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Rienzi, Last of the Roman Tribunes, a novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
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Book 5. The Crisis - Chapter 5.7. The Successors... |
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_ Book V. The Crisis#Chapter 5.7. The Successors Of An Unsuccessful Revolution--Who Is To Blame--The Forsaken One Or The Forsakers?
"My Lord Colonna," said the Cardinal Legate, a small withered man, by birth a Frenchman, and full of the bitterest prejudices against the Romans, who had in a former mission very ill received him, as was their wont with foreign ecclesiastics; "this Pepin, whom Montreal has deputed at your orders, hath done us indeed good service." The old Lord bowed, but made no answer. His strong intellect was already broken, and there was dotage in his glassy eye. The Cardinal muttered, "He hears me not; sorrow hath brought him to second childhood!" and looking back, motioned to Luca Savelli to approach. "Luca," said the Legate, "it was fortunate that the Hungarian's black banner detained the Provencal at Aversa. Had he entered Rome, we might have found Rienzi's successor worse than the Tribune himself. Montreal," he added, with a slight emphasis and a curled lip, "is a gentleman, and a Frenchman. This Pepin, who is his delegate, we must bribe, or menace to our will." "Assuredly," answered Savelli, "it is not a difficult task: for Montreal calculated on a more stubborn contest, which he himself would have found leisure to close--" "As Podesta, or Prince of Rome! the modest man! We Frenchmen have a due sense of our own merits; but this sudden victory surprises him as it doth us, Luca; and we shall wrest the prey from Pepin, ere Montreal can come to his help! But Rienzi must die. He is still, I hear, shut up in St. Angelo. The Orsini shall storm him there ere the day be much older. Today we possess the Capitol--annul all the rebel's laws--break up his ridiculous parliament, and put all the government of the city under three senators--Rinaldo Orsini, Colonna, and myself; you, my Lord, I trust, we shall fitly provide for." "Oh! I am rewarded enough by returning to my palace; and a descent on the Jewellers' quarter will soon build up its fortifications. Luca Savelli is not an ambitious man. He wants but to live in peace." The Cardinal smiled sourly, and took the turn towards the Capitol. In the front space the usual gapers were assembled. "Make way! make way! knaves!" cried the guards, trampling on either side the crowd, who, accustomed to the sedate and courteous order of Rienzi's guard, fell back too slowly for many of them to escape severe injury from the pikes of the soldiers and the hoofs of the horses. Our friend, Luigi, the butcher, was one of these, and the surliness of the Roman blood was past boiling heat when he received in his ample stomach the blunt end of a German's pike. "There, Roman," said the rude mercenary, in his barbarous attempt at Italian, "make way for your betters; you have had enough crowds and shows of late, in all conscience." "Betters!" gulped out the poor butcher; "a Roman has no betters; and if I had not lost two brothers by San Lorenzo, I would--" "The dog is mutinous," said one of the followers of the Orsini, succeeding the German who had passed on, "and talks of San Lorenzo!" "Oh!" said another Orsinist, who rode abreast, "I remember him of old. He was one of Rienzi's gang." "Was he?" said the other, sternly; "then we cannot begin salutary examples too soon;" and, offended at something swaggering and insolent in the butcher's look, the Orsinist coolly thrust him through the heart with his pike, and rode on over his body. "Shame! Shame!" "Murder! Murder!" cried the crowd: and they began to press, in the passion of the moment, round the fierce guards. The Legate heard the cry, and saw the rush: he turned pale. "The rascals rebel again!" he faltered. "No, your Eminence--no," said Luca; "but it may be as well to infuse a wholesome terror; they are all unarmed; let me bid the guards disperse them. A word will do it." The Cardinal assented; the word was given; and, in a few minutes, the soldiery, who still smarted under the vindictive memory of defeat from an undisciplined multitude, scattered the crowd down the streets without scruple or mercy--riding over some, spearing others--filling the air with shrieks and yells, and strewing the ground with almost as many men as a few days before would have sufficed to have guarded Rome, and preserved the constitution! Through this wild, tumultuous scene, and over the bodies of its victims, rode the Legate and his train, to receive in the Hall of the Capitol the allegiance of the citizens, and to proclaim the return of the oppressors. As they dismounted at the stairs, a placard in large letters struck the eye of the Legate. It was placed upon the pedestal of the Lion of Basalt, covering the very place that had been occupied by the bull of excommunication. The words were few, and ran thus: "TREMBLE! RIENZI SHALL RETURN!" "How! what means this mummery!" cried the Legate, trembling already, and looking round to the nobles. "Please your Eminence," said one of the councillors, who had come from the Capitol to meet the Legate, "we saw it at daybreak, the ink yet moist, as we entered the Hall. We deemed it best to leave it for your Eminence to deal with." "You deemed! Who are you, then?" "One of the members of the Council, your Eminence, and a stanch opponent of the Tribune, as is well known, when he wanted the new tax--" "Council--trash! No more councils now! Order is restored at last. The Orsini and the Colonna will look to you in future. Resist a tax, did you? Well, that was right when proposed by a tyrant; but I warn you, friend, to take care how you resist the tax we shall impose. Happy if your city can buy its peace with the Church on any terms:--and his Holiness is short of the florins." The discomfited councillor shrank back. "Tear off yon insolent placard. Nay, hold! fix over it our proclamation of ten thousand florins for the heretic's head! Ten thousand? methinks that is too much now--we will alter the cipher. Meanwhile Rinaldo Orsini, Lord Senator, march thy soldiers to St. Angelo; let us see if the heretic can stand a siege." "It needs not, your Eminence," said the councillor, again officiously bustling up; "St. Angelo is surrendered. The Tribune, his wife, and one page, escaped last night, it is said, in disguise." "Ha!" said the old Colonna, whose dulled sense had at length arrived at the conclusion that something extraordinary arrested the progress of his friends. "What is the matter? What is that placard? Will no one tell me the words? My old eyes are dim." As he uttered the questions, in the shrill and piercing treble of age, a voice replied in a loud and deep tone--none knew whence it came; the crowd was reduced to a few stragglers, chiefly friars in cowl and serge, whose curiosity nought could daunt, and whose garb ensured them safety--the soldiers closed the rear: a voice, I say, came, startling the colour from many a cheek--in answer to the Colonna, saying: "TREMBLE! RIENZI SHALL RETURN!" _ |
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