Pompeo Medici rode up, attended by an esquire, to the bodies, and dismounting, unlaced the helmet of the fallen cavalier, across whom the body of the page was extended, as if to protect the form of his master. The dying man turned his countenance to Medici, and with a shudder, fell back dead in an unavailing effort to speak.
“Ha! St. John! whom have we here?” cried Pompeo. “Noble Adimari, view these corpses. My thoughts were not in error. And the page too—”
“By the cross of St. Peter!” said Adimari, “it is no other than the Count Ugolino, and the page is—?”
“Rosabelle De Brienne.”
A deep cloud of sorrow shaded the countenance of Adimari.
“By San Giovanni!” said he, “I sorely mistrusted this. This is that love, stronger than death. Noble Ugolino, an ill-fate hath attended thee! This then hast been the cause of thy desertion, but, by my faith, I cannot blame thee, for thy lady hast the fairest face I ever looked upon.”
“Peace be with their souls!” said Medici. “Death ends all feuds. Cover their faces, and see that they be laid, side by side, in the chapel of the Virgin, with such ceremonies as their high stations demand. Myself shall be, if I live, chief mourner at this burial. Donato, be it thy care to have their bodies conveyed to the Convent of Mercy.”
The siege of the palace continued from day to day. Famine began to gnaw the vitals of the French soldiery, and fixed her tooth, sharper than the sword, beneath each iron cuirass. Rage without and hunger within, popular clamor and mutinous murmurings, accumulated the distress of the duke. In this emergency, he sent the Comte D’Hunteville, his almost only virtuous follower, to intercede with the Florentines, and to make honorable terms of capitulation. Adimari would hearken to no proposals, unless Giulio and Ippolito D’Assisi, and Cerettieri Visdomini, the chief agents of oppression, were delivered into the hands of the people. Gualtieri, impelled by a sense of honor, refused to accede to this demand. Thrice did the chief of the balia, the bishop, and the Siennese envoys, urge to the duke the impossibility of maintaining the palace, and the necessity of complying with the popular will. They met with reiterated denial. The soldiers then sent a corporal to entreat the duke to submission. Their suit was dismissed with scorn. Then did the soldiers crowd, with frowning faces and clashing arms, the chamber of the duke, with the memorable words, “lord duke, choose between these three heads and your own.” Urged by imperious necessity, worn out with famine, and watching, and clamor, Gualtieri, at last, gave a tacit acquiescence to the delivery of his favorites, and the pangs which his proud spirit felt at this ignominious humiliation were far more bitter than any of the tortures which he had inflicted upon the objects of his tyranny. Shall I record the doom of the victims? Is it not written in the chronicles of the Florentine republic? They were torn in pieces by the howling multitude, and their flesh actually devoured, even while their palpitating limbs were quivering in the agonies of death!
Quiet was once more restored to the city by the expulsion of the duke and his followers. The chapel of the Convent of Mercy, hung with black, and faintly lighted by dim and funeral tapers, was prepared for the last death rites of Ugolino and of his lady. Around the bier, where reposed the coffined forms of the dead, were gathered the noblest of Florence, and crowds of the common sort thronged the sacred edifice. The last notes of the pealing requiem died away. The solemn priest sprinkled the holy water, and the last prayer for the dead passed from his lips. The rites were ended, and amid the tears of that noble assemblage the marble jaws of the tomb closed for ever upon the bodies of those, in whom love had indeed been stronger than death.
Still does their sad tale exist among the legends of Florence, and the youths and maidens of that ancient town yet consecrate a tear to the inscription which records the loves and fate of Count Ugolino and of Rosabelle De Brienne. Yet indeed “death can only take away the sorrowful from our affections: the flower expands: the colorless film that enveloped it falls off and perishes.”