To the rock from thy garden again
Bel' amie, beF amie, beF amie ?

Thus they alternated the time with converse and song, as the
wooded hills threw their sharp, long shadows over the sea ;
while from many a mound of waking flowers, and many a copse
of citron and orange, relieved by the dark and solemn aloe,
stole the summer breeze, laden with mingled odors ; and over
the seas, colored by the slow-fading hues of purple and rose,
that the sun had long bequeathed to the twilight, flitted the gay
fireflies that sparkle along the enchanted coast. At length the
moon slowly rose above the dark forest-steeps, gleaming on the
gay pavilion and glittering pennon of Montreal ; on the verdant
sward, the polished mail of the soldiers, stretched on the grass
in various groups, half-shaded by oaks and Cyprus, and the
war-steeds grazing peaceably together a wild mixture of the
Pastoral and the Iron time.

Adrian, reluctantly reminded of his journey, rose to depart.

" I fear," said he to Adeline, " that I have already detained
you too late in the night air ; but selfishness is little con-
siderate. "

" Nay, you see we are prudent," said Adeline, pointing to
Montreal's mantle, which his provident hand had long since
drawn around her form ; "but if we must part, farewell, and
success attend you !"

" We may meet again, I trust," said Adrian.

Adeline sighed gently ; and the Colonna, gazing on her face
by the moonlight, to which it was slightly raised, was painfully
struck by its almost transparent delicacy. Moved by his compas-
sion, ere he mounted his steed, he drew Montreal aside. " For-
give me if I seem presumptuous," said he, " but to one so noble
this wild life is scarce a fitting career. I know that, in our
tirr. War consecrates all his children ; but surely a settled rank

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 17$

in the court of the Emperor, or an honorable reconciliation
with your knightly brethren, were better "

" Than a Tartar camp, and a brigand's castle," interrupted
Montreal, with some impatience. "This you were about to
say you are mistaken. Society thrust me from her bosom ;
let society take the fruit it hath sown. ' A fixed rank/ say you ?
some subaltern office, to fight at other men's command ! You
know me not : Walter de Montreal was not formed to obey.
War when I will, and rest when I list, is the motto of my es-
cutcheon. Ambition proffers me rewards you wot not of ; and
I am of the mould, as of the race, of those whose swords have
conquered thrones. For the rest, your news of the alliance
of Louis of Hungary with your Tribune makes it necessary
for the friend of Louis to withdraw from all feud with Rome.
Ere the week expire the owl and the bat may seek refuge in
yon gray turrets."

"But your lady?"

" Is inured to change. God help her, and temper the rough
wind to the lamb J "

" Enough, Sir Knight : but should you desire a sure refuge
at Rome for one so gentle and so highborn, by the right hand
of a knight, I promise a safe roof and an honored home to
the Lady Adeline."

Montreal pressed the offered hand to his heart ; then pluck-
ing his own hastily away, drew it across his eyes, and joined
Adeline, in a silence that showed he dared not trust himself to
speak. In a few moments Adrian and his train were on the
march ; but still the young Colonna turned back, to gaze once
more on his wild host and that lovely lady, as they themselves
lingered on the moonlit sward, while the sea rippled mournfully
on their ears.

It was not many months after that date that the name of
Fra Moreale scattered terror and dismay throughout the fair
Campania. The right hand of the Hungarian king, in his
invasion of Naples, he was chosen afterwards vicar (or vice-
gerent) of Louis in Aversa ; and fame and fate seemed to lead
him triumphantly along that ambitious career which he had
elected, whether bounded by the scaffold or the throne.

174 RIENZI,

BOOK IV.

THE TRIUMPH AND THE POMP.

" Allora fama e paura disi buono reggimento, passa in ogni terra." Vita
di Cola di Kienzi, lib. i. cap. 21.

" Then the fame and fear of that so good government passed into every
land. Life of Cola di Rienzi.

CHAPTER I.

THE BOY ANGELO THE DREAM OF NINA FULFILLED.

THE thread of my story transports us back to Rome. It
was in a small chamber, in a ruinous mansion by the base of
Mount Aventine, that a young boy sate, one evening, with a
woman of a tall and stately form, but somewhat bowed both
by infirmity and years. The boy was of a fair and comely
presence ; and there was that in his bold, frank, undaunted
carriage, which made him appear older than he was.

The old woman, seated in the recess of the deep window,
was apparently occupied with a Bible that lay open on her
knees ; but ever and anon she lifted her eyes, and gazed on
her young companion with a sad and anxious expression.

" Dame," said the boy, who was busily employed in hewing
out a sword of wood, " I would you had seen the show to-day.
Why, every day is a show at Rome now ! It is show enough
to see the Tribune himself on his white steed (oh, it is so
beautiful !) with his white robes all studded with jewels. But
to-day, as I have just been telling you, the Lady Nina took
notice of me, as I stood on the stairs of the Capitol : you
know, dame, I had donned my best blue velvet doublet."

"And she called you a fair boy, and asked if you would be
her little page ; and this has turned thy brain, silly urchin
that thou art "

"But the words are the least: if you saw the Lady Nina,
you would own that a smile from her might turn the wisest
head in Italy. Oh, how I should like to serve the Tribune !
All the lads of my age are mad for him. How they will stare,
and envy me at school to-morrow ! You know too, dame,
that though I was not always brought up at Rome, I am
Roman. Every Roman loves Rienzi."

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 175

" Ay, for the hour : the cry will soon change. This vanity
of thine, Angelo, vexes my old heart. I would thou wert
humbler."

"Bastards have their own name to win," said the boy, color-
ing deeply. "They twit me in the teeth, because I cannot say
who my father and mother were."

"They need not," returned the dame hastily. "Thou
comest of noble blood and long descent, though, as I have
told thee often, I know not the exact names of thy parents.
But what art thou shaping that tough sapling of oak into ?"

"A sword, dame, to assist the Tribune against the robbers."

" Alas ! I fear me, like all those who seek power in Italy, he
is more likely to enlist robbers than to assail them."

" Why, la, you there, you live so shut up, that you know and
hear nothing, or you would have learned that even that fiercest
of all the robbers, Fra Moreale, has at length yielded to the
Tribune, and fled from his castle, like a rat from a falling
house."

"How, how !" cried the dame ; "what say you? Has this
plebeian, whom you call the Tribune, has he boldly thrown
the gage to that dread warrior ? and has Montreal left the
Roman territory ? "

" Ay, it is the talk of the town. But Fra Moreale seems as
much a bugbear to you as to e'er a mother in Rome. Did he
ever wrong you, dame?"

" Yes ! " exclaimed the old woman, with so abrupt a fierce-
ness that even that hardy boy was startled.

" I wish I could meet him, then," said he, after a pause, as
he flourished his mimic weapon.

" Now Heaven forbid ! He is a man ever to be shunned by
thee, whether for peace or war. Say again this good Tribune
holds no terms with the Free Lances."

" Say it again why, all Rome knows it."

" He is pious, too, I have heard ; and they do bruit it that
he sees visions, and is comforted from above," said the woman,
speaking to herself. Then turning to Angelo, she continued :
" Thou wouldst like greatly to accept the Lady Nina's proffer ?"

" Ah, that I should, dame, if you could spare me."

"Child," replied the matron solemnly, " my sand is nearly
run, and my wish is to see thee placed with one who will nur-
ture thy young years, and save thee from a life of license.
That done, I may fulfil my vow, and devote the desolate rem-
nant of my years to God. I will think more of this, my child.
Not under such a plebeian's roof shouldst thou have lodged,

176 RIENZI,

nor from a stranger's board been fed ; but at Rome, my last rela
tive worthy of the trust is dead; and at the worst, obscure hon-
esty is better than gaudy crime. Thy spirit troubles me already.
Back, my child ; I must to my closet, and watch and pray."

Thus saying, the old woman, repelling the advance, and si-
lencing the muttered and confused words, of the boy half
affectionate as they were, yet half tetchy and wiiyward glided
from the chamber.

The boy looked abstractedly at the closing door, and then
said to himself: "The dame is always talking riddles : I
wonder if she know more of me than she tells, or if she is any
way akin to me. I hope not, for I don't love her much ; nor,
for that matter, anything else. I wish she would place me
with the Tribune's lady, and then we'll see who among the
lads will call Angelo Villani bastard."

With that the boy fell to work again at his sword with re-
doubled vigor. In fact, the cold manner of this female, his
sole nurse, companion, substitute for parent, had repelled his
affections without subduing his temper ; and though not
originally of evil disposition, Angelo Villani was already inso-
lent, cunning, and revengeful ; but not, on the other hand,
without a quick susceptibility to kindness as to affront, a natu-
ral acuteness of understanding, and a great indifference to
fear. Brought up in quiet affluence rather than luxury, and
living much with his protector, whom he knew but by the name
of Ursula, his bearing was graceful, and his air that of the
well-born. And it was his carriage, perhaps, rather than his
countenance, which, though handsome, was more distinguished
for intelligence than beauty, which had attracted the notice of
the Tribune's bride. His education was that of one reared
for some scholastic profession. He was not only taught to
read and write, but had been even instructed in the rudiments
of Latin. He did not, however, incline to these studies half so
fondly as to the games of his companions, or the shows or
riots in the street, into all of which he managed to thrust him-
self, and from which he had always the happy dexterity to
return safe and unscathed.

The next morning Ursula entered the young Angelo's
chamber. " Wear again thy blue doublet to-day," said she ;
" L would have thee look thy best. Thou shalt go with me to
the palace."

"What, to-day?" cried the boy joyfully, half leaping from
his bed. " Dear dame Ursula, shall I really then belong to the
train of the great Tribune's lady ? "

THE LAST Of THE TRIBUNES. 1?7

"Yes; and leave the old woman to die alone ! Your joy
becomes you, but ingratitude is in your blood. Ingratitude !
Oh, it has burned my heart into ashes ; and yours, boy, can no
longer find a fuel in the dry crumbling cinders."

" Dear dame, you are always so biting. You know you said
you wished to retire into a convent, and I was too troublesome
a charge for you. But you delight in rebuking me, justly or
unjustly."

" My task is over," said Ursula, with a deep-drawn sigh.

The boy answered not ; and the old woman retired with a
heavy step, and, it may be, a heavier heart. When he joined
her in their common apartment, he observed what his joy had
previously blinded him to, that Ursula did not wear her usual
plain and sober dress. The gold chain, rarely assumed then
by women not of noble birth, though, in the other sex, affected
also by public functionaries and wealthy merchants, glittered
tipon a robe of the rich flowered stuffs of Venice, and the clasps
that confined the vest at the throat and waist were adorned
with jewels of no common price.

Angelo's eye was struck by the change, but he felt a more
manly pride in remarking that the old lady became it well.
Her air and mien were indeed those of one to whom such gar-
ments were habitual ; and they seemed that day more than
usually austere and stately.

She smoothed the boy's ringlets, drew his short mantle more
gracefully over his shoulder, and then placed in his belt a pon-
iard whose handle was richly studded, and a purse well filled
with florins.

" Learn to use both discreetly," said she ; " and, whether I
live or die, you will never require to wield the poniard to pro-
cure the gold."

" This then," cried Angelo, enchanted, "is a real poniard to
fight the robbers with ! Ah, with this I should not fear Fra
Morenle, who wronged thee so. I trust I may yet avenge thee,
though thou didst rate me so just now for ingratitude."

" J am avenged. Nourish not such thoughts, my son, they
are sinful ; at least I fear so. Draw to the board and eat ; we
will go betimes, as petitioners should do."

Angelo had soon finished his morning meal, and sallying with
Ursula to the porch, he saw, to his surprise, four of those
servitors who then usually attended persons of distinc-
tion, and who were to be hired in every city, for the con-
venience of strangers or the holyday ostentation of the gayer
citizens.

178 RIENZI,

" How grand we are to-day ! " said he, clapping his hands
with an eagerness which Ursula failed not to reprove.

" It is not for vain show," she added, " which true nobility
can well dispense with, but that we may the more readily gain
admittance to the palace. These princes of yesterday are not
easy of audience to the over humble."

" Oh, but you are wrong this time," said the boy. " The
Tribune gives audience to all men, the poorest as the richest.
Nay, there is not a ragged boor, or a barefooted friar, who
does not win access to him sooner than the proudest baron.
That's why the people love him so. And he devotes one day
of the week to receiving the widows and the orphans ; and you
know, dame, I am an orphan."

Ursula, already occupied with her own thoughts, did not
answer, and scarcely heard the boy ; but leaning on his young
arm, and preceded by the footmen to clear the way, passed
slowly towards the palace of the Capitol.

A wonderful thing would it have been to a more observant
eye to note the change which two or three short months of the
stern but salutary and wise rule of the Tribune had effected in
the streets of Rome. You no longer beheld the gaunt and
mail-clad forms of foreign mercenaries stalking through the
vistas, or grouped in lazy insolence before the embattled
porches of some gloomy palace. The shops, that in many
quarters had been closed for years, were again open, glittering
with wares and bustling with trade. The thoroughfares,
formerly either silent as death, or crossed by some affrighted
and solitary passenger with quick steps, and eyes that searched
every corner, or resounding with the roar of a pauper rabble,
or the open feuds of savage nobles, now exhibited the regular,
and wholesome, and mingled streams of civilized life, whether
bound to pleasure or to commerce. Carts and wagons laden
with goods which had passed in safety by the dismantled holds
of the robbers of the Campagna, rattled cheerfully over the
pathways. " Never, perhaps," to use the translation adapted
from the Italian authorities, by a modern and by no means a
partial historian* " Never, perhaps, has the energy and effect
of a single mind been more remarkably felt than in the sudden
reformation of Rome by the Tribune Rienzi. A den of robbers
was converted to the discipline of a camp or convent. ' In this
time,' says the historian,! 'did the woods begin to rejoice that
they were no longer infested with robbers ; the oxen began to

* Gibbon,
t Vita di Cola di Rienzi, lib. i., c. 9.

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 179

plough ; the pilgrims visited the sanctuaries ;* the roads and
inns were replenished with travellers ; trade, plenty, and good
faith, were restored in the markets ; and a purse of gold might
be exposed without danger in the midst of the highways.' "

Amidst all these evidences of comfort and security to the
people, some dark and discontented countenances might be
seen mingled in the crowd, and whenever one who wore the
livery of the Colonna or the Orsini felt himself jostled by the
throng, a fierce hand moved involuntarily to the sword-belt,
and a half-suppressed oath was ended with an indignant sigh.
Here and there too, contrasting the redecorated, refurnished,
and smiling shops heaps of rubbish before the gate of some
haughty mansion testified the abasement of fortifications which
the owner impotemly resented as a sacrilege. Through such
streets and such throngs did the party we accompany wend
their way, till they found themselves amidst crowds assembled
before the entrance of the Capitol. The officers there stationed
kept, however, so discreet and dexterous an order, that they
were not long detained ; and now in the broad place or court
of that memorable building, they saw the open doors of the
great justice-hall, guarded but by a single sentinel, and in
which, for six hours daily, did the Tribune hold his court, for
" patient to hear, swift to redress, inexorable to punish, his tri-
bunal was always accessible to the poor and stranger."!

Not, however, to that hall did the party bend its way, but to
the entrance which admitted to the private apartments of the
palace. And here the pomp, the gaud, the more than regal
magnificence, of the residence of the Tribune, strongly con-
trasted the patriarchal simplicity which marked his justice
court.

Even Ursula, not unaccustomed, of yore, to the luxurious
state of Italian and French principalities, seemed roused into
surprise at the hall crowded with retainers in costly liveries,
the marble and gilded columns wreathed with flowers, and the
gorgeous banners wrought with the blended arms of the Repub-
lican City and the Pontifical See, which blazed aloft and
around.

Scarce knowing whom to address in such an assemblage,
Ursula was relieved from her perplexity by an officer attired in
a suit of crimson and gold, who, with a grave and formal
decorum, which indeed reigned throughout the whole retinue,

* Gibbon : the words in the original are " li Pellegrini cominciaro a fere la cerca pet
la tantuaria."

t Gibbon.

l8o RIENZI,

demanded, -respectfully, whom she sought ? " The Signora
Nina!" replied Ursula, drawing up her stately person, with a
natural, though somewhat antiquated, dignity. There was
something foreign in the accent which influenced the officer's
answer.

" To-day, madam, I fear that the Signora receives only the
Roman ladies. To-morrow is that appointed for all foreign
dames of distinction."

Ursula, with a slight impatience of tone, replied :

" My business is of that nature which is welcome on any day,
at palaces. I come, Signor, to lay certain presents at the
Signora's feet which I trust she will deign to accept."

" And say, Signor," added the boy -abruptly, " that Angelo
Villani, whom the Lady Nina honored yesterday with her
notice, is no stranger but a Roman ; and comes, as she bade
him, to proffer to the Signora his homage and devotion."

The grave officer could not refrain a smile at the pert, yet
not ungraceful, boldness of the boy.

" I remember me, Master Angelo Villani," he replied, " that
the Lady Nina spoke to you by the great staircase. Madam, I
will do your errand. Please to follow me to an apartment more
fitting your sex and seeming."

With that the officer led the way across the hall to a broad
staircase of white marble, along the centre of which were laid
those rich Eastern carpets which, at that day, when rushes
sirewed the chambers of an English monarch, were already
common to the greater luxury of Italian palaces. Opening a
door at the first flight, he ushered Ursula and her young charge
into a lofty ante-chamber, hung with arras of wrought velvets ;
while over the opposite door, through which the officer now
vanished, were blazoned the armorial bearings which the Trib-
une so constantly introduced in all his pomp, not more from
the love of show, than from his politic desire to mingle with
the keys of the Pontiff the heraldic insignia of the Republic.

" Philip of Valois is not housed like this man ! " muttered
Ursula. "If this last, I shall have done better for my charge
than I recked of."

The officer soon returned, and led them across an apartment
of vast extent, which was indeed the great reception chamber
of the palace. Four-and-twenty columns of the Oriental
alabaster which had attested the spoils of the later emperors,
and had been disinterred from forgotten ruins, to grace the
palace of the Reviver of the old Republic, supported the light
roof, which, half Gothic, half classic, in its architecture, was

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. l8l

inlaid with gilded and purple mosaics. The tesselated floor
was covered in the centre with cloth of gold, the walls were
clothed, at intervals, with the same gorgeous hangings, relieved
by panels freshly painted in the most glowing colors, with
mystic and symbolical designs. At the upper end of this royal
chamber two steps ascended to the place of the Tribune's throne,
above which was the canopy wrought with the eternal armorial
bearings of the Pontiff and the City.

Traversing this apartment, the officer opened the door at its
extremity, which admitted to a small chamber, crowded with
pages in rich dresses of silver and blue velvet. There were few
amongst them elder than Angelo ; and, from their general
beauty, they seemed the very flower and blossom of the city.

Short time had Angelo to gaze on his comrades that were to
be ; another minute, and he and his protectress were in the
presence of the Tribune's bride.

The chamber was not large ; but it was large enough to prove
that the beautiful daughter of Raselli had realized her visions
of vanity and splendor.

It was an apartment that mocked description ; it seemed a
cabinet for the gems of the world. The daylight, shaded by
high and deep-set casements of stained glass, streamed in a
purple and mellow hue over all that the art of that day boasted
mo-it precious, or regal luxury held most dear. The candela-
brum of the silver workmanship of Florence ; the carpets and
stuffs of the East ; the draperies of Venice and Genoa ; paint-
ings like the illuminated missals, wrought in gold, and those
lost colors of blue and crimson ; antique marbles, which spoke
of the bright days of Athens ; tables of disinterred mosaics,
their freshness preserved as by magic ; censers of gold that
steamed with the odors of Araby, yet so subdued as not to
deaden the healthier scent of flowers, which blushed in every
corner from their marble and alabaster vases ; a small and
spirit-like fountain, which seemed to gush from among wreaths
of roses, diffusing in its diamond and fairy spray a scarce felt
coolness of the air all these, and such as these, which it were
vain work to detail, congregated in the richest luxuriance,
harmonized with the most exquisite taste, uniting the ancient
arts with the modern, amazed and intoxicated the sense of the
beholder. It was not so much the cost, nor the luxury, that
made the character of the chamber ; it was a certain gorgeous
and almost sublime phantasy, so that it seemed rather the
fabled retreat of an enchantress, at whose word genii ransacked
the earth, and fairies arranged the produce, than the grossef

l8l RIENZI,

splendor of an earthly queen. Behind the piled cushions upon
which Nina half reclined, stood four girls, beautiful as nymphs,
with fans of the rarest feathers, and at her feet lay one older
than the rest, whose lute, though now silent, attested her legiti-
mate occupation.

But, had the room in itself seemed somewhat too fantastic
and overcharged in its prodigal ornaments, the form and face
of Nina would at once have rendered all appropriate ; so com-
pletely did she seem the natural Spirit of the Place ; so wonder-
fully did her beauty, elated as it now was with contented love,
gratified vanity, exultant hope, body forth the brightest vision
that ever floated before the eyes of Tasso, when he wrought
into one immortal shape the glory of the Enchantress with the
allurements of the Woman.

Nina half rose as she saw Ursula, whose sedate and mournful
features involuntarily testified her surprise and admiration at
a loveliness so rare and striking, but who, undazzled by the
splendor around, soon recovered her wonted self-composure,
and seated herself on the cushion to which Nina pointed, while
the young visitor remained standing, and spellbound by childish
wonder, in the centre of the apartment. Nina recognized him
with a smile.

"Ah, my pretty boy, whose quick eye and bold air caught
my fancy yesterday ! Have you come to accept my offer ? Is
it you, madam, who claim this fair child?"

" Lady," replied Ursula, " my business here is brief : by a
train of events, needless to weary you with narrating, this boy
from his infancy fell to my charge a weighty and anxious
trust to one whose thoughts are beyond the barrier of life. I
have reared him as became a youth of gentle blood ; for on
both sides, lady, he is noble, though an orphan, motherless and
sireless."

"Poor child!" said Nina compassionately.

"Growing now,'' continued Ursula, "oppressed by years, and
desirous only to make my peace with Heaven, I journeyed
hither some months since, in the design to place the boy with
a relation of mine ; and, that trust fulfilled, to take the vows
in the City of the Apostle. Alas ! I found my kinsman dead,
and a baron of wild and dissolute character was his heir. Here
remaining, perplexed and anxious, it seemed to me the voice
of Providence when, yester-evening, the child told me you had
been pleased to honor him with your notice. Like the rest of
Rome, he has already learned enthusiasm for the Tribune
devotion to the Tribune's bride. Will you, in truth, admit

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 183

him of your household? He will not dishonor your protection
by his blood, nor, I trust, by his bearing."

" I would take his face for his guarantee, madam, even with-
out so distinguished a recommendation as your own. Is he
Roman ? His name then must be known to me."

" Pardon me, lady," replied Ursula : " he bears the name of
Angelo Villani not that of his sire or mother. The honor of
a noble house forever condemns his parentage to rest unknown.
He is the offspring of a love unsanctioned by the church."

" He is the more to be loved, then, and to be pitied victim
of sin not his own ! " answered Nina, with moistened eyes, as
she saw the deep and burning blush that covered the boy's
cheeks. "With the Tribune's reign commences a new era of
nobility, when rank and knighthood shall be won by a man's
own merit, not that of his ancestors. Fear not, madam : in my
house he shall know no slight."

Ursula was moved from her pride by the kindness of Nina :
she approached with involuntary reverence, and kissed the
signora's hand.

" May Our Lady reward your noble heart ! " said she : " and
now my mission is ended, and my earthly goal is won. Add
only, lady, to your inestimable favors one more. These
jewels" and Ursula drew from her robe a casket, touched the
spring, and the lid, flying back, discovered jewels of great size,
and the most brilliant water, " these jewels," she continued,
laying the casket at Nina's feet " once belonging to the princely
house of Thoulouse, are valueless to me and mine. Suffer me
to think that they are transferred to one whose queenly brow
will give them a lustre it cannot borrow."

" How ! " said Nina, coloring very deeply ; " think you,
madam, my kindness can be bought ? What woman's kind-
ness ever was ? Nay, nay, take back the gifts, or I shall pray
you to take back your boy."

Ursula was astonished and confounded : to her experience
such abstinence was a novelty, and she scarcely knew how to
meet it. Nina perceived her embarrassment with a haughty
and triumphant smile, and then, regaining her former courtesy
of demeanor, said, with a grave sweetness :

" The Tribune's hands are clean, the Tribune's wife must not
be suspected. Rather, madam, should I press upon you some
token of exchange for the fair charge you have committed to
me. Your jewels hereafter may profit the boy in his career:
reserve them for one who needs them."

" No, lady," said Ursula, rising and lifting her eyes to heaven

184 R1EN2I,

"they shall buy masses for his mother's soul ; for him I shall
reserve a competence when his years require it. Lady, accept
the thanks of a wretched and desolate heart. Fare you well ! "

She turned to quit the room, but with so faltering and weak
a step, that Nina, touched and affected, sprung up, and with
her own hand guided the old woman across the room, whisper-
ing comfort and soothing to her ; while, as they reached the
door, the boy rushed forward, and, clasping Ursula's robe,
sobbed out : " Dear dame, not one farewell for your little
Angelo ! Forgive him all he has cost you ! Now, for the
first time, I feel how wayward and thankless I have been."

The old woman caught him in her arms, and kissed him pas-
sionately ; when the boy, as if a thought suddenly struck him,
drew forth the purse she had given him, and said, in a choked
and scarce articulate voice : " And let this, dearest dame, go
in masses for my poor father 's soul ; for he is dead, too, you
know ! "

These words seemed to freeze at once all the tenderer emo-
tions of Ursula. She put back the boy with the same chilling
and stern severity of aspect and manner which had so often
before repressed him : and, recovering her self-possession, at
once quitted the apartment without saying another word. Nina,
surprised, but still pitying her sorrow and respecting her age,
followed her steps across the pages' ante-room and the recep-
tion chamber, even to the foot of the stairs, a condescension
the haughtiest princess of Rome could not have won from her ;
and returning, saddened and thoughtful, she took the boy's
hand, and affectionately kissed his forehead.

" Poor boy ! " she said, " it seems as if Providence had made
me select thee yesterday from the crowd, and thus conducted
thee to thy proper refuge. For to whom should come the
friendless and the orphans of Rome, but to the palace of
Rome's first Magistrate?" Turning then to her attendants,
she gave them instructions as to the personal comforts of her
new charge, which evinced that if power had ministered to her
vanity, it had not steeled her heart. Angelo Villani lived to
repay her well !

She retained the boy in her presence, and conversing with
him familiarly, she was more and more pleased with his bold
spirit and frank manner. Their conversation was however in-
terrupted, as the day advanced, by the arrival of several ladies
of the Roman nobility. And then it was that Nina's virtues
receded into shade, and her faults appeared. She could not
resist the woman's triumph over those arrogant signoras who

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 185

now cringed in homage where they had once slighted with dis-
dain. She affected the manner of, she demanded the respect
due to, a queen. And by many of those dexterous arts which
the sex know so well, she contrived to render her very courtesy
a humiliation to her haughty guests. Her commanding beauty
and her graceful intellect saved her, indeed, from the vulgar
insolence of the upstart ; but yet more keenly stung the pride,
by forbidding to those she mortified the retaliation of contempt.
Hers were the covert taunt, the smiling affront, the sarcasm in
the mask of compliment, the careless exaction of respect in
trifles, which could not outwardly be resented, but which could
not inly be forgiven.

" Fair day to the Signora Colonna," said she to the proud
wife of the proud Stephen ; "we passed your palace yesterday.
How fair it now seems, relieved from those gloomy battlements
which it must often have saddened you to gaze upon. Signora
(turning to one of the Orsini), your lord has high favor with
the Tribune, who destines him to great command. His fortunes
are secured, and we rejoice at it ; for no man more loyally
serves the state. Have you seen, fair Lady of Frangipani, the
last verses of Petrarch in honor of my lord ? they rest yon-
der. May we so far venture as to request you to point out
their beauties to the Signora di Savelli ? We rejoice, noble
Lady of Malatesta, to observe that your eyesight is so well re-
stored. The last time we met, though we stood next to you in
the revels of the Lady Giulia, you seemed scarce to distinguish
us from the pillar by which we stood ! "

" Must this insolence be endured ! " whispered the Signora
Frangipani to the Signora Malatesta.

" Hush, hush ; if ever it be our day again ! "

CHAPTER II.

THE BLESSING OF A COUNCILLOR WHOSE INTERESTS AND

HEART ARE OUR OWN. THE STRAWS THROWN UPWARD,

DO THEY PORTEND A STORM ?

IT was later that day than usual when Rienzi returned from
his tribunal to the apartments of the palace. As he traversed
the reception hall his countenance was much flushed ; his teeth
were set firmly, like a man who has taken a strong resolution,
whi?h he will not be moved ; and his brow was dark with

1 86 RIENZI,

that settled and fearful frown which the describers of his per-
sonal appearance have not failed to notice as the characteristic
of an anger the more deadly because invariably just. Close at
his heels followed the Bishop of Orvietto and the aged Stephen
Colonna. "I tell you, my lords," said Rienzi, "that ye plead
in vain. Rome knows no distinction between ranks. The law
is blind to the agent, lynx-eyed to the deed."

"Yet," said Raimond hesitatingly, "bethink thee, Tribune;
the nephew of two cardinals, and himself once a senator."

Rienzi halted abruptly, and faced his companions. " My
Lord Bishop," said he, "does not this make the crime more
inexcusable? Look you, thus it reads : A vessel from Avignon
to Naples, charged with the revenues of Provence to Queen
Joanna, on whose cause, mark you, we now hold solemn coun-
cil, is wrecked at the mouth of the Tiber ; with that, Martino
di Porto a noble, as you say the holder of that fortress
whence he derives his title, doubly bound by gentle blood
and by immediate neighborhood to succor the oppressed falls
upon the vessel with his troops (what hath the rebel with armed
troops?) and pillages the vessel like a common robber.
He is apprehended, brought to my tribunal, receives fair
trial, is condemned to die. Such is the law ; what more would
ye have?"

" Mercy," said the Colonna.

Rienzi folded his arms and laughed disdainfully. "I never
heard my Lord Colonna plead for mercy when a peasant had
stolen the bread that was to feed his famishing children."

" Between a peasant and a prince, Tribune, /, for one, recog-
nize a distinction : the bright blood of an Orsini is not to be
shed like that of a base plebeian "

"Which, I remember me," said Rienzi, in a low voice, "you
deemed small matter enough when my boy-brother fell beneath
the wanton spear of your proud son. Wake not that memory,
I warn you ; let it sleep. For shame, old Colonna, for shame ;
so near the grave, where the worm levels all flesh, and preach-
ing, with those gray hairs, the uncharitable distinction between
man and man. Is there not distinction enough at the best?
Does not one wear purple, and the other rags ? Hath not one
ease, and the other toil ? Doth not the one banquet, while
the other starves? Do I nourish any mad scheme to level the
ranks which society renders a necessary evil ? No. I war no
more with Dives than with Lazarus. But before man's judg-
ment-seat, as before God's, Lazarus and Dives are made equal

NO more,"

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 187

Colonna drew his robe round him with great haughtiness,
and bit his lip in silence. Raimond interposed.

" All this is true, Tribune. But," and he drew Rienzi aside,
" you know we must be politic as just. Nephew to two Car-
dinals, what emnity will not this provoke at Avignon ? "

" Vex not yourself, holy Raimond, I will answer it to the
Pontiff." While they spoke the bell tolled heavily and loudly.

Colonna started.

"Great Tribune," said he, with a slight sneer, "deign to
pause ere it be too late. I know not that I ever before bent to
you a suppliant ; and I ask you now to spare mine own foe.
Stephen Colonna prays Cola di Rienzi to spare the life of an
Orsini."

" I understand thy taunt, old lord," said Rienzi calmly, "but
I resent it not. You are foe to the Orsini, yet you plead for
him it sounds generous ; but hark you, you are more a friend
to your order than a foe to your rival. You cannot bear that one,
great enough to have contended with you, should perish like a
thief. I give full praise to such noble forgiveness ; but I am
no noble, and I do not sympathize with it. One word more :
if this were the sole act of fraud and violence that this bandit
baron had committed, your prayers should plead for him ; but
is not his life notorious ? Has he not been from boyhood the
terror and disgrace of Rome ? How many matrons violated,
merchants pillaged, peaceful men stilettoed in the daylight,
rise in dark witness against the prisoner ? And for such a man
do I live to hear an aged prince and a pope's vicar plead for mer-
cy ? Fie, fie ! But I will be even with ye. The next poor man
whom the law sentences to death, for your sake will I pardon."

Raimond again drew aside the Tribune, while Colonna strug-
gled to suppress his rage.

" My friend," said the Bishop, "the nobles will feel this as
an insult to their whole order ; the very pleading of Orsini's
worst foe must convince thee of this. Martino's blood will
seal their reconciliation with each other, and they will be as
one man against thee."

" Be it so : with God and the People on my side, I will dare,
though a Roman, to be just. The bell ceases you are already
too late. ' So saying, Rienzi threw open the casement ; and by
the Staircase of the Lion rose a gibbet from which swung with
a creaking sound, arrayed in his patrician robes, the yet palpi-
tating corpse of Martino di Porto.

" Behold ! " said the Tribune sternly, " thus die all robbers.
For traitors^ the sam law has the axe and the scaffold ! "

1 88 RIENZI,

Raimond drew back and turned pale. Not so the /eteran
noble. Tears of wounded pride started from his eyes ; he
approached, leaning on his staff, to Rienzi, touched him on his
shoulder, and said :

" Tribune, a judge has lived to envy his victim ! "

Rienzi turned with an equal pride to the Baron.

" We forgive idle words in the aged. My lord, have you
done with us ? We would be alone."

"Give me thine arm, Raimond," said Stephen. "Tribune,
farewell. Forget that the Colonna sued thee, an easy task,
methinks ; for, \vise as you are, you forget what every one else
can remember."

" Ay, my lord, what ? "

" Birth, Tribune, birth that's all ! "

" The Signor Colonna has taken up my old calling, and
turned a wit," returned Rienzi, with an indifferent and eas\
tone.

Then following Raimond and Stephen with his eyes, till the
door closed upon them, he muttered, " Insolent ! Were it nov
for Adrian, thy gray beard should not bear thee harmless.
Birth ! what Colonna would not boast himself, if he could, the
grandson of an emperor ? Old man, there is danger in thef
which must be watched." With that he turned musingly to
ward the casement, and again that grisly spectacle of death
met his eye. The people below, assembled in large concourse-
rejoiced at the execution of one whose whole life had been in
famy and rapine, but who had seemed beyond justice, with al?
the fierce clamor that marks the exultation of the rabble over
a crushed foe. And where Rienzi stood he heard their shout?
of "Long live the Tribune, the just judge, Rome's liberator! "
But at that time other thoughts deafened his senses to the
popular enthusiasm.

" My poor brother ! " he said, with tears in his eyes, " it was.
owing to this man's crimes and to a crime almost similar to
that for which he has now suffered that thou wert entrained
to the slaughter ; and they who had no pity for the lamb, clamo;
for compassion to the wolf ! Ah, wert thou living now, hov. r
these proud heads would bend to thee ; though dead thou werv
not worthy of a thought. God rest thy gentle soul, and keep
my ambition pure as it was when we walked at twilight, side by
side together ! "

The Tribune shut the casement, and, turning away, sought
the chamber of Nina. On hearing his step without, she had
already risen from trie couch ? her eyes sparkling, her bosouj

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 189

heaving ; and as he entered, she threw herself on his neck, and
murmured as she nestled to his breast, "Ah, the hours since
we parted ! "

It was a singular thing to see that proud lady, proud of her
beauty, her station, her new honors ; whose gorgeous vanity
was already the talk of Rome, and the reproach to Rienzi
how suddenly and miraculously she seemed changed in his
presence ! Blushing and timid, all pride in herself seemed
merged in her proud love for him. No woman ever loved to
the full extent of the passion who did not venerate where she
loved, and who did not feel humbled (delighted in that humil-
ity) by her exaggerated and overweening estimate of the supe-
riority of the object of her worship.

And it might be the consciousness of this distinction between
himself and all other created things which continued to increase
the love of the Tribune to his bride, to blind him to her fail-
ings towards others, and to indulge her in a magnificence of
parade, which, though to a certain point politic to assume,
was carried to an extent which, if it did not conspire to
produce his downfall, has served the Romans with an ex-
cuse for their own cowardice and desertion, and historians
with a plausible explanation of causes they had not the indus-
try to fathom. Rienzi returned his wife's caresses with an
equal affection, and bending down to her beautiful face, the
sight was sufficient to chase from his brow the emotions,
whether severe or sad, which had lately darkened its broad
expanse.

"Thou hast not been abroad this morning, Nina!"

"No, the heat was oppressive. But nevertheless, Cola, I
have not lacked company ; half the matronage of Rome has
crowded the palace."

"Ah, I warrant it. But yon boy, is he not a new face?"

" Hush, Cola, speak to him kindly, I entreat : of his story
anon. Angelo, approach. You see your new master, the
Tribune of Rome."

Angelo approached with a timidity not his wont, for an air
of majesty was at all times natural to Rienzi, and since his
power it had naturally taken a graver and austerer aspect,
which impressed those who approached him, even the ambas-
sadors of princes, with a certain involuntary awe. The Trib-
une smiled at the effect he saw he had produced, and being
by temper fond of children, and affable to all but the great, he
hastened to dispel it. He took the child affectionately in his
arms, kissed him, and bade him welcome.

i^O RIENZI,

" May we have a son as fair ! " he whispered to Nina, who
blushed and turned away.

'* Thy name, my little friend ?"

" Angelo Villani."

" A Tuscan name. There is a man of letters at Florence,
doubtless writing our annals from hearsay at this moment,
called Villani. Perhaps akin to thee ? "

"I have no kin," said the boy bluntly ; "and therefore I
shall the better love the Signora and honor you, if you will let
me. I am Roman all the Roman boys honor Rienzi."

"Do they, my brave lad ?" said the Tribune, coloring with
pleasure ; " that is a good omen of my continued prosperity."
He put down the boy and threw himself on the cushions,
while Nina placed herself on a kind of low stool beside
him.

" Let us be alone," said he ; and Nina motioned to the at-
tendant maidens to withdraw.

" Take my new page with you," said she; "he is yet, per-
haps, too fresh from home to enjoy the company of his giddy
brethren."

When they were alone, Nina proceeded to narrate to Rienzi
the adventure of the morning ; but, though he seemed out-
wardly to listen, his gaze was on vacancy, and he was evidently
abstracted and self-absorbed. At length, as she concluded,
he said, " Well, Nina, you have acted as ever, kindly and no-
bly. Let us to other themes. I am in danger."

" Danger ! " echoed Nina, turning pale.

" Why, the word must not appal you ; you have a spirit like
mine, that scorns fear ; and for that reason, Nina, in all Rome
you are my only confidant. It was not only to glad me with
thy beauty, but to cheer me with thy counsel, to support me
with thy valor, that Heaven gave me thee as a helpmate."

" Now, Our Lady bless thee for those words ! " said Nina,
kissing the hand that hung over her shoulder ; and if I started
at the word danger, it was but the woman's thought of thee;
an unworthy thought, my Cola, for glory and danger go to-
gether. And I am as ready to share the last as the first. If
the hour of trial ever come, none of thy friends shall be so
faithful to thy side as this weak form but undaunted heart."

" I know it, my own Nina ; I know it," said Rienzi, rising and
pacing the chamber with large and rapid strides. " Now listen
to me. Thou knowest that to govern in safety it is my policy
as my pride to govern justly. To govern justly is an awful
thing, when mighty barons are the culprits. Nina, for an open

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. Ipl

and audacious robbery, our court has sentenced Martin of the
Orsini, the Lord of Porto, to death. His corpse swings now
on the Staircase of the Lion."

"A dreadful doom ! " said Nina, shuddering.

" True ; but by his death thousands of poor and honest men
may live in peace. It is not that which troubles me : the
barons resent the deed, as an insult to them that law should
touch a noble. They will rise ; they will rebel ; I foresee the
storm ; not the spell to allay it."

Nina paused a moment : " They have taken," she then said,
" a solemn oath on the Eucharist not to bear arms against
thee."

" Perjury is a light addition to theft and murder," answered
Rienzi, with his sarcastic smile.

" But the people are faithful."

"Yes, but in a civil war (which the saints forefend !) those
combatants are the stanchest who have no home but their
armor, no calling but the sword. The trader will not leave his
trade at the toll of a bell every day : but the barons' soldiery
are ready at all hours."

"To be strong," said Nina who, summoned to the councils
of her lord, showed an intellect not unworthy of the honor,
" to be strong in dangerous times, authority must seem strong.
By showing no fear, you may prevent the cause of fear."

" My own thought ! " returned Rienzi quickly. " You know
that half my power with these barons is drawn from the homage
rendered to me by foreign States. When from every city in
Italy the ambassadors of crowned princes seek the alliance of
the Tribune, they must veil their resentment at the rise of the
plebeian. On the other hand, to be strong abroad I must
seem strong at home : the vast design I have planned, and, as by
a miracle, begun to execute, will fail at once if it seem abroad
to be intrusted to an unsteady and fluctuating power. That
design (continued Rienzi, pausing, and placing his hand on a
marble bust of the young Augustus) is greater than his, whose
profound yet icy soul united Italy in subjection, for it would
unite Italy in freedom ; yes ! could we but form one great fed-
erative league of all the States of Italy, each governed by
its own laws, but united for mutual and common protection
against the Attilas of the North, with Rome for their Metrop-
olis and their Mother, this age and this brain would have
wrought an enterprise which men should quote till the sound
of the last trump."

" I know thy divine scheme," said Nina, catching his enthu-

IQ2 RIENZI,

siasm ; " and what if there be danger in attaining it? Have
we not mastered the greatest danger in the first step ? "

" Right, Nina, right ! Heaven (and the Tribune, who ever
recognized, in hh own fortunes, the agency of the hand above,
crossed himself reverently) will preserve him to whom it
hath vouchsafed such lofty visions of the future redemption of
the Land of the true Church, and the liberty and advancement of
its children! This I trust : already many of the cities of Tuscany
have entered into treaties for the formation of this league ; nor
from a single tyrant, save John di Vico, have I received aught
but fair words and flattering promises. The time seems ripe
for the grand stroke of all."

"And what is that? " demanded Nina wonderingly.

" Defiance to all foreign interference. By what right does a
synod of stranger princes give Rome a king in some Teuton
Emperor ? Rome's people alone should choose Rome's gov-
ernor; and shall we cross the Alps to render the title of our
master to the descendants of the Goth ? "

Nina was silent : the custom of choosing the sovereign by a
diet beyond the Rhine, reserving only the ceremony of his sub-
sequent coronation for the mock assent of the Romans, how-
ever degrading to that people, and however hostile to all notions
of substantial independence, was so unquestioned at that time,
that Rienzi's daring suggestion left her amazed and breathless,
prepared as she was for any scheme, however extravagantly
bold.

" How ! " said she, after a long pause ; " do I understand
aright ? Can you mean defiance to the Emperor ? "

" Why, listen : at this moment there are two pretenders to the
throne of Rome to the imperial crown of Italy a Bohemian
and a Bavarian. To their election our assent Rome's assent
is not requisite ; not asked. Can we be called free can we boast
ourselves republican when a stranger and a barbarian is thus
thrust upon our necks? No, we will be free in reality as in
name. Besides (continued the Tribune, in a calmer tone), this
seems to me politic as well as daring. The people incessantly
demand wonders from me : how can I more nobly dazzle,
more virtuously win them, than by asserting their inalienable
right to choose their own rulers ? The daring will awe the
barons, and foreigners themselves ; it will give a startling ex-
ample to all Italy ; it will be the first brand of an universal blaze
It shall be done, and with a pomp that befits the deed ! "

"Cola," said Nina hesitatingly, "your eagle spirit often
ascends where mine flags to follow ; yet be not over-bold^"

THE LAST OF THE TRlBtfNfcS. I$$

" Nay, did you not, a moment since, preach a different doc-
trine ? To be strong, was I not to seem strong? "

" May fate preserve you ! " said Nina, with a foreboding sigh.

" Fate ! " cried Rienzi ; " there is no fate ! Between the
thought and the success God is the only agent, and (he added
with a voice of deep solemnity) I shall not be deserted. Visions
by night, even while thine arms are around me ; omens and
impulses, stirring and divine, by day, even in the midst of the
living crowd, encourage my path, and point my goal. Now,
even now, a voice seems to whisper in my ear : ' Pause not ;
tremble not ; waver not ; for the eye of the All-Seeing is upon
thee, and the hand of the All-Powerful shall protect ! "

As Rienzi thus spoke his face grew pale, his hair seemed to
bristle, his tall and proud form trembled visibly, and presently
he sunk down on a seat and covered his face with his hands.

An awe crept over Nina, though not unaccustomed to such
strange and preternatural emotions, which appeared yet the
more singular in one who in common life was so calm, stately,
and self-possessed. But with every increase of prosperity and
power those emotions seemed to increase in their fervor, as if in
such increase the devout and overwrought superstition of the
Tribune recognized additional proof of a mysterious guardian-
ship mightier than the valor or art of man.

She approached fearfully, and threw her arms around him,
but without speaking.

Ere yet the Tribune had well recovered himself a slight tap
at the door was heard, and the sound seemed at once to recall
his self-possession.

" Enter," he said, lifting his face, to which the wonted color
slowly returned.

An officer, half-opening the door, announced that the person
he had sent for waited his leisure.

" I come ! Core of my heart " (he whispered to Nina), " we
will sup alone to-night, and will converse more on these mat-
ters " ; so saying, with somewhat less than his usual loftiness of
mien he left the room, and sought his cabinet, which lay at the
other side of the reception chamber. Here he found Cecco del
Vecchio.

" How, my bold fellow," said the Tribune, assuming with
wonderful ease that air of friendly equality which he always
adopted with those of the lower class, and which made a strik-
ing contrast with the majesty, no less natural, which marked
his manner to the great. " How now, my Cecco ! Thou
bearest thyself bravely, I see, during these sickly heats ; we

laborers for both of us labor, Cecco are too busy to fall ill as
the idle do, in the summer, or the autumn, of Roman skies. I
sent for thee, Cecco, because I would know how thy fellow-
craftsmen are like to take the Orsini's execution."

" Oh ! Tribune," replied the artificer, who, now familiarized
with Rienzi, had lost much of his earlier awe of him, and who
regarded the Tribune's power as partly his own creation ; " they
are already out of their honest wits, at your courage in punish-
ing the great men as you would the small."

"So; I am repaid! But hark you, Cecco, it will bring,
perhaps, hot work upon us. Every baron will dread lest it be
his turn next, and dread will make them bold, like rats in de-
spair. We may have to fight for the Good Estate."

" With all my heart, Tribune," answered Cecco gruffly. " I,
for one, am no craven."

" Then keep the same spirit in all your meetings with the
artificers. I fight for the people. The people at a pinch must
fight with me."

" They will," replied Cecco ; "they will."

" Cecco, this city is under the spiritual dominion of the
Pontiff so be it it is an honor, not a burthen. But the
temporal dominion, my friend, should be with Romans only.
Is it not a disgrace to Republican Rome, that while we now
speak certain barbarians, whom we never heard of, should be
deciding beyond the Alps on the merits of two sovereigns,
whom we never saw? Is not this a thing to be resisted ? An
Italian city, what hath it to do with a Bohemian Emperor?"

" Little eno', St. Paul knows ! " said Cecco.

" Should it not be a claim questioned ? "

" I think so ! " replied the smith.

" And if found an outrage on our ancient laws, should it not
be a claim resisted ? "

"Not a doubt of it."

" Well, go to ! The archives assure me that never was en,
peror lawfully crowned but by the free votes of the peoplts
We never chose Bohemian or Bavarian."

" But, on the contrary, whenever these Northmen come hithe*
to be crowned, we try to drive them away with stones and
curses, for we are a people, Tribune, that love our lib-
erties."

" Go back to your friends : see, address them ; say that your
Tribune will demand of these pretenders to Rome the right to
her throne. Let them not be mazed or startled, but support
me when the occasion comes."

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 195

" I am glad of this," quoth the huge smith ; "for our friends
Aave grown a little unruly of late, and say "

" What do they say ? "

" That it is true you have expelled the banditti, and curb the
barons, and administer justice fairly "

" Is not that miracle enough for the space of some two or
three short months ? "

" Why, they say it would have been more than enough in a
noble ; but you, being raised from the people, and having such
gifts and so forth, might do yet more. It is now three weeks
since they have had any new thing to talk about ; but Orsini's
execution to-day will cheer them a bit."

" Well, Cecco, well," said the Tribune, rising, " they shall
have more anon to feed their mouths with. So you think
they love me not quite so well as they did some three weeks
back ? "

" I say not so," answered Cecco. " But we Romans are an
impatient people."

" Alas, yes ! "

" However, they will no doubt stick close enough to you ;
provided, Tribune, you don't put any new tax upon them."

" Ha ! But if, in order to be free, it be necessary to fight ;
if to fight, it be necessary to have soldiers, why then the soldiers
must be paid : won't the people contribute something to their
own liberties ; to just laws, and safe lives ? "

" I don't know," returned the smith, scratching his head as
if a little puzzled ; " but I know that poor men won't be over-
taxed. They say they are better off with you than with the
barons before, and therefore they love you. But men in busi-
ness, Tribune, poor men with families, must look to their
bellies. Only one man in ten goes to law ; only one man in
twenty is butchered by a baron's brigand ; but every man eats,
and drinks, and feels a tax."

"This cannot be your reasoning, Cecco!" said Rienzi
gravely.

" Why, Tribune, I am an honest man, but I have a large
family to rear."

" Enough ; enough ! " said the Tribune quickly ; and then
he added abstractedly as to himself, but aloud : " Methinks
we have been too lavish ; these shows and spectacles should
cease."

"What!" cried Cecco ; "what, Tribune ! would you deny
the poor fellows a holiday ! They work hard enough, and their
only pleasure is seeing your fine shows and processions ; and

I9<5 R1EN2I,

then they go home and say: " See, our man beats all the barons i
what state he keeps ! "

"Ah ! they blame not my splendor, then ! "

"Blame it ; no ! Without it they would be ashamed of you,
and think the Buono Stato but a shabby concern."

" You speak bluntly, Cecco, but perhaps wisely. The saints
keep you ! Fail not to remember what I told you ! "

" No, no ! It is a shame to have an Emperor thrust upon us ;
so it is. Good-evening, Tribune."

Left alone, the Tribune remained for some time plunged in
gloomy and foreboding thoughts.

" I am in the midst of a magician's spell." said he ; " if I
desist, the fiend tears me to pieces. What I have begun, that
must I conclude. But this rude man shows me too well with
what tools I work. For me failure is nothing. I have already
climbed to a greatness which might render giddy many a born
prince's brain. But with my fall, Rome, Italy, Peace, Justice,
Civilization, all fall back in the abyss of ages ! "

He rose ; and after once or twice pacing his apartment, in
which from many a column gleamed upon him the marble
effigies of the great of old, he opened the casement to inhale
the air of the now declining day.

The Place of the Capitol was deserted, save by the tread of
the single sentinel. But still, dark and fearful, hung from the
tall gibbet the clay of the robber noble ; and the colossal shape
of the Egyptian lion rose hard by, sharp and dark in the
breathless atmosphere.

" Dread statue ! " thought Rienzi, "how many unwhispered
and solemn rites hast thou witnessed by thy native Nile, ere
the Roman's hand transferred thee hither the antique witness
of Roman crimes ! Strange ! but when I look upon thee I feel
as if thou hadst some mystic influence over my own fortunes.
Beside thee was I hailed the republican Lord of Rome ; beside
thee are my palace, my tribunal, the place of my justice, my
triumphs, and my pomp ; to thee my eyes turn from my bed
of state ; and if fated to die in power and peace, thou mayest
be the last object my eyes will mark ! Or if myself a victim "
he paused, shrank from the thought presented to him ; turned
to a recess of the chamber, drew aside a curtain that veiled a
crucifix and a small table, on which lay a Bible and the monas-
tic emblems of the skull and cross-bones emblems, indeed,
grave and irresistible, of the nothingness of power, and the
uncertainty of life. Before these sacred monitors, whether to
bumble or to elevate, knelt that proud and aspiring man, and

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 197

when he rose, it was with a lighter step and morecheerCul nai.en
than he had worn that day.

CHAPTER III.

THE ACTOR UNMASKED.

"IN intoxication," says the proverb, "men betray their real
characters." There is a no less honest and trutii revealing
intoxication in prosperity, than in wine. The varnish of
power brings forth at once the defects and the beauties of the
human portrait.

The unprecedented and almost miraculous rise of Rienzi
from the rank of the Pontiff's official to the Lord of Rome,
would have been accompanied with a yet greater miracle, if it
had not somewhat dazzled and seduced the object it elevated.
When, as in well-ordered states and tranquil times, men rise
slowly, step by step, they accustom themselves to their growing
fortunes. But the leap of an hour from a citizen to a prince
from the victim of oppression to the dispenser of justice is a
transition so sudden as to render dizzy the most sober brain.
And, perhaps, in proportion to the imagination, the enthusiasm,
the genius of the man, will the suddenness be dangerous,
excite too extravagant a hope, and lead to too chimerical an am-
bition. The qualities that made him rise hurry him to his falj ;
and victory at the Marengo of his fortunes urges him to de-
struction at its Moscow.

In his greatness Rienzi did not so much acquire new quali-
ties, as develop in brighter light and deeper shadow those
which he had always exhibited. On the one hand he was just,
resolute, the friend of the oppressed, the terror of the op-
pressor. His wonderful intellect illumined everything it
touched. By rooting out abuse, and by searching examination
and wise arrangement, he had trebled the revenues of the city
without imposing a single new tax. Faithful to his idol of
liberty, he had not been betrayed by the wish of the people
into despotic authority ; but had, as we have seen, formally
revived, and established with new powers, the Parliamentary
Council of the city. However extensive his own authority, he
referred its exercise to the people ; in their name he alone
declared himself to govern, and he never executed any signal
action without submitting to them its reasons or its justifica'

tpS RIENZI,

tion. No less faithful to his desire to restore prosperity as well
as freedom to Rome, he had seized the first dazzling epoch of
his power to propose that great federative league with the
Italian States which would, as he rightly said, have raised
Rome to the indisputable head of European nations. Under
his rule trade was secure, literature was welcome, art began
to rise.

On the other hand, the prosperity which made more appar-
ent his justice, his integrity, his patriotism, his virtues, and his
genius, brought out no less glaringly his arrogant conscious-
ness of superiority, his love of display, and the wild and daring
insolence of his ambition. Though too just to avenge himself
by retaliating on the patricians their own violence, though, in
his troubled and stormy tribuneship, not one unmerited or
illegal execution of baron or citizen could be alleged against
him, even by his enemies ; yet sharing, less excusably, the
weakness of Nina, he could not deny his proud heart the
pleasure of humiliating those who had ridiculed him as a buf-
foon, despised him as a plebeian, and who, even now, slaves to
his face, were cynics behind his back. " They stood before
him while he sate," says his biographer ; " all these barons,
bareheaded ; their hands crossed on their breasts ; their looks
downcast ; oh, how frightened they were ! " a picture more
disgraceful to the servile cowardice of the nobles than the
haughty sternness of the Tribune. It might be that he deemed
it policy to break the spirit of his foes, and to awe those whom
it was a vain hope to conciliate.

For his pomp there was a greater excuse : it was the custom
of the time ; it was the insignia and witness of power ; and when
the modern historian taunts him with not imitating the simplic-
ity of an ancient tribune, the sneer betrays an ignorance of the
spirit of the age, and the vain people whom the chief m-igistrate
was to govern. No doubt his gorgeous festivals, his solemn
processions, set off and ennobled if parade can so be en-
nobled by a refined and magnificent richness of imagination,
associated always with popular emblems, and designed to con-
vey the idea of rejoicing for Liberty Restored, and to assert
the state and majesty of Rome Revived no doubt these
spectacles, however otherwise judged in a more enlightened
age and by closet sages, served greatly to augment the impor-
tance of the Tribune abroad, and to dazzle the pride of a fickle
and ostentatious populace. And taste grew refined, luxury
called labor into requisition, and foreigners from all States were
attracted by the splendor of a court over which presided, under

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 199

republican names, two sovereigns,* young and brilliant, the one
"renowned for his genius, the other eminent for her beauty. It
was, indeed, a dazzling and royal dream in the long night of
Rome, spoiled of her Pontiff and his voluptuous train that
holyday reign of Cola di Rienzi ! And often afterwards it was
recalled with a sigh, not only by the poor for its justice, the
merchant for its security, but the gallant for its splendor, and
the poet for its ideal and intellectual grace !

As if to show that it was not to gratify the more vulgar ap-
petite and desire, in the midst of all his pomp, when the board
groaned with the delicacies of every clime, when the wine most
freely circled, the Tribune himself preserved a temperate and
even rigid abstinence.! While the apartments of state and the
chamber of his bride were adorned with a profuse luxury and
cost, to his own private rooms he transported precisely the same
furniture which had been familiar to him in his obscurer life.
The books, the busts, the reliefs, the arms which had inspired
him heretofore with the visions of the past, were endeared by
associations which he did not care to forego.

But that which constituted the most singular feature of his
character, and which still wraps all around him in a certain
mystery, was his religious enthusiasm. The daring but wild
doctrines of Arnold of Brescia, who, two centuries anterior, had
preached reform, but inculcated mysticism, still lingered in
Rome, and had in earlier youth deeply colored the mind of
Rienzi : and as I have before observed, his youthful propensity
to dreamy thought, the melancholy death of his brother, his
own various but successful fortunes, had all contributed to
nurse the more zealous and solemn aspirations of this remark-
able man. Like Arnold of Brescia, his faith bore a strong re-
semblance to the intense fanaticism of our own Puritans of the
Civil War, as if similar political circumstances conduced to
similar religious sentiments. He believed himself inspired by
awful and mighty commune with beings of the better world.
Saints and angels ministered to his dreams ; and without this,
the more profound and hallowed enthusiasm, he might never
have been sufficiently emboldened by mere human patriotism,

* Rienzi, speaking in one of his letters of his great enterprise, refers it to the ardor of
youth. The exact date of his birth is unknown ; but he was certainly a young man at the
time now referred to. His portrait in the Museo Barbarino, from which his description
has been already taken in the first hook of this work, represents him as beardless, and, as

cry i

beauty, and little, if at all, inferior to that of Napoleon ; to which, as I have before re*
marked, it has some resemblance in expression, if not in feature.

t Vita di Cola di Rienzi. The biographer praises the abstinence of the Tribune.

200 RIENZI,

to his unprecedented enterprise : it was the secret of much of
his greatness, many of his errors. Like all men who are thus
self-deluded by a vain but not inglorious superstition, united
with, and colored by, earthly ambition, it is impossible to say
how far he was the visionary, and how far at times he dared to
be the impostor. In the ceremonies of his pageants, in the
ornaments of his person, were invariably introduced mystic
and figurative emblems. In times of danger he publicly
professed to have been cheered and directed by divine
dreams ; and on many occasions the prophetic warnings
he announced having been singularly verified by the
event, his influence with the people was strengthened by
a belief in the favor and intercourse of Heaven. Thus, delu-
sion of self might tempt and conduce to imposition on
others, and he might not scruple to avail himself of the
advantage of seeming what he believed himself to be.
Yet, no doubt this intoxicating credulity pushed him
into extravagance unworthy of, and strangely contrasted by,
his soberer intellect, and made him disproportion his vast ends
to his unsteady means, by the proud fallacy, that where man
failed, God would interpose. Cola di Rienzi was no faultless
hero of romance. In him lay, in conflicting prodigality, the
richest and most opposite elements of character : strong sense,
visionary superstition, an eloquence and energy that mastered
all he approached, a blind enthusiasm that mastered himself ;
luxury and abstinence, sternness and susceptibility, pride to
the great, humility to the low ; the most devoted patriotism
and the most avid desire of personal power. As few men un-
dertake great and desperate designs without strong animal
spirits, so it may be observed, that with most who have risen
to eminence over the herd there is an aptness, at times, to a
wild mirth and an elasticity of humor which often astonish the
more sober and regulated minds, that are " the commoners of
life " ; and the theatrical grandeur of Napoleon, the severe
dignity of Cromwell, are strangely contrasted by a frequent,
nor always seasonable buffoonery, which it is hard to reconcile
with the ideal of their character or the gloomy and porten-
tous interest of their careers. And this, equally a trait in the
temperament of Rienzi, distinguished his hours of relaxation,
and contributed to that marvellous versatility with which his
harder nature accommodated itself to all humors and all men.
Often from his austere judgment-seat he passed to the social
board an altered man ; and even the sullen barons, who reluc-
tantly attended his feasts, forgot his public greatness in his fa-

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 2OI

miliar wit ; albeit this reckless humor could not always refrain
from seeking its subject in the mortification of his crestfallen
foes a pleasure it would have been wiser and more generous
to forego. And perhaps it was, in part, the prompting of this
sarcastic and unbridled humor that made him often love to
astonish as well as to awe. But even this gaiety, if so it may
be called, taking an appearance of familiar frankness, served
much to ingratiate him with the lower orders, and, if a fault in
the prince, was a virtue in the demagogue.

To these various characteristics, now fully developed, the
reader must add a genius of designs so bold, of conceptions so
gigantic and august, conjoined with that more minute and ordi-
nary ability which masters details ; that with a brave, noble,
intelligent, devoted people to back his projects, the accession
of the Tribune would have been the close of the thraldom of
Italy, and the abrupt limit of the dark age of Europe. With
such a people, his faults would have been insensibly checked,
his more unwholesome power have received a sufficient curb.
Experience familiarizing him with power, would have gradually
weaned him from extravagance in its display ; and the active
and masculine energy of his intellect would have found field
for the more restless spirits, as his justice gave shelter to the
more tranquil. Faults he had, but whether those faults, or
the faults of the people, were to prepare his downfall, is yet to
be seen.

Meanwhile, amidst a discontented nobility and a fickle pop-
ulace, urged on by the danger of repose to the danger of en-
terprise ; partly blinded by his outward power, partly impelled
by the fear of internal weakness ; at once made sanguine by
his genius and his fanaticism, and uneasy by the expecta-
tions of the crowd, he threw himself headlong into the gulf of
the rushing Time, and surrendered his lofty spirit to no other
guidance than a conviction of its natural buoyancy and its
heaven-directed haven.

202 RIENZI,

CHAPTER IV.

THE ENEMY'S CAMP.

WHILE Rienzi was preparing, in concert, perhaps, with the
ambassadors of the brave Tuscan States, whose pride of
country and love of liberty were well fitted to comprehend, and
even share them, his schemes for the emancipation from all
foreign yoke of the Ancient Queen, and the Everlasting Gar-
den, of the World ; the Barons, in restless secrecy, were revolv-
ing projects for the restoration of their own power.

One morning the heads of the Savelli, the Orsini, and the
Frangipani, met at the disfortified palace of Stephen Colonna.
Their conference was long and earnest now resolute, now
wavering in its object as indignation or fear prevailed.

" You have heard," said Luca di Savelli, in his usual soft and
womanly voice, " that the Tribune has proclaimed that, the
day after to-morrow, he will take the order of knighthood, and
watch the night before in the Church of the Lateran : he has
honored me with a request to attend his vigil."

"Yes, yes, the knave. What means this new fantasy?" said
the brutal Prince of the Orsini.

" Unless it be to have the cavalier's right to challenge a
noble," said old Colonna, " I cannot conjecture. Will Rome
never grow weary of this madman ?"

" Rome is the more mad of the two," said Luca di Savelli ;
" but methinks, in his wildness, the Tribune hath committed one
error of which we may well avail ourselves at Avignon."

"Ah," cried the old Colonna, "that must be our game;
passive here, let us fight at Avignon."

" In a word, then, he hath ordered that his bath shall be pre-
pared in the holy porphyry vase in which once bathed the
Emperor Constantine."

"Profanation! profanation!" cried Stephen. "This is
enough to excuse a bull of excommunication. The Pope shall
hear of it. I will despatch a courier forthwith."

" Better wait and see the ceremony," sa-id the Savelli ; "some
greater folly will close the pomp, be assured."

" Hark ye, my masters," said the grim Lord of the Orsini ;
" ye are for delay and caution ; I for promptness and daring ;
my kinsman's blood calls aloud, and brooks no parley."

"And what do?" said the soft-voiced Savelli ; "fight without
soldiers, against twenty thousand infuriated Romans?

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 203

Orsini sunk his voice into a meaning whisper. " In Venice,"
said he, " this upstart might be mastered without an army.
Think you in Rome no man wears a stiletto ? "

" Hush," said Stephen, who was of far nobler and better
nature than his compeers, and who, justifying to himself all
other resistance to the Tribune, felt his conscience rise against
assassination ; " this must not be ; your zeal transports you."

" Besides, whom can we employ ? scarce a German left in
the city ; and to whisper this to a Roman were to exchange
places with poor Martino Heaven take him, for he's nearer
heaven than ever he was before," said the Savelli.

" Jest me no jests," cried the Orsini fiercely. "Jests on such
a subject ! By St. Francis ! I would, since thou lovest such wit,
thou hadst it all to thyself ; and methinks at the Tribune's
board I have seen thee laugh at his rude humor, as if thou
didst not require a cord to choke thee."

" Better to laugh than to tremble," returned the Savelli.

" How ! darest thou say I tremble ?" cried the baron.

" Hush, hush," said the veteran Colonna, with impatient
dignity. "We are not now in such holiday times as to quarrel
amongst ourselves. Forbear, my lords."

" Your greater prudence, Signor," said the sarcastic Savelli,
" arises from your greater safety. Your house is about to
shelter itself under the Tribune's ; and, when the Lord Adrian
returns from Naples, the innkeeper's son will be brother to
your kinsman."

"You might spare me that taunt," said the old noble with
some emotion. " Heaven knows how bitterly I have chafed
at the thought ; yet I would Adrian were with us. His word
goes far to moderate the Tribune, and to guide my own course,
for my passion beguiles my reason ; and since his departure
methinks we have been the more sullen without being the
more strong. Let this pass. If my own son had wed the
Tribune's sister, I would yet strike a blow for the old consti-
tution as becomes a noble, if I but saw that the blow would
not cut off my own head."

Savelli, who had been whispering apart with Rinaldo Fran-
gipani, now said :

" Noble Prince, listen to me. You are bound by your kins-
man's approaching connection, your venerable age, and your
intimacy with the Pontiff, to a greater caution than we are.
Leave to us the management of the enterprise, and be assured
of our discretion."

A young boy, Steanello, who afterward? succeeded to the

204 RIENZI,

representation of the direct line of the Colonna, and whom the
reader will once again encounter ere our tale be closed, was
playing by his grandsire's knees. He looked sharply up at
Savelli, and said, " My grandfather is too wise, and you are too
timid. Frangipani is too yielding, and Orsini is too like a
vexed bull. I wish I were a year or two older."

" And what would you do, my pretty censurer ? " said the
smooth Savelli, biting his smiling lip.

" Stab the Tribune with my own stiletto, and then hey for
Palestrina ! "

" The egg will hatch a brave serpent," quoth the Savelli.
" Yet why so bitter against the Tribune, my cockatrice ?"

"Because he allowed an insolent mercer to arrest my uncle
Agapet for debt. The debt had been owed these ten years ;
and though it is said that no house in Rome has owed more
money than the Colonna, this is the first time I ever heard of
a rascally creditor being allowed to claim his debt unless with
doffed cap and bended knee. And I say that I would not
live to be a baron, if such upstart insolence is to be put
upon me."

" My child," said old Stephen, laughing heartily, " I see our
noble order will be safe enough in your hands."

" And," continued the child, emboldened by the applause he
received, " if I had time after pricking the Tribune, I would
fain have a second stroke at "

" Whom ? " said the Savelli, observing the boy pause.

"My cousin Adrian. Shame on him, for dreaming to make
one a wife whose birth would scarce fit her for a Colonna's
leman ! "

"Go play, my child, go play," said the old Colonna, as he
pushed the boy from him.

"Enough of this babble," cried the Orsini rudely. "Tell
me, old lord ; just as I entered I saw an old friend (one of
your former mercenaries) quit the palace ; may I crave his
errand ?"

" Ah yes ; a messenger from Fra Moreale. I wrote to the
knight, reproving him for his desertion on our ill-starred return
from Corneto, and intimating that five hundred lances would
be highly paid for just now."

"Ah," said Savelli; "and what is his answer?"

" Oh, wily and evasive : he is profuse in compliments and
good wishes ; but says he is under fealty to the Hungarian
king, whose cause is before Rienzi's tribunal ; that he cannot
desert his present standard ; that he fears Rome is. so evenly

THE LAST OP THE TRIBUNES. 205

balanced between patricians and the people that whatever
party would permanently be uppermost must call in a Podesta ;
and this character alone the Provenfal insinuates would
suit him."

" Montreal our Podesta ? " cried the Orsini.

" And why not ? " said Savelli ; " as good a well-born Podesta
as a low-born Tribune ? But I trust we may do without either.
Colonna, has this messenger from Fra Moreale left the city ? "

" I suppose so."

" No," said Orsini ; " I met him at the gate, and knew him
of old : it is Rodolf, the Saxon (once a hireling of the Colonna),
who has made some widows among my clients in the good old
day. He is a little disguised now ; however, I recognized
and accosted him, for I thought he was one who might yet
become a friend, and I bade him await me at my palace."

" You did well," said the Savelli, musing, and his eyes met
those of Orsini. Shortly afterwards a conference, in which
much was said and nothing settled, was broken up ; but Luca
di Savelli, loitering at the porch, prayed the Frangipani and
the other barons to adjourn to the Orsini's palace.

"The old Colonna," said he, " is well-nigh in his dotage.
We shall come to a quick determination without him, and we
can secure his proxy in his son."

And this was a true prophecy, for half an hour's consulta-
tion with Rodolf of Saxony sufficed to ripen thought into
enterprise.

CHAPTER V.

THE NIGHT AND ITS INCIDENTS.

WITH the following twilight Rome was summoned to the
commencement of the most magnificent spectacle the Imperial
City had witnessed since the fall of the Caesars. It had been
a singular privilege, arrogated by the people of Rome, to
confer upon their citizens the order of knighthood. Twenty
years before a Colonna and an Orsini had received this popu-
lar honor. Rienzi, who designed it as the prelude to a more
important ceremony, claimed from the Romans a similar dis-
tinction. From the Capitol to the Lateran swept, in long
precession, all that Rome boasted of noble, of fair, and brave.
First went horsemen without number, and from all the neigh-
boring parts of Italy, in apparel that well befitted the occasion,

206 RIENZ1,

Trumpeters, and musicians of all kinds, followed, and the
trumpets were of silver ; youths bearing the harness of the
knightly war-steed, wrought with gold, preceded the march of
the loftiest matronage of Rome, whose love for show, and it
may be whose admiration for triumphant fame (which to
women sanctions many offences), made them forget the
humbled greatness of their lords; amidst them Nina and
Irene, outshining all the rest ; then came the Tribune and the
Pontiff's Vicar, surrounded by all the great signers of the city,
smothering alike resentment, revenge, and scorn, and struggling
who should approach nearest to the monarch of the day. The
high-hearted old Colonna alone remained aloof, following at a
little distance, and in a garb studiously plain. But his age, his
rank, his former renown in war and state, did not suffice to
draw to his gray locks and high-born mien a single one of the
shouts that attended the meanest lord on whom the great Trib-
une smiled. Savelli followed nearest to Rienzi, the most ob-
sequious of the courtly band ; immediately before the Tribune
came two men ; the one bore a drawn sword, the other the
pendone, or standard usually assigned to royalty. The Trib-
une himself was clothed in a long robe of white satin, whose
snowy dazzle (miricandoris) is peculiarly dwelt on by the his-
torian, richly decorated with gold ; while on his breast were
many of those mystic symbols I have before alluded to, the
exact meaning of which was perhaps known only to the wearer.
In his dark eye, and on that large, tranquil brow, in which
thought seemed to sleep, as sleeps a storm, there might be de-
tected a mind abstracted from the pomp around ; but ever and
anon he roused himself and conversed partially with Raimond
or Savelli.

"This is a quaint game," said the Orsini, falling back to the
old Colonna : "but it may end tragically."

"Methinksit may," said the old man, "if the Tribune over-
hear thee."

Orsini grew pale. " How nay nay, even if he did, he
never resents words, but professes to laugh at our spoken rage.
It was but the other day that some knave told him what one of
the Annibaldi said of him words for which a true cavalier
would have drawn the speaker's life's blood ; and he sent for
the Annibaldi, and said, 'My friend, receive this purse of
gold court wits should be paid.' '

"Did Annibaldi take the gold?"

"Why, no; the Tribune was pleased with his spirit, and
made him sup with him ; and Annibaldi says he never spent a

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. 207

merrier evening, and no longer wonders that his kinsman, Ric-
cardo, loves the buffoon so."

Arrived now at the Lateran, Luca di Savelli fell also back,
and whispered to Orsini ; the Frangipani, and some other ot
the nobles exchanged meaning looks ; Rienzi, entering the
sacred edifice, in which, according to custom, he was to pass
the night watching his armor, bade the crowd farewell, and
summoned them the next morning, " To hear things that might,
he trusted, be acceptable to heaven and earth."

The immense multitude received this intimation with curios-
ity and gladness, while those who had been in some measure
prepared by Cecco del Vecchio hailed it as an omen of their
Tribune's unflagging resolution. The concourse dispersed
with singular order and quietness ; it was recorded as a re-
markable fact, that in so great a crowd, composed of men of
all parties, none exhibited license or indulged in quarrel.
Some of the barons and cavaliers, among whom was Luca di
Savelli, whose sleek urbanity and sarcastic humor found favor
with the Tribune, and a few subordinate pages and attendants,
alone remained ; and save a single sentinel at the porch, that
broad space before the Palace, the Basilica and Fount of Constan-
tine, soon presented a silent and desolate void to the melan-
choly moonlight. Within the church, according to the usage
of the time and rite, the descendant of the Teuton kings
received the order of the Santo Spirito. His pride, or some
superstition equally weak, though more excusable, led him to
bathe in the porphyry vase, which an absurd legend consecrated
to Constantine ; and this, as Savelli predicted, cost him dear.
These appointed ceremonies concluded, his arms were placed
in that part of the church within the columns of St. John.
And here his state bed was prepared.*

The attendant barons, pages, and chamberlains retired out
of sight to a small side chapel in the edifice ; and Rienzi was
left alone. A single lamp, placed beside his bed, contended
with the mournful rays of the moon that cast through the long
casements, over aisle and pillar, " its dim religious light." The
sanctity of the place, the solemnity of the hour, and the soli-
tary silence round, were well calculated to deepen the high-
wrought and earnest mood of that son of fortune. Many and
high fancies swept over his mind now of worldly aspirations,
now of more august but visionary belief, till at length, wearied

* In a more northern country, the eve of knighthood would 'have been spent without
sleeping. In Italy, tht ceremony of watching the armor does not appear to nave been so
rigidly observed.

208 RIENZI,

with his own reflections, he cast himself on the bed. It was an
omen which grave history has not neglected to record, that the
moment he pressed the bed, new prepared for the occasion, part
of it sank under him : he himself was affected by the accident
and sprung forth, turning pale and muttering ; but, as if
ashamed of his weakness, after a moment's pause, again
composed himself to rest, and drew the drapery round him.

The moonbeams grew fainter and more faint as the time
proceeded, and the sharp distinction between light and shade
faded fast from the marble floor ; when from behind a column
at the furthest verge of the building, a strange shadow suddenly
crossed the sickly light ; it crept on it moved, but without an
echo, from pillar to pillar it flitted it rested at last behind
the column nearest to the Tribune's bed it remained sta-
tionary.

The shades gathered darker and darker round ; the stillness
seemed to deepen ; the moon was gone ; and, save from the
struggling ray of the lamp beside Rienzi, the blackness of night
closed over the solemn and ghostly scene.

In one of the side chapels, as I have before said, which,
in the many alterations the church has undergone, is probably
long since destroyed, were Savelli and the few attendants
retained by the Tribune. Savelli alone slept not ; he remained
sitting erect, breathing and listening, while the tall lights in the
chapel rendered yet more impressive the rapid changes of his
countenance.

" Now pray Heaven," said he, " the knave miscarry not !
Such an occasion may never again occur ! He has a strong
arm and a dexterous hand, doubtless ; but the other is a power-
ful man. The deed once done, I care not whether the doer
escape or not ; if not, why we must stab him ! Dead men tell
no tales. At the worst, who can avenge Rienzi ? There is no
other Rienzi ! Ourselves and the Frangipani seize the Aven-
tine, the Colonna and the Orsini the other quarters of the city ;
and without the master spirit, we may laugh at the mad popu-
lace. But if discovered " and Savelli, who, fortunately for
his foes, had not nerves equal to his will, covered his face and
shuddered " I think I hear a noise ! no is it the wind ?
Tush, it must be old Vico di Scotto, turning in his shell of
mail ! silent I like not that silence ! No cry no sound !
Can the ruffian have played us false ? or could he not scale
the casement ? It is but a child's effort ; or did the sentry
spy him ? "

Time passed on ; the first ray of daylight slowly gleamed.

THE LAST of- THE TRIBUNES. 209

when he thought he heard the door of the church close.
Savelli's suspense became intolerable : he stole from the
chapel, and came in sight of the Tribune's bed all was
silent.

" Perhaps the silence of death," said Savelli, as he crept back.

Meanwhile the Tribune, vainly endeavoring to close his eyes,
was rendered yet more watchful by the uneasy position he was
obliged to assume ; for the part of the bed towards the pillow
having given way, while the rest remained solid, he had in-
verted the legitimate order of lying, and drawn himself up as
he might best accommodate his limbs, towards the foot of the
bed. The light of the lamp, though shaded by the draperies,
was thus opposite to him. Impatient of his wakefulness, he at
last thought it was this dull and flickering light which scared
away the slumber, and was about to rise, to remove it further
from him, when he saw the curtain at the other end of the bed
gently lifted : he remained quiet and alarmed ; ere he could
draw a second breath, a dark figure interposed between the light
and the bed ; and he felt that a stroke was aimed against that
part of the couch, which but for the accident that had seemed
to him ominous, would have given his breast to the knife.
Rienzi waited not a second and better-directed blow ; as the
assassin yet stooped, groping in the uncertain light, he threw
on him all the weight and power of his large and muscular
frame, wrenched the stiletto from the bravo's hand, and dash-
ing him on the bed, placed his knee on his breast. The stiletto
rose gleamed descended the murtherer swerved aside, and
it pierced only his right arm. The Tribune raised, for a dead-
lier blow, the revengeful blade.

The assassin thus foiled was a man used to all form and
shape of danger, and he did not now lose his presence of
mind.

" Ho