Valperga (55 page)

If he were feared by his enemies in open war, his secret policy
was still more dreaded. He had not forgotten the lessons of Alberto
Scoto; and, as his attempt on the life of the king of Naples might
prove, his measures had perhaps been influenced by the counsels of
Benedetto Pepi. He had many spies in each town, and collected
intelligence from every court of Lombardy. Women and priests were
his frequent instruments; and even the more distinguished among the
citizens were induced through his largesses to betray the counsels
of their country.

Such was Antelminelli, the some time lover of Euthanasia;
daring, artful, bounteous and cruel; evil predominated in his
character; and, if he were loved by a few, he was hated by most,
and feared by all. His perpetual wars, which impoverished the
neighbouring states, did not enrich his own; his artful policy
sowed distrust among dear friends, and spies and traitors abounded
during his reign. In Lucca he was as an eagle in a cage; he had a
craving that seemed to demand the empire of the world; and, weak as
he was in means and hopes, he made the nations tremble.

The object of Castruccio's present policy was Florence. He
proceeded by measured steps; but he was perpetually gaining some
advantage against the rival state, improving his military
discipline, and preparing for the last assault. His first attempt
was upon Pistoia, and he carried this place by a double treachery.
The Florentines took the alarm upon so disastrous an event; and the
pope sent to them Raymond de Cardona, one of the most eminent
generals of the times, whom they immediately placed at the head of
their armies. Cardona crossed the Guisciana, and ravaged the plain
of Lucca, which had for many years been unspoiled by the hostile
sword; but, when it became necessary for him to retreat, Castruccio
by masterly movements intercepted his march, obtained a complete
victory, and, after a short, but severe contest, took Cardona and
all his army prisoners.

The battle of this day was called the field of Altopascio.
Arrigo Guinigi was among the slain; and his loss was grievously
felt by Castruccio. The prince of Lucca had ever looked on him as a
treasure consigned to him by his late father; and, amidst all his
faults, Castruccio preserved his gratitude for the lessons of that
admirable man, and a sweet remembrance of the days of peace he had
passed with him among the Euganean hills. He had loved Arrigo, as a
dear brother, or a son; childless himself, he sometimes thought,
that, although there was small difference between their ages,
Arrigo would succeed him, that his children would be his heirs, and
that, if not bound to him by the ties of blood, yet they would look
back to him with the same gratitude and respect, that an honoured
posterity regard the founder of their house. Ambition hardens the
heart; but such is the texture of the mind of man, that he is
constantly urged to contemplate those days, when his once
over-awing sceptre shall have fallen from his nerveless grasp; the
worst usurper, as he advances in years, looks with tenderness on
his children, who, in the peaceful exercise of power, are to efface
the memory of the lawless deeds by which he had acquired it.
Castruccio saw the son of Guinigi in this light, and he felt a pang
of sincere and deep grief, when it became his turn to heap his
grassy tomb, amidst the many others with which the plain around
Altopascio was crowded, and to order the place where the remains of
Arrigo reposed, to be marked with a sepulchral pillar.

From Altopascio, Castruccio advanced with his army to the very
gates of Florence. The peasants fled before him, and took refuge,
with what property they could save, in the city; the rest became
the prey of the Lucchese army, who marked their progress by fire
and devastation. All the harvests had been brought in; but
Castruccio's soldiers wreaked their vengeance upon the fields,
tearing up and burning the vines, cutting down the olive woods,
seizing or burning the winter-stock, and reducing the cottages of
the poor to a heap of formless ruins. The country about Florence
was adorned by numerous villas, the summer abodes of the rich
citizens, ornamented with all the luxury of the times, the grounds
laid out in the most delicious gardens, where beautiful trees and
flowers adorned the landscape, and natural and artificial rills and
waterfalls diffused coolness in the midst of summer. These became
the prey of the soldier; the palaces were ransacked, and afterwards
burned, the cultivated grounds covered with ruins, the rivulets
choked up, and all that, a few days before, had presented the shew
of a terrestrial paradise, now appeared as if an earthquake,
mocking the best cares of man, had laid it in ruin.

The army encamped before the gates of Florence. The remnant of
the troops of Cardona and the remainder of the citizens capable of
bearing arms, would have formed a force sufficient to cope with the
army of Antelminelli. But more than their declared enemies, the
Florentines feared domestic traitors; so many of their first
citizens were prisoners to the prince of Lucca, that they dreaded
lest their relations might endeavour to secure for them their
freedom even by the betraying of their native city. Day and night
they guarded the walls and gates, and patrolled the streets, each
regarding the other with suspicious eyes, and listening with fear
and horror to the sounds of rejoicing and riot that issued from the
camp of Castruccio.

The prince, in contempt and derision of the besieged, encouraged
every kind of pastime and insulting mockery, that might sting his
proud, though humbled enemies: he instituted games and races,
coined money, and sent continual defiances to the citizens to issue
from their walls and encounter him in battle. The men, too ready to
seize the spirit of hatred and ridicule, amused themselves with
casting by means of their balestri, the carcases of dead asses and
dogs into the town. Woe to the Florentine who fell into their
hands; if a female, no innocence nor tears could save her from
their brutality, and, if a man, if their insults were less cruel,
they were hardly less cutting and humiliating; to lead a prisoner
naked through the camp, seated on an ass, with his face turned
towards the tail, was a common mockery. Castruccio perhaps did not
perceive the full extent to which the brutal ferocity of his
soldiers, made drunk by victory, carried them; if he did, he winked
at it; for he had not that magnanimity which should lead him to
treat with respect and kindness a fallen enemy.

While the Lucchese soldiers rioted in plenty, filling themselves
even to satiety with the delicate wines and food of the Florentine
nobles, and consuming in a few weeks the provision of years, the
inhabitants of the besieged city presented a far different
spectacle. The villagers, driven from their cottages, had taken
refuge in Florence, whose gates jealously closed, permitted not the
means of subsistence to be increased. In consequence of this, of
the supernumerary population of the town, and of the unwholesome
food on which the poorer classes were forced to subsist, pestilence
and other contagious fevers declared themselves: the streets were
filled with mournful processions, the bells tolled a perpetual
knell of death; the citizens invited their friends to the funeral
feasts, but the seats of many of the guests were vacated by death,
and the hosts who celebrated them had been invited to several
similar commemorations. Every face looked blank and fearful. The
magistrates were obliged to interfere; they issued an order that
the relations of the dead were no longer to celebrate their
funerals by assemblies of their friends, or to toll the bell during
the ceremony, so that the numerous dead might go to their long
homes without terrifying the survivors by their numbers. Yet this
law could not hide the works of death that were so frequent in the
town; the streets were almost deserted, except by the monks, who
hurried from house to house carrying the cross and sacrament to the
dying; while the poor, almost starving, and often houseless, fell
in the streets, or were carried in terrifying troops to the
hospitals and convents of charity. And this was the work of
Castruccio.

Euthanasia saw and felt this; and she felt as if, bound to him
by an indissoluble chain, it was her business to follow, like an
angel, in his track, to heal the wounds that he inflicted. Dressed
in a coarse garb, and endeavouring to throw aside those feelings of
delicacy which were as a part of her, she visited the houses of the
poor, aided the sick, fed the hungry, and would perform offices
that even wives and mothers shrunk from with disgust and fear. An
heroic sentiment possessed her mind, and lifted her above humanity;
she must atone for the crimes of him she had loved.

Bondelmonti one day visited her; she had just returned from
closing the eyes of an unhappy woman, whose husband and children
had fled from their mother and wife, in the fear of infection; she
had changed her garments on entering the palace, and lay on a
couch, exhausted; for she had not slept for the two previous
nights. Bondelmonti approached her unperceived, and kissed her
hand;--she drew it away: "Beware!" she said. "If you
knew from whence I came, you would not touch a hand that may carry
infection with it."

Bondelmonti reproached her for the carelessness with which she
exposed her health and her life: but Euthanasia interrupted him:
"I thank you, dear cousin, for your anxiety; but you know me
of old, and will not attempt to deter me from doing that which I
regard as my duty.--But what would you now say to me; for I
perceive weighty thought in your overhanging brow?"

"Am I not like the rest of our townsmen in that? You see,
Madonna, perhaps better than any of us, to what straits our city is
reduced, while this Lucchese tyrant triumphs; you perceive our
miseries too well not to pity them; and I trust that you are too
good a patriot not to desire most earnestly to put an end to
them."

"My dear friend, what do you say? I would sacrifice my
life, and more than life, to be of use to my fellow citizens. God
knows how deeply I lament their defeats and their unhappiness. But
what can be done? An angel alone could inspire our troops with that
spirit and courage, which would fit them to cope with the forces of
the prince."

"You say true; but there are other means for overthrowing
him. Consider, Euthanasia, that not only he conquers and despoils
us, but that he is a cruel and bloody tyrant, execrated by the
chiefs of our religion, feared and hated by all who approach him,
one whose death would spread joy and exultation over all
Italy."

"His death!" Euthanasia's pale cheek became still
paler.

"Nay, you are a woman; and, in spite of your superior
strength of mind, I see that you are still to be frightened by
words. Do not let us therefore talk of his death, but only of his
overthrow; we must contrive that."

Euthanasia remained silent. Bondelmonti continued:

"Call to mind, Madonna, the many excellent and virtuous
persons whom he has murdered. I need not mention your friend
Leodino, or any other individual; his enemies have fallen beneath
his axe like trees in a forest; and he feels as little remorse as
the woodman who fells them. Torture, confiscation, treachery and
ingratitude have gone hand in hand with murder. Before he came,
Lucca belonged to the Guelphs, and peace hovered over Tuscany. Now
the first nobles of the land have either fallen victims to his
jealousy, or wander as beggars in Italy. All that is virtuous and
worthy under his dominion send up daily prayers for his downfall;
and that is now near at hand; the means are ready, the instruments
are preparing--"

"For his death?" cried Euthanasia.

"Nay, if you intercede for him, he may be saved: but it
must be upon one condition."

"What is that?"

"That you join our conspiracy, and aid its accomplishment;
thus Antelminelli may be saved, otherwise his fate is sealed.
Consider this alternative; you may take a week for reflection on
what I have said."

Bondelmonti left her. The sleep that had been about to visit her
wearied senses, fled far away,--scared by the doubts and anguish
that possessed her heart.

She felt with double severity this change from the calm that she
had enjoyed for the three preceding years, into the fears and
miseries of a struggle to which she saw no end. The tyranny and
warlike propensities of Castruccio were so entirely in opposition
to every feeling of her heart, that she would not have lamented his
fall; especially as then perhaps she would have conceived it her
duty to stand near him in misfortune, to console his disappointed
hopes, and to teach him the lesson of content in obscurity. But to
join the conspiracy, to become one of those who plotted against
him, to assist in directing the blow which should annihilate, if
not his life, at least all that he regarded as necessary to his
happiness, was a task she shuddered at being called upon to
fulfil.

No one can act conscientiously up to his sense of duty, or
perhaps go even beyond that sense, in the exercise of benevolence
and self- sacrifice, without being repaid by the sweetest and most
secure happiness that man can enjoy, self--approbation. Euthanasia
had devoted herself for some weeks to the nursing the sick, and the
feeding of the hungry; and her benevolence was repaid by a return
of healthful spirits and peace of mind, which it seemed that no
passing circumstance of life could disturb. It was in vain that she
witnessed scenes of pain and wretchedness; she felt that pity which
angels are said to feel; but so strange is the nature of the human
mind, that the most unblemished serenity reigned in her soul. Her
sleep, when she found time to sleep, was deep and refreshing; as
she moved, she felt as if she were air, there was so much
elasticity and lightness of spirit in her motions and her thoughts.
She shed tears, as she heard the groans and complaints of the
sufferers; but she felt as if she were lifted beyond their sphere,
and that her soul, clothed in garments of heavenly texture, could
not be tarnished with earthly dross. All this was now changed. She
fell again into weak humanity, doubting, fearing, hoping.