Leonora D'Orco: A Historical Romance

by G. P. R. James

While speaking he advanced to the side of the litter, and aided Leonora to descend. She was somewhat paler than usual, for the feeling of being in a strange city, occupied suddenly by foreign troops, upon whom there was no knowing how soon a fierce and active population might rise, was more terrible to her than even the sight of actual war.

Expectation almost always goes beyond reality both in its fears and in its hopes. It is uncertainty which gives its sting to dread. The cardinal, however, took her by the hand and led her into the court-yard, where a few old men and two or three younger, but perhaps not more serviceable persons, were assembled in arms, and turning sharp to the right ascended the great staircase to the principal apartments of the palace. A magnificent hall and several large saloons intervened between the first landing and the smaller cabinet in which Mona Francesca awaited her visitors.

What a different personage presented herself at length to the eyes of Leonora and Lorenzo from that which either had expected to behold.

The one had pictured her distant cousin as a tall, thin, acerb-looking Madonna, more fitted for the cloister than the world. The other had figured her as a portly commanding dame, to whose behests all were to bow obsequiously. But there sat the future guardian of Leonora, the picture of good-humoured indolence. The remains of a very beautiful face, a countenance rather sweet than firm, a figure which might have once been pretty, but which was now approaching the obese, a pretty foot stretched out from beneath her dress, with fine hair and teeth, made up almost altogether the sum of Mona Francesca. She had been for ten years a virtuous wife. She had been for twelve or thirteen years a discreet and virtuous widow. She loved her ease and her independence too well to risk again matrimony, once tried, and with some feelings of devotion, and a good deal both of time and money to spare, she had gained with the clergy and with the religious orders of Florence almost the character of a saint--by doing nothing either wrong or right.

She welcomed Leonora kindly, and perhaps none the less that she was accompanied by a young and handsome cavalier,--for though her weaknesses never deviated into indiscretions, he had a great taste for the beautiful, and was a true connoisseur of masculine beauty. She made Leonora sit beside her, and gave Lorenzo her jewelled hand to kiss, entering with him at once into a conversation which might have been long, had not the impatient cardinal interfered.

"Well, well," he exclaimed, "you can talk with him about all that hereafter. You will have plenty of time. At present we must follow the king to the Podesta."

"Stay, stay," cried Mona Francesca. "Do not forget he is to leave twenty men on guard. Ah! I fear those dreadful Frenchmen terribly! They tell me the widows suffered more than any at Vivizano."

"I doubt it," said the cardinal; but Lorenzo consoled her, by assuring her that twenty men should certainly be left to protect her, without adding that they were all those dreadful Frenchmen whom she seemed to fear so much; and then followed the cardinal to the court-yard, where his arrangements were soon made. A French ensign was hung out above the great gate, a couple of soldiers stationed on guard in the street, and a sufficient force left within to ensure the safety of the place against any body of those licentious stragglers which followed all armies in those days in even greater numbers than they do at present.

In the meantime the cardinal had ridden on, accompanied by his own train; and Lorenzo followed, guiding his men himself through the well-remembered streets, where so much of his own young life had been spent. It was not without some uneasiness that he marked the aspect of the city. There was many a sign, or rather many an indication that though the Florentines had admitted the army of the King of France within their walls, they were prepared to resist even in their own streets, any attempt at tyrannical domination. Few persons appeared out of shelter of the houses, and those few were well armed. But the multitudes of faces at the windows, and the glance of steel at every door that happened even to be partly open, showed a state of preparation equal to the occasion, and the youth, calculating the chances of a struggle between the army and the population of the city, should a conflict arise, could not but come to the conclusion that, shut up in streets and squares of which they knew nothing, surrounded by houses, every one of which was a fortress, and opposed by a body vastly more numerous, the French force might find all its military skill and discipline unavailing, and have cause to rue the rash confidence of the king.

Just as he was entering upon that great square, near which are collected so many inestimable treasures of art, a man fully armed, started forth from a gateway, and laid his hand upon his horse's rein. Lorenzo laid his hand upon his sword; but the other without raising his visor, addressed him by name in a stern voice: "I little thought to see you here, with a foreign invader, Lorenzo Visconti," he said, "but mark me, and let your king know. Florence will be trodden down by no foreign despot. Let him be moderate in his demands, calm and peaceful in his demeanour, or he will leave his last man in these streets should we all perish in resisting insolence or tyranny. Look around you as you go, and you will see that every house is filled with our citizens or peasantry; and though willing to concede much for peace, we are ready to dare all for liberty. Let this be enough between us. Ride on, and ride fast, for on this very moment hangs a destiny. At the first sound of the bell, a conflict will begin that will seal the fate of Italy. Ride on, I say. You know our customs. Take care that the bell does not ring."