Margaret Fuller (Marchesa Ossoli) Part 16

Margaret's letters of the 10th of June speak of a terrible battle recently fought between the French troops and the defenders of Rome. The Italians, she says, fought like lions, making a stand for honor and conscience' sake, with scarcely any prospect of success. The attack of the enemy was directed with a skill and order which Margaret was compelled to admire. The loss on both sides was heavy, and the a.s.sailants, for the moment, gained "no inch of ground." But this was only the beginning of the dread trial. By the 20th of June the bombardment had become heavy. On the night of the 21st a practicable breach was made, and the French were within the city. The defence, however, was valiantly continued until the 30th, when Garibaldi informed the a.s.sembly that further resistance would be useless. Conditions of surrender were then asked for and refused. Garibaldi himself was denied a safe-conduct, and departed with his troops augmented by a number of soldiers from other regiments. This was on July 2d, after it became known that the French army would take possession on the morrow.

Margaret followed the departing troops as far as the Place of St. John Lateran. Never had she seen a sight "so beautiful, so romantic, and so sad."

The grand piazza had once been the scene of Rienzi's triumph: "The sun was setting, the crescent moon rising, the flower of the Italian youth were marshalling in that solemn place. They had all put on the beautiful dress of the Garibaldi legion,--the tunic of bright red cloth, the Greek cap, or round hat with puritan plume. Their long hair was blown back from resolute faces.... I saw the wounded, all that could go, laden upon their baggage-cars. I saw many youths, born to rich inheritance, carrying in a handkerchief all their worldly goods. The wife of Garibaldi followed him on horseback. He himself was distinguished by the white tunic. His look was entirely that of a hero of the Middle Ages,--his face still young.... He went upon the parapet, and looked upon the road with a spy-gla.s.s, and, no obstruction being in sight, he turned his face for a moment back upon Rome, then led the way through the gate."

Thus ended the heroic defence of Rome. The French occupation began on the next day, with martial law and the end of all liberties. Alas! that it was not given to Margaret to see Garibaldi come again, with the laurels of an abiding victory! Alas! that she saw not the end of the Napoleon game, and the punishment of France for her act of insensate folly!

It was during these days of fearful trial and anxiety that Margaret confided to Mrs. Story the secret of her marriage. This was done, not for the relief of her own overtasked feelings, but in the interest of her child, liable at this time to be left friendless by the death of his parents. Margaret, in her extreme anxiety concerning her husband's safety, became so ill and feeble that the duration of her own life appeared to her very uncertain. In a moment of great depression she called Mrs. Story to her bedside, related to her all the antecedents of the birth of the child, and showed her, among other papers, the certificate of her marriage, and of her son's legal right to inherit the t.i.tle and estate of his father. These papers she intrusted to Mrs.

Story's care, requesting her, in case of her own death, to seek her boy at Rieti, and to convey him to her friends in America.

To Lewis Ca.s.s, at that time American Envoy to the Papal Court, the same secret was confided, and under circ.u.mstances still more trying. Shortly before the conclusion of the siege, Margaret learned that an attack would probably be made upon the very part of the city in which Ossoli was stationed with his men. She accordingly sent to request that Mr.

Ca.s.s would call upon her at once, which he did. He found her "lying on a sofa, pale and trembling, evidently much exhausted." After informing him of her marriage, and of the birth and whereabouts of her child, she confided to his care certain important doc.u.ments, to be sent, in the event of her death, to her family in America. Her husband was, at that very moment, in command of a battery directly exposed to the fire of the French artillery. The night before had been one of great danger to him, and Margaret, in view of his almost certain death, had determined to pa.s.s the coming night at his post with him, and to share his fate, whatever it might be. He had promised to come for her at the Ave Maria, and Mr. Ca.s.s, departing, met him at the porter's lodge, and shortly afterward beheld them walking in the direction of his command. It turned out that the threatened danger did not visit them. The cannonading from this point was not renewed, and on the morrow military operations were at an end.

Among our few pictures of Margaret and her husband, how characteristic is this one, of the pair walking side by side into the very jaws of death, with the glory of faith and courage bright about them!

The gates once open, Margaret's first thought was of Rieti, and her boy there. Thither she sped without delay, arriving just in time to save the life of the neglected and forsaken child, whose wicked nurse, uncertain of further payment, had indeed abandoned him. His mother found him "worn to a skeleton, too weak to smile, or lift his little wasted hand." Four weeks of incessant care and nursing brought, still in wan feebleness, his first returning smile.

All that Margaret had already endured seemed to her light in comparison with this. In the Papal States, woman had clearly fallen behind even the standard of the she-wolf.

After these painful excitements came a season of blessed quietness for Margaret and her dear ones. Angelo regained his infant graces, and became full of life and of baby glee. Margaret's marriage was suitably acknowledged, and the pain and trouble of such a concealment were at end. The disclosure of the relation naturally excited much comment in Italy and in America. In both countries there were some, no doubt, who chose to interpret this unexpected action on the part of Margaret in a manner utterly at variance with the whole tenor and spirit of her life.

The general feeling was, however, quite otherwise; and it is gratifying to find that, while no one could have considered Margaret's marriage an act of worldly wisdom, it was very generally accepted by her friends as only another instance of the romantic disinterestedness which had always been a leading trait in her character.

Writing to an intimate friend in America, she remarks: "What you say of the meddling curiosity of people repels me; it is so different here.

When I made my appearance with a husband, and a child of a year old, n.o.body did the least act to annoy me. All were most cordial; none asked or implied questions."

She had already written to Madame Arconati, asking whether the fact of her concealed marriage and motherhood would make any difference in their relations. Her friend, a lady of the highest position and character, replied: "What difference can it make, except that I shall love you more, now that we can sympathize as mothers?"

In other letters, Margaret speaks of the loving sympathy expressed for her by relatives in America. The att.i.tude of her brothers was such as she had rightly expected it to be. Her mother received the communication in the highest spirit, feeling a.s.sured that a leading motive in Margaret's withholding of confidence from her had been the desire to spare her a season of most painful anxiety. Speaking of a letter recently received from her, Margaret says:--

"She blessed us. She rejoiced that she should not die feeling there was no one left to love me with the devotion she thought I needed. She expressed no regret at our poverty, but offered her feeble means."

After a stay of some weeks at Rieti, Margaret, with her husband and child, journeyed to Perugia, and thence to Florence. At the former place she remained long enough to read D'Azeglio's "Nicol dei Lapi," which she esteemed "a book unenlivened by a spark of genius, but interesting as ill.u.s.trative of Florence." Here she felt that she understood, for the first time, the depth and tenderness of the Umbrian school.

The party reached Florence late in September, and were soon established in lodgings for the winter. The police at first made some objection to their remaining in the city, but this matter was soon settled to their satisfaction. Margaret's thoughts now turned toward her own country and her own people:--

"It will be sad to leave Italy, uncertain of return. Yet when I think of you, beloved mother, of brothers and sisters and many friends, I wish to come. Ossoli is perfectly willing. He will go among strangers; but to him, as to all the young Italians, America seems the land of liberty."

Margaret's home-letters give lovely glimpses of this season of peace.

Her modest establishment was served by Angelo's nurse, with a little occasional aid from the porter's wife. The boy himself was now in rosy health; as his mother says, "a very gay, impetuous, ardent, but sweet-tempered child." She describes with a mother's delight his visit to her room at first waking, when he pulls her curtain aside, and goes through his pretty routine of baby tricks for her amus.e.m.e.nt,--laughing, crowing, imitating the sound of the bellows, and even saying "Bravo!"

Then comes his bath, which she herself gives him, and then his walk and mid-day sleep.

"I feel so refreshed by his young life, and Ossoli diffuses such a power and sweetness over every day, that I cannot endure to think yet of our future. We have resolved to enjoy being together as much as we can in this brief interval, perhaps all we shall ever know of peace. I rejoice in all that Ossoli did (in the interest of the liberal party); but the results are disastrous, especially as my strength is now so impaired.

This much I hope, in life or death, to be no more separated from Angelo."

Margaret's future did indeed look to her full of difficult duties. At forty years of age, having labored all her life for her father's family, she was to begin a new struggle for her own. She had looked this necessity bravely in the face, and with resolute hand had worked at a history of recent events in Italy, hoping thus to make a start in the second act of her life-work. The two volumes which she had completed by this time seemed to her impaired in value by the intense, personal suffering which had lain like a weight upon her. Such leisure as the care of Angelo left her, while in Florence, was employed in the continuation of this work, whose loss we deplore the more for the intense personal feeling which must have throbbed through its pages.

Margaret had hoped to pa.s.s this winter without any enforced literary labor, learning of her child, as she wisely says, and as no doubt she did, whatever else she may have found it necessary to do. In the chronicle of her days he plays an important part, his baby laugh "all dimples and glitter," his contentment in the fair scene about him when, carried to the _Cascine_, he lies back in her arms, smiling, singing to himself, and moving his tiny feet. The Christmas holidays are dearer to her than ever before, for his sake. In the evening, before the bright little fire, he sits on his stool between father and mother, reminding Margaret of the days in which she had been so seated between her own parents. He is to her "a source of ineffable joys, far purer, deeper, than anything I ever felt before."

As Margaret's husband was destined to remain a tradition only to the greater number of her friends, the hints and outlines of him given here and there in her letters are important, in showing us what companionship she had gained in return for her great sacrifice.

Ossoli seems to have belonged to a type of character the very opposite of that which Margaret had best known and most admired. To one wearied with the over-intellection and restless aspiration of the accomplished New Englander of that time, the simple geniality of the Italian nature had all the charm of novelty and contrast. Margaret had delighted in the race from her first acquaintance with it, but had found its happy endowments heavily weighted with traits of meanness and ferocity. In her husband she found its most worthy features, and her heart, wearied with long seeking and wandering, rested at last in the confidence of a simple and faithful attachment.

She writes from Florence: "My love for Ossoli is most pure and tender; nor has any one, except my mother or little children, loved me so genuinely as he does. To some, I have been obliged to make myself known.

Others have loved me with a mixture of fancy and enthusiasm, excited at my talent of embellishing life. But Ossoli loves me from simple affinity; he loves to be with me, and to serve and soothe me."

And in another letter she says: "Ossoli will be a good father. He has very little of what is called intellectual development, but has unspoiled instincts, affections pure and constant, and a quiet sense of duty which, to me who have seen much of the great faults in characters of enthusiasm and genius, seems of highest value."

Some reminiscences contributed by the accomplished _litterateur_, William Henry Hurlbut, will help to complete the dim portrait of the Marchese:--

"The frank and simple recognition of his wife's singular n.o.bleness, which he always displayed, was the best evidence that his own nature was of a fine and n.o.ble strain. And those who knew him best are, I believe, unanimous in testifying that his character did in no respect belie the evidence borne by his manly and truthful countenance to its warmth and sincerity. He seemed quite absorbed in his wife and child. I cannot remember ever to have found Madame Ossoli alone, on the evenings when she remained at home."

Mr. Hurlbut says further: "Notwithstanding his general reserve and curtness of speech, on two or three occasions he showed himself to possess quite a quick and vivid fancy, and even a certain share of humor. I have heard him tell stories remarkably well. One tale especially, which related to a dream he had in early life, I remember as being told with great felicity and vivacity of expression."

Though opposed, like all liberals, to the ecclesiastical government of Rome, the Marchese appeared to Mr. Hurlbut a devout Catholic. He often attended vesper services in Florence, and Margaret, unwavering in her Protestantism, still found it sweet to kneel by his side.

Margaret read, this winter, Louis Blanc's "Story of Ten Years," and Lamartine's "Girondists." Her days were divided between family cares and her literary work, which for the time consisted in recording her impressions of recent events. She sometimes pa.s.sed an evening at the rooms occupied by the Mozier and Chapman families, where the Americans then resident in Florence were often gathered together. She met Mr. and Mrs. Browning often, and with great pleasure. The Marchesa Arconati she saw almost daily.

One of Margaret's last descriptions is of the Duomo,[G] which she visited with her husband on Christmas eve:--

"No one was there. Only the altars were lit up, and the priests, who were singing, could not be seen by the faint light. The vast solemnity of the interior is thus really felt. The Duomo is more divine than St.

Peter's, and worthy of genius pure and unbroken. St. Peter's is, like Rome, a mixture of sublimest heaven with corruptest earth. I adore the Duomo, though no place can now be to me like St. Peter's, where has been pa.s.sed the splendidest part of my life."

Thus looked to her, in remembrance, the spot where she had first met her husband, where she had shared his heroic vigils, and stood beside him within reach of death.

The little household suffered some inconvenience before the winter was over. By the middle of December the weather became severely cold, and Margaret once more experienced the inconvenience of ordinary lodgings in Italy, in which the means of heating the rooms are very limited. The baby grew impatient of confinement, and constantly pointed to the door, which he was not allowed to pa.s.s. Of their several rooms, one only was comfortable under these circ.u.mstances. Of this, as occupied in the winter evenings, Mr. Hurlbut has given a pleasant description:--

"A small, square room, sparingly yet sufficiently furnished, with polished floor and frescoed ceiling; and, drawn up closely before the cheerful fire, an oval table, on which stood a monkish lamp of bra.s.s, with depending chains that support quaint cla.s.sic cups for the olive oil. There, seated beside his wife, I was sure to find the Marchese, reading from some patriotic book, and dressed in the dark brown, red-corded coat of the Guardia Civica, which it was his melancholy pleasure to wear at home. So long as the conversation could be carried on in Italian, he used to remain, though he rarely joined in it to any considerable degree. If many _forestieri_[H] chanced to drop in, he betook himself to a neighboring _cafe_,--not absenting himself through aversion to such visitors, but in the fear lest his silent presence might weigh upon them."

To complete the picture here given of the Ossoli interior, we should mention Horace, the youngest brother of Charles Sumner, who was a daily visitor in this abode of peace. Margaret says of him: "He has solid good in his mind and heart.... When I am ill, or in a hurry, he helps me like a brother. Ossoli and Sumner exchange some instruction in English and Italian."

This young man, remembered by those who knew him as most amiable and estimable, was abroad at this time for his health, and pa.s.sed the winter in Florence. Mr. Hurlbut tells us that he brought Margaret, every morning, his tribute of fresh wild flowers, and that every evening, "beside her seat in her little room, his mild, pure face was to be seen, bright with a quiet happiness," which was in part derived from her kindness and sympathy.

This brief chronicle of Margaret's last days in Italy would be incomplete without a few words concerning the enviable position which she had made for herself in this country of her adoption.

The way in which the intelligence of her marriage was received by her country-people in Rome and Florence gives the strongest proof of the great esteem in which they were constrained to hold her. Equally honorable to her was the friendship of Madame Arconati, a lady of high rank and higher merit, beloved and revered as few were in the Milan of that day. She was the friend of Joseph Mazzini, and shared with George Sand and Elizabeth Barrett Browning the honors of prominence in the liberal movement and aspiration of the time. But it is in her intercourse with the people at large that we shall find the deepest evidence of her true humanity. Hers was no barren creed, divorced from beneficent action. The wounded soldiers in the hospital, the rude peasants of Rieti, knew her heart, and thought of her as "a mild saint and ministering angel."[I] Ferocious and grasping as these peasants were, she was able to overcome for the time their savage instincts, and to turn the tide of their ungoverned pa.s.sions.

In this place, two brothers were one day saved from the guilt of fratricide by her calm and firm intervention. Both of the men were furiously angry, and blood had already been drawn by the knife of one, when she stepped between them, and so reasoned and insisted, that the weapons were presently flung away, and the feud healed by a fraternal embrace. After this occurrence, the American lady was recognized as a peace-maker, and differences of various sorts were referred to her for settlement, much as domestic and personal difficulties had been submitted to her in her own New England.

Among the troubles brought under her notice at Rieti were the constant annoyances caused by the lawless behavior of a number of Spanish troops who happened to be quartered upon the town. Between these and the villagers she succeeded in keeping the peace by means of good counsel and enforced patience. In Florence she seems to have been equally beloved and respected. A quarrel here took place between her maid, from Rieti, and a fellow-lodger, in which her earnest effort prevented bloodshed, and effectually healed the breach between the two women. The porter of the house in which she dwelt while in Florence was slowly dying of consumption; Margaret's kindness so attached him to her that he always spoke of her as _la cara signora_.

The unruly Garibaldi Legion overtook Margaret one day between Rome and Rieti. She had been to visit her child at the latter place, and was returning to Rome alone in a vettura. While she was resting for an hour at a wayside inn, the master of the house entered in great alarm, crying: "We are lost! Here is the Legion Garibaldi! These men always pillage, and, if we do not give all up to them without pay, they will kill us." Looking out upon the road, Margaret saw that the men so much dreaded were indeed close at hand. For a moment she felt some alarm, thinking that they might insist upon taking the horses from her carriage, and thus render it impossible for her to proceed on her journey. Another moment, and she had found a device to touch their better nature. As the troop entered, noisy and disorderly, Margaret rose and said to the innkeeper: "Give these good men bread and wine at my expense, for after their ride they must need refreshment." The men at once became quiet and respectful. They partook of the offered hospitality with the best grace, and at parting escorted her to her carriage, and took leave of her with great deference. She drove off, wondering at their bad reputation. They probably were equally astonished at her dignity and friendliness.

The statements of Margaret's friends touch us with their account of the charities which this poor woman was able to afford through economy and self-sacrifice. When she allowed herself only the bare necessaries of living and diet, she could have the courage to lend fifty dollars to an artist whom she deemed poorer than herself. Rich indeed was this generous heart, to an extent undreamed of by wealthy collectors and pleasure-seekers.

CHAPTER XVI.

MARGARET TURNS HER FACE HOMEWARD.--LAST LETTER TO HER MOTHER.--THE BARQUE "ELIZABETH."--PRESAGES AND OMENS.--DEATH OF THE CAPTAIN.--ANGELO'S ILLNESS.--THE WRECK.--- THE LONG STRUGGLE.--THE END.--FINAL ESTIMATE OF MARGARET'S CHARACTER.