The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller

by Calvin Thomas

The bare facts of Fiesco's conspiracy, related with as little ascription of motive as possible, are these: In the year 1528 Andrea Doria, who had won great distinction as an admiral in the French service, but had now quarreled with the King of France and hoisted the colors of Emperor Charles the Fifth, landed an expedition in Genoa and captured the city from the French. Historians agree that he could easily have made himself sovereign, but instead of doing so he restored the old aristocratic republic, thus winning for himself the enduring title of 'father and liberator of his country.' Although Doria was simply an influential citizen of Genoa and enjoyed the general esteem of his countrymen, his prominence in the state gave rise to animosities among the noble families, and these were increased when he made his young and headstrong kinsman, Gianettino, his heir. In the year 1547 the malcontents found a leader in the person of Giovanni Ludovigi Fiesco, Count of Lavagna. Fiesco was young, handsome, rich and ambitious—a dashing and unscrupulous cavalier. His first thought was to restore the French domination and make himself only a viceroy of the French king; but a fellow conspirator, Verrina, persuaded him to seize for himself the sovereign power to which his rank and talents entitled him. The conspiracy was carefully matured, Fiesco meanwhile, to divert suspicion, acting the part of a giddy spendthrift and man of fashion. On the night of January 2, 1547, the conspirators made their attack upon the city. Gianettino Doria was killed, but the aged Andrea made his escape. The success of Fiesco appeared to be complete, but as he was going on board a galley the gang-plank turned, he fell into the sea and his heavy armor bore him down. Without a leader the conspiracy instantly collapsed. On the following day Andrea returned and the Genoese republic went on as before,

It was a hint from Rousseau that suggested to Schiller, during his last year in the academy, the idea of dramatizing this episode of Genoese history. In the German 'Memoirs of Rousseau' by H.P. Sturz, referred to in the preceding chapter, he found Rousseau quoted as follows:

The reason why Plutarch wrote such noble biographies is that he never selected half-great men, such as exist by the thousands in quiet states, but grand exemplars of virtue or sublime criminals. In modern history there is a man deserving of his brush, and that is Count Fiesco, whose training made him the very man to liberate his country from the rule of the Dorias…. There was no other thought in his soul than to dethrone the usurper.[42]

Here was a tempting theme for a young dramatist who had fed his own soul upon Plutarch, was enamored of 'greatness' in whatever form, and had already tried his hand upon a 'sublime criminal.' What could be better for his purpose than a daring conspiracy, led by a Plutarchian hero who was at the same time a single-minded patriot? In his earliest musings it is probable that Schiller accepted Rousseau's view of Fiesco at its face value, and when he began to consult the historians he found at first some support for his preconception. Among his sources was the 'Conjuration du Comte de Fiesque', by De Retz; a book which was written, according to a somewhat doubtful tradition, when its author was but eighteen years old, and which, by its clever perversion of history and its subtle insinuation of revolutionary ideas, is said to have drawn from Richelieu the comment: 'There is a dangerous man!'[43] In the sophisticated narrative of De Retz Fiesco appears as a modern Brutus, whose thought of personal aggrandizement was altogether subordinate to the thought of his country's welfare. He is made much better than he really was, and the two Dorias much worse.

Further study of the subject, however, soon opened the eyes of Schiller to the other side of the question; for in Robertson's 'Charles the Fifth' he found Fiesco portrayed as an ambitious revolutionist who sought to overthrow the Dorias only in order that he might make himself the master of Genoa—in short as a Catiline instead of a Brutus. The dramatic problem then turned from the first upon the character of Fiesco. In the 'Dramaturgic' of Lessing the doctrine had been proclaimed that the dramatist is not bound by the so-called facts of history; that he may deal with them as suits his artistic purpose. But what was the purpose to be in this case? Should it be a tragedy of austere patriotism going down against a relatively bad order too strong to be resisted, or a tragedy of corrupt ambition dashing itself to death against a relatively good order too strong to be overthrown? Either conception, if consistently worked out, might have sufficed for the groundwork of a good historical tragedy. What Schiller did, however, was to vacillate between the two, to blend them in a confusing way, and finally to let the interest of his play turn largely upon the hero's mental struggle between selfish ambition and unselfish patriotism.

The Catiline conception required an avenger of Genoa, for it was evident[44] that the accidental drowning of Fiesco in the moment of his triumph would never do in a play. It was necessary that his death appear as a punishment, a nemesis. So for the role of avenger Schiller invented a stern patriot to whom, without historical warrant, he gave the name of Verrina. Verrina is the real Brutus. To furnish the conspirators with a definite grievance Gianettino was made to violate the helpless Bertha, who was then provided with an avenger in the person of the young Bourgognino. Leonora, the wife of Fiesco, is historical. Robertson relates that on the night of the uprising Fiesco went to take leave of his wife, "whom he loved with tender affection." He found her "in all the anguish of uncertainty and fear"; and her terror was increased when she learned what was on foot. She endeavored by her tears and entreaties and her despair to divert him from his purpose. But in vain; he left her with the exclamation: "Farewell! You shall either never see me more, or you shall behold to-morrow everything in Genoa subject to your power." On the other hand, the intrigue of Fiesco and Julia, the sister of Gianettino, is unhistorical. It was invented by Schiller as a part of the general scheme of duplicity and frivolity by which Fiesco should seek to quiet the suspicion of the Dorias. If this particular invention was upon the whole unfortunate—the matter will be discussed further on,—the same cannot be said of the Moor Hassan, who becomes Fiesco's factotum and ends his career on the gallows. The rascally Moor is the most picturesque figure and the most telling role in the whole piece.

Schiller introduces Fiesco as a seemingly frivolous roué, flirting desperately with the Countess Julia, to the great torment of his wife Leonora. We soon see, however, that the frivolity is only a mask: he has a serious purpose and that purpose is to make himself master of Genoa. At first, indeed, he toys with the idea of a nobler fame. In a soliloquy at the end of the second act he exclaims: 'To conquer a diadem is grand; to throw it away is divine. Down, tyrant! Let Genoa be free and me be its happiest citizen!' But this mood does not long withstand the intoxication of power. To rule, to rule alone, to feel that Genoa owes everything to him only,—this soon becomes his all-absorbing ambition. At the last, when the revolution has succeeded, he puts on the ducal purple and the people are ready to acquiesce in the new régime. But old Verrina is not so tractable. When he cannot prevail upon Fiesco to doff the hateful insignia, he pushes him into the sea and exclaims in disgust: 'I am going to Andrea!'

Such a scheme, it is evident, does not provide for a 'republican tragedy', except in a very loose sense. If we had a republican idealist pitting his strength against a tyrant and going down in the battle, either because of his adversary's superior strength or because of some weakness in his own character, that would be a tragedy of republicanism. In Schiller's play, however, the conflict is not of that character. At heart Fiesco is never a republican, though he sometimes takes his mouth full of fine republican phrases. His mainspring of action is not the welfare of Genoa, but his own aggrandizement. Old Andrea, whose power he plots to overthrow and whose magnanimity puts him to shame, is actually a better man than he. If he has a measure of our sympathy in his feud with the younger Doria, that is only because Gianettino is portrayed as a vulgar brute deserving of nothing but the gallows. Politically there is little to choose between the two, so long as we regard virtue as consisting in an unselfish devotion to an ideal of republican liberty.

The character of Fiesco being what it is, his final catastrophe produces no very clear impression. One does not see precisely what bearing it is to have on the political fortunes of Genoa. At first blush the conclusion seems to mean that the state has been saved from the clutches of a tyrant who was about to subvert its liberties. But if we look at the matter in that light we have a tragedy, not of republicanism, but of the "vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself and falls on the other." With the usurper Fiesco, and the brute Gianettino, out of the way, the state returns to the good regimen of Andrea, who represents the only republicanism then thinkable, democracy in the modern sense being nowhere in question. But it is doubtful whether Schiller intends Fiesco to be thus reprobated. The hot-blooded Italian has certain traits that win sympathy; and even his consuming ambition is so invested with a glamour of romantic enthusiasm that it is difficult to reckon him among the dangerous tyrants. If he is false to his better nature, we at any rate see that he has a better nature. One is thus tempted to regard Verrina's act as that of a madman who cares more for form than for substance and sees danger where there is none.

For Verrina, who plays the part of Brutus to his country's Caesar and seems to represent the sternest type of republican virtue, is a repulsive fanatic. The horrible curse that he pronounces upon his daughter when he hears that she has been outraged is significant at once for his character and for the young Schiller's notion of tragic pathos. Throwing a black veil over her head he vociferates thus: