He drew farther back into the shadow of the gateway. It may seem strange that he did so; for even in distracted England, in those days as well as afterward, the first impulse of the lodger in an inn was to meet the coming guest and obtain the general tidings which he brought, and which were hardly to be obtained from any other source. But in Italy men had learned such caution that every stranger was considered an enemy till he was ascertained to be a friend. The evils of high civilization were upon the land, without any of its benefits; nay, more, this had endured so long that suspicion might almost be looked upon as the normal condition of the Italian mind.
The republics of Italy have been highly extolled by eloquent men, but their results were all evil except in one respect. They served to preserve a memory of the arts--to rescue, in fact, something which might decorate life from the wreck of perished years. In thus speaking, I include commerce with the arts. But as to social advancement, they did nothing except through the instrumentality of those arts. They endeavoured to revive ancient forms unsuited to the epoch; they succeeded in so doing only for the briefest possible period, and the effort ended everywhere, first in anarchy, and then in despotism--each equally destructive to individual happiness, to general security, and to public morals. They afforded a spectacle, at once humiliating and terrible, of the impotence of the human mind to stem the strong, calm current of pre-ordained events. Their brief existence, their lamentable failure, the brightness of their short course, and the evils consequent upon the attempts to recall rotten institutions from millennial graves, were but as the last flash of the expiring candle of old Rome, ending in darkness and a bad smell. For more than two centuries, at the time I speak of, life and property in Italy had enjoyed no security except in the continual watchfulness of the possessor. The minds of men were armed as well as their bodies, and thus had been engendered that suspicion and that constant watchfulness which rendered life a mere campaign, because the world was one battlefield.
Oh! happy state under the old Saxon king of England, when from one end to the other of the bright island a young girl might carry a purse of gold unmolested!
Antonio drew back as the travellers approached to hear something of who and what they were before he ventured to deal with them personally. They were within a few yards of him in a minute, drawing in the rein when they came opposite the archway leading to the stable-yard. There the first challenge of a sentinel was heard, and the answer given, "Amici!" showed that they were Italians.
The word was uttered quickly and in a tone of surprise, which showed they were unaware the borgo had been occupied by the French troops; but, after a few whispered sentences, one of the four who had newly arrived asked the sentinel, in marvellous bad French, to call the landlord or one of the horse-boys. They wanted food for themselves and horses, they said, and hoped to find some place to rest in for the night.
The sentinel grumbled forth something to the effect that they were much mistaken, but, raising his stentorian voice, he called the people of the house into the courtyard; and Antonio gazed forth and scrutinised the appearance of the new-comers for a minute or two, while they made their application for entertainment, and heard all the objections and difficulties laid before them by the landlord, who was already overcrowded, but unwilling to lose certain lire which they might expend in his house.
"I can but feed your horses in the yard, and give you some straw and covering for yourselves, Signor Sacchi," replied the landlord; "and then you must lie on the floor of the hall."
The leading horseman turned to consult with his three companions, saying, "He told us to wait him here if he came not in an hour."
"Nay, I understood, if he came not in an hour," replied another, "we were to conclude he had obtained entertainment in the Villa--, which the count's letter was sure to secure for him; but I did not hear him say we were to come back here, as I told you long ago, Sacchi."
But before they had proceeded even thus far, Antonio had re-entered the house, and was conversing eagerly with the young Marquis de Vitry.