LORD LYTTON ON THE SPEECH OF RIENZI
The bell of the great Lateran church sounded shrill and loud, as the mighty multitude, greater even than that of the preceding night, swept on. The appointed officers made way with difficulty for the barons and ambassadors, and scarcely were those noble visitors admitted ere the crowd closed in their ranks, poured headlong into the church, and took the way to the chapel of Boniface VIII. There, filling every cranny, and blocking up the entrance, the more fortunate of the press beheld the tribune surrounded by the splendid court his genius had collected, and his fortune had subdued. At length, as the solemn and holy music began to swell through the edifice, preluding the celebration of the mass, the tribune stepped forth, and the hush of the music was increased by the universal and dead silence of the audience. His height, his air, his countenance, were such as always commanded the attention of crowds; and at this time they received every adjunct from the interest of the occasion, and that peculiar look of intent yet suppressed fervour, which is, perhaps, the sole gift of the eloquent that nature alone can give.
“Be it known,” said he, slowly and deliberately, “in virtue of that authority, power, and jurisdiction, which the Roman people, in general parliament, have assigned to us, and which the sovereign pontiff hath confirmed, that we, not ungrateful of the gift and grace of the Holy Spirit—whose soldier we now are—nor of the favour of the Roman people, declare that Rome, capital of the world, and base of the Christian church, and that every city, state, and people of Italy, are henceforth free. By that freedom, and in the same consecrated authority, we proclaim that the election, jurisdiction, and monarchy of the Roman Empire appertain to Rome and Rome’s people, and the whole of Italy. We cite, then, and summon personally, the illustrious princes, Ludwig duke of Bavaria, and Charles king of Bohemia, who would style themselves emperors of Italy, to appear before us, or the other magistrates of Rome, to plead and to prove their claim between this day and the Day of Pentecost. We cite also, and within the same term, the duke of Saxony, the prince of Brandenburg, and whosoever else, potentate, prince, or prelate, asserts the right of elector to the imperial throne—a right that, we find it chronicled from ancient and immemorial time, appertaineth only to the Roman people—and this in vindication of our civil liberties, without derogation of the spiritual power of the church, the pontiff, and the sacred college.[15] Herald, proclaim the citation, at the greater and more formal length, as written and entrusted to your hands, without the Lateran.”
As Rienzi concluded this bold proclamation of the liberties of Italy, the Tuscan ambassadors, and those of some other of the free states, murmured low approbation. The ambassadors of those states that affected the party of the emperor looked at each other in silent amaze and consternation. The Roman barons remained with mute lips and downcast eyes; only over the aged face of Stefano Colonna settled a smile, half of scorn, half of exultation. But the great mass of the citizens were caught by words that opened so grand a prospect as the emancipation of all Italy; and the reverence of the tribune’s power and fortune was almost that due to a supernatural being; so that they did not pause to calculate the means which were to correspond with the boast.
Ruins of the Temple of Nerva
While his eye roved over the crowd, the gorgeous assemblage near him, the devoted throng beyond; as on his ear boomed the murmur of thousands and ten thousands, in the space without, from before the palace of Constantine (palace now his own!) sworn to devote life and fortune to his cause; in the flush of prosperity that yet had known no check; in the zenith of power, as yet unconscious of reverse, the heart of the tribune swelled proudly; visions of mighty fame and limitless dominion; fame and dominion once his beloved Rome’s, and by him to be restored, rushed before his intoxicated gaze; and in the delirious and passionate aspirations of the moment, he turned his sword alternately to the three quarters of the then known globe, and said, in an abstracted voice, as a man in a dream, “In the right of the Roman people this too is mine!”
Low though the voice, the wild boast was heard by all around as distinctly as if borne to them in thunder. And vain it were to describe the various sensations it excited; the extravagance would have moved the derision of his foes, the grief of his friends, but for the manner of the speaker, which, solemn and commanding, hushed for the moment even reason and hatred themselves in awe; afterwards remembered and repeated, void of the spell they had borrowed from the utterer, the words met the cold condemnation of the well-judging; but at that moment all things seemed possible to the hero of the people. He spoke as one inspired—they trembled and believed; and, as rapt from the spectacle, he stood a moment silent, his arms still extended, his dark dilating eye fixed upon space, his lips parted, his proud head towering and erect above the herd, his own enthusiasm kindled that of the more humble and distant spectators; and there was a deep murmur begun by one, echoed by the rest, “The Lord is with Italy and Rienzi!”
The tribune turned, he saw the pope’s vicar astonished, bewildered, rising to speak. His sense and foresight returned to him at once, and, resolved to drown the dangerous disavowal of the papal authority for this hardihood, which was ready to burst from Raymond’s lips, he motioned quickly to the musicians, and the solemn and ringing chant of the sacred ceremony prevented the bishop of Orvieto all occasion of self-exoneration or reply.
The moment the ceremony was over, Rienzi touched the bishop, and whispered, “We will explain this to your liking. You feast with us at the Lateran. Your arm.” Nor did he leave the good bishop’s arm, nor trust him to other companionship, until to the stormy sound of horn and trumpet, drum and cymbal, and amidst such a concourse as might have hailed, on the same spot, the legendary baptism of Constantine, the tribune and his nobles entered the great gates of the Lateran, then the palace of the world.
Thus ended that remarkable ceremony and that proud challenge of the northern powers, in behalf of the Italian liberties, which, had it been afterwards successful, would have been deemed a sublime daring; which, unsuccessful, has been construed by the vulgar into a frantic insolence; but which, calmly considering all the circumstances that urged on the tribune, and all the power that surrounded him, was not, perhaps, altogether so imprudent as it seemed. And, even accepting that imprudence in the extremest sense, by the more penetrating judge of the higher order of character, it will probably be considered as the magnificent folly of a bold nature, excited at once by position and prosperity, by religious credulities, by patriotic aspirings, by scholastic visions too suddenly transferred from reverie to action, beyond that wise and earthward policy which sharpens the weapon ere it casts the gauntlet.[e]