At Home And Abroad Part 29

LETTER XXVI.

THOUGHTS OF THE ITALIAN RACE, THE SEASONS, AND ROME.--CHANGES.--THE DEATH OF THE MINISTER ROSSI.--THE CHURCH OF SAN LUIGI DEL FRANCESI.--ST. CECILIA AND THE DOMENICHINO CHAPEL.--THE PIAZZA DEL POPOLO.--THE TROOPS: PREPARATORY MOVEMENTS TOWARD THE QUIRINAL.--THE DEMONSTRATION ON THE PALACE.--THE CHURCH: ITS POSITION AND AIMS.--THE POPE'S FLIGHT, &C.--SOCIAL LIFE.--DON TIRLONE.--THE NEW YEAR.

Rome, December 2, 1848.

Not till I saw the snow on the mountains grow rosy in the autumn sunset did I turn my steps again toward Rome. I was very ready to return. After three or four years of constant excitement, this six months of seclusion had been welcome; but now I felt the need of meeting other eyes beside those, so bright and so shallow, of the Italian peasant. Indeed, I left what was most precious, but which I could not take with me;[A] still it was a compensation that I was again to see Rome,--Rome, that almost killed me with her cold breath of last winter, yet still with that cold breath whispered a tale of import so divine. Rome so beautiful, so great! her presence stupefies, and one has to withdraw to prize the treasures she has given. City of the soul! yes, it is _that_; the very dust magnetizes you, and thousand spells have been chaining you in every careless, every murmuring moment. Yes! Rome, however seen, thou must be still adored; and every hour of absence or presence must deepen love with one who has known what it is to repose in thy arms.

[Footnote A: Her child, who was born in Rieti, September 5, 1848, and was necessarily left in that town during the difficulties and siege of Rome.--ED.]

Repose! for whatever be the revolutions, tumults, panics, hopes, of the present day, still the temper of life here is repose. The great past enfolds us, and the emotions of the moment cannot here greatly disturb that impression. From the wild shout and throng of the streets the setting sun recalls us as it rests on a hundred domes and temples,--rests on the Campagna, whose gra.s.s is rooted in departed human greatness. Burial-place so full of spirit that death itself seems no longer cold! O let me rest here, too! Hest here seems possible; meseems myriad lives still linger here, awaiting some one great summons.

The rivers had burst their bounds, and beneath the moon the fields round Rome lay one sheet of silver. Entering the gate while the baggage was under examination, I walked to the entrance of a villa.

Far stretched its overarching shrubberies, its deep green bowers; two statues, with foot advanced and uplifted finger, seemed to greet me; it was near the scene of great revels, great splendors in the old time; there lay the gardens of Sall.u.s.t, where were combined palace, theatre, library, bath, and villa. Strange things have happened since, the most attractive part of which--the secret heart--lies buried or has fled to animate other forms; for of that part historians have rarely given a hint more than they do now of the truest life of our day, which refuses to be embodied, by the pen, craving forms more mutable, more eloquent than the pen can give.

I found Rome empty of foreigners. Most of the English have fled in affright,--the Germans and French are wanted at home,--the Czar has recalled many of his younger subjects; he does not like the schooling they get here. That large part of the population, which lives by the visits of foreigners was suffering very much,--trade, industry, for every reason, stagnant. The people were every moment becoming more exasperated by the impudent measures of the Minister Rossi, and their mortification at seeing Rome represented and betrayed by a foreigner.

And what foreigner? A pupil of Guizot and Louis Philippe. The news of the bombardment and storm of Vienna had just reached Rome. Zucchi, the Minister of War, at once left the city to put down over-free manifestations in the provinces, and impede the entrance of the troops of the patriot chief, Garibaldi, into Bologna. From the provinces came soldiery, called by Rossi to keep order at the opening of the Chamber of Deputies. He reviewed them in the face of the Civic Guard; the press began to be restrained; men were arbitrarily seized and sent out of the kingdom. The public indignation rose to its height; the cup overflowed.

The 15th was a beautiful day, and I had gone out for a long walk.

Returning at night, the old Padrona met me with her usual smile a little clouded. "Do you know," said she, "that the Minister Rossi has been killed?" No Roman said _murdered_.

"Killed?"

"Yes,--with a thrust in the back. A wicked man, surely; but is that the way to punish even the wicked?"

"I cannot," observed a philosopher, "sympathize under any circ.u.mstances with so immoral a deed; but surely the manner of doing it was great."

The people at large were not so refined in their comments as either the Padrona or the philosopher; but soldiers and populace alike ran up and down, singing, "Blessed the hand that rids the earth of a tyrant."

Certainly, the manner _was_ "great."

The Chamber was awaiting the entrance of Rossi. Had he lived to enter, he would have found the a.s.sembly, without a single exception, ranged upon the Opposition benches. His carriage approached, attended by a howling, hissing mult.i.tude. He smiled, affected unconcern, but must have felt relieved when his horses entered the courtyard gate of the _Cancelleria_. He did not know he was entering the place of his execution. The horses stopped; he alighted in the midst of a crowd; it jostled him, as if for the purpose of insult; he turned abruptly, and received as he did so the fatal blow. It was dealt by a resolute, perhaps experienced, hand; he fell and spoke no word more.

The crowd, as if all previously acquainted with the plan, as no doubt most of them were, issued quietly from the gate, and pa.s.sed through the outside crowd,--its members, among whom was he who dealt the blow, dispersing in all directions. For two or three minutes this outside crowd did not know that anything special had happened. When they did, the news was at the moment received in silence. The soldiers in whom Rossi had trusted, whom he had hoped to flatter and bribe, stood at their posts and said not a word. Neither they nor any one asked, "Who did this? Where is he gone?" The sense of the people certainly was that it was an act of summary justice on an offender whom the laws could not reach, but they felt it to be indecent to shout or exult on the spot where he was breathing his last. Rome, so long supposed the capital of Christendom, certainly took a very pagan view of this act, and the piece represented on the occasion at the theatres was "The Death of Nero."

The next morning I went to the Church of St. Andrea della Valle, where was to be performed a funeral service, with fine music, in honor of the victims of Vienna; for this they do here for the victims of every place,--"victims of Milan," "victims of Paris," "victims of Naples,"

and now "victims of Vienna." But to-day I found the church closed, the service put off,--Rome was thinking about her own victims.

I pa.s.sed into the Ripetta, and entered the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi. The Republican flag was flying at the door; the young sacristan said the fine musical service, which this church gave formerly on St. Philip's day in honor of Louis Philippe, would now be transferred to the Republican anniversary, the 25th of February. I looked at the monument Chateaubriand erected when here, to a poor girl who died, last of her family, having seen all the others perish round her. I entered the Domenichino Chapel, and gazed anew on the magnificent representations of the Life and Death of St. Cecilia. She and St. Agnes are my favorite saints. I love to think of those angel visits which her husband knew by the fragrance of roses and lilies left behind in the apartment. I love to think of his visit to the Catacombs, and all that followed. In one of the pictures St. Cecilia, as she stretches out her arms toward the suffering mult.i.tude, seems as if an immortal fount of purest love sprung from her heart. It gives very strongly the idea of an inexhaustible love,--the only love that is much worth thinking about.

Leaving the church, I pa.s.sed along toward the Piazza del Popolo.

"Yellow Tiber rose," but not high enough to cause "distress," as he does when in a swelling mood. I heard the drums beating, and, entering the Piazza, I found the troops of the line already a.s.sembled, and the Civic Guard marching in by platoons, each battalion saluted as it entered by trumpets and a fine strain from the band of the Carbineers.

I climbed the Pincian to see better. There is no place so fine for anything of this kind as the Piazza del Popolo, it is so full of light, so fair and grand, the obelisk and fountain make so fine a centre to all kinds of groups.

The object of the present meeting was for the Civic Guard and troops of the line to give pledges of sympathy preparatory to going to the Quirinal to demand a change of ministry and of measures. The flag of the Union was placed in front of the obelisk; all present saluted it; some officials made addresses; the trumpets sounded, and all moved toward the Quirinal.

Nothing could be gentler than the disposition of those composing the crowd. They were resolved to be played with no longer, but no threat was uttered or thought. They believed that the court would be convinced by the fate of Rossi that the retrograde movement it had attempted was impracticable. They knew the retrograde party were panic-struck, and hoped to use the occasion to free the Pope from its meshes. All felt that Pius IX. had fallen irrevocably from his high place as the friend of progress and father of Italy; but still he was personally beloved, and still his name, so often shouted in hope and joy, had not quite lost its _prestige_.

I returned to the house, which is very near the Quirinal. On one side I could see the palace and gardens of the Pope, on the other the Piazza Barberini and street of the Four Fountains. Presently I saw the carriage of Prince Barberini drive hurriedly into his court-yard gate, the footman signing to close it, a discharge of fire-arms was heard, and the drums of the Civic Guard beat to arms.

The Padrona ran up and down, crying with every round of shot, "Jesu Maria, they are killing the Pope! O poor Holy Father!--t.i.to, t.i.to,"

(out of the window to her husband,) "what _is_ the matter?"

The lord of creation disdained to reply.

"O Signora! pray, pray, ask t.i.to what is the matter?"

I did so.

"I don't know, Signora; n.o.body knows."

"Why don't you go on the Mount and see?"

"It would be an imprudence, Signora; n.o.body will go."

I was just thinking to go myself, when I saw a poor man borne by, badly wounded, and heard that the Swiss were firing on the people.

Their doing so was the cause of whatever violence there was, and it was not much.

The people had a.s.sembled, as usual, at the Quirinal, only with more form and solemnity than usual. They had taken with them several of the Chamber of Deputies, and they sent an emba.s.sy, headed by Galetti, who had been in the late ministry, to state their wishes. They received a peremptory negative. They then insisted on seeing the Pope, and pressed on the palace. The Swiss became alarmed, and fired from the windows and from the roof. They did this, it is said, without orders; but who could, at the time, suppose that? If it had been planned to exasperate the people to blood, what more could have been done? As it was, very little was shed; but the Pope, no doubt, felt great panic.

He heard the report of fire-arms,--heard that they tried to burn a door of the palace. I would lay my life that he could have shown himself without the slightest danger; nay, that the habitual respect for his presence would have prevailed, and hushed all tumult. He did not think so, and, to still it, once more degraded himself and injured his people, by making promises he did not mean to keep.

He protests now against those promises as extorted by violence,--a strange plea indeed for the representative of St. Peter!

Rome is all full of the effigies of those over whom violence had no power. There was an early Pope about to be thrown into the Tiber; violence had no power to make him say what he did not mean. Delicate girls, men in the prime of hope and pride of power,--they were all alike about that. They could die in boiling oil, roasted on coals, or cut to pieces; but they could not say what they did not mean. These formed the true Church; it was these who had power to disseminate the religion of him, the Prince of Peace, who died a b.l.o.o.d.y death of torture between sinners, because he never could say what he did not mean.

A little church, outside the gate of St. Sebastian commemorates the following affecting tradition of the Church. Peter, alarmed at the persecution of the Christians, had gone forth to fly, when in this spot he saw a bright figure in his path, and recognized his Master travelling toward Rome. "Lord," he said, "whither goest thou?" "I go," replied Jesus, "to die with my people." Peter comprehended the reproof. He felt that he must not a fourth time deny his Master, yet hope for salvation. He returned to Rome to offer his life in attestation of his faith.

The Roman Catholic Church has risen a monument to the memory of such facts. And has the present head of that Church quite failed to understand their monition?

Not all the Popes have so failed, though the majority have been intriguing, ambitious men of the world. But even the mob of Rome--and in Rome there _is_ a true mob of unheeding cabbage-sellers, who never had a thought before beyond contriving how to satisfy their animal instincts for the day--said, on hearing the protest, "There was another Pius, not long since, who talked in a very different style.

When the French threatened him, he said, 'You may do with me as you see fit, but I cannot consent to act against my convictions.'"

In fact, the only dignified course for the Pope to pursue was to resign his temporal power. He could no longer hold it on his own terms; but to it he clung; and the counsellors around him were men to wish him to regard _that_ as the first of duties. When the question was of waging war for the independence of Italy, they regarded him solely as the head of the Church; but when the demand was to satisfy the wants of his people, and ecclesiastical goods were threatened with taxes, then he was the prince of the state, bound to maintain all the selfish prerogatives of bygone days for the benefit of his successors.

Poor Pope! how has his mind been torn to pieces in these later days!

It moves compa.s.sion. There can be no doubt that all his natural impulses are generous and kind, and in a more private station he would have died beloved and honored; but to this he was unequal; he has suffered bad men to surround him, and by their misrepresentations and insidious suggestions at last entirely to cloud his mind. I believe he really thinks now the Progress movement tends to anarchy, blood, and all that looked worst in the first French revolution. However that may be, I cannot forgive him some of the circ.u.mstances of this flight. To fly to Naples; to throw himself in the arms of the bombarding monarch, blessing him and thanking his soldiery for preserving that part of Italy from anarchy; to protest that all his promises at Rome were null and void, when he thought himself in safety to choose a commission for governing in his absence, composed of men of princely blood, but as to character so null that everybody laughed, and said he chose those who could best be spared if they were killed; (but they all ran away directly;) when Rome was thus left without any government, to refuse to see any deputation, even the Senator of Rome, whom he had so gladly sanctioned,--these are the acts either of a fool or a foe. They are not his acts, to be sure, but he is responsible; he lets them stand as such in the face of the world, and weeps and prays for their success.

No more of him! His day is over. He has been made, it seems unconsciously, an instrument of good his regrets cannot destroy. Nor can he be made so important an instrument of ill. These acts have not had the effect the foes of freedom hoped. Rome remained quite cool and composed; all felt that they had not demanded more than was their duty to demand, and were willing to accept what might follow. In a few days all began to say: "Well, who would have thought it? The Pope, the Cardinals, the Princes are gone, and Rome is perfectly tranquil, and one does not miss anything, except that there are not so many rich carriages and liveries."

The Pope may regret too late that he ever gave the people a chance to make this reflection. Yet the best fruits of the movement may not ripen for a long time. It is a movement which requires radical measures, clear-sighted, resolute men: these last, as yet, do not show themselves in Rome. The new Tuscan ministry has three men of superior force in various ways,--Montanelli, Guerazzi, D'Aguila; such are not as yet to be found in Rome.

But should she fall this time,--and she must either advance with decision and force, or fall, since to stand still is impossible,--the people have learned much; ignorance and servility of thought are lessened,--the way is paving for final triumph.

And my country, what does she? You have chosen a new President from a Slave State, representative of the Mexican war. But he seems to be honest, a man that can be esteemed, and is one really known to the people, which is a step upward, after having sunk last time to choosing a mere tool of party.