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

entered largely into the gay dissipation of the town, and her charms shared the celebrity of the hour with the verse of Petrarch. But though she frowned on none, none could claim the monopoly of her smiles. Her fair fame was as yet unblemished; but if any might presume beyond the rest, she seemed to have selected rather from ambition than love, and Giles, the warlike Cardinal d’Albornoz, all powerful at the sacred court, already foreboded the hour of his triumph.

It was late noon, and in the ante-chamber of the fair Signora waited two of that fraternity of pages, fair and richly clad, who, at that day, furnished the favourite attendants to rank of either sex.

“By my troth,” cried one of these young servitors, pushing from him the dice with which himself and his companion had sought to beguile their leisure, “this is but dull work! and the best part of the day is gone. Our lady is late.”

“And I have donned my new velvet mantle,” replied the other, compassionately eyeing his finery.

“Chut, Giacomo,” said his comrade, yawning; “a truce with thy conceit.—What news abroad, I wonder? Has his Holiness come to his senses yet?”

“His senses! what, is he mad then?” quoth Giacomo, in a serious and astonished whisper.

“I think he is; if, being Pope, he does not discover that he may at length lay aside mask and hood. ‘Continent Cardinal—lewd Pope,’ is the old motto, you know; something must be the matter with the good man’s brain if he continue to live like a hermit.”

“Oh, I have you! but faith, his Holiness has proxies eno’. The bishops take care to prevent women, Heaven bless them! going out of fashion; and Albornoz does not maintain your proverb, touching the Cardinals.”

“True, but Giles is a warrior,—a cardinal in the church, but a soldier in the city.”

“Will he carry the fort here, think you, Angelo?”

“Why, fort is female, but—”

“But what?”

“The Signora’s brow is made for power, rather than love, fair as it is. She sees in Albornoz the prince, and not the lover. With what a step she sweeps the floor! it disdains even the cloth of gold!”

“Hark!” cried Giacomo, hastening to the lattice, “hear you the hoofs below? Ah, a gallant company!”

“Returned from hawking,” answered Angelo, regarding wistfully the cavalcade, as it swept the narrow street. “Plumes waving, steeds curvetting—see how yon handsome cavalier presses close to that dame!”

“His mantle is the colour of mine,” sighed Giacomo.

As the gay procession paced slowly on, till hidden by the winding street, and as the sound of laughter and the tramp of horses was yet faintly heard, there frowned right before the straining gaze of the pages, a dark massive tower of the mighty masonry of the eleventh century: the sun gleamed sadly on its vast and dismal surface, which was only here and there relieved by loopholes and narrow slits, rather than casements. It was a striking contrast to the gaiety around, the glittering shops, and the gaudy train that had just filled the space below. This contrast the young men seemed involuntarily to feel; they drew back, and looked at each other.

“I know your thoughts, Giacomo,” said Angelo, the handsomer and elder of the two. “You think yon tower affords but a gloomy lodgment?”

“And I thank my stars that made me not high enough to require so grand a cage,” rejoined Giacomo.

“Yet,” observed Angelo, “it holds one, who in birth was not our superior.”

“Do tell me something of that strange man,” said Giacomo, regaining his seat; “you are Roman and should know.”

“Yes!” answered Angelo, haughtily drawing himself up, “I am Roman! and I should be unworthy my birth, if I had not already learned what honour is due to the name of Cola di Rienzi.”

“Yet your fellow-Romans merely stoned him, I fancy,” muttered Giacomo. “Honour seems to lie more in kicks than money. Can you tell me,” continued the page in a louder key, “can you tell me if it be true, that Rienzi appeared at Prague before the Emperor, and prophesied that the late Pope and all the Cardinals should be murdered, and a new Italian Pope elected, who should endue the Emperor with a golden crown, as Sovereign of Sicilia, Calabria, and Apulia, (An absurd fable, adopted by certain historians.) and himself with a crown of silver, as King of Rome, and all Italy? And—”

“Hush!” interrupted Angelo, impatiently. “Listen to me, and you shall know the exact story. On last leaving Rome (thou knowest that, after his fall, he was present at the Jubilee in disguise) the Tribune—” here Angelo, pausing, looked round, and then with a flushed cheek and raised voice resumed, “Yes, the Tribune, that was and shall be—travelled in disguise, as a pilgrim, over mountain and forest, night and day, exposed to rain and storm, no shelter but the cave,—he who had been, they say, the very spoilt one of Luxury. Arrived at length in Bohemia, he disclosed himself to a Florentine in Prague, and through his aid obtained audience of the Emperor Charles.”

“A prudent man, the Emperor!” said Giacomo, “close-fisted as a miser. He makes conquests by bargain, and goes to market for laurels,—as I have heard my brother say, who was under him.”

“True; but I have also heard that he likes bookmen and scholars—is wise and temperate, and much is yet hoped from him in Italy! Before the Emperor, I say, came Rienzi. ‘Know, great Prince,’ said he, ‘that I am that Rienzi to whom God gave to govern Rome, in peace, with justice, and to freedom. I curbed the nobles, I purged corruption, I amended law. The powerful persecuted me—pride and envy have chased me from my dominions. Great as you are, fallen as I am, I too have wielded the sceptre and might have worn a crown. Know, too, that I am illegitimately of your lineage; my father the son of Henry VII.; (Uncle to the Emperor Charles.) the blood of the Teuton rolls in my veins; mean as were my earlier fortunes and humble my earlier name! From you, O King, I seek protection, and I demand justice.” (See, for this speech, “the Anonymous Biographer,” lib. ii. cap. 12.)

“A bold speech, and one from equal to equal,” said Giacomo; “surely you swell us out the words.”

“Not a whit; they were written down by the Emperor’s scribe, and every Roman who has once heard knows them by heart: once every Roman was the equal to a king, and Rienzi maintained our dignity in asserting his own.”

Giacomo, who discreetly avoided quarrels, knew the weak side of his friend; and though in his heart he thought the Romans as good-for-nothing a set of turbulent dastards as all Italy might furnish, he merely picked a straw from his mantle, and said, in rather an impatient tone, “Humph! proceed! did the Emperor dismiss him?”

“Not so: Charles was struck with his bearing and his spirit, received him graciously, and entertained him hospitably. He remained some time at Prague, and astonished all the learned with his knowledge and eloquence.”