The Makers of Modern Rome, in Four Books

by Mrs. Oliphant

Accordingly, with all the strength he could muster—a troop of 250 free lances, Germans and Burgundians, the same number of infantry from Tuscany, with fifty young men of good families in Perugia—a very tolerable army for the time—and the two young Provençals, along with other youths to whom he had promised various offices, the new Senator set out for Rome. He was now a legal official, with all the strength of the Pope and constituted authority behind him; not a penny of money it is true from the Legate, and only those four thousand florins in his treasury: but with all the taxes and offerings in Rome in front of him, and the highest promise of success. It was a very different beginning from that of seven years ago, when young, penniless, disinterested, with no grandeur to keep up, and no soldiers to pay, he had been borne by the shouting populace to the Capitol to an unlimited and impossible empire. He was now a sober man, experienced in the world, forty, and trained by the intercourse of courts, in other ways than those of his youth. He had now been taught how to scheme and plot, to cajole and flatter, to play one party against another, and change his plans to suit his circumstances. So far as we know, he had no motive that could be called bad, except that of achieving the splendour he loved, and surrounding himself with the paraphernalia of greatness. The devil surely never before used so small a bribe to corrupt a nature full of so many fine things. He meant to establish the Buono Stato, probably as sincerely as of old. He had learned that he could not put forth the same unlimited pretensions. The making of emperors and sway of the world had to be resigned; but there is no evidence that he did not mean to carry out in his new reign the high designs for his city, and for the peace and prosperity of the surrounding country, which he had so triumphantly succeeded in doing for that one happy and triumphant moment in his youth.

TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA

CHAPTER VI.
THE END OF THE TRAGEDY.

It was in the beginning of August 1354 that Rienzi returned to Rome. Great preparations had been made for his reception. The municipal guards, with all the cavalry that were in Rome, went out as far as Monte Mario to meet him, with branches of olive in their hands, "in sign of victory and peace. The people were as joyful as if he had been Scipio Africanus," our biographer says. He came in by the gate of the Castello, near St. Angelo, and went thence direct to the centre of the city, through streets adorned with triumphal arches, hung with tapestry, resounding with acclamations.

"Great was the delight and fervour of the people. With all these honours they led him to the Palazzo of the Capitol. There he made them a beautiful and eloquent speech, in which he said that for seven years he had been absent from his house, like Nebuchadnezzar; but by the power of God he had returned to his seat and was Senator by the appointment of the Pope. He added that he meant to rectify everything and raise up the condition of Rome. The rejoicing of the Romans was as great as was that of the Jews when Jesus Christ entered Jerusalem riding upon an ass. They all honoured him, hanging out draperies and olive branches, and singing 'Blessed is he that cometh.' When all was over they returned to their homes and left him alone with his followers in the Piazza. No one offered him so much as a poor repast. The following day Cola di Rienzi received several ambassadors from the surrounding country. Deh! how well he answered. He gave replies and promises on every side. The barons remained on the watch, taking no part. The tumult of the triumph was great. Never had there been so much pomp. The infantry lined the streets. It seemed as if he meant to govern in the way of the tyrants. Most of the goods he had forfeited were restored to him. He sent out letters to all the States to declare his happy return, and he desired that every one should prepare for the Buono Stato. This man was greatly changed from his former ways. It had been his habit to be sober, temperate, abstinent. Now he became an excessive drinker, and consumed much wine. And he became large and gross in his person. He had a paunch like a tun, triumphal, like an Abbate Asinico. He was full of flesh, red, with a long beard. His countenance was changed, his eyes were as if they were inflamed—sometimes they were red as blood."

This uncompromising picture of a man whom adversity had not improved but deteriorated, is very broad and coarse with those personalities which the mob loves. Yet his biographer does not seem to have been hostile to Rienzi. He goes on to describe how the new senator on the fourth day after his arrival sent a summons to all the barons to present themselves before him, and among others he summoned Stefanello Colonna who had been a child at the time of the dreadful rout of San Lorenzo, but was now head of the house, his noble old heart-broken grandfather being by this time happily dead. It was scarcely likely that the third Stefano should receive that summons in friendship. He seized the two messengers and threw them into prison, then after a time had the teeth of one drawn, an insulting infliction, and despatched the other to Rome to demand a ransom for them: following this up by a great raid upon the surrounding country, in which his lightly armed and flying forces "lifted" the cattle of the Romans as might have been done by the emissaries of a Highland chief. Rienzi seems to have rushed to arms, collecting a great miscellaneous gathering, "some armed, some without arms, according as time permitted" to recover the cattle. But they were misled by an artifice of the most transparent description, and stumbled on as far as Tivoli without finding any opponent. Here he was stopped by the mercenaries clamouring for their pay, which he adroitly obtained from the two young commanders, Arimbaldo and Bettrom, by representing to them that when such a difficulty arose in classical times it was met by the chief citizens who immediately subscribed what was necessary. The apparently simple-minded young men (Bettrom or Bertram having apparently got over his ill-temper) gave him 500 florins each, and so the trouble was got over for the moment, and the march towards Palestrina was resumed. But the expedition was quite futile, neither Rienzi nor the young men whom he had placed at the head of affairs knowing much about the science of war. There were dissensions in the camp, the men of Velletri having a feud with those of Tivoli; and the picture which the biographer affords us of the leaders looking on, seeing a train of cattle and provision waggons entering the town which they were by way of besieging, and inquiring innocently what it was, gives the most vivid impression of the ignorance and helplessness which reigned in the attacking party: while Stefanello Colonna, to the manner born, surrounded by old warriors and fighting for his life, defended his old towers with skill as well as desperation.

While the Romans thus lost their chances of victory and occupied themselves with that destruction of the surrounding country, which was the first word of warfare in those days—the peasants and the villages always suffering, whoever might escape—there was news brought to Rienzi's camp of the arrival in Rome of the terrible Fra Moreale himself, who had arrived in all confidence, with but a small party in his train, in the city for which his brothers were fighting and in which his money formed the only treasury of war. He was a bold man and used to danger; but it did not seem that any idea of danger had occurred to him. There had been whispers among the mercenaries that the great Captain entertained no amiable feelings towards the Senator who had beguiled his young brothers into this dubious warfare: and this report would seem to have come to Rienzi's ears: but that Fra Moreale stood in any danger from Rienzi does not seem to have occurred to any spectator.