Rienzi [253]
soldiers mastered Rome, overthrew their liberties, and restored their tyrants! Whatever Rienzi's sins, whatever his unpopularity, their freedom, their laws, their republic, were at stake; and these they surrendered to one hundred and fifty hirelings! This is the fact that damns them! But Rienzi was not unpopular when he addressed and conjured them: they found no fault with him. "The sighs and the groans of the People," says Sismondi, justly, "replied to his," - they could weep, but they would not fight. This strange apathy the modern historians have not accounted for, yet the principal cause was obvious - Rienzi was excommunicated! (And this curse I apprehend to have been the more effective in the instance of Rienzi, from a fact that it would be interesting and easy to establish: viz., that he owed his rise as much to religious as to civil causes. He aimed evidently to be a religious Reformer. All his devices, ceremonies, and watchwords, were of a religious character. The monks took part with his enterprise, and joined in the revolution. His letters are full of mystical fanaticism. His references to ancient heroes of Rome are always mingled with invocations to her Christian Saints. The Bible, at that time little read by the public civilians of Italy, is constantly in his hands, and his addresses studded with texts. His very garments were adorned with sacred and mysterious emblems. No doubt, the ceremony of his Knighthood, which Gibbon ridicules as an act of mere vanity, was but another of his religious extravagances; for he peculiarly dedicated his Knighthood to the service of the Santo Spirito; and his bathing in the vase of Constantine was quite of a piece, not with the vanity of the Tribune, but with the extravagance of the Fanatic. In fact, they tried hard to prove him a heretic; but he escaped a charge under the mild Innocent, which a century or two before, or a century or two afterwards, would have sufficed to have sent a dozen Rienzis to the stake. I have dwelt the more upon this point, because, if it be shown that religious causes operated with those of liberty, we throw a new light upon the whole of that most extraordinary revolution, and its suddenness is infinitely less striking. The deep impression Rienzi produced upon that populace was thus stamped with the spirit of the religious enthusiast more than that of the classical demagogue. And, as in the time of Cromwell, the desire for temporal liberty was warmed and coloured by the presence of a holier and more spiritual fervour: - "The Good Estate" (Buono Stato) of Rienzi reminds us a little of the Good Cause of General Cromwell.) In stating the fact, these writers have seemed to think that excommunication in Rome, in the fourteenth century, produced no effect! - the effect it did produce I have endeavoured in these pages to convey.
The causes of the second fall and final murder of Rienzi are equally misstated by modern narrators. It was from no fault of his - no injustice, no cruelty, no extravagance - it was not from the execution of Montreal, nor that of Pandulfo di Guido - it was from a gabelle on wine and salt that he fell. To preserve Rome from the tyrants it was necessary to maintain an armed force; to pay the force a tax was necessary; the tax was imposed - and the multitude joined with the tyrants, and their cry was, "Perish the traitor who has made the gabelle!" This was their only charge - this the only crime that their passions and their fury could cite against him.
The faults of Rienzi are sufficiently visible, and I have not unsparingly shewn them; but we must judge men, not according as they approach perfection, but according as their good or bad qualities preponderate - their talents or their weaknesses - the benefits they effected, the evil they wrought. For a man who rose to so great a power, Rienzi's faults were singularly few - crimes he committed none. He is almost the only man who ever rose from the rank of a citizen to a power equal to that of monarchs without a single act of violence or treachery. When in
The causes of the second fall and final murder of Rienzi are equally misstated by modern narrators. It was from no fault of his - no injustice, no cruelty, no extravagance - it was not from the execution of Montreal, nor that of Pandulfo di Guido - it was from a gabelle on wine and salt that he fell. To preserve Rome from the tyrants it was necessary to maintain an armed force; to pay the force a tax was necessary; the tax was imposed - and the multitude joined with the tyrants, and their cry was, "Perish the traitor who has made the gabelle!" This was their only charge - this the only crime that their passions and their fury could cite against him.
The faults of Rienzi are sufficiently visible, and I have not unsparingly shewn them; but we must judge men, not according as they approach perfection, but according as their good or bad qualities preponderate - their talents or their weaknesses - the benefits they effected, the evil they wrought. For a man who rose to so great a power, Rienzi's faults were singularly few - crimes he committed none. He is almost the only man who ever rose from the rank of a citizen to a power equal to that of monarchs without a single act of violence or treachery. When in