It was a hint from Rousseau that suggested to Schiller, during his last year in the academy, the idea of dramatizing this episode of Genoese history. In the German 'Memoirs of Rousseau' by H.P. Sturz, referred to in the preceding chapter, he found Rousseau quoted as follows:
The reason why Plutarch wrote such noble biographies is that he never selected half-great men, such as exist by the thousands in quiet states, but grand exemplars of virtue or sublime criminals. In modern history there is a man deserving of his brush, and that is Count Fiesco, whose training made him the very man to liberate his country from the rule of the Dorias.... There was no other thought in his soul than to dethrone the usurper.[42]
Here was a tempting theme for a young dramatist who had fed his own soul upon Plutarch, was enamored of 'greatness' in whatever form, and had already tried his hand upon a 'sublime criminal.' What could be better for his purpose than a daring conspiracy, led by a Plutarchian hero who was at the same time a single-minded patriot? In his earliest musings it is probable that Schiller accepted Rousseau's view of Fiesco at its face value, and when he began to consult the historians he found at first some support for his preconception. Among his sources was the 'Conjuration du Comte de Fiesque', by De Retz; a book which was written, according to a somewhat doubtful tradition, when its author was but eighteen years old, and which, by its clever perversion of history and its subtle insinuation of revolutionary ideas, is said to have drawn from Richelieu the comment: 'There is a dangerous man!'[43] In the sophisticated narrative of De Retz Fiesco appears as a modern Brutus, whose thought of personal aggrandizement was altogether subordinate to the thought of his country's welfare. He is made much better than he really was, and the two Dorias much worse.
Further study of the subject, however, soon opened the eyes of Schiller to the other side of the question; for in Robertson's 'Charles the Fifth' he found Fiesco portrayed as an ambitious revolutionist who sought to overthrow the Dorias only in order that he might make himself the master of Genoa--in short as a Catiline instead of a Brutus. The dramatic problem then turned from the first upon the character of Fiesco. In the 'Dramaturgic' of Lessing the doctrine had been proclaimed that the dramatist is not bound by the so-called facts of history; that he may deal with them as suits his artistic purpose. But what was the purpose to be in this case? Should it be a tragedy of austere patriotism going down against a relatively bad order too strong to be resisted, or a tragedy of corrupt ambition dashing itself to death against a relatively good order too strong to be overthrown? Either conception, if consistently worked out, might have sufficed for the groundwork of a good historical tragedy. What Schiller did, however, was to vacillate between the two, to blend them in a confusing way, and finally to let the interest of his play turn largely upon the hero's mental struggle between selfish ambition and unselfish patriotism.