“Dread monument,” thought he, “of what dark catastrophes, to what unknown schemes, hast thou been the witness!  To how many enterprises, on which history is dumb, hast thou set the seal!  How know we whether they were criminal or just?  How know we whether he, thus doomed as a traitor, would not, if successful, have been immortalized as a deliverer?  If I fall, who will write my chronicle?  One of the people? alas! blinded and ignorant, they furnish forth no minds that can appeal to posterity.  One of the patricians? in what colours then shall I be painted!  No tomb will rise for me amidst the wrecks; no hand scatter flowers upon my grave!”

Thus meditating on the verge of that mighty enterprise to which he had devoted himself, Rienzi pursued his way.  He gained the Tiber, and paused for a few moments beside its legendary stream, over which the purple and starlit heaven shone deeply down.  He crossed the bridge which leads to the quarter of the Trastevere, whose haughty inhabitants yet boast themselves the sole true descendants of the ancient Romans.  Here he step grew quicker and more light; brighter, if less solemn, thoughts crowded upon his breast; and ambition, lulled for a moment, left his strained and over-laboured mind to the reign of a softer passion.

Chapter 1.XI.  Nina di Raselli.

“I tell you, Lucia, I do not love those stuffs; they do not become me.  Saw you ever so poor a dye?—­this purple, indeed! that crimson!  Why did you let the man leave them?  Let him take them elsewhere tomorrow.  They may suit the signoras on the other side the Tiber, who imagine everything Venetian must be perfect; but I, Lucia, I see with my own eyes, and judge from my own mind.”

“Ah, dear lady,” said the serving-maid, “if you were, as you doubtless will be, some time or other, a grand signora, how worthily you would wear the honours!  Santa Cecilia!  No other dame in Rome would be looked at while the Lady Nina were by!”

“Would we not teach them what pomp was?” answered Nina.  “Oh! what festivals would we hold!  Saw you not from the gallery the revels given last week by the Lady Giulia Savelli?”

“Ay, signora; and when you walked up the hall in your silver and pearl tissue, there ran such a murmur through the gallery; every one cried, ‘The Savelli have entertained an angel!’”

“Pish!  Lucia; no flattery, girl.”

“It is naked truth, lady.  But that was a revel, was it not?  There was grandeur!—­fifty servitors in scarlet and gold! and the music playing all the while.  The minstrels were sent for from Bergamo.  Did not that festival please you?  Ah, I warrant many were the fine speeches made to you that day!”

“Heigho!—­no, there was one voice wanting, and all the music was marred.  But, girl, were I the Lady Giulia, I would not have been contented with so poor a revel.”

“How, poor!  Why all the nobles say it outdid the proudest marriage-feast of the Colonna.  Nay, a Neapolitan who sat next me, and who had served under the young Queen Joanna, at her marriage, says, that even Naples was outshone.”