Rienzi, the Last of the Roman Tribunes by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (distant reading .txt) 📖

Will it be believed, that in the original from which the Pere Du Cerceau borrows or rather imagines this touching recital, there is not a single syllable about the pity of the people, nor their shock at the bloody colours of the tapestry, nor their particular compassion for the unfortunate Stephen Colonna?—in fine, the People are not even mentioned at all. All that is said is, “Some Roman citizens, (alcuni cittadini Romani,) considering the judgment Rienzi was about to make, interposed with soft and caressing words, and at last changed the opinion of the Tribune;” all the rest is the pure fiction of the ingenious Frenchman! Again, Du Cerceau, describing the appearance of the Barons at this fatal moment, says, “Notwithstanding the grief and despair visible in their countenances, they shewed a noble indignation, generally attendant on innocence in the hour of death.” What says the authority from which alone, except his own, the good Father could take his account? Why, not a word about this noble indignation, or this parade of innocence! The original says simply, that “the Barons were so frozen with terror that they were unable to speak,” (diventaso si gelati che non poteano favellare;) “that the greater part humbled themselves,” (e prese penitenza e comunione;) that when Rienzi addressed them “all the Barons (come dannati) stood in sadness.” (See “Vita di Cola di Rienzi”, lib. i. cap. 29.) Du Cerceau then proceeds to state, that “although he (Rienzi) was grieved at heart to behold his victims snatched from him, he endeavoured to make a merit of it in the eyes of the People.” There is not a word of this in the original!

So when Rienzi, on a latter occasion, placed the Prefect John di Vico in prison, this Jesuit says, “To put a gloss upon this action before the eyes of the people, Rienzi gave out that the Governor, John di Vico, keeping a correspondence with the conspirators, came with no other view than to betray the Romans.” And if this scribbler, who pretends to have consulted the Vatican MSS., had looked at the most ordinary authorities, he would have seen that John di Vico did come with that view. (See for Di Vico’s secret correspondence with the Barons, La Cron. Bologn. page 406; and La Cron. Est. page 444.)

Again, in the battle between the Barons and the Romans at the gates, Du Cerceau thus describes the conduct of the Tribune:—“The Tribune, amidst his troops, knew so little of what had passed, that seeing at a distance one of his standards fall, he looked upon all as lost, and, casting up his eyes to heaven full of despair, cried out, ‘O God, will you then forsake me?’ But no sooner was he informed of the entire defeat of his enemies, than his dread and cowardice even turned to boldness and arrogance.”

Now in the original all that is said of this is, “That it is true that the standard of the Tribune fell—the Tribune astonished, (or if you please, dismayed, sbigottio,) stood with his eyes raised to heaven, and could find no other words than, ‘O God hast thou betrayed me?’” This evinced, perhaps, alarm or consternation at the fall of his standard—a consternation natural, not to a coward, but a fanatic, at such an event. But not a word is said about Rienzi’s cowardice in the action itself; it is not stated when the accident happened—nothing bears out the implication that the Tribune was remote from the contest, and knew little of what passed. And if this ignorant Frenchman had consulted any other contemporaneous historian whatever, he would have found it asserted by them all, that the fight was conducted with great valour, both by the Roman populace and their leader on the one side, and the Barons on the other.—G. Vill. lib. xii. cap. 105; Cron. Sen. tom. xv. Murat. page 119; Cron. Est. page 444. Yet Gibbon rests his own sarcasm on the Tribune’s courage solely on the baseless exaggeration of this Pere Du Cerceau.

So little, indeed, did this French pretender know of the history of the time and place he treats of, that he imagines the Stephen Colonna who was killed in the battle above-mentioned was the old Stephen Colonna, and is very pathetic about his “venerable appearance,” &c. This error, with regard to a man so eminent as Stephen Colonna the elder, is inexcusable: for, had the priest turned over the other pages of the very collection in which he found the biography he deforms, he would have learned that old Stephen Colonna was alive some time after that battle.—(Cron. Sen. Murat. tom. xv. page 121.)

Again, just before Rienzi’s expulsion from the office of Tribune, Du Cerceau, translating in his headlong way the old biographer’s account of the causes of Rienzi’s loss of popularity, says, “He shut himself up in his palace, and his presence was known only by the rigorous punishments which he caused his agents to inflict upon the innocent.” Not a word of this in the original!

Again, after the expulsion, Du Cerceau says, that the Barons seized upon the “immense riches” he had amassed,—the words in the original are, “grandi ornamenti,” which are very different things from immense riches. But the most remarkable sins of commission are in this person’s account of the second rise and fall of Rienzi under the title of Senator. Of this I shall give but one instance:—

“The Senator, who perceived it, became only the more cruel. His jealousies produced only fresh murders. In the continual dread he was in, that the general discontent would terminate in some secret attempt upon his person, he determined to intimidate the most enterprising, by sacrificing sometimes one, sometimes another, and chiefly those whose riches rendered them the more guilty in his eyes. Numbers were sent every day to the Capitol prison. Happy were those who could get off with the confiscation of their estates.”

Of these grave charges there is not a syllable in the original! And so much for the work of Pere Cerceau and Pere Brumoy, by virtue of which, historians have written of the life and times of Rienzi, and upon the figments of which, the most remarkable man in an age crowded with great characters is judged by the general reader!

I must be pardoned for this criticism, which might not have been necessary, had not the work to which it relates, in the English translation quoted from, (a translation that has no faults but those of the French original,) been actually received as an historical and indisputable authority, and opposed with a triumphant air to some passages in my own narrative which were literally taken from the authentic records of the time.