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

Chapter 2.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 solemn notes of sacred music stole at frequent intervals upon the air. Rienzi was praying within the church; thirty masses consumed the hours from night till morn, and all the sanction of religion was invoked to consecrate the enterprise of liberty. (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 people,—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 favoured by them. The principal conventual orders declared for the Revolution.) The sun had long risen, and the crowd had long been assembled 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 fervour of religious zeal:—

The Roman Hymn of Liberty.

Let the mountains exult around! (“Exultent in circuito Vestro Montes,” &c.—Let the mountains exult around! So begins Rienzi’s letter to the Senate and Roman people: preserved by Hocsemius.) On her seven-hill’d throne renown’d, Once more old Rome is crown’d! Jubilate! Sing out, O Vale and Wave! Look up from each laurell’d grave, Bright dust of the deathless brave! Jubilate! Pale Vision, what art thou?—Lo, From Time’s dark deeps, Like a Wind, It sweeps, Like a Wind, when the tempests blow: A shadowy form—as a giant ghost— It stands in the midst of the armed host! The dead man’s shroud on Its awful limbs; And the gloom of Its presence the daylight dims: And the trembling world looks on aghast— All hail to the SOUL OF THE MIGHTY PAST! Hail! all hail! As we speak—as we hallow—It moves, It breathes; 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 shrines of the Saints of God— In the Caesars’ hall, and the Martyrs’ prison— That the slumber is broke, and the Sleeper arisen! 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 crowd gave way on either side, and, preceded by three of the young nobles of the inferior order, bearing standards of allegorical design, depicting the triumph of Liberty, Justice, and Concord, forth issued Rienzi, clad in complete armour, the helmet 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 their lips, and stilled, by a simultaneous cry of reproof, the gratulations 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 Capitol, 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 people to assist the enterprise, and at once to sanction and consolidate the Revolution by an established code of law and a Constitutional 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 powers,—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 harbour