Rienzi, the Last of the Roman Tribunes

The balcony on which Rienzi had alighted was that from which he had been accustomed to address the people—it communicated with a vast hall used on solemn occasions for State festivals—and on either side were square projecting towers, whose grated casements looked into the balcony. One of these towers was devoted to the armory, the other contained the prison of Brettone, the brother of Montreal. Beyond the latter tower was the general prison of the Capitol. For then the prison and the palace were in awful neighbourhood!

The windows of the Hall were yet open—and Rienzi passed into it from the balcony—the witness of the yesterday’s banquet was still there—the wine, yet undried, crimsoned the floor, and goblets of gold and silver shone from the recesses. He proceeded at once to the armory, and selected from the various suits that which he himself had worn when, nearly eight years ago, he had chased the Barons from the gates of Rome. He arrayed himself in the mail, leaving only his head uncovered; and then taking, in his right hand, from the wall, the great Gonfalon of Rome, returned once more to the hall. Not a man encountered him. In that vast building, save the prisoners, and the faithful Nina, whose presence he knew not of—the Senator was alone.

On they came, no longer in measured order, as stream after stream—from lane, from alley, from palace and from hovel—the raging sea received new additions. On they came—their passions excited by their numbers—women and men, children and malignant age—in all the awful array of aroused, released, unresisted physical strength and brutal wrath; “Death to the traitor—death to the tyrant—death to him who has taxed the people!”—“Mora l’ traditore che ha fatta la gabella!—Mora!” Such was the cry of the people—such the crime of the Senator! They broke over the low palisades of the Capitol—they filled with one sudden rush the vast space;—a moment before so desolate,—now swarming with human beings athirst for blood!

Suddenly came a dead silence, and on the balcony above stood Rienzi—his head was bared and the morning sun shone over that lordly brow, and the hair grown grey before its time, in the service of that maddening multitude. Pale and erect he stood—neither fear, nor anger, nor menace—but deep grief and high resolve—upon his features! A momentary shame—a momentary awe seized the crowd.

He pointed to the Gonfalon, wrought with the Republican motto and arms of Rome, and thus he began:—

“I too am a Roman and a Citizen; hear me!”

“Hear him not! hear him not! his false tongue can charm away our senses!” cried a voice louder than his own; and Rienzi recognised Cecco del Vecchio.

“Hear him not! down with the tyrant!” cried a more shrill and youthful tone; and by the side of the artisan stood Angelo Villani.

“Hear him not! death to the death-giver!” cried a voice close at hand, and from the grating of the neighbouring prison glared near upon him, as the eye of a tiger, the vengeful gaze of the brother of Montreal.

Then from Earth to Heaven rose the roar—“Down with the tyrant—down with him who taxed the people!”

A shower of stones rattled on the mail of the Senator,—still he stirred not. No changing muscle betokened fear. His persuasion of his own wonderful powers of eloquence, if he could but be heard, inspired him yet with hope; he stood collected in his own indignant, but determined thoughts;—but the knowledge of that very eloquence was now his deadliest foe. The leaders of the multitude trembled lest he should be heard; “and doubtless,” says the contemporaneous biographer, “had he but spoken he would have changed them all, and the work been marred.”

The soldiers of the Barons had already mixed themselves with the throng—more deadly weapons than stones aided the wrath of the multitude—darts and arrows darkened the air; and now a voice was heard shrieking, “Way for the torches!” And red in the sunlight the torches tossed and waved, and danced to and fro, above the heads of the crowd, as if the fiends were let loose amongst the mob! And what place in hell hath fiends like those a mad mob can furnish? Straw, and wood, and litter, were piled hastily round the great doors of the Capitol, and the smoke curled suddenly up, beating back the rush of the assailants.

Rienzi was no longer visible, an arrow had pierced his hand—the right hand that supported the flag of Rome—the right hand that had given a constitution to the Republic. He retired from the storm into the desolate hall.

He sat down;—and tears, springing from no weak and woman source, but tears from the loftiest fountain of emotion—tears that befit a warrior when his own troops desert him—a patriot when his countrymen rush to their own doom—a father when his children rebel against his love,—tears such as these forced themselves from his eyes and relieved,—but they changed, his heart!

“Enough, enough!” he said, presently rising and dashing the drops scornfully away; “I have risked, dared, toiled enough for this dastard and degenerate race. I will yet baffle their malice—I renounce the thought of which they are so little worthy!—Let Rome perish!—I feel, at last, that I am nobler than my country!—she deserves not so high a sacrifice!”

With that feeling, Death lost all the nobleness of aspect it had before presented to him; and he resolved, in very scorn of his ungrateful foes, in very defeat of their inhuman wrath, to make one effort for his life! He divested himself of his glittering arms; his address, his dexterity, his craft, returned to him. His active mind ran over the chances of disguise—of escape;—he left the hall—passed through the humbler rooms, devoted to the servitors and menials—found in one of them a coarse working garb—indued himself with it—placed upon his head some of the draperies and furniture of the palace, as if escaping with them; and said, with his old “fantastico riso” (“Fantastic smile or laugh.”)—“When all other friends desert me, I may well forsake myself!” With that he awaited his occasion.

Meanwhile the flames burnt fierce and fast; the outer door below was already consumed; from the apartment he had deserted the fire burst out in volleys of smoke—the wood crackled—the lead melted—with a crash fell the severed gates—the dreadful entrance was opened to all the multitude—the proud Capitol of the Caesars was already tottering to its fall!—Now was the time!—he passed the flaming door—the smouldering threshold;—he passed the outer gate unscathed—he was in the middle of the crowd. “Plenty of pillage within,” he said to the bystanders, in the Roman patois, his face concealed by his load—“Suso, suso a gliu traditore!” (Down, down with the traitor.) The mob rushed past him—he went on—he gained the last stair descending into the open streets—he was at the last gate—liberty and life were before him.

A soldier (one of his own) seized him. “Pass not—whither goest thou?”

“Beware, lest the Senator escape disguised!” cried a voice behind—it was Villani’s. The concealing load was torn from his head—Rienzi stood revealed!

“I am the Senator!” he said in a loud voice. “Who dare touch the Representative of the People?”

The multitude were round him in an instant. Not led, but rather hurried and whirled along, the Senator was borne to the Place of the Lion. With the intense glare of the bursting flames, the grey image reflected a lurid light, and glowed—(that grim and solemn monument!)—as if itself of fire!

There arrived, the crowd gave way, terrified by the greatness of their victim. Silent he stood, and turned his face around; nor could the squalor of his garb, nor the terror of the hour, nor the proud grief of detection, abate the majesty of his mien, or reassure the courage of the thousands who gathered, gazing, round him. The whole Capitol wrapped in fire, lighted with ghastly pomp the immense multitude. Down the long vista of the streets extended the fiery light and the serried throng, till the crowd closed with the gleaming standards of the Colonna—the Orsini—the Savelli! Her true tyrants were marching into Rome! As the sound of their approaching horns and trumpets broke upon the burning air, the mob seemed to regain their courage. Rienzi prepared to speak; his first word was as the signal of his own death.

“Die, tyrant!” cried Cecco del Vecchio: and he plunged his dagger in the Senator’s breast.

“Die, executioner of Montreal!” muttered Villani: “thus the trust is fulfilled!” and his was the second stroke. Then as he drew back, and saw the artisan in all the drunken fury of his brute passion, tossing up his cap, shouting aloud, and spurning the fallen lion,—the young man gazed upon him with a look of withering and bitter scorn, and said, while he sheathed his blade, and slowly turned to quit the crowd,

“Fool, miserable fool! thou and these at least had no blood of kindred to avenge!”

They heeded not his words—they saw him not depart; for as Rienzi, without a word, without a groan, fell to the earth,—as the roaring waves of the multitude closed over him,—a voice, shrill, sharp, and wild, was heard above all the clamour. At the casement of the Palace, (the casement of her bridal chamber,) Nina stood!—through the flames that burst below and around, her face and outstretched arms alone visible! Ere yet the sound of that thrilling cry passed from the air, down with a mighty crash thundered that whole wing of the Capitol,—a blackened and smouldering mass.

At that hour, a solitary boat was gliding swiftly along the Tiber. Rome was at a distance, but the lurid blow of the conflagration cast its reflection upon the placid and glassy stream: fair beyond description was the landscape; soft beyond all art of Painter and of Poet, the sunlight quivering over the autumnal herbage, and hushing into tender calm the waves of the golden River!

Adrian’s eyes were strained towards the towers of the Capitol, distinguished by the flames from the spires and domes around;—senseless, and clasped to his guardian breast, Irene was happily unconscious of the horrors of the time.

“They dare not—they dare not,” said the brave Colonna, “touch a hair of that sacred head!—if Rienzi fall, the liberties of Rome fall for ever! As those towers that surmount the flames, the pride and monument of Rome, he shall rise above the dangers of the hour. Behold, still unscathed amidst the raging element, the Capitol itself is his emblem!”

Scarce had he spoken, when a vast volume of smoke obscured the fires afar off, a dull crash (deadened by the distance) travelled to his ear, and the next moment, the towers on which he gazed had vanished from the scene, and one intense and sullen glare seemed to settle over the atmosphere,—making all Rome itself the funeral pyre of THE LAST OF THE ROMAN TRIBUNES!

The End

Appendix I. Some Remarks on the Life and Character of Rienzi

The principal authority from which historians have taken their account of the life and times of Rienzi is a very curious biography, by some unknown contemporary; and this, which is in the Roman patois of the time, has been rendered not quite unfamiliar to the French and English reader by the work of Pere du Cerceau, called “Conjuration de Nicolas Gabrini, dit de Rienzi,” (See for a specimen of the singular blunders of the Frenchman’s work, Appendix II.) which has at once pillaged and deformed the Roman biographer. The biography I refer to was published (and the errors of the former editions revised) by Muratori in his great collection; and has lately been reprinted separately in an improved text, accompanied by notes of much discrimination and scholastic taste, and a comment upon that celebrated poem of Petrarch, “Spirito Gentil,” which the majority of Italian critics have concurred in considering addressed to Rienzi, in spite of the ingenious arguments to the contrary by the Abbe de Sade.

This biography has been generally lauded for its rare impartiality. And the author does, indeed, praise and blame alike with a most singular appearance of stolid candour. The work, in truth, is one of those not uncommon proofs, of which Boswell’s “Johnson” is the most striking, that a very valuable book may be written by a very silly man. The biographer of Rienzi appears more like the historian of Rienzi’s clothes, so minute is he on all details of their colour and quality—so silent is he upon everything that could throw light upon the motives of their wearer. In fact, granting the writer every desire to be impartial, he is too foolish to be so. It requires some cleverness to judge accurately of a very clever man in very difficult circumstances; and the worthy biographer is utterly incapable of giving us any clue to the actions of Rienzi—utterly unable to explain the conduct of the man by the circumstances of the time. The weakness of his vision causes him, therefore, often to squint. We must add to his want of wisdom a want of truth, which the Herodotus-like simplicity of his style frequently conceals. He describes things which had no witness as precisely and distinctly as those which he himself had seen. For instance, before the death of Rienzi, in those awful moments when the Senator was alone, unheard, unseen, he coolly informs us of each motion, and each thought of Rienzi’s, with as much detail as if Rienzi had returned from the grave to assist his narration. These obvious inventions have been adopted by Gibbon and others with more good faith than the laws of evidence would warrant. Still, however, to a patient and cautious reader the biography may furnish a much better notion of Rienzi’s character, than we can glean from the historians who have borrowed from it piecemeal. Such a reader will discard all the writer’s reasonings, will think little of his praise or blame, and regard only the facts he narrates, judging them true or doubtful, according as the writer had the opportunities of being himself the observer. Thus examining, the reader will find evidence sufficient of Rienzi’s genius and Rienzi’s failings: Carefully distinguishing between the period of his power as Tribune, and that of his power as Senator, he will find the Tribune vain, haughty, fond of display; but, despite the reasonings of the biographer, he will not recognise those faults in the Senator. On the other hand, he will notice the difference between youth and maturity—hope and experience; he will notice in the Tribune vast ambition, great schemes, enterprising activity—which sober into less gorgeous and more quiet colours in the portrait of the Senator. He will find that in neither instance did Rienzi fall from his own faults—he will find that the vulgar moral of ambition, blasted by its own excesses, is not the true moral of the Roman’s life; he will find that, both in his abdication as Tribune, and his death as Senator, Rienzi fell from the vices of the People. The Tribune was a victim to ignorant cowardice—the Senator, a victim to ferocious avarice. It is this which modern historians have failed to represent. Gibbon records rightly, that the Count of Minorbino entered Rome with one hundred and fifty soldiers, and barricadoed the quarter of the Colonna—that the bell of the Capitol sounded—that Rienzi addressed the People—that they were silent and inactive—and that Rienzi then abdicated the government. But for this he calls Rienzi “pusillanimous.” Is not that epithet to be applied to the People? Rienzi invoked them to move against the Robber—the People refused to obey. Rienzi wished to fight—the People refused to stir. It was not the cause of Rienzi alone which demanded their exertions—it was the cause of the People—theirs, not his, the shame, if one hundred and fifty foreign soldiers mastered Rome, overthrew their liberties, and restored their tyrants! Whatever Rienzi’s sins, whatever his unpopularity, their freedom, their laws, their republic, were at stake; and these they surrendered to one hundred and fifty hirelings! This is the fact that damns them! But Rienzi was not unpopular when he addressed and conjured them: they found no fault with him. “The sighs and the groans of the People,” says Sismondi, justly, “replied to his,”—they could weep, but they would not fight. This strange apathy the modern historians have not accounted for, yet the principal cause was obvious—Rienzi was excommunicated! (And this curse I apprehend to have been the more effective in the instance of Rienzi, from a fact that it would be interesting and easy to establish: viz., that he owed his rise as much to religious as to civil causes. He aimed evidently to be a religious Reformer. All his devices, ceremonies, and watchwords, were of a religious character. The monks took part with his enterprise, and joined in the revolution. His letters are full of mystical fanaticism. His references to ancient heroes of Rome are always mingled with invocations to her Christian Saints. The Bible, at that time little read by the public civilians of Italy, is constantly in his hands, and his addresses studded with texts. His very garments were adorned with sacred and mysterious emblems. No doubt, the ceremony of his Knighthood, which Gibbon ridicules as an act of mere vanity, was but another of his religious extravagances; for he peculiarly dedicated his Knighthood to the service of the Santo Spirito; and his bathing in the vase of Constantine was quite of a piece, not with the vanity of the Tribune, but with the extravagance of the Fanatic. In fact, they tried hard to prove him a heretic; but he escaped a charge under the mild Innocent, which a century or two before, or a century or two afterwards, would have sufficed to have sent a dozen Rienzis to the stake. I have dwelt the more upon this point, because, if it be shown that religious causes operated with those of liberty, we throw a new light upon the whole of that most extraordinary revolution, and its suddenness is infinitely less striking. The deep impression Rienzi produced upon that populace was thus stamped with the spirit of the religious enthusiast more than that of the classical demagogue. And, as in the time of Cromwell, the desire for temporal liberty was warmed and coloured by the presence of a holier and more spiritual fervour:—“The Good Estate” (Buono Stato) of Rienzi reminds us a little of the Good Cause of General Cromwell.) In stating the fact, these writers have seemed to think that excommunication in Rome, in the fourteenth century, produced no effect!—the effect it did produce I have endeavoured in these pages to convey.

The causes of the second fall and final murder of Rienzi are equally misstated by modern narrators. It was from no fault of his—no injustice, no cruelty, no extravagance—it was not from the execution of Montreal, nor that of Pandulfo di Guido–it was from a gabelle on wine and salt that he fell. To preserve Rome from the tyrants it was necessary to maintain an armed force; to pay the force a tax was necessary; the tax was imposed—and the multitude joined with the tyrants, and their cry was, “Perish the traitor who has made the gabelle!” This was their only charge—this the only crime that their passions and their fury could cite against him.

The faults of Rienzi are sufficiently visible, and I have not unsparingly shewn them; but we must judge men, not according as they approach perfection, but according as their good or bad qualities preponderate—their talents or their weaknesses—the benefits they effected, the evil they wrought. For a man who rose to so great a power, Rienzi’s faults were singularly few—crimes he committed none. He is almost the only man who ever rose from the rank of a citizen to a power equal to that of monarchs without a single act of violence or treachery. When in power, he was vain, ostentatious, and imprudent,—always an enthusiast—often a fanatic; but his very faults had greatness of soul, and his very fanaticism at once supported his enthusiastic daring, and proved his earnest honesty. It is evident that no heinous charge could be brought against him even by his enemies, for all the accusations to which he was subjected, when excommunicated, exiled, fallen, were for two offences which Petrarch rightly deemed the proofs of his virtue and his glory: first, for declaring Rome to be free; secondly, for pretending that the Romans had a right of choice in the election of the Roman Emperor. (The charge of heresy was dropped.) Stern, just, and inflexible, as he was when Tribune, his fault was never that of wanton cruelty. The accusation against him, made by the gentle Petrarch, indeed, was that he was not determined enough—that he did not consummate the revolution by exterminating the patrician tyrants. When Senator, he was, without sufficient ground, accused of avarice in the otherwise just and necessary execution of Montreal. (Gibbon, in mentioning the execution of Montreal, omits to state that Montreal was more than suspected of conspiracy and treason to restore the Colonna. Matthew Villani records it as a common belief that such truly was the offence of the Provencal. The biographer of Rienzi gives additional evidence of the fact. Gibbon’s knowledge of this time was superficial. As one instance of this, he strangely enough represents Montreal as the head of the first Free Company that desolated Italy: he took that error from the Pere du Cerceau.) It was natural enough that his enemies and the vulgar should suppose that he executed a creditor to get rid of a debt; but it was inexcusable in later, and wiser, and fairer writers to repeat so grave a calumny, without at least adding the obvious suggestion, that the avarice of Rienzi could have been much better gratified by sparing than by destroying the life of one of the richest subjects in Europe. Montreal, we may be quite sure, would have purchased his life at an immeasurably higher price than the paltry sum lent to Rienzi by his brothers. And this is not a probable hypothesis, but a certain fact, for we are expressly told that Montreal, “knowing the Tribune was in want of money, offered Rienzi, that if he would let him go, he, Montreal, would furnish him not only with twenty thousand florins, (four times the amount of Rienzi’s debt to him,) but with as many soldiers and as much money as he pleased.” This offer Rienzi did not attend to. Would he have rejected it had avarice been his motive? And what culpable injustice, to mention the vague calumny without citing the practical contradiction! When Gibbon tells us, also, that “the most virtuous citizen of Rome,” meaning Pandulfo, or Pandolficcio di Guido, (Matthew Villani speaks of him as a wise and good citizen, of great repute among the People—and this, it seems, he really was.) was sacrificed to his jealousy, he a little exaggerates the expression bestowed upon Pandulfo, which is that of “virtuoso assai;” and that expression, too, used by a man who styles the robber Montreal, “eccellente uomo—di quale fama suono per tutta la Italia di virtude” (“An excellent man whose fame for valour resounded throughout all Italy.”)—(so good a moral critic was the writer!) but he also altogether waves all mention of the probabilities that are sufficiently apparent, of the scheming of Pandulfo to supplant Rienzi, and to obtain the “Signoria del Popolo.” Still, however, if the death of Pandulfo may be considered a blot on the memory of Rienzi, it does not appear that it was this which led to his own fate. The cry of the mob surrounding his palace was not, “Perish him who executed Pandulfo,” it was—and this again and again must be carefully noted—it was nothing more nor less than, “Perish him who has made the gabelle!”

Gibbon sneers at the military skill and courage of Rienzi. For this sneer there is no cause. His first attempts, his first rise, attested sufficiently his daring and brave spirit; in every danger he was present—never shrinking from a foe so long as he was supported by the People. He distinguished himself at Viterbo when in the camp of Albornoz, in several feats of arms, (“Vita di Cola di Rienzi”, lib. ii. cap. 14.) and his end was that of a hero. So much for his courage; as to his military skill; it would be excusable enough if Rienzi—the eloquent and gifted student, called from the closet and the rostrum to assume the command of an army—should have been deficient in the art of war; yet, somehow or other, upon the whole, his arms prospered. He defeated the chivalry of Rome at her gates; and if he did not, after his victory, march to Marino, for which his biographer (In this the anonymous writer compares him gravely to Hannibal, who knew how to conquer, but not how to use his conquest.) and Gibbon blame him, the reason is sufficiently clear—“Volea pecunia per soldati”—he wanted money for the soldiers! On his return as Senator, it must be remembered that he had to besiege Palestrina, which was considered even by the ancient Romans almost impregnable by position; but during the few weeks he was in power, Palestrina yielded—all his open enemies were defeated—the tyrants expelled—Rome free; and this without support from any party, Papal or Popular, or, as Gibbon well expresses it, “suspected by the People—abandoned by the Prince.”