"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 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 n.o.ble, 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 is 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, pa.s.sionately. "Ah! should the future ever place upon these brows the laurel-wreath due to one who has saved his country, what joy, what recompence, 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 s.p.a.ce 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 disgrace to give thee to my arms; when thou, too, shouldst stand amidst the dames of Rome, more honoured, as more beautiful, than all; and when I should see that pomp, which my own soul disdains, ("Quem 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.) made dear and grateful to me because a.s.sociated 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!"
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 absence of Rienzi, her weaker nature pictured to herself the triumph of humbling the highborn signoras, and eclipsing the barbarous magnificence of the chiefs of Rome; but in his presence, and listening to his more elevated and generous ambition, 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 before 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 aspirations 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 beneath the sun, save itself. But the pa.s.sion of Nina and her lover was that of more complicated natures and more mature years: it was made up of 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 sustained 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 embrace. "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! Go; Nina shall not detain 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 morrow shines upon the restoration of Rome!"
Chapter 1.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 a.s.sociated 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. Thou little skilled in the cla.s.sic memories and a.s.sociations 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 splendour 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d could scarce have found the hardy Englishers so easy a conquest as Walter the Well-born may find these eunuch Romans. And which conquest were the more 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 herbage, 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 supported her steps with a long staff, and moved with such elasticity 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 breaking 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 dishonourer-the robber-the professed homicide! Thou, disgrace to knighthood and to birth! Thou, with the cross of chast.i.ty and of peace upon thy breast! Thou talk of conscience, hypocrite!-thou?"
"Lady-lady!" said Montreal, deprecatingly, and almost quailing beneath the fiery pa.s.sion of that feeble woman, "I have sinned against thee and thine. But remember all my excuses!-early love-fatal obstacles-rash vow-irresistible temptation! 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 n.o.ble 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-a life of brawls, and a death of shame-thy destruction the offspring 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 warrior, 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 l.u.s.t? 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 pa.s.sed the limits to which, remembering who thou art, my forbearance gave thee licence. I had well-nigh forgot that thou hadst a.s.sumed my part-I 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 pa.s.sion 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 compa.s.sion, "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 dishonoured-nay, why so impatient? thou wilt soon learn the worst-the boy is dead!"
"Dead!" repeated Montreal, recoiling and growing pale; "dead!-no, no-say not that! He has a mother,-you know he 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 Provencal. "Yet, bethink thee; is it not better that the grave should save him from a life of riot, of bloodshed, and of crime? Better to sleep with G.o.d 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? Ma.s.ses 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 one!-The dead boy had no name!"
Waiting for no further questionings, the woman now pa.s.sed on,-pursued her way;-and the long herbage, and the winding descent, soon s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 pa.s.sions are strong and fierce, but to whom the violence of grief alone is novel and unfamiliar.
He remained thus, prostrate and unmanned, for a considerable time, growing slowly and gradually more calm as tears relieved his emotion; and, at length, rather indulging a gloomy reverie than a pa.s.sionate grief. The moon was high and the hour late when he arose, and then few traces of the past excitement remained upon his countenance; for Walter de Montreal was not of that mould in which woe can force a settlement, or to which any affliction can bring the continued and habitual 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 temptation; 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 pa.s.sion without whose colourings no portrait of chivalry is complete, 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 superst.i.tions of the age, and it was now the witching hour consecrated to ghost and spirit. But 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 a digression from his way, and ascertain the cause of the phenomenon. Unconsciously, the martial tread of the barbarian pa.s.sed 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, grey and roofless, from within which came, indistinct and m.u.f.fled, the sound of voices. Through a rent in the wall, forming a kind of cas.e.m.e.nt, and about ten feet from the ground, the light now broke over the matted and rank soil, embedded, as it were, in vast ma.s.ses 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 inst.i.tuted 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 begin. 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 redemption-the arms of the oppressor!"
"We swear-we swear!" exclaimed every voice: and, crowding toward cross and weapon, the tapers were obscured by the intervening throng, and Montreal could not perceive the ceremony, 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 involuntary and irresistible impulse, laid his hand upon his sword, as he 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 to himself: "and I would rather face an army of thousands, than even half-a-dozen enthusiasts, so inflamed,-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 m.u.f.fled shout-"DEATH TO THE TYRANNY!-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." &c.-"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," &c.-"Life of Cola di Rienzi".
Chapter 2.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 n.o.bles 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 ma.s.sive walls, and barred windows, and s.p.a.cious courts, which at that time protected their rude retainers. 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 betrayed 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 cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.sical indignation of Petrarch, and made him sympathise 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 pa.s.sed the court, a heavy waggon 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 n.o.ble maintained the dignity of outraging the law.
The friend of Petrarch and the pupil of Rienzi sighed deeply as he pa.s.sed this vehicle of new spoliations, and as a pillar of fluted alabaster, rolling carelessly from the waggon, fell with a loud crash upon the pavement. At the foot of the stairs grouped some dozen of the bandits whom the old Colonna entertained: 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 meat and flasks of wine. They scarcely stirred, they scarcely looked up, as the young n.o.ble pa.s.sed them; and their fierce oaths and loud e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, 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-chamber, which was half-filled with the higher cla.s.s of the patrician"s retainers: some five or six pages, chosen from the inferior n.o.blesse, congregated by a narrow and deep-sunk cas.e.m.e.nt, 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-settled to their contemplations. Striking was the contrast which their northern phlegm presented to a crowd of Italian clients, and pet.i.tioners, 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 general stir and sensation as Adrian broke upon this miscellaneous company. The bandit captains nodded their heads mechanically; the pages bowed, and admired the fashion of his plume and hose; the clients, and pet.i.tioners, and parasites, crowded round him, each with a separate request for interest with his potent kinsman. Great need had Adrian of his wonted urbanity 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. Pa.s.sing another, but empty chamber, 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 grey locks descended, and mixed with a long and reverent beard. The countenance of the aged n.o.ble, who had long pa.s.sed his eightieth year, still retained the traces of a comeliness for which in earlier manhood 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 commanding, indicating rather the high blood, the shrewd wit, and the gallant valour of the patrician, than his craft, hypocrisy, and habitual but disdainful spirit of oppression.
Stephen Colonna, without being absolutely a hero, was indeed 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 a.n.a.logy. What had never happened in his time, he was perfectly persuaded never could happen. Thus, though generally esteemed an able diplomatist, he had the cunning of the intriguant, 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 n.o.ble qualities of fort.i.tude, endurance, and real greatness of soul; which showed that his failings were rather acquired by circ.u.mstance than derived from nature. His numerous and highborn race were proud of their chief; and with justice; for he was the ablest and most honoured, 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 n.o.ble presence, of about three or four and thirty years of age, in whom Adrian instantly recognised 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 might 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,-blending, as they did, a certain military frankness with the easy and graceful dignity of one conscious of gentle birth, and accustomed to mix, on equal terms, with the great and n.o.ble. His form happily contrasted and elevated the character of a countenance which required strength and stature to free its uncommon 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 Knights of the Hospital, whereon was wrought, in white, the eight-pointed cross that made the badge of his order. The Knight"s att.i.tude was that of earnest conversation, bending slightly forward towards the Colonna, and resting both his hands-which (according to the usual distinction of the old Norman race, (Small hands and feet, however disproportioned to the 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 supposed beauty of this peculiarity is more derived from the feudal than the cla.s.sic time.) 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 Provencal Brotherhood of Jerusalem.
"Good morrow, fair kinsman!" said Stephen. "Seat thyself, 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 Montreal.
"But not," said Adrian, "the neglect of Sir Walter in not ascertaining the fact in person. My thanks to him, n.o.ble kinsman, are greater than you weet of; and he promised to visit me, that he might receive them at leisure."
"I a.s.sure you, Signor," 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 grey 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 my 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 a.s.sistance, 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 established a Free State-a Republic, G.o.d 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, "between the great families; an alternation of prosecutions, and confiscations, and banishments: today, the Guelfs proscribe the Ghibellines-tomorrow, 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 energies than the other citizens, he also preserves a wise one. 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 a.s.sistance."
"You hear, Adrian, how wicked those last are," quoth Stephen.
"Now it seems to me," continued Montreal, "that this contest must end some time or other. All Italy must become republican 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 reverse. You perceive that these republics are commercial,-are traders; they esteem wealth, they despise valour, they cultivate all trades save that of the armourer. 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 princ.i.p.ality of the city for five or ten years in return; or else they borrow 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 a.s.sent.
"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 convert 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 monarchical. 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 licence to them, but in the corruption of death to you. In these free States, the n.o.bles are the first to suffer: first your privileges, then your property, are swept away. Nay, in Florence, as ye well know, my Lords, no n.o.ble 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 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 freedom 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, n.o.ble Stephen, I have come, as your rank demands,-alone, of all the barons of Rome,-to propose to you this honourable union. Observe what advantages it proffers to your house. The popes have abandoned Rome for ever; there is no counterpoise to your ambition,-there need be none to your power. You see before you the examples of Visconti and Taddeo di Pepoli. You may found in Rome, the first city of Italy, a supreme and uncontrolled princ.i.p.ality, 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, perhaps, to the empire of the world."
Stephen shaded his face with his hand as he answered: "But this, n.o.ble Montreal, requires means:-money and men."