Transcriber's Notes:
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(the New York Public Library)
DÜRR'S COLLECTION OF STANDARD
AMERICAN AND BRITISH
AUTHORS.
EDITED
BY
WILLIAM E. DRUGULIN.
VOL. 50.
LEONORA D'ORCO.
BY
G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.
LEONORA D'ORCO.
A HISTORICAL ROMANCE.
BY
G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.,
AUTHOR OF "LORD MONTAGU'S PAGE," "THE OLD DOMINION,"
"TICONDEROGA," "AGNES SOREL," ETC.
COPYRIGHT EDITION.
LEIPZIG: ALPHONS DÜRR
1860.
LEONORA D'ORCO.
CHAPTER I.
There is a mountain pass, not far from the shores of the Lago Maggiore, which has been famous of late years for anything but fÊtes and festivals. There, many an unfortunate traveller has been relieved of the burden of worldly wealth, and sometimes of all earthly cares; and there, many a postillion has quietly received, behind an oak-tree or a chesnut, a due share of the day's earnings from a body of those Italian gentlemen whose life is generally spent in working upon the highways, either with a long gun in their hands or a chain round their middles.
But, dear reader, the times I speak of were centuries ago--those named "the good old times," though Heaven only knows why they were called "good."
The world was in a very strange state just then. The resurrection of art--the recovery of letters--the new birth of science, marked out the age as one of extraordinary development; but the state of society from which all these bright things sprang--flowers rising from a dunghill--was one of foul and filthy fermentation, where every wickedness that the corrupt heart of man can devise worked and travailed for the birth of better things. That pass, in those "good old times," saw every day as much high-handed wrong and ruthless bloodshed as any pass in all Italy at the present time.
But such was not destined to be the case upon the present occasion, though the times of which I write were the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries. Guilt, and fraud, and even murder, often in those days covered themselves with golden embroidery and perfumed flowers; and, interposed between acts of violence, rapine, and destruction, were brilliant festivals, the luxurious banquet, and the merry dance.
Wickedness, like virtue, proposes to itself enjoyment for its object; and the Bible is right when, as it often does, it uses the word wisdom as synonymous with virtue, for in the wisdom of the means is the certainty of the attainment. But the men of those days, as if they felt--how could they avoid feeling?--the insecurity of the ground on which they based their endeavours for the acquisition of happiness, were content to take the distant and doubtful payment by instalments of fruition, and let the revel, the pageant, the debauch go to the great reckoning as so much gained, without thinking of the terrible per contra.
That pass was well fitted to afford a scene for many of the dealings of those or these days. There the robber might lurk perfectly concealed in the dark nooks and crannies of the rocks, to spring forth upon the unwary traveller when least prepared--there a handful of men might defend the passage against an army--there, the gay, happy party might raise the wild echo of the mountains to their joyous songs--and there the artist might linger for long hours, studying the fantastic shapes into which the ground has been thrown, and filling up the shadowy recesses with forms such as Rosa loved to draw.
For somewhat less than two miles, the road, which, even in those days, was a good and well-constructed highway, passed between two ranges of rocks. On one side--the left hand, going north--a stream ran by the side of the path, some twenty feet below its level; but the bank itself could be easily descended to the river, and the stream, though deep in some places, was easily to be crossed at others, where it spread out over fallen rocks and stones. But what was the use of crossing it? On the other side was no path, and nothing but tall, ragged cliffs, in some places upright and flat, as if they had been cut with a knife, in others assuming the most wild and fantastic forms. Here was a strange grinning face, of gigantic size, starting forth in stone from the surface of the cliff; there a whole statue standing out from the rocky mass, as if a sentinel guarding the pass; then would come a castle with towers and keep, ballium and barbican and all, and yet nought but mere rock, wrought by no hands but those of time, earthquake, and tempest. But every here and there, from pinnacle and point, or out of dell and cavern, would spring a dark pine or light green ash; and the sight of even vegetable life would harmonize the scene with human thoughts.
The average width of the bottom of the valley, including river and road, might be a hundred yards; but there was one place, nearly at the middle of the gorge--probably where, in ages far remote, before history or even tradition began, the stream, rushing new-born from the mountains, had paused in its course to gather strength ere it forced its way through the rocky barrier opposed to it--in which a little amphitheatre appeared, the mountains receding on either hand to let the river make a circuit round a low knoll and its adjacent meadow, some three hundred yards across. A clump of trees had gathered together on the top of the little hillock, the turf was short and smooth; the stream, though still rapid, and fretting at the fallen stones in its way, had less of the torrent-like turbulence which it displayed where the pass was narrower; now and then, too, it would lapse into a quiet, deep, unruffled pool, where the many-coloured rocks and pebbles at the bottom could be seen, glazed and brightened by its crystal waters; and the white clouds, floating over the deep blue Italian sky, would seem to pause, with curious pleasure, in their flight, to look down for a moment on that fair spot, amid so much stony ruggedness.
Through this wild gorge, toward noon of a soft but breezy spring day in the year of grace 1494, coming from the northwest, rode a gay, a numerous, and a brilliant party; too few, indeed, to constitute an army, but too many and too well armed to fear the attack of any party of banditti less in number than those great mercenary bands whose leisure in those days was seldom long enough to rob on their own account, so great was the demand for their services, in the same way, among the princes of the land. And yet the cavalcade of which I speak did not altogether assume a military aspect. It is true that the rear was brought up by a body of a couple of hundred lances, and that between these and those who rode foremost were a number of gentlemen, old and young, from beneath whose surcoats glanced corslet and cuissard, and who, though they rode with velvet cap on head and sometimes a hawk upon the wrist, had helmet, and lance, and shield near at hand, borne by gay and splendidly-dressed pages. But the most remarkable group had no warlike signs about it. All men but ecclesiastics and serfs, in those days, bore some kind of arms during their most peaceful avocations; and thus there were swords and daggers enough among the little party; but there were men in the robes of the Church--bishops, and archdeacons, and even a monk or two, while those of secular habit looked more like the carpet-treading, soft-lying children of a court than warriors born for strife and conquest.
Thrown a little in advance of the mass rode two men-at-arms, heavily harnessed, and behind them, at perhaps twenty paces distance, five or six others, lance in hand. Then, however, came the principal group, at the head of which, with a crimson velvet bonnet or round cap on his head, ornamented with a single large ruby clasping a long, thin feather, appeared, as it seemed, a mere youth. He was short in stature, and somewhat, though not remarkably, deformed; at least, the fall of his wide and fur-trimmed mantle concealed in a great degree the defect of symmetry in his figure. All, indeed, had been done that the tailor's courtly art could do to conceal it, and the eye was more inclined to rest upon the countenance than upon the form. The face was not very handsome, but there was a frank, bold expression about it which won upon the regard at first sight; and yet a certain look of suffering--the trace, as it seemed, of a struggle between a high courage and bodily infirmity--saddened his aspect. A mere passing stranger would have fixed the age of that young horseman probably at eighteen or nineteen, but he had seen, in reality, between twenty-two and twenty-three years; and although many vicissitudes had not attended his course, enough experience of the world, and courts, and men, had been his to have made him older in appearance and older in mind than he was.
Grouped half a step behind this figure, and stretching quite across the road--for no one would yield a place which he could fairly claim near the fountain of all honour and the source of advancement--were a number of cavaliers, of all sorts of callings, distinguished in general by some peculiarity of costume. At least, any eye accustomed to the dress of that day could distinguish among them the hard old warrior, the bishop, the high officer of the law, and gay and gallant courtiers not a few, among whom, holding their rank immediately behind the principal personage, were six pages, habited in what was called purple cloth of gold, mounted on light but beautiful horses, bedizened with silken housings, and knots of ribbons, and flaunting feathers.
Among these last was no rivalry for place, for each had his particular station assigned to him; but with the rest an occasional angry word, and a more frequent angry look, would mark the indignation of some aspiring courtier at what he thought an attempt upon the part of another to get before him.
"My Lord of Tremouille," said one sharply, "I wish you would refrain your horse; I have hardly space to ride."
"He will not be refrained, my reverend lord," replied the other, "'tis an ambitious beast, well nigh as aspiring as a churchman. He will forward, whatever be in his way. Good sooth, he knows his place well too, and thinks that, though he might make a poor show in a king's closet, he may be found better near his sovereign in the march or the battle than any of the mules of the Church."
The words were spoken in no very low tone, and probably they reached the ears of the young man at the head of the cavalcade; but he took no notice, though the prelate turned somewhat red, and several who were near laughed low; and a moment or two after, the whole party emerged from the narrower part of the gorge into that little amphitheatre which I have lately described.
"Why, what is here?" cried the leader of the band, reining up his horse. "This is a scene of fairy land? Who expected to meet with such a spectacle in this desert?"
"Why, sire," replied the prelate, "you may remember his Excellency the Regent of Milan promised to meet you somewhere near this spot--at least before you reached the city."
"Ah, Louis the Moor knows where to lay chaff for young birds," muttered La Tremouille; "commend me to these Italians for wheedling and trickery."
"Hush, hush!" said one of his companions; "you cannot deny, Tremouille, that this Ludovic is a stout and skilful soldier, as well as a shrewd politician. I know not how he gained the name of 'The Moor,' but----"
"Why, they gave him the name because all his relations die black, or turn black after they die," answered the gallant soldier, with a bitter laugh; "but, on my life, the pageant is pretty. 'Tis a gallantry not expected in this wild place. Only, my good friend, look to what wine you drink at Ludovic's expense; it sometimes has a strange taste, and stranger consequences, men say, especially upon his enemies."
"I am no enemy," answered the other; "you, look to yourself, Tremouille. You must either dare the boccone or die of thirst."
"Nay, he will find out that I am one of his best friends," answered La Tremouille; "for I would fain have dissuaded the king from this wild expedition; and Master Ludovic, who urged it so strongly, will find, before he has done, that, ask a Frenchman to dinner, and he'll stay to supper also."
The scene which had excited so much surprise, and even admiration among the French, derived its principal interest from the ruggedness of the objects around. Some twenty or thirty small tents had been pitched in the little meadow, round which the river circled, each with its pennon fluttering from the top of the gilt pole which supported it, while the group of trees upon the little monticule in the midst was so interlaced, at some eight feet from the ground, with ribbons and festoons of flowers, that it afforded as complete a shade from the sun as any of the pavilions. The trunks of the trees, too, were bound round with garlands, and although neither Tasso nor Guarini had yet fully revived the taste for the pastoral amongst the Italian people, the groups which were seen, both in the tents and under the branches, were all habited as shepherds and shepherdesses, according to the most approved notions of Golden Age costume in those days.
In each of the pavilions, the canvas door of which was thrown wide open, was spread a table apparently well supplied, and beneath the trees appeared a kingly board covered with fine linen and rich plate, while a buffet behind groaned beneath a mass of gold and silver. But the sharp eye of La Tremouille soon espied that the two shepherds who stood at either end of the buffet, as well as two more behind it, were especially well armed for a pastoral race; and he did not fail to comment with a laugh upon the anomaly.
"Pooh! pooh!" cried the young King Charles VIII., turning his head over his shoulder to the stout soldier, but smiling at his remarks, "why should not shepherds have arms? They must defend their muttons, especially when such wolves as you are about!"
La Tremouille answered with a proverb of very ancient date, "Well, sire, they cannot say I am a wolf in sheep's clothing. God send your majesty may not find some in this country, where they are plenty, I am told. Will you not dismount, sire, to do honour to this festa?"
"But where are our hosts?" asked Charles, looking round. "My Lord Archbishop, can you distinguish among the shepherds, Prince Ludovic or his fair lady? You have had advantage of us all in seeing their Highnesses."
"On my hopes, sire, I cannot tell which they are, if they be here," replied the prelate. "Here, pretty maiden, will you let us know who is the lord of this feast, and who are to be the guests?"
The last words were spoken in Italian to a very handsome, dark-eyed shepherdess, who, with a coquettish air, had passed somewhat near the royal party. But the girl merely replied by the word "Hark!" bending her head on one side and affecting to listen attentively. A moment after, the flourish of some trumpets was heard from the continuation of the pass on the other side of the meadow; and La Tremouille, turning round, gave some orders in a low tone to one of his attendants. By him they were carried to the rear, and immediately the party of lances which formed the king's escort put itself in motion, and spread out round one side of the meadow in the form of a crescent, leaving the monarch and his immediate attendants grouped on horseback in the midst.
If this was a movement of precaution against any party approaching from the other side, it was unnecessary. A moment after, on the opposite side of the meadow, issuing from the gorge like a stream of gold, appeared a cavalcade which the chroniclers of the day have delighted to describe as the height of splendour and magnificence. At its head appeared Ludovico Sforza, nicknamed "the Moor," accompanied by the Princess of Ferrara his young wife, and followed by the whole court of Milan, each vying with the other in luxury and display. "The princess," says an Italian writer of the day, "was mounted on a superb horse, covered with cloth of gold and crimson velvet. She wore a dress of green cloth of gold, floating over which was a light gauze. Her hair, only bound by a ribbon, fell gracefully upon her shoulders and upon her bosom. On her head she bore a hat of crimson silk, surmounted by five or six feathers of red and grey. Her suite comprised twenty-two ladies of the first rank, all dressed like herself, and six cars followed, covered with cloth of gold, and filled with the rarest beauties of Italy."
It would be tedious as well as difficult to give any description of the scene that followed. The two parties soon mingled together. Ceremony and parade were forgotten in gallantry and enjoyment. The younger men at once gave themselves up to the pleasures of the hour, and even the older and more sedate warriors and counsellors soon shook off their frosty reserve under the warming influence of beauty and wine; and thus began the expedition of Charles VIII. to Naples, more like some festal pilgrimage than the hostile invasion of a neighbour's dominions. Thus it began, and thus it proceeded till the end was obtained, and then the scene changed to hard blows instead of feasts and pageants, and care and anxiety instead of revelry and enjoyment.
I have said it would be tedious to describe what followed; but there were episodes in the little drama acted in that wild amphitheatre which connect themselves with my story, and must be told.
CHAPTER II.
General conversation between the two courts of France and Milan was somewhat difficult; for, to say sooth, there were many there who could not speak the language of their neighbours, or spoke it very imperfectly. But Frenchmen, and Italians likewise, are famous for delivering themselves from such difficulties. They talk with a happy carelessness of whether they are understood or not, and eke out the defect of language with a sign or gesture. But there were some, there present, to whom both tongues were familiar; and while the King of France sat beneath the trees with Lodovico Sforza and his lovely wife, one of the youths who had followed him might be seen at the other side of the little grove, stretched easily on the ground between two young girls who had accompanied the princess, and with one of whom, at least, his acquaintance seemed of early date.
The young man was tall, well formed, and handsome; and he looked older than he really was, for he had not yet seen more than eighteen summers. The two girls were younger still, neither having reached the age of fifteen years. Both gave promise of exceeding beauty--otherwise perhaps they would have been excluded from the gay train of the princess; but, though womanhood ripens earlier under Italian skies than in colder climates, they were still evidently in girlhood, and, what was more rare, they had apparently preserved all the freshness and innocent frankness of their age.
One called the young man "Cousin Lorenzo," and teased him gaily with criticisms of his dress and appearance; vowed he had promised to bring back a beard from France, and yet he had not even a moustache; declared that she abominated the hair cut short before and hanging down behind after the French mode, and assumed that the large sleeves of his surcoat must be made to carry provisions in, not only for himself, but for all his company. She was the younger of the two, and probably not yet fourteen years of age; and though there was a world of merriment in her sparkling blue eyes, and a gay, bright smile kept playing lightly round her lips, yet it would have been a hard critic who could, in her, have discovered any of that coquetry from which even her age is not exempt. On the contrary, she seemed to strive to direct her cousin's admiration to her fair companion, who, in her eyes, was the most beautiful and perfect creature in the universe; and, in truth, there was many a one in after days who thought so to his cost.
Very different in personal appearance was she from her younger companion: tall for her age, and of that light, slender form which, in early youth, often promises the rich, flowing contour at an after period, which Guido loved, and even Raphael and Julio Romano did not undervalue. She was dark in complexion, too--that is to say, her hair was black as a raven's wing; and her full, almond-shaped eyes, with the lashes that shaded them, and the arched eyebrows above were dark as the hair. But yet there was something that softened all. Either it was the flowing of the lines into each other, or the happy blending of the tints, but nothing in the face or form was sharp or too defined. The skin was clear, and soft, and bright--so far dark, indeed, as to harmonize with the hair and eyes; but through the slight olive tint of southern climes shone the clear, warm rose of health; and, over all, youth and dawning womanhood shed their thousand inexpressible graces, like the winged loves which, in one of Albano's pictures, flutter round the Goddess of Beauty. She was gay, too--gay even as her bright-eyed companion at times; but it was with sudden fits and starts; and every now and then would intervene lapses of thought, as if she were questioning with herself of things beyond her knowledge. It is not rare to find that a thoughtful youth ripens into a passionate maturity. Her dress was one common at that day, we find, in the court of Ferrara; but it had not long been the mode in any part of Italy; and to the eyes of the young Lorenzo, who had been nearly two years absent from his native country, it seemed strange and hardly decent. It consisted of a robe somewhat like that of the princess, except that the ground of the cloth of gold, instead of green, was of a pale delicate rose colour. The sleeves, in the young girl's case, fitted tight to the rounded arms, but the front of each, from the shoulder nearly to the wrist, was cut open, showing the chemise of snowy lawn, except where, every two or three inches, a small jewel, in the form of a button, gathered the edges of the cloth of gold together. The robe in front also was thrown back from the neck and bosom, which was only shaded by the profuse curls of jetty hair. Instead of the small hat, with its plume of feathers, worn by the wife of the regent, a veil of rich black lace, fastened at the back of the head with a jewelled pin, thence to the shoulders; and round her waist was a knotted cord of gold, the tassels of which, strangely twisted and contorted, fell almost to her feet.
Such was the appearance of Leonora d'Orco at the age of fourteen, or very little more. Of that which is beyond appearance I may have occasion to speak hereafter.
Facts may seem trite, which nevertheless must be said in explanation of the character he depicts by any one who writes the history of another. We lose the key of a cabinet, nearly new, perhaps, and we send to a vender of old iron to see if we cannot find one to fit it. We select one and then another for trial, and find at length a key which seems to conform to the shape of the keyhole. Would any one object to its trial because it is old and rust-worn? Well, it is old; it may have served in a hundred locks before, for aught we know; but it fits, and opens, and shuts this lock, and that is all we have to do with it.
It has often been said, and was frequently insisted upon by Goethe, that each human being is a different being at each period of his age from that which he was at an anterior period. The very substance of the body, say the physiologists, is entirely changed in every seven years. What of the mind? Do cares, and sorrows, and experience, and joys, and hopes, and fruitions, effect no change in it? God forbid! If we believe the mind immortal, and not subject, like the body, to death and resurrection, still greater must be the changes; for its state must be progressive towards evil or towards good. Expansion certainly comes with knowledge; every day has its lesson, its reproof, its encouragement; and the very development or decay of the mortal frame affects the tenant within--hardens, strengthens, elevates, instructs; or, entenders, enfeebles, depresses, depraves. Suffice it here to say, that perhaps no one ever in life experienced greater changes of thought, feeling, character, than Leonora d'Orco, as the winged moments flew over her head. And yet the indestructible essence was the same; every essential element remained; it was but the combinations that were modified. A few years later, had you asked her if she had ever felt such sensations, or thought such thoughts as she felt and thought now, she would instantly have said "No;" but one moment's lifting of the veil which hides the pictures of the past would have shown her that she had felt, had thought such things; one moment's scrutiny of her own heart would have shown her that, in another form, she felt them, thought them still.
But let us regard her only in the present. See how her eye sparkles, how her lip wreaths itself in smiles, and how the joyous laugh breaks forth clear, and sweet, and musical, finding expression not only in its own melodious tones, but in every feature--aye, and even in the colour that rises in a gay bashfulness, and spreads suddenly over cheek and brow, as if a ray of morning sunshine had found its way through the green branches and lighted up her face. And then all is still again--still, and quiet, and thoughtful--and her eyes bend down and the long lashes kiss her cheek--and the rose has faded away--and the clear skin is paler than before, till something from one or the other of her gay companions awakens merriment again, and then she changes once more with the sudden change of mountain skies.
But see! they are talking of more serious matters now.
"Not enter Milan!" cries Leonora; "not enter beautiful Milan! Signor Lorenzo, how is that? Have you lost all love and pride in your own fair country?"
"I must not enter Milan," he answered with a sigh; "but if I might, Leonora, I could not."
"But why--why?" she asked eagerly; "are you one of the exiles? Oh, if that is so, the princess loves me well, and besides, when you come with the King of France, a guest of Count Ludovic, the past must be forgotten in the present, and you be welcomed too. Oh, do not say you will not come."
She spoke eagerly, and then cast down her eyes, for his met hers with a look too full of admiration to be mistaken.
"Do not ask him--do not ask him," said sweet Bianca Maria di Rovera; "he is going to my grandfather's villa till the king marches on. That is already settled, Leonora."
"And you never told me, when your grandfather engaged us to go there too," said Leonora; "but how will the King of France be pleased?"
"He has given permission," answered Lorenzo; "he understands well that the son of Carlo Visconti could only enter Milan in one manner."
The young girl bent her head, and only answered, in a low tone, "I would fain hear more. It seems to me a strange arrangement."
"You shall hear all, at some other time and place, Signora Leonora," replied Lorenzo: "every minute I expect the trumpets to sound to horse; and my tale, which is a sad one, should have some quiet spot for the telling, and evening skies, and few listeners near."
The listeners, indeed, were, or might be, too many in a place where all was suspicion and much was danger. Every instant some one was passing near them--either one of the pastoral gentry who had waited for the meeting of the two courts, or some one from the suites of the two princes.
The latter part of the lad's reply seemed at once to awaken Leonora to the necessity of caution. Her younger companion, indeed, who seemed ignorant of her cousin's early history, pressed him with girlish eagerness to tell all then and there; but the other, who even then knew more of Italian life--not without an effort, yet with much delicacy of judgment and feeling--directed their conversation into other channels, and soon brought back the gaiety and the sparkle which at that time was cultivated almost as an art by the higher classes of Italy. Speedily thought, and sentiment, and mood followed the course of even such light things as words: serious topics and dark remembrances, and even present dangers and discomforts, were forgotten;--and, as if in order to give relief to the lights in the future of life some dark shades were needed--the young three there gathered appeared to find in the faint allusion made to more painful things an accession of gaiety and enjoyment. The strangeness of first acquaintance was cast away between the two who had never met before. Bianca Maria, or Blanche Marie, as the French would have termed her, forgot how long a time had passed since she had seen her cousin, and all for the time was once more joy and light-hearted merriment. The same spirit seemed to pervade the whole party there assembled. It is hard to say seemed, for any eye that gazed upon that scene would have boldly concluded that all was peace and joy.
Oh, false word! Oh, false seeming! There was doubt, and fear, and malevolence, and treachery there in many a heart; and of all the groups into which those two gay courts had separated themselves, perhaps reality, and enjoyment, and careless mirth were more truly to be found among those three young people, who, forgetful of courtly ceremony, had taken their seats beneath the trees on the west of the knoll, with their backs turned toward the royal and princely personages present. They, at least, knew how to enjoy the hour; and there let us leave them, with the benediction and applause of Lorenzo the Magnificent upon them:
"Quant' e bella giovinezza
Che si fugge tuttavia
Chi vuol esser lietto, sia
Di doman non c'e certezza."
CHAPTER III.
If the world be a stage, as the greatest of earth's poets has said, and all the men and women in it merely players, human life divides itself not only into acts, but scenes. The drop curtain falls for a longer or a shorter period; and, without whistle or call, the place is shifted, and the interval is filled up with nought which affects the actors before the public, or the general course of their own parts, or the end of the great drama played. Let us pass over the mere shiftings of the scene; the pompous reception of Charles VIII. in Milan; the time he wasted there in youthful merriment and courtly gallantry; the intrigues ending in nothing which went on during his stay in the Lombard capital; all the French gaietÈ de coeur with which the dashing and daring warriors of the most charming land in the world cut a throat, or make love, or stake a fortune on a card--let us pass them all by, with the exception of one slight incident, which had some influence upon the fate of one of our principal characters.
It is very customary--indeed, it is always customary with men of impulse, especially when the impulses are impetuous and ill-regulated--for persons possessing great power to be awed, as it were, for a short time by the terrible responsibilities of their position--to seek uninterrupted thought, with an endeavour in their own mind to find support under the weight from their own intellect, or, frustrated in their dependence upon so frail a reed, to apply to a higher guide, who can give not only direction but strength--not only counsel but capability. There is many an occasion in which the most self-relying and resolute feels the need of an intelligence higher than his own, and a force beyond the force of his own character.
In many respects the character of Charles VIII. was to be admired. His expedition to Italy was rash, ill-conceived, and ill-executed; but the conception was great, the objects when rightly viewed, noble, and the result, though not fortunate, such as showed in the young king the higher qualities of fortitude, resolution, and that courage which crushes obstacles by boldly confronting them. But many a time Charles doubted of his own course--only, indeed, in times of success and seeming prosperity--and asking himself whether that course was right, was prudent, was wise, sought guidance and instruction from on high.
On these occasions he avoided all companionship, and asked direction from the throne of wisdom in solitary prayer. It was thus he came forth in the early morning to the Church of St. Stephen, attended only by a single page, and habited plainly enough to attract no attention. He had entered the chapel of St. Ambrose, the patron saint of the city, and was in the very act of kneeling, when the voices of two other men, speaking somewhat loud in the general stillness, attracted his attention.
"Ah!" said the one, "it was there he slew him, and had there been men to second him, Lombardy would have now been free."
"It goes about the city," said the other, "that young Lorenzo, his son, is close at the gates of Milan, ready to avenge his father's death upon the Sforzeschi."
"He had better look to his own safety," replied the first speaker, "for he has to do with powerful enemies, and what the strong hand and the sword cannot accomplish, the dagger or the cup can perchance perform."
The king listened, but nothing more of interest met his ear, and when his prayer was finished he returned to his private cabinet, and wrote a few words in haste, without consulting even his most approved counsellors. It was done; and then he rang a little hand-bell on the table. It was not like a modern bell, being four-sided, but it had a good, loud sound, and it immediately brought an attendant from the ante-room.
"Call hither the Baron de Vitry," said the king. He spoke of that De Vitry who was the ancestor of the well-known Marechal de Vitry, and who, a few days after, became Marquis de Vitry on the death of his father. "Tell him to be quick, for he sleeps late when there is no fighting to be done."
The man hastened away to execute his commands, but it was some twenty minutes before the officer summoned appeared, and then, to say sooth, he was but imperfectly apparelled. There was a point here and there untrussed, and his collar was certainly not placed in its usual and intended position--indeed, some severe critics of costume might have supposed that it was turned wrong side before.
"Always behind, De Vitry," said the monarch, who had grown impatient in waiting.
"I was not behind at St. Aubin, sire," replied the young officer with a gay confidence; "but, sire, we were bound to sit up so late last night for the honour of France that our eyes had leaden weights upon them this morning."
"Ay, a revel, of course," said the king; "too much revelling, De Vitry. We must think of more serious things."
"Good faith! sire, we are all ready," replied the young officer; "we only revel because we have nought else to do. While your majesty and your wise counsellors are gravely deliberating in the cabinet, we have nought else to do but dance, and drink, and sing in the hall; and I am sure you, sire, would not have us behind the Italian in dancing and drinking, when they go so far before us in singing; but only give us something else to do, and we are ready to ride, or fight, or work in any way tomorrow."
The young king mused for a moment, and then murmured the words, "A just reproof!" Then taking the paper he had written, he added, "Take a hundred men of your company of ordnance, De Vitry, and set out at once toward Vigevano. Five miles on this side of the town, on the bank of the Ticino, you will find a villa belonging to the Count of Rovera. There you will find young Lorenzo Visconti. Give him that paper, appointing him to the command of the troop of poor young Moustier, who was stabbed, no one knows why or how."
"Oh, sire, I know why, and how too," answered De Vitry, in his usual gay, light-hearted tone; "he was stabbed because he chose to make love to the daughter of the confectioner who lives just below the castle--she is, indeed, a wonderful little beauty; but she is betrothed to a young armourer, and Moustier was not right to seek her for his leman, under her promised husband's very nose. There are plenty of free-hearted dames in Milan, without his breaking up the happiness of two young people who never sought him. Then, as to the way, sire, that is very easily explained---a dark corner, a strong hand, and a sharp dagger over the left shoulder, and the thing was soon accomplished. Ludovic says he will have the young armourer broken on the wheel, to satisfy your majesty; but I trust you will tell him not; for, in the first place, nothing can be proved against him; and, in the next, according to his own notions, he did nothing but what was right; and, in the next, De Moustier was all in the wrong; and, in the next, this youth, Tomaso Bondi, is the best armourer in Italy--no man I ever saw can inlay a Milan corslet as he can."
"All very cogent reasons," answered the king, "and the regent shall do nought to him, to satisfy me. De Moustier forgot the warning I gave him after I was ill at Lyons, when he insulted the young wife of the dean of the weavers; and as he has sought his fate, so he must abide it. But, as I have said, seek out my young Cousin Lorenzo, give him the paper, and tell him to join you next day at Pavia or Vigevano; but do not let your men dismount, and take care that they commit no outrage on the lands of Signor Rovera. At Vigevano you may halt till you hear that I am on my way to Pavia. You shall have timely notice."
The officer took the open paper from the king's hand, and in a nonchalant way gazed at the contents, exclaiming as he did so, "On my faith, it is fairly written!"
The cheek of Charles turned somewhat red, and, fixing his eye keenly upon De Vitry, he said, "You mean no offence, young sir, I believe; but, Baron de Vitry, I tell you, if two years ago your king could not write his name, it was not his fault. Would that all my nobility would try to retrieve their errors as I have striven to remedy the defects of my education."
The young monarch was evidently much pained at what he thought an allusion to the ignorance in which he had been brought up; and De Vitry, whose thoughts were perfectly innocent of such offence, bent his knee and kissed his sovereign's hand, saying, in his frank way, "On my life, sire, I only admired the writing, and wished I were as good a clerk. Heaven knows that, though I can write fast enough, no man can read as fast what I have written. It has cost me many a time more James, than an hour to make out my own letters. This carrying a confounded lance, ever since I was eighteen, makes my finger unfit for handling a quill; and, unless I fall in love, and have to write sweet letters to fair ladies--which God forfend--I dare say the time will come when I shall be unable to write at all."
The king smiled good-humouredly at his blunt officer, for Charles's anger soon passed away, and, bidding him rise, he said, "There, go, De Vitry; you are a rough specimen of our French soldiers, for these silken ladies of the South. I fear you will not make much way with them."
"Oh, they love me all the better, sire," answered De Vitry; "I'm a new dish at their table. But I go to perform your will, sire; and, good faith! I am not sorry to be in the saddle again. But what am I to do with that young fellow, Bayard, who struck the big Ferrara man for calling us barbarians? We have kept a close eye upon him, for he seems never to dream that, if the signor were to meet him alone, he would put a dagger in him, or break his back as a storm breaks a hard young sapling. Good faith, sire, the man would eat the boy up as the old giants used to do with the princes and princesses of I don't know where in days of yore."
"That is well bethought," replied the king. "I wish to have no brawling, De Vitry. Take Bayard with you to Pavia. Stay! let me consider what I can do to smooth his removal from the court, for he is a brave lad, and will some time make a name in life. They are hardy soldiers, these men of the Isere."
"He is of such stuff as kings of France have most need of," answered De Vitry. "Give him ten years more, and I would match him against Mohammed. But the cornet of my troop, you know, sire, died on Friday last of wine poison at Beccafico's--we hold our life on slender tenure in this land--and if your majesty would please to name Bayard to fill his place, he would be very well content, for he loves Bellona's harness more than Cupid's, as my old tutor, the AbbÉ de Mortemar, used to say when he could not get me to construe Ovid. But I know not how Bayard may take Signor Lorenzo's appointment to De Moustier's troop, he being also one of your pages, and more than a year older."
"Lorenzo Visconti is our cousin, sir," replied Charles, somewhat sternly; "and, were he not so, we suffer no one to comment on our will in ordaining how we shall be served. If Pierre de Terrail hesitates at the honour we confer on him so young, because we name our own kindred to a higher command at a younger age, let him remain as he is. We will not resent such conduct, but we will make him feel that we are King of France."
There was sufficient irritation in his tone to induce the young officer to withdraw; and he left the king's presence, repeating to himself, "Our cousin! I see not how that is; but we are all cousins in Adam, God wot; and the affinity must be somewhere thereabout, I take it. Well, God send me some royal cousins, or right noble ones, for 'tis the only road to promotion in this world."
CHAPTER IV.
It was early in the month of September. The grapes were already purple with the draughts of sunshine which they had drunk in through a long, ardent summer, and the trees had already begun to display "the sear and yellow leaf"--early, early, like those who exhaust in life's young day all the allotted pleasures of man's little space. The autumn had fallen upon them soon. Yet it was a lovely scene, as you gazed from one of those little monticules which stud the Lombard plains. There is something in the descent from the mountains into Italy which seems to anticipate the land--not so much in its physical as in its moral features; a softness, a gentleness, a gracefulness which is all its own, while round about, unseen, but felt in every breeze, is the dark, pestilential swamp, gloomy and despairing, or else a brighter but more treacherous land, fair to the eye, but destructive to vitality, which lures but to destroy. One easily conceives the character of a large portion of the people of the middle ages in Italy from the aspect of the land. But it is of the people of the middle ages only. One can hardly derive any notion of the ancient Roman from the characteristics of the country till one plunges into the Campagna, where the stern, hard features of the scenery seem to represent that force which, alas! has passed away.
And yet it was a lovely scene, and a moment of sweet and calm enjoyment, as three young people sat together on the lower step of a terrace near Vigevano, with a fountain gushing and murmuring some twenty feet above, and a beautiful garden filled with mulberry-trees and vines, and some oranges, not very luxuriant, but diffusing a pleasant but languid odour round. The eye wandered over the shrubs and trees to the lands watered by the Ticino on its way to Pavia; and beyond, in the evening light, long lines of undulating country were marked out in the deep blue tints peculiar to the distant scenery of Italy. The terrace, below which the three were seated, was long and wide, and rising therefrom, near the centre, was one face of a villa, built in a style of which few specimens remain. The taste and genius of Palladio had not yet given to the villa-architecture of Lombardy that lightness and grace which formed the characteristic of a new style of art. There was something, at that time, in every country-house of Italy of the heavy, massive repulsiveness of the old castello. But yet the dawn of a better epoch was apparent, in the works of Andrea Palladio's great master, Trissino; and in the very villa of which I speak, though here and there a strong, tall tower was apparent, and the basement story contained stone enough to have built a score of modern houses, much ornament of a light and graceful character had been lavished upon the whole building, as if to conceal that it was constructed for defence as well as enjoyment. Indeed, as is generally the case, there was a certain harmony between the times and state of society and the constructions of the period. The Italian smiled, and revelled, and feasted, and called in music, and song, and poetry, to cover over the dangers, and the griefs, and the terrors of every day; and the palace in the city, or the villa in the country, was often as richly decorated as if its massy inner walls were never intended to preserve the life and fortune of its owner from the hands of rude assailants, nor its halls ever to witness deeds of horror and cruelty within their dark recesses.
It was, indeed, an evening and a scene such as Lorenzo Visconti had described as fitted for the telling of his own history. All was still and quiet around; the leaves of the vines hardly moved with the light air, the glow of the western sky faded off into deep purple as the eye was raised from the horizon to the zenith; no moving object--no, not a floating cloud, could be seen on any side; and the murmur of the fountain seemed to add to, rather than detract from, the stillness. The three young people--I need not tell the reader who they were---had ranged themselves as their nature or their temporary feelings prompted. On the lowest step Bianca Maria had placed herself, looking up with her sweet confiding eyes towards the young companion whom she almost idolized. On the step above was her cousin Lorenzo; and on a step above them both, but leaning with her elbow on her knee, and her cheek resting on her hand, a little to the right of Lorenzo and the left of Bianca, was Leonora d'Orco, with her dark eyes bent down, drinking in the words of the young soldier.
It was a group such as Bronzino might have delighted to paint; for not only were there those colours in it which all Italians love, and all Italian artists take pleasure in blending and harmonizing--the deep browns, which characterise the complexion of their country, with the rarer and exceptional fairness sometimes found among them---the flowing flaxen hair of the North, and its rich crimsons, but in the dress of the three also there were those strong contrasts of harmonious hues, if I may use what may seem at first sight (but only at first sight) a contradiction in terms--the rich red, and the deep green, and the yellow touching upon brown, and the pale blue. How charming, how satisfactory was the art of those old painters in reproducing on the canvas the combinations which nature produces every day. And yet Art, following Nature in its infinite variety, has shown us, in the works of Murillo and some other Spanish artists, that perfect harmony of colouring can afford as much pleasure as harmonized contrasts, and that in painting also there may be Mozarts as well as Beethovens.
The evening light fell beautifully upon that young group, as they sat there on the steps of the terrace, and, just glancing round the angle of an old ruined building of Roman date in the gardens below, touched gently and sweetly upon the brow and eyes of Bianca Maria, lighted up the face of Lorenzo, and shone full upon the whole figure of Leonora, as she gazed down upon the speaker.
"I must go back far into the times past," he said; "I dare say you are well aware that the Viscontis once reigned as lords and dukes of Milan. Do not suppose, Leonora, that I am about to put forth any claim to that rich inheritance; for, though nearly allied to the ruling race, my branch of the family were already separated from the parent stem when the imperial bull was issued which conferred sovereignty on the branch that ended with Filippo Maria. That bull limited the succession strictly, and we had and have no claim. At the death of Filippo, the Milanese found still one spark of ancient spirit, and they declared themselves a republic. But republics have in them, unhappily, no seeds of durability. There is not strength and virtue enough in man to give them permanence. Rude nations may be strong and resolute enough to maintain such institutions in their youth; but art and luxury soften, and in softening enfeeble, so that men learn to love ease more than independence, pleasure better than freedom. A new dynasty was destined soon to succeed the old. The Viscontis were noble, of high race and long descent, connected with every sovereign house of Europe. But the son of a peasant was to gather their inheritance and wear their coronet.
"There was a man born at Cotignola, in Romagna, named Sforza Attendolo, of very humble birth, but prodigious strength of body and extraordinary military genius. Famine drove him to seek food in the trade of war. He joined one of the great companies, rose by the force of genius and courage, and in the end became one of the two most famous condottieri in Italy. After a career of almost unexampled glory and success, he was drowned in swimming the Pescara, but his son Francesco succeeded to his command, and to more than his inheritance of military fame. He was, indeed, a great man; and so powerful did he become, that Filippo Maria Visconti promised him---to the illegitimate son of a Romagnese peasant--the hand of his only daughter to secure his services in his many wars. He hesitated long, it is true, to fulfil a promise which he felt to be degrading, but he was compelled to submit at length. With the aid of Francesco Sforza he was a great prince--without him he was nothing; and when he died, old and blind, he left his people to struggle against the man whom he had aided to raise, but upon whom his own fate had very often depended. Francesco was noble at heart, though ambitious. His enemies he often treated with unexampled generosity, forbearance, and even kindness. He showed that he feared no man, by freeing the most powerful and most skilful of his captive enemies; but he pursued his course steadily toward dominion, not altogether unstained by deceit and falsehood, but without cruelty or tyranny. Sore pressed by famine, and with his armies beneath their walls, the Milanese, who recognised his high qualities, though they feared his dominion, threw open their gates to him, and renounced their liberty at the feet of a new duke in February, 1450. The Viscontis had nothing to complain of. The reigning branch was extinct; the rest were not named in the imperial bull, and they, with their fellow-citizens, submitted calmly of the rule of the greatest man then living in Italy. Nor had they cause to regret the act during the life of Francesco Sforza. He ruled the land justly and moderately, maintained his own renown to the last, and showed none of the jealousy of a tyrant towards those whose birth, or fortune, or talents might have made them formidable rivals. He was wise to conciliate affection in support of power. His good reign of sixteen years did more to enslave the Milanese people than the iron heel of any despot could have done; but there were not wanting those among his children to take cruel advantage of that which his virtues had accomplished. He died about thirty years ago, and to him succeeded his eldest son, the monster Galeazzo. From that hour the iron yoke pressed upon the neck of the Milanese. The new duke had less ambition than his father, and inherited none of his talents; but he had a genius for cruelty, and an energy in crime unequalled even by Eccelino. Those whom he seemed most to favour and who least feared the tyrant's blow, were always those on whom it fell most heavily and most suddenly; and they furnished, when they little expected it, fresh victims for the torture, or for some new and unheard-of kind of death. His luxury and his licentiousness passed all bounds; no family was safe; no lady's honour was unassailed or uncalumniated; violence was resorted to when corruption did not succeed; in each day he comprised the crimes of a Tarquin and the ferocity of a Nero. There were, however, three noble hearts in Milan, and they fancied there were many more. They dreamed that some public spirit still lingered among their countrymen--at least enough, when delivered from actual fear of the tyrant, to seize the opportunity and regain their liberty. When there is no law, men must execute justice as they can; and those three resolved to put Galeazzo to death--a mild punishment for a life of crime. Their names were Olgiati, Lampugnani, and Carlo Visconti. All had suffered from the tyrant. Olgiati's sister had fallen a victim to his violence. Lampugnani's wife was another. My mother only escaped by death. But it was not vengeance that moved the patriots. They had only suffered what others had suffered. The evils of the country had become intolerable; they were all the work of one man; and the three determined to deprive him of the power to inflict more. They looked upon their undertaking not only as a great and glorious enterprise, but as a religious duty, and they prepared themselves for its execution with prayer and fasting, and the most solemn sacrament of the Church. Many difficulties intervened. Either the consciousness that his tyranny and crimes had become intolerable, or one of those strange presentiments of coming fate which have affected many men as the hour of their destiny drew nigh, rendered Galeazzo less accessible, more suspicious and retired than before. He seldom came forth from his palace, was no longer seen on occasions of public ceremony, or in fÊtes and festivals. There was, indeed, one day when he could hardly fail to show himself, and that was on St. Stephen's day--a day when, by immemorial custom, every one honours the first martyr by attending mass at the great church. That day they fixed upon for the execution of their design, and each was early in the church, with a dagger hidden in the sleeve of his gown. The world has called it a sacrilege; but they looked upon it as a holy and a righteous deed, sanctified by the justice of the cause, that the most sacred place could not be polluted by it.
"In the mean time Galeazzo seemed to feel that the day and hour of retribution had arrived. He would fain have avoided it; he sought to have mass performed in the palace; he applied to a chaplain--to the Bishop of Como--but in all instances slight obstacles presented themselves, and in the end he determined to go to the Cathedral. One touch of human tenderness and feeling, the first for many a day, broke from him. He sent for his two children, took leave of them tenderly, and embraced them again and again. He then went forth; but the conspirators awaited him in the church; and hardly had he entered when three daggers were plunged into his breast and back. Each struck a second blow; and the monster who had inflicted torture, and death, and disgrace upon so many innocent fellow-creatures sank to the pavement, exclaiming, 'Sancta Maria!'
"The three then rushed towards the street to call the people to arms; but Lampugnani stumbled, catching his feet in the long trains of the women who were already kneeling in the nave. As he fell he was killed by a Moor, one of Galeazzo's base retainers. My father was killed where he stood, and Olgiato escaped into the street only to find the people, on whom he trusted either dead to all sense of patriotism and justice, or stupified and surprised. Not a sword was drawn--not a hand was raised in answer to his cry, 'To arms!' and torture and the death of a criminal once more closed the career of a patriot.
"I was an infant at that time, but in the days of Galeazzo Sforza infants were not spared, and the nurse who had me in her arms hurried forth, carrying me with her, ere the gates of the city could be closed, or the followers of the duke came to search and pillage our house. She took refuge in a neighbouring village, whence we were not long after carried to Florence, where the noble Lorenzo de Medici, after whom I had been baptized, received me as his child, and when he felt death approaching, sent me to the court of France to finish my education among my relatives there."
"And was this Prince Ludovic the son of Galeazzo?" asked Leonora, as soon as he had paused.
"Oh no--his younger brother," replied Lorenzo. "He holds the son in durance, and the son's wife, on the pretence of guardianship, though both are of full age; but, if I be not mistaken, the day of their deliverance is near at hand, for I have heard the king say he will certainly see them, and learn whether they are not fitted to rule their own duchy without the interference of so dangerous a relation."
"God grant the king may be in time," said Bianca Maria; "for it is said the young duke is very sick, and people say he has poison in all he eats."
"Hush! hush!" cried Leonora, anxiously. "Long confinement and wearing care are enough to make him sick, Bianca, without a grain of poison. No one can die now-a-days without people saying he is poisoned. 'Tis a sad tale, indeed, you tell, Lorenzo, and I have often heard our sweet Princess of Ferrara say that Galeazzo was a bad man; but Ludovic surely is not cruel. He has pardoned many a man, I have heard, who had been condemned by the tribunals."
A somewhat bitter smile came upon the lips of Lorenzo Visconti, but he merely replied, "The good and innocent always think others good and innocent till bitter experience teaches them the contrary."
Perhaps he might have added more, but the sound of footsteps on the terrace above caught his ear, and he and Leonora at once turned to see who approached. The steps were slow and deliberate, and were not directed toward the spot where the young people sat; but they instantly checked further conversation on the subjects previously discussed, while from time to time each of the three gave a glance toward two gentlemen who had just appeared upon the terrace. The one was a man somewhat advanced in years, though not exactly what might be called an old man. His hair and beard were very gray, it is true, but his frame was not bent, and his step was still firm and stately. He was richly dressed, and wore a large, heavy sword, of a somewhat antique fashion. Lorenzo asked no questions concerning him, for he knew him already as the grandfather of his young cousin, Bianca Maria. The other was a younger man, dressed in black velvet, except where the arms were seen from under the long hanging sleeves of his upper garment, showing part of an under coat of cloth of silver. He was tall and thin, and his face would have deserved the name of handsome had it not been that the eyes, which were fine in themselves, and overshadowed by strongly-marked eyebrows, were too close together, and had a slight obliquity inward. It was not what could be absolutely called a squint, but it gave a sinister expression to his countenance, which was not relieved by a habit of keeping his teeth and lips closely compressed, as if holding a rigid guard over what the tongue might be inclined to utter.
They took their way to the extreme end of the terrace, and then walked back till they came on a line with the spot where the three young people sat, still silent, for there is a freemasonry in youth that loves not to have even its most trifling secrets laid bare to other eyes, or its most innocent councils broken in upon.
There the two gentlemen paused, and the younger seemed to end some conversation which had been passing between them by saying, "I know not much, Signor Rovera, of the history or views of other times, or for what men lived and strove for in those days; but I do know, and pretty well, the history of my own times, and the rules by which we have to guide ourselves in them. If we have not ourselves power, we must serve those who have power; and while we keep ourselves from what you would call an evil will on our own part, we must not be over nice in executing the will of those above us. Theirs is the deed, and theirs the responsibility. The race of Sforza is not, methinks, a higher or a better race than the race of Borgia. Both are peasants compared to you or me, but the Borgias are rising, and destined to rise high above us both; the Sforzas have risen, and are about to fall, or I mistake the signs of the times. Men may play with a kitten more safely than with a lion; and when Ludovico called this King of France into Italy, he put his head in the wild beast's mouth."
"Ah, that that were all!" exclaimed the old Count of Rovera. "I should little care to see that wild beast close his heavy jaws upon the skull of his inviter, if that would satisfy him; but Italy--what is to become of Italy?"
"God knows," answered the other drily. "She has taken so little care of her children, that, good faith! they must take care of themselves and let her do the same, my noble cousin. We are both too old to lose much by her fall, and neither of us young enough to hope to see her rise. Phoenixes are rare in these days, Signor Count. There," he continued, pointing to the little group upon the steps, "there are the only things that are likely to spring up, except corn, and mulberry-trees, and such vegetables. Why, how the girl has grown already! She is well-nigh a woman. She will need a husband soon, and then baby-clothes, and so forth. I must speak with her. Leonora! Leonora!"
At the sound of his voice, Leonora, who had been sitting with her head bent down and her eyes fixed upon the marble at her feet, sprang up like a startled deer, and ran up the steps toward him; but when within a step, she paused, and bent before him without speaking.
CHAPTER V.
"Who is that man?" asked Lorenzo Visconti in a low tone, while Leonora stood before the stranger, silent and, as it were, subdued.
"That is her father, Ramiro d'Orco," answered Bianca Maria; "he has just returned from Romagna, I suppose; he has not been here for a year, and I heard he was there."
"Her father!" exclaimed the youth; "and is it so a child meets a father? Oh God! had I a parent living who came back from a long absence, how I should spring to receive his first caress! how the first tone of his voice--the first sound of his footstep, would move the whole blood within me. I do believe the very proximity of his spirit would make my whole frame thrill, and I should know that he was present before one of my senses assured me of the fact. My father! oh, my father! could you rejoin your son, should I meet you as a stranger, or bow before you as a ruler?"
"It is not her fault, Lorenzo," said her cousin, eagerly, zealous in her friend's cause; "I do not know how to tell you what he is, Lorenzo. He is hard, yet not tyrannical; cold, yet not without affection. There is no tenderness in him, yet he loves her better than aught else on earth, except, I have heard my grandfather say, except ambition. He is liberal to her, allowing her all she wants or wishes, except, indeed, his tenderness and care. You and I are both orphans, Lorenzo, and perhaps we let our fancy lead us to picture exaggerated joy in the love and affection of parents."
"I love him not, Bianca," answered the young man, with a slight shudder; "there is something in his look which seems to chill the blood in one's heart. I can see in that gaze which he bends upon her, why it is her arms are not thrown round his neck, why her lips are not pressed to his, why words of love and affection are not poured forth upon her father when she meets him after a long absence. She is his child, but he is not a father to her--perhaps a tyrant."
"Oh, no, no!" answered the young girl; "he loves her--indeed he does, and he does not tyrannize over her. But whether it is that there is a natural coldness in his manner, or that he affects a certain Roman hardness, I cannot tell; he only shows his love in indulging her in everything she desires, without a tender look or tender word, such as most fond fathers bestow upon a well-loved child."
"And such a child!" said Lorenzo, musing. "Well, it is strange, Bianca; perhaps he may love her truly, and more than many fathers whom I have seen in France fondle their children as if their whole soul was wrapped up in them, and then sacrifice their happiness to the merest caprice--perhaps it may be so, and yet I do not like his looks. I cannot like him. See how he gazes at us now! It is the gaze of a serpent, cold, and hard, and stony. Who was her mother? She can have gained no part of her nature from him."
"Oh, no," cried the young girl, feeling all that he felt, though unwilling to allow it; "she is like him in nothing, except, indeed, the forehead and the shape of her face. Her mother was almost as beautiful as she is. I remember well; it is not three years since she died. She was a great heiress in the Ghiaradda. All she had was on her marriage secured by the forms of law to herself and her children, and they say he strove almost cruelly to make her give it up to him. After her death he obtained possession of it, but not entirely for himself. It was decided that he should possess it till Leonora married, making suitable provision for her maintenance, but that, when she married, the great estates at Castellano should go to her and her husband. My grandfather, who was her mother's uncle, took much interest in the matter, and for a time he and Signor d'Orco were at bitter enmity; but when the case was decided, and it was found that Leonora's father assigned her more for her portion than the law would have demanded, my grandfather became convinced that he had striven only for what he conceived a right, and became reconciled to him. Indeed, he is quite liberal in all things concerning her; allows her the revenue of a princess, and is himself a man of small expense; but it seems his is an unbending nature. He lets her do what she wills in most things--seldom thwarts her; but when he speaks his own will, there is no appeal from it--neither to his heart nor his mind. I can often persuade my grandfather, though he is quick and hasty, as you know, and sometimes convince him, but it is of no use to try to do either with Ramiro d'Orco."
Lorenzo fancied he comprehended, at least in a degree, the character which, in her youthful way, she strove to depict; but yet there was something in the look of Leonora's father which left a dark, unpleasant impression upon his mind. There are faces that we love not, but which afford no apparent reason for the antipathy they produce. There is often even beauty which we cannot admire--grace which affords no pleasure. There is, perhaps, nothing more graceful upon earth than the gliding of a snake, never for a moment quitting what the great moral painter called "the line of beauty." There is nothing more rich and resplendent than his jewelled skin, and yet how few men can gaze upon the most gorgeous of that reptile race without a shuddering sensation of its enmity to man? Can it be that in the breast of the reasoning human creature, God, for a farther security than mere intellect against a being that is likely to injure, implants an instinct of approaching danger which no fairness of form, no engagingness of manner can at first compensate? It may be so. At all events, I have seen instances where something very like it was apparent. And yet, with time, the impression wears away; the spirit has spoken once its word of warning; if that word is not enough, it never speaks again. The snake has the power of fascinating the bird which, in the beginning, strove to escape from him; and we forget the monitor which told us our danger.
In an hour from that time Lorenzo was sitting at the same table with Ramiro d'Orco, listening well pleased to searching and deep views of the state of Italy, expressed, not indeed with eloquence, for he was not an eloquent man, but with a force and point he had seldom heard equalled.
It would not be easy to give his words, for, even were they recorded, they would lose their strength in the translation; but the substance we know, and it would give a very different picture of Italy in that day from any that can be drawn at present. We see it not alone dimmed by the distance of time, but in a haze of our own prejudices. We may gather, perhaps, the great results; but we can, I believe, in no degree divine the motives, and most of the details are lost. Read the history of any one single man in those days, as portrayed by modern writers, and compare one author with another. Take for instance that of Lorenzo de Medici, as carefully drawn by Roscoe, or brightly sketched by Sismondi. What can be more different? The facts, indeed, are the same, but how opposite are all the inferences. In both we have the dry bones of the man, but the form of the muscle, and the hue of the complexion are entirely at variance. Writers who undertake to represent the things of a past age are like a painter required to furnish portraits of persons long dead. Tradition may give them some guidance as to the general outline, but the features and the colouring will be their own.
It is therefore with the great facts of the state of Italy at that time that I will deal, as nearly in the view of Ramiro d'Orco as I can; but it must be remembered that his view also was not without its mistiness. If we cannot see early on account of the remoteness of the objects which we contemplate, his vision also was indistinct, obscured by the prejudices of class, interest, party, hope, apprehension, and above all, ambition. He painted the condition of Italy only as Ramiro d'Orco believed it to be. How much even of that belief was to be ascribed to his own desires and objects, who can say?
Lombardy, the great northern portion of Italy, indeed, had ever been isolated from the rest in manners and habits of thought. Italians the Lombards certainly were; but the characteristics of the northern conquerors predominated in that portion of the peninsula. Except at Genoa and in Venice, republicanism in no shape had taken any deep root. From very early times, although the voice of the people had occasionally proclaimed a republic here and there, the babe was strangled ere it got strength, even by those that gave it birth. The epoch of democratic independence in Lombardy lasted barely a century and a half. No republic flourished long north of the River Po, except those I have named, and even the two which took some glory from the name little deserved it. Less real liberty was known in Venice than perhaps existed under the most grinding tyranny of a single man; and Genoa, in her most palmy days, was a prey to aristocratic factions, which soon made the people but slaves to princes. But it must not be supposed that nothing was obtained in return: a more chivalrous and warlike spirit existed in that division of Italy than in the central portion. It was not so early refined, but it was not so speedily softened. Corrupt it might be, and indeed was, to even a fearful degree; but it was the corruption of the hard and the daring, rather than of the weak and effeminate. Men poisoned, and slew, and tortured each other, and the minds of all became so familiar with blood and horror, that much was endured before resistance to oppression was excited; but conspiracies were generally successful in their primary object, because the conspirators were bold and resolute. A tyrant might fall only to give place to another tyrant, but still he fell; and you rarely saw in Lombardy such weakness as was displayed in the enterprise of the Pazzi.
