At Home And Abroad Part 24

"E gittata la mia sorte, p.r.o.nto sono ad ogni guerra, S' io card, cadre da forte, E il mio nome restera.

"Non vedr l'amata terra Svener lenta e farri a brano, Sopra l'ultimo Romano Tutta Italia piangera."

"My lot is fixed, and I stand ready for every conflict. If I must fall, I shall fall as a brave man, and my fame will survive. I shall not see my beloved country fall to pieces and slowly perish, and over the last Roman all Italy will weep."

And at lines of which the following is a translation:--

"O brave man, whose mighty power can raise thy country from such dire distress; from the immortal hills, radiant with glory, let the shades of our ancestors arise; oh! only one day, one instant, arise to look upon us!"

It was an Italian who sung this strain, though, singularly enough, here in the heart of Italy, so long reputed the home of music, three princ.i.p.al parts were filled by persons bearing the foreign names of Ivanoff, Mitrovich, and Nissren.

Naples continues in a state of great excitement, which now pervades the upper cla.s.ses, as several young men of n.o.ble families have been arrested; among them, one young man much beloved, son of Prince Terella, and who, it is said, was certainly not present on the occasion for which he was arrested, and that the measure was taken because he was known to sympathize strongly with the liberal movement.

The n.o.bility very generally have not feared to go to the house of his father to express their displeasure at the arrest and interest in the young man. The ministry, it is said, are now persuaded of the necessity of a change of measures. The king alone remains inflexible in his stupidity.

The stars of Bonaparte and Byron show again a conjunction, by the almost simultaneous announcement of changes in the lot of women with whom they were so intimately connected;--the Archd.u.c.h.ess of Parma, Maria Louisa, is dead; the Countess Guiccioli is married. The Countess I have seen several times; she still looks young, and retains the charms which by the contemporaries of Byron she is reputed to have had; they never were of a very high order; her best expression is that of a good heart. I always supposed that Byron, weary and sick of the world such as he had known it, became attached to her for her good disposition, and sincere, warm tenderness for him; the sight of her, and the testimony of a near relative, confirmed this impression. This friend of hers added, that she had tried very hard to remain devoted to the memory of Byron, but was quite unequal to the part, being one of those affectionate natures that must have some one near with whom to be occupied; and now, it seems, she has resigned herself publicly to abandon her romance. However, I fancy the manes of Byron remain undisturbed.

We all know the worthless character of Maria Louisa, the indifference she showed to a husband who, if he was not her own choice, yet would have been endeared to almost any woman, as one fallen from an immense height into immense misfortune, and as the father of her child. No voice from her penetrated to cheer his exile: the unhappiness of Josephine was well avenged. And that child, the poor Duke of Reichstadt, of a character so interesting, and with obvious elements of greatness, withering beneath the mean, cold influence of his grandfather,--what did Maria Louisa do for him,--she, appointed by Nature to be his inspiring genius, his protecting angel? I felt for her a most sad and profound contempt last summer, as I pa.s.sed through her oppressed dominion, a little sphere, in which, if she could not save it from the usual effects of the Austrian rule, she might have done so much private, womanly good,--might have been a genial heart to warm it,--and where she had let so much ill be done. A journal announces her death in these words: "The Archd.u.c.h.ess is dead; a woman who _might_ have occupied one of the n.o.blest positions in the history of the age";--and there makes expressive pause.

Parma, pa.s.sing from bad to worse, falls into the hands of the Duke of Modena; and the people and magistracy have made an address to their new ruler. The address has received many thousand signatures, and seems quite sincere, except in the a.s.sumption of good-will in the Duke of Modena; and this is merely an insincerity of etiquette.

LETTER XXI.

THE POPE'S RECEPTION OF THE NEW OFFICERS.--THEY KISS HIS FOOT.--VESPERS AT THE GESu.--A POOR YOUTH IN ROME SEEKING A PATRON.--RUMORS OF DISTURBANCES.--THEIR CAUSE.--REPRESENTATIONS TO THE POPE.--HIS CONDUCT IN THE AFFAIR.--AN ITALIAN CONSUL FOR THE UNITED STATES.--CATHOLICISM.--THE POPULARITY OF THE POPE.--HIS DEPOSITION OF A CENSOR.--THE POLICY OF THE POPE IN HIS DOMESTIC NOT EQUAL TO THAT OF HIS PUBLIC LIFE.--HIS OPPOSITION TO PROTESTANT REFORM.--LETTER FROM JOSEPH MAZZINI TO THE PONTIFF.--REFLECTIONS ON IT.

Rome, January 10, 1848.

In the first morning of this New Year I sent off a letter which must then be mailed, in order to reach the steamer of the 16th. So far am I from home, that even steam does not come nigh to annihilate the distance.

This afternoon I went to the Quirinal Palace to see the Pope receive the new munic.i.p.al officers. He was to-day in his robes of white and gold, with his usual corps of attendants in pure red and white, or violet and white. The new officers were in black velvet dresses, with broad white collars. They took the oaths of office, and then actually kissed his foot. I had supposed this was never really done, but only a very low obeisance made; the act seemed to me disgustingly abject.

A Heavenly Father does not want his children at his feet, but in his arms, on a level with his heart.

After this was over the Pope went to the Gesu, a very rich church, belonging to the Jesuits, to officiate at Vespers, and we followed.

The music was beautiful, and the effect of the church, with its richly-painted dome and altar-piece in a blaze of light, while the a.s.sembly were in a sort of brown darkness, was very fine.

A number of Americans there, new arrivals, kept requesting in the midst of the music to know when _it_ would begin. "Why, this is _it_,"

some one at last had the patience to answer; "you are hearing Vespers now." "What," they replied, "is there no oration, no speech!" So deeply rooted in the American mind is the idea that a sermon is the only real worship!

This church, is indelibly stamped on my mind. Coming to Rome this time, I saw in the diligence a young man, whom his uncle, a priest of the convent that owns this church, had sent for, intending to provide him employment here. Some slight circ.u.mstances tested the character of this young man, and showed it what I have ever found it, singularly honorable and conscientious. He was led to show me his papers, among which was a letter from a youth whom, with that true benevolence only possible to the poor, because only they _can_ make great sacrifices, he had so benefited as to make an entire change in his prospects for life. Himself a poor orphan, with nothing but a tolerable education at an orphan asylum, and a friend of his dead parents to find him employment on leaving it, he had felt for this young man, poorer and more uninstructed than himself, had taught him at his leisure to read and write, had then collected from, friends, and given himself, till he had gathered together sixty francs, procuring also for his _protege_ a letter from monks, who were friends of his, to the convents on the road, so that wherever there was one, the poor youth had lodging and food gratis. Thus armed, he set forth on foot for Rome; Piacenza, their native place, affording little hope even of gaining bread, in the present distressed state of that dominion. The letter was to say that he had arrived, and been so fortunate as to find employment immediately in the studio of Benzoni, the sculptor.

The poor patron's eyes sparkled as I read the letter. "How happy he is!" said he. "And does he not spell and write well? I was his only master."

But the good do not inherit the earth, and, less fortunate than his _protege_, Germano on his arrival found his uncle ill of the Roman fever. He came to see me, much agitated. "Can it be, Signorina," says he, "that G.o.d, who has taken my father and mother, will also take from me the only protector I have left, and just as I arrive in this strange place, too?" After a few days he seemed more tranquil, and told me that, though he had felt as if it would console him and divert his mind to go to some places of entertainment, he had forborne and applied the money to have ma.s.ses said for his uncle. "I feel," he said, "as if G.o.d would help me." Alas! at that moment the uncle was dying. Poor Germano came next day with a receipt for ma.s.ses said for the soul of the departed, (his simple faith in these being apparently indestructible,) and amid his tears he said: "The Fathers were so unkind, they were hardly willing to hear me speak a word; they were so afraid I should be a burden to them, I shall never go there again. But the most cruel thing was, I offered them a scudo (dollar) to say six ma.s.ses for the soul of my poor uncle; they said they would only say five, and must have seven baiocchi (cents) more for that."

A few days after, I happened to go into their church, and found it thronged, while a preacher, panting, sweating, leaning half out of the pulpit, was exhorting his hearers to "imitate Christ." With unspeakable disgust I gazed on this false shepherd of those who had just so failed in their duty to a poor stray lamb, Their church is so rich in ornaments, the seven baiocchi were hardly needed to burnish it. Their altar-piece is a very imposing composition, by an artist of Rome, still in the prime of his powers. Capalti. It represents the Circ.u.mcision, with the cross and six waiting angels in the background; Joseph, who holds the child, the priest, and all the figures in the foreground, seem intent upon the barbarous rite, except Mary the mother; her mind seems to rush forward into the future, and understand the destiny of her child; she sees the cross,--she sees the angels, too.

Now I have mentioned a picture, let me say a word or two about Art and artists, by way of parenthesis in this letter so much occupied, with political affairs. We laugh a little here at some words that come from your city on the subject of Art.

We hear that the landscapes painted here show a want of familiarity with Nature; artists need to return to America and see her again. But, friends, Nature wears a different face in Italy from what she does in America. Do you not want to see her Italian face? it is very glorious!

We thought it was the aim of Art to reproduce all forms of Nature, and that you would not be sorry to have transcripts of what you have not always round you. American Art is not necessarily a reproduction of American Nature.

Hicks has made a charming picture of familiar life, which those who cannot believe in Italian daylight would not tolerate. I am not sure that all eyes are made in the same manner, for I have known those who declare they see nothing remarkable in these skies, these hues; and always complain when they are reproduced in picture. I have yet seen no picture by Cropsey on an Italian subject, but his sketches from Scotch scenes are most poetical and just presentations of those lakes, those mountains, with their mourning veils. He is an artist of great promise. Cranch has made a picture for Mr. Ogden Haggerty of a fine mountain-hold of old Colonna story. I wish he would write a ballad about it too; there is plenty of material.

But to return to the Jesuits. One swallow does not make a summer, nor am I--who have seen so much hard-heartedness and barbarous greed of gain in all cla.s.ses of men--so foolish as to attach undue importance to the demand, by those who have dared to appropriate peculiarly to themselves the sacred name of Jesus, from a poor orphan, and for the soul of one of their own order, of "seven baiocchi more." But I have always been satisfied, from the very nature of their inst.i.tutions, that the current prejudice against them must be correct. These inst.i.tutions are calculated to harden the heart, and destroy entirely that truth which is the conservative principle in character. Their influence is and must be always against the free progress of humanity.

The more I see of its working, the more I feel how pernicious it is, and were I a European, to no object should I lend myself with more ardor, than to the extirpation of this cancer. True, disband the Jesuits, there would still remain Jesuitical men, but singly they would have infinitely less power to work mischief.

The influence of the Oscurantist foe has shown itself more and more plainly in Rome, during the last four or five weeks. A false miracle is devised: the Madonna del Popolo, (who has her handsome house very near me,) has cured, a paralytic youth, (who, in fact, was never diseased,) and, appearing to him in a vision, takes occasion to criticise severely the measures of the Pope. Rumors of tumult in one quarter are circulated, to excite it in another. Inflammatory handbills are put up in the night. But the Romans thus far resist all intrigues of the foe to excite them to bad conduct.

On New-Year's day, however, success was near. The people, as usual, asked permission of the Governor to go to the Quirinal and receive the benediction of the Pope. This was denied, and not, as it might truly have been, because the Pope was unwell, but in the most ungracious, irritating manner possible, by saying, "He is tired of these things: he is afraid of disturbance." Then, the people being naturally excited and angry, the Governor sent word to the Pope that there was excitement, without letting him know why, and had the guards doubled on the posts. The most absurd rumors were circulated among the people that the cannon of St. Angelo were to be pointed on them, &c. But they, with that singular discretion which they show now, instead of rising, as their enemies had hoped, went to ask counsel of their lately appointed Senator, Corsini. He went to the Pope, found him ill, entirely ignorant of what was going on, and much distressed when he heard it. He declared that the people should be satisfied, and, since they had not been allowed to come to him, he would go to them.

Accordingly, the next day, though rainy and of a searching cold like that of a Scotch mist, we had all our windows thrown open, and the red and yellow tapestries hung out. He pa.s.sed through the princ.i.p.al parts of the city, the people throwing themselves on their knees and crying out, "O Holy Father, don't desert us! don't forget us! don't listen to our enemies!" The Pope wept often, and replied, "Fear nothing, my people, my heart is yours." At last, seeing how ill he was, they begged him to go in, and he returned to the Quirinal; the present Tribune of the People, as far as rule in the heart is concerned, Ciceronacchio, following his carriage. I shall give some account of this man in another letter.

For the moment, the difficulties are healed, as they will be whenever the Pope directly shows himself to the people. Then his generous, affectionate heart will always act, and act on them, dissipating the clouds which others have been toiling to darken.

In speaking of the intrigues of these emissaries of the power of darkness, I will mention that there is a report here that they are trying to get an Italian Consul for the United States, and one in the employment of the Jesuits. This rumor seems ridiculous; yet it is true that Dr. Beecher's panic about Catholic influence in the United States is not quite unfounded, and that there is considerable hope of establishing a new dominion there. I hope the United States will appoint no Italian, no Catholic, to a consulship. The representative of the United States should be American; our national character and interests are peculiar, and cannot be fitly represented by a foreigner, unless, like Mr. Ombrossi of Florence, he has pa.s.sed part of his youth in the United States. It would, indeed, be well if our government paid attention to qualification for the office in the candidate, and not to pretensions founded on partisan service; appointing only men of probity, who would not stain the national honor in the sight of Europe. It would be wise also not to select men entirely ignorant of foreign manners, customs, ways of thinking, or even of any language in which to communicate with foreign society, making the country ridiculous by all sorts of blunders; but 't were pity if a sufficient number of Americans could not be found, who are honest, have some knowledge of Europe and gentlemanly tact, and are able at least to speak French.

To return to the Pope, although the shadow that has fallen on his popularity is in a great measure the work of his enemies, yet there is real cause for it too. His conduct in deposing for a time one of the Censors, about the banners of the 15th of December, his speech to the Council the same day, his extreme displeasure at the sympathy of a few persons with the triumph of the Swiss Diet, because it was a Protestant triumph, and, above all, his speech to the Consistory, so deplorably weak in thought and absolute in manner, show a man less strong against domestic than foreign foes, instigated by a generous, humane heart to advance, but fettered by the prejudices of education, and terribly afraid to be or seem to be less the Pope of Rome, in becoming a reform prince, and father to the fatherless. I insert a pa.s.sage of this speech, which seems to say that, whenever there shall be collision between the priest and the reformer, the priest shall triumph:--

"Another subject there is which profoundly afflicts and hara.s.ses our mind. It is not certainly unknown to you, Venerable Brethren, that many enemies of Catholic truth have, in our times especially, directed their efforts by the desire to place certain monstrous offsprings of opinion on a par with the doctrine of Christ, or to blend them therewith, seeking to propagate more and more that impious system of _indifference_ toward all religion whatever.

"And lately some have been found, dreadful to narrate! who have offered such an insult to our name and Apostolic dignity, as slanderously to represent us partic.i.p.ators in their folly, and favorers of that most iniquitous system above named. These have been pleased to infer from, the counsels (certainly not foreign to the sanct.i.ty of the Catholic religion) which, in certain affairs pertaining to the civil exercise of the Pontific sway, we had benignly embraced for the increase of public prosperity and good, and also from the pardon bestowed in clemency upon certain persons subject to that sway, in the very beginning of our Pontificate, that we had such benevolent sentiments toward every description of persons as to believe that not only the sons of the Church, but others also, remaining aliens from Catholic unity, are alike in the way of salvation, and may attain eternal life. Words are wanting to us, from horror, to repel this new and atrocious calumny against us. It is true that with intimate affection of heart we love all mankind, but not otherwise than in the charity of G.o.d and of our Lord Jesus Christ, who came to seek and to save that which had perished, who wisheth that all men should be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth, and who sent his disciples through the whole world to preach the Gospel to every creature, declaring that those who should believe and be baptized should be saved, but those who should not believe, should be condemned. Let those therefore who seek salvation come to the pillar and support of the Truth, which is the Church,--let them come, that is, to the true Church of Christ, which possesses in its bishops and the supreme head of all, the Roman Pontiff, a never-interrupted succession of Apostolic authority, and which for nothing has ever been more zealous than to preach, and with all care preserve and defend, the doctrine announced as the mandate of Christ by his Apostles; which Church afterward increased, from the time of the Apostles, in the midst of every species of difficulties, and flourished throughout the whole world, radiant in the splendor of miracles, amplified by the blood of martyrs, enn.o.bled by the virtues of confessors and virgins, corroborated by the testimony and most sapient writings of the fathers,--as it still flourishes throughout all lands, refulgent in perfect unity of the sacraments, of faith, and of holy discipline.

We who, though unworthy, preside in this supreme chair of the Apostle Peter, in which Christ our Lord placed the foundation of his Church, have at no time abstained, from any cares or toils to bring, through the grace of Christ himself, those who are in ignorance and error to this sole way of truth and salvation. Let those, whoever they be, that are adverse, remember that heaven and earth shall pa.s.s away, but nothing can ever perish of the words of Christ, nor be changed in the doctrine which the Catholic Church received, to guard, defend, and publish, from him.

"Next to this we cannot but speak to you, Venerable Brethren, of the bitterness of sorrow by which we were affected, on seeing that a few days since, in this our fair city, the fortress and centre of the Catholic religion, it proved possible to find some--very few indeed and well-nigh frantic men--who, laying aside the very sense of humanity, and to the extreme disgust and indignation of other citizens of this town, were not withheld, by horror from triumphing openly and publicly over the most lamentable intestine war lately excited among the Helvetic people; which truly fatal war we sorrow over from the depths of our heart, as well considering the blood shed by that nation, the slaughter of brothers, the atrocious, daily recurring, and fatal discords, hatreds, and dissensions (which usually redound among nations in consequence especially of civil wars), as the detriment which we learn the Catholic religion has suffered, and fear it may yet suffer, in consequence of this, and, finally, the deplorable acts of sacrilege committed in the first conflict, which our soul shrinks from narrating."

It is probably on account of these fears of Pius IX. lest he should be a called a Protestant Pope, that the Roman journals thus far, in translating the American Address to the Pope, have not dared to add any comment.

But if the heart, the instincts, of this good man have been beyond his thinking powers, that only shows him the providential agent to work out aims beyond his ken. A wave has been set in motion, which cannot stop till it casts up its freight upon the sh.o.r.e, and if Pius IX. does not suffer himself to be surrounded by dignitaries, and see the signs of the times through the eyes of others,--if he does not suffer the knowledge he had of general society as a simple prelate to become incrusted by the ignorance habitual to princes,--he cannot fail long to be a most important agent in fashioning a new and better era for this beautiful injured land.

I will now give another doc.u.ment, which may be considered as representing the view of what is now pa.s.sing taken by the democratic party called "Young Italy." Should it in any other way have reached the United States, yet it will not come amiss to have it translated for the Tribune, as many of your readers may not otherwise have a chance of seeing this n.o.ble doc.u.ment, one of the milestones in the march of thought. It is a letter to the Most High Pontiff, Pius IX., from Joseph Mazzini.

"London, 8th September, 1847.

"MOST HOLY FATHER,--Permit an Italian, who has studied your every step for some months back with much hopefulness, to address to you, in the midst of the applauses, often far too servile and unworthy of you, which, resound near you, some free and profoundly sincere words. Take to read them some moments from your infinite cares. From a simple individual animated by holy intentions may come, sometimes, a great counsel; and I write to you with so much love, with so much emotion of my whole soul, with so much faith in the destiny of my country, which may be revived by your means, that my thoughts ought to speak truth.

"And first, it is needful, Most Holy Father, that I should say to you somewhat of myself. My name has probably reached your ears, but accompanied by all the calumnies, by all the errors, by all the foolish conjectures, which the police, by system, and many men of my party through want of knowledge or poverty of intellect, have heaped upon it. I am not a subverter, nor a communist, nor a man of blood, nor a hater, nor intolerant, nor exclusive adorer of a system, or of a form imagined by my mind. I adore G.o.d, and an idea which seems to me of G.o.d,--Italy an angel of moral unity and of progressive civilization for the nations of Europe. Here and everywhere I have written the best I know how against the vices of materialism, of egotism, of reaction, and against the destructive tendencies which contaminate many of our party. If the people should rise in violent attack against the selfishness and bad government of their rulers, I, while rendering homage to the right of the people, shall be among the first to prevent the excesses and the vengeance which long slavery has prepared. I believe profoundly in a religious principle, supreme above all social ordinances; in a divine order, which we ought to seek to realize here on earth; in a law, in a providential design, which we all ought, according to our powers, to study and to promote. I believe in the inspiration of my immortal soul, in the teaching of Humanity, which shouts to me, through the deeds and words of all its saints, incessant progress for all through, the work of all my brothers toward a common moral amelioration, toward the fulfilment of the Divine Law. And in the great history of Humanity I have studied the history of Italy, and have found there Rome twice directress of the world,--first through the Emperors, later through the Popes. I have found there, that every manifestation of Italian life has also been a manifestation of European life; and that always when Italy fell, the moral unity of Europe began to fall apart in a.n.a.lysis, in doubt, in anarchy.

I believe in yet another manifestation of the Italian idea; and I believe that another European world ought to be revealed from the Eternal City, that had the Capitol, and has the Vatican. And this faith has not abandoned me ever, through years, poverty, and griefs which G.o.d alone knows. In these few words lies all my being, all the secret of my life. I may err in the intellect, but the heart has always remained pure. I have never lied through fear or hope, and I speak to you as I should speak to G.o.d beyond the sepulchre.

"I believe you good. There is no man this day, I will not say in Italy, but in all Europe, more powerful than you; you then have, most Holy Father, vast duties. G.o.d measures these according to the means which he has granted to his creatures.

"Europe is in a tremendous crisis of doubts and desires. Through the work of time, accelerated by your predecessors of the hierarchy of the Church, faith is dead, Catholicism is lost in despotism; Protestantism is lost in anarchy. Look around you; you will find superst.i.tious and hypocrites, but not believers. The intellect travels in a void. The bad adore calculation, physical good; the good pray and hope; n.o.body _believes_. Kings, governments, the ruling cla.s.ses, combat for a power usurped, illegitimate, since it does not represent the worship of truth, nor disposition to sacrifice one's self for the good of all; the people combat because they suffer, because they would fain take their turn to enjoy; n.o.body fights for duty, n.o.body because the war against evil and falsehood is a holy war, the crusade of G.o.d. We have no more a heaven; hence we have no more a society.

"Do not deceive yourself, Most Holy Father; this is the present state of Europe.

"But humanity cannot exist without a heaven. The idea of society is only a consequence of the idea of religion. We shall have then, sooner or later, religion and heaven. We shall have these not in the kings and the privileged cla.s.ses,--their very condition excludes love, the soul of all religions,--but in the people. The spirit from G.o.d descends on many gathered together in his name. The people have suffered for ages on the cross, and G.o.d will bless them with a faith.