Tullia

“ Another woman in Rome had once waited with great impatience while her husband thrust the ruler from his throne; and though the plot meant the death of her own father, Tullia could ride to the Senate chamber to ascertain with her own eyes if everything were in satisfactory progress. But there is no comparison to be drawn between Tullia and Portia. There is nothing to indicate that the latter was in the least stirred by ambition. She simply believed in her husband to the extent that if it were he who purposed assassination, she must deem it justified. ”

“ The clever Tullia, who had a questionable salon at Rome, with plenty of cardinals and princes in her train, carried with her to other courts a certain prestige which they did not scrutinize too closely, and she fascinated many men who were not quite equal to the moral and intellectual altitude of a Vittoria Colonna or an Olympia Morata. ”

“ Methinks I see my Tullia, I hear my Tullia, I talk with my Tullia.—But as soon as he began to look into the stores of philosophy, and consider how many excellent things might be said upon the occasion—no body upon earth can conceive, says the great orator, how happy, how joyful it made me. ”

“ It is a delicate question to ask, and a still more delicate one to answer. A single incident will suffice to give you an idea of Tullia's crotchets. Her bed-spread of Brussels lace was worth ten thousand francs. A famous actress had another like it. As soon as Claudine heard this, she allowed her cat, a splendid Angora, to sleep on the bed. That trait gives you the woman. Du Bruel dared not say a word; he was ordered to spread abroad that challenge in luxury, so that it might reach the other. Tullia was very fond of this gift from the Duc de Rhetore ”

“ At all events the opportunity should not be lost. Besides, if Donna Tullia found that she herself was really not in a proper frame of mind for religious exercises, she could easily spend a few moments in the church and then proceed upon her way. She stopped her carriage and went in. She had just entered when she was aware of the tall figure of Corona d'Astrardente coming towards her, magnificent in the simplicity of her furs, a short veil just covering half her face, and an unwonted colour in her dark cheeks. ”

“ The example of Tullia, forcibly teaches the progressive nature and dreadful consequences of sin. It points out to us the danger of entering upon a course of criminal indulgence, by showing the sad extremes into which those are likely to be hurried, who resign themselves slaves to ambition and to vice. Listen not, my children, to the syren song of worldly pleasure; pursue not the gilded pageants of time. Instead of amusing yourselces with these phantoms of a moment, build up your happiness on the durable foundations of innocence and virtue. ”

“ None but the most eminent artists performed in the house. Tullia had so much good sense, that she attained to the most exquisite tact, and herein, in all probability, lay the secret of her ascendency over du Bruel; at any rate, he loved her with the love which use and wont at length makes indispensable to life. Every day adds another thread to the strong, irresistible, intangible web, which enmeshes the most delicate fancies, takes captive every most transient mood, and binding them together, holds a man captive hand and foot, heart and head.
“Tullia knew Cursy well ”

“ But Tullia and her contemporaries saw nothing of the kind.
Nor let any saucy scapegrace imagine, that any experiences of the different attributes of Eros and Anteros, which the authoress may be supposed to [Pg 28] have acquired in the course of her life, are in any wise brought to bear on any part of her theme. The dialogue might be innocently, if not profitably, read by any of those damsels and nuns for whom Tullia specially prepared her less immaculate poem. ”

“ There was a short pause, during which Donna Tullia concluded that the friend must have been Orsino. But the next remark threw her off the scent.
"It was his wife's ticket, I believe," said Maria Consuelo. "She could not come. I am here on false pretences." She smiled carelessly.
Donna Tullia lost herself in speculation, but failed to solve the problem.
"You have chosen a most favourable moment for your first visit to Rome," she remarked at last.
"Yes. I am always fortunate. I believe I have seen everything worth seeing ever since I was a little girl."
"She is somebody," thought Donna Tullia. ”

“ A stirring and prideful man found himself coupled with a woman of easy, good-natured disposition; and a man of contented mind and contemplative habits was afflicted with a high-spirited and ambitious wife. The haughty Tullia could not endure the thought that there was no material in her husband either for daring or energetic action. She gave her regard to Lucius, who, as she considerately informed Aruns, was worthy to be called a man. ”

“ After the death of that mysterious phantom, her husband, says Zilioli, Tullia left Rome in search of "fresh fields and pastures new." We can only know that this was after 1540. But it must have been much after this that she took up her residence in Florence. For the same writer tells us, that she was then both in years and appearance pretty nearly an old woman. [15] In 1562 she was, according to the date we have assigned to her birth, only fifty–two or three, or thereabouts. And she must have resided in Florence several years prior to that date. ”

“ I recognized Centurion Cornelius, although I don’t think he noticed me. He seemed greatly disturbed.”
“Then, by the gods, Claudia, I must go find him. This is amazing. Tullia, by great Jupiter, do you know what you’re saying? Do you realize that you are saying a dead man....?”
His question was interrupted by a knocking on the corridor door. Quickly Tullia opened it. A palace servant announced that Centurion Cornelius was trying to find Centurion Longinus. ”

“ But he, Muzio, thinking that a feigned name could not with propriety be introduced in conjunction with the real name of Varchi, had decided on inserting the name of Tullia.
HER DIALOGUE ON LOVE.
The production itself is a truly wonderful proof of the amount of difference that may exist between the average cultivated human intellect in one age and country and in another. ”

“ Longinus may endanger himself by coming. We must warn him. But how, Tullia? He is likely to be arriving any moment; he must have been delayed at Castra Praetoria, or he would have been here already.”
Quickly she told the maid the startling news the Prefect had brought.
“Anyone who leaves this house through these doors, Mistress, then is sure to be followed. But I could go out through the servant’s entrance on some contrived mission and perhaps be able to warn him.”
“Good, Tullia. You can be taking something to Senator Piso’s house and carry a message to Longinus. ”

“ In all probability the man was in a trance when they put him away; no doubt the carpenter roused him from the trance into which he had fallen.”
“Mistress, you have little faith in the Galilean.” Tullia’s dark eyes were serious now. “You cannot see how he could be the Messiah of the Jews and armed with unearthly power, can you?”
“I don’t believe that any man can restore life to another man, if that’s what you mean, little one. ”

“ Madame Mayer—or Donna Tullia, since you prefer to call her so—is the centre of a sort of club of so-called Liberals, of whom the most active and the most foolish member is a certain Ugo del Ferice, a fellow who calls himself a count, but whose grandfather was a coachman in the Vatican under Leo XII. He will get himself into trouble some day. He is always in attendance upon Donna Tullia, and probably led her into this band of foolish young people for objects of his own. It is a very silly society ”

“ Tullia was the instigator of this coup d'état; and impatient to learn its success, she drove to the Forum, and, calling her husband from the Senate chamber, was the first to hail him as king. But Lucius commanded her to return home; and the tradition runs that as she was going thither her chariot wheels passed over the dead body of her royal father as it lay in the narrow street. More of the story of this Roman personification of filial iniquity we are not told, except that, in accordance with the inevitable rule of legendary history, she met the Nemesis of her crimes on a later day. ”

“ She rapidly infected the young man with her own recklessness. Lucius Tarquin and the younger Tullia, by a double murder, cleared from their houses the obstacles to a fresh marriage; their nuptials were solemnised with the tacit acquiescence rather than the approbation of Servius.
47 From that time the old age of Tullius became more embittered, his reign more unhappy. The woman began to look forward from one crime to another; she allowed her husband no rest day or night, for fear lest the past murders should prove fruitless. ”

“ How delightfully the vein of natural womanhood crops out from under the thick overlying strata of propriety and devoutness! Poor Tullia! And to think of that wretch of a biography–man Zilioli, talking of "half–old–womanhood in years and in appearance," in speaking of a period anterior to this! ”

“ Such would seem, according to the authority alluded to, to be the law of nature, which rules the destinies of charming women whose charms have gone from them. Tullia appears to have chosen the latter alternative, and established herself permanently at Florence under the special protection of the pious Duchess Eleonora di Toledo. ”

“ I do not pretend to take rank among your very prudent people, still I don't want to be set down as a perfect fool, as truly I should deserve to be, had I got into any such scrape for Tullia, or any other woman. She is not, as you say, beautiful; but she is, if I am not mistaken, highly gifted with talent and wit ”

“ These killed the unprotected old man, and left him lying in his blood in the middle of the street.
And now was done a deed which has aroused the execrations of mankind in all later ages. Tullia, who had instigated her husband to the murder of her father, waited with impatience until it was performed. Then, mounting her chariot, she bade the coachman to drive to the Forum, where, heedless of the crowd of men who had assembled, she called Lucius from the senate-house, and cried to him, in accents of triumph, "Hail to thee, King Tarquinius!" ”

“ THE CRUEL DEED OF TULLIA Servius Tullius began to reign in 578 B.C. Like Pompilius and Ancus, he loved peace, and fought against none, save only the Etruscans.
With the Latins he made a treaty, after which the two tribes built a temple to Diana on the Aventine hill, and here every year sacrifices were offered for Rome and for Latium.
The city which Romulus had built on the Palatine had long ago become too small for the Romans. ”

“ Formerly I retired into my family to forget the misfortunes of the state, but can the state now offer me any remedy to make me forget the misfortunes of my family? I am obliged to shun, at the same time, both my home and the Forum, for my home no longer consoles me for the trouble the republic causes me, and the republic cannot fill the void that I find in my home.” [121]
Tullia’s sad fate, and the grief that her death caused her father, attract us towards her. When we see her lamented so much we wish to know her better. ”

“ Donna Tullia laughed at what he said.
"You should teach Don Giovanni to make pretty speeches," she said. "He is as surly as a wolf this morning."
"I should think a man in his position would not need much teaching in order to be gallant to you," replied the old dandy, with a knowing look. Then lowering his voice, he added confidentially, "I hope that before very long I may be allowed to congrat—"
"I have prevailed upon him to give up following the hounds to-day," interrupted Donna Tullia, quickly. She spoke loud enough to be noticed by Corona. ”

“ Valdarno is going to drive us round by the cross-roads to the Capannelle.
We will have a picnic lunch, and be home before three o'clock."
"Thanks very much. I cannot let my horse shirk his work. I must beg you to excuse me—"
"Again?" exclaimed Donna Tullia. "You are always making excuses." Then she suddenly changed her tone, and looked down. "I wish you would come with us," she said, gently. "It is not often I ask you to do anything."
Giovanni looked at her quickly. He knew that Donna Tullia wished to marry him ”

“ The brightest still the fleetest,"
the inexorable years too soon brought poor Tullia to that period of "half old–womanhood," as Zilioli so uncourteously terms it, which must have nearly coincided with the date assigned by grave Mazzuchelli to that period of "flourishing," which, it is to be feared, the "half–old woman" would have fixed some five–and–twenty years earlier.
And what was to be done by a brilliant Apollo–chartered Aspasia, when fallen into half old–womanhood? ”

“ But as he rested himself, drawing his monk's hood closely over his head and trying to warm his freezing feet with the skirts of his rough brown frock, he reflected that if he ever got safely across the frontier he would be treated as a patriot, as a man who had suffered for the cause, and certainly as a man who deserved to be rewarded. He reflected that Donna Tullia was a woman who had a theatrical taste for romance, and that his present position was in theory highly romantic, however uncomfortable it might be in the practice. ”

“ It contains the whole story of Tullia’s ambition and the death of Servius, the journey of Brutus to Delphi, the fulfilment of the oracle, the betrayal of Gabii, the camp at Ardea, the crime of Tarquin, the rising of the Roman nobles, the war with Porsena, and the stories of Horatius and Scevola. The characters are devoid of personal reality. Lucrece herself is more a type of innocence than a true woman. Of the minor characters which fill out the play, by far the most original is Valerius. ”