Rome Part 11

Cardinals are created--and the process is long and elaborate--in a special a.s.sembly of the Pope and his Council of Cardinals known as Consistory. In a preliminary and secret meeting, the Pope proposes the names of those he wishes to honour to his a.s.sembled councillors, and as a relic of the ancient custom of asking the consent of the people to the election of their bishop or deacon, the question: "quid quis videtur?" is put as each name is announced. No opportunity of dissent is however afforded the cardinals, and all they are expected to do is to rise, take off their _berrettas_ or stiff caps, and bow as a sign of a.s.sent. The Pope may, and often does, keep back "in his breast,"

_in petto_, the name of some candidate if he thinks it expedient. But this candidate comes forward nevertheless at a future consistory for the subsequent formalities.

At another secret consistory, the Pope first closes the mouths of the newly created cardinals and then p.r.o.nounces them open with the words: "I open your mouth that in consistory, in congregations, and in other ecclesiastical functions, you may be heard in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost."

Most important of all these ceremonies is the public consistory held in one of the great halls of the Vatican, and before 1870 this was a "festa" of the first magnitude. The new _porporati_, wearers of purple, rode in triumph through the streets upon gaily decked horses, wearing their scarlet robes and hats; bands of ecclesiastics, grooms on foot and on horseback, papal guards and attendants escorted them; cannon were fired and church bells rung, and the Roman people never so happy as when a procession is afoot, crowded into the streets.

On reaching the Vatican, the cardinals-elect take their oaths in the Sistine chapel and then accompanied by two cardinal deacons as sponsors, one walking on each side, they are led into the presence of the Pope.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERIOR OF S. PETER'S, THE BRONZE STATUE OF S. PETER

The statue, the origin of which is uncertain, is near the shrine of the apostle, and peasants and seminarists kiss the outstretched foot, and then touch it with their foreheads. See page 11.]

The Pope sits enthroned in full state, surrounded by his court, all his cardinals in a great semicircle around him, cardinal bishops and priests on his right, cardinal deacons on his left--the train bearers sitting on foot-stools at their feet. Kneeling on the steps of the throne, the new cardinals kiss the Pontiff's foot, hand, and cheek; they then rise and embrace the whole college in the order of their precedence, and as a final ceremony, they kneel again before the Pope, the hoods of their cloaks are drawn over their heads by two masters of ceremonies, and a cardinal's hat is held over them while the Pope addresses a few words to each. The new cardinals now take their seats according to the rank just conferred upon them, and the proceedings close with an address of thanksgiving to the Pope made upon his return to his apartments, and a _Te Deum_ in the Sistine chapel. In the afternoon of the same day, couriers and messengers hurry through the streets of Rome. The new red hat is carried to the happy recipient by a "monsignore of the papal wardrobe," the rochet and the scarlet _berretta_ are conveyed by less important functionaries, and all and each have to be thanked and entertained and recompensed when possible.

The Secretary of State, all the cardinals and papal officials, as well as personal friends and private individuals hasten to pay congratulatory visits (_visite di calore_) upon the new cardinals; and royal fas.h.i.+on, the state calls have to be immediately returned. If the cardinal is a foreigner and out of Rome, his hat is carried to him by a papal messenger especially appointed, and in Catholic states is presented with considerable ceremony by his sovereign.

The cardinal's hat, at one time an article of attire, is now only a symbol. It is of red cloth with a wide brim and shallow crown, and on either side hang fifteen red ta.s.sels, the number denoting the ecclesiastical rank of the wearer. From the day of its presentation the hat is put by until its owner's death, when it is brought out once more to be hung up in some side chapel of his t.i.tular church, where it remains until it falls to pieces with age.

One of the first duties of a new cardinal is to take possession of his t.i.tular church, and in old days this was another occasion for pomp and display, and the Pope's guards attended in full dress uniform. Now the cardinal drives quietly in his sombre closed carriage. At the church door he is divested of his cloth cloak and hat, and in flowing scarlet silk he walks up the nave bestowing benedictions on all sides. He seats himself on his throne in the chancel and the vicar of the parish reads to him an address in Latin to which he replies, he is then saluted by all the clergy of the parish in the order of their precedence ending with the acolytes, and the "taking possession" is over. He must however present the church with his portrait painted in oils which is hung with that of the reigning pope in the nave; and with a large escutcheon of his heraldic coat, emblazoned in colour and surmounted by the red hat and ta.s.sels, which is placed over the main entrance to the building, and which side by side with the papal arms is the outward and visible sign of a t.i.tular church. As princes of the Church, cardinals enjoy the princely distinction of displaying their coats of arms in the halls of their houses, affixed to the wall and sheltered beneath a silken canopy. Further they must have a throne and throne room, but unlike the secular princes of Rome who are ent.i.tled to the same privilege, their thrones are turned towards the wall, and are only reversed during a vacancy of the Holy See, when they may be used by their owners, who, for the time, become sovereigns and rulers of the Church.

No great church ceremony is complete without a cardinal, who by his very presence makes a function, but except for such occasions as these little is seen of the Roman cardinals by the casual visitor to the city. Their heavy carriages, painted black, drawn by black horses their harness unrelieved by bra.s.s or plating, pa.s.s unnoticed in the streets. Only occasionally on the Janiculum or outside the city gates on fine afternoons, a cardinal may be seen taking a walk, his servant at a discreet distance behind him, and his carriage following at a foot's pace. Before 1870 the streets of Rome were enlivened by the cardinals' brilliant equipages. A cardinal possessed two or three coaches to be used according to the degree of state required. He drove to the Vatican on grand occasions with all three to convey himself and his retinue of attendants, and his gala carriage drawn by six horses with postilions and standing footmen was of brilliant scarlet and was so magnificently gilded and painted that it cost over a thousand scudi.

During the period of their greatest splendour, it was no uncommon thing for a cardinal to have a household of several hundred persons, and though this number was later greatly reduced, a considerable retinue of servants, secretaries, domestic chaplains, and attendants of all sorts was always considered necessary to his princely state.

Chief among these was his _gentiluomo_. This gentleman was indeed his constant "guide, philosopher and friend"; he drove with him, paid visits for him, entertained his friends, and in a wonderful Elizabethan dress of black velvet, with silk stockings, lace ruffles and a rapier, he was by his side at all state and church functions.

Cardinal Wiseman's _gentiluomo_ still lives in Rome where he received the guests of the new cardinal in the palace of the Consulta opposite the Quirinal, then occupied by Pius IX., and he remembers the cardinal taking the official costume with him to England for his English subst.i.tute. At the present day when the temporal role of cardinals is shorn of its significance, nothing better ill.u.s.trates the unworthy subordination of the civil career to the clerical than the position of a cardinal's _gentiluomo_. Dressed in his knee breeches, a sword by his side, this attendant who belongs to the good _bourgeoisie_ and may be an architect or engineer, is to be seen at every cardinal's high ma.s.s, waiting with the minor clerks, and presenting himself on one or two occasions during the ceremony with a ewer and basin which he offers kneeling on one knee while the cardinal washes the tips of his fingers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CARDINAL IN VILLA D'ESTE

Villa d'Este at Tivoli was the residence of the late Prince-Cardinal Hohenlohe. See interleaf, page 106.]

It is fondly believed by the tourist, who will go any distance as a rule, and push through any crowd for a sight of the scarlet clothes, that a cardinal habitually lives in robes of red silk, with a white fur tippet round his shoulders. As a matter of fact his red robes are for state occasions only--either for attendance at the papal court or for great church functions. He wears a plain black ca.s.sock in ordinary life with a red sash and red b.u.t.tons and silk pipings, and thus cannot be easily distinguished from other prelates whose silk tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs vary with every shade from crimson to purple. The state robes of scarlet are very splendid indeed. The soutane of light scarlet cloth has a train; over this is worn the white rochet trimmed with deep lace and over this again the _cappa magna_ a voluminous circular cloak of red watered silk, with a single opening for the head. It is gathered up to the elbows in front and floats behind into an ample train which is carried by pages or acolytes. The stockings, gloves, skull cap and _berretta_ are of scarlet. The _cappa magna_ has a hood pointed behind and forming a sort of shoulder cape in front, which in the winter months is covered with white ermine. Canons of the Roman basilicas wear a _cappa magna_ of purple cloth, but they are not permitted to spread it out, it must be tightly coiled into a long rope and slipped through a loop at the side.

At social receptions a cardinal wears his black soutane and red sash, and over it a flowing scarlet silk cloak from the shoulder. If the occasion is an important one he is received at the palace gates by two servants with lighted torches, and these accompany him up the stairs to the door of the _salon_ and there await his departure, when they escort him to his carriage again. When in this gala attire, a cardinal wears as an out-door wrap a gorgeous cloth cloak with many capes of purple and deep red, and a red priest's hat around which is twisted a red and gold cord finished with minute ta.s.sels the requisite fifteen in number.

The most responsible and arduous duty of the College of Cardinals is the conclave when the election of the future head of the Church depends upon their united vote. With the death of a pope their position changes on the instant from that of subject to ruler, and for the time being the destinies of the Church lie in their hands. They receive deputations and state visits seated upon their thrones, they drive in their carriages alone upon the princ.i.p.al seat, no companion being of sufficiently exalted rank to sit beside them, and the first among them, the Cardinal Chamberlain, is attended by a detachment of the Swiss guard and affixes his own seal to papal doc.u.ments.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VILLA D'ESTE--PATH OF THE HUNDRED FOUNTAINS]

Scarcely in accordance with this regal state are the rules still in force for conclave, which are, to say the least, antiquated. The incarceration to which the cardinals are obliged to submit is of the strictest, and for its maintenance the secular arm is called in in the shape of the Marshal of Conclave, a Roman n.o.bleman who with his officers and subordinates a.s.sumes complete control outside the building. Accustomed to s.p.a.cious rooms and numerous domestics, the cardinals are now forced to lodge in a tiny apartment of two rooms in a circ.u.mscribed portion of the Vatican palace--the rules prescribe one cell--one valet and one secretary each are allowed them, while two barbers and one confessor are considered sufficient to shave and shrive the whole college. From sumptuous living they are reduced to meals brought to their cells by their servants, and the rules permit a gradual reduction of the _menu_ to an ultimate diet of bread and water, as a means of bringing pressure to bear upon the voters and so precipitating their agreement. This rigorous treatment has been often tried in the past with various results.

When a.s.sembled for the scrutiny in the Sistine chapel each cardinal is provided with a throne before which stands a small table with ink and paper. Over the throne is a canopy or _baldacchino_ the emblem of sovereignty. These are ingeniously fitted with a hinge and when the election of the new pope is announced all the canopies fold up except one, leaving the elected member of the college alone sitting enthroned beneath his _baldacchino_, a sovereign amongst his subjects.

CHAPTER XI

ROME BEFORE 1870

A stranger who had found himself in Rome the week before September 20, 1870 would have noticed the strange expectation, and also the strange apathy in the Romans. "The Italians" were besieging their city, and when it pleased them to enter they would enter. The Pope would not resist them, and no one in his city thought it his business to die a martyr to such a cause. Some workmen who had had orders to make a barricade had got themselves under way with much difficulty and not without many complaints, declaring as they prepared their tools and tramped along the hot road in the September sun: "_ci vuole molto vino per queste cose, molto vino_." At five o'clock on the morning of the 20th the bombardment began and at ten the white flag was hoisted in Rome. Then a great silence succeeded in the city, every one stayed within doors, and the papal brigand corps patrolled the streets. Thus ingloriously the "Patrimony of Peter," the historical sway of the popes, came to an end.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THEATRE OF MARCELLUS

Begun by Julius Caesar, and completed by Augustus who dedicated it to his sister's son. See pages 30, 160, 168, 228.]

Did the Romans welcome or reprobate the entry of "the Italians"? To answer this question for ourselves we must bear in mind the political events which preceded 1870 and the various elements represented in the city. In September 1870 when the Italians entered, Rome was already won for Italy, the Pope could not have offered any effective resistance to Italian arms, Italian unity was already an accepted fact; it only remained to take possession of Rome as the centre and capital of this political unity, Victor Emmanuel having, out of consideration to the Pontiff, fixed his capital first at Turin and afterwards at Florence. And the events which led up to this result had not spelt harmony between the Pope and his subjects or been years of peace in the papal states. When Pius mounted the throne in 1846 people were tired of Gregory XVI.'s old world methods, and Giovanni Mastai-Ferretti was no sooner elected than the Romans asked him for a const.i.tution, a parliament, the subst.i.tution of laymen for clerks in various departments of the executive. Pius IX. accorded a const.i.tution and a parliament of laymen. He did more. Against the suffrages of his cardinals he granted a general amnesty to political offenders, and the story runs that when he saw the rows of forbidding black b.a.l.l.s which the cardinals had cast, he lifted his little white skull cap and covering the b.a.l.l.s with it, said "I will make them all white," and so the amnesty was granted.

It is often said that the liberal impulses of Pius IX. and his ready response to popular clamour were repaid by outrageous ingrat.i.tude, and that his Romans made him fly from Rome at the risk of his life to ponder in solitude at Gaeta the futility of liberal pretences on the part of popes. But the Romans were not simply ungrateful, they wanted more, they thought they had a right to more--and what they wanted was more than any pope could concede. They asked for modern civilisation and the papacy represented ancient civilisation. The original demands had not been demands made in _bona fides_ of a prince who has power to give and to withhold what is asked. They were part of a political campaign, the end of which was to be the destruction of the temporal power. Mazzini's instructions to Young Italy to make one demonstration after another under the windows of the Quirinal, when one liberty was accorded to return the next day and demand another, until the Pope's position was rendered intolerable and impossible, are not pleasant reading; what is to be said in their favour is that the revolutionary annals of no other people afford any better.

The time had come when men who lived in contact with the Italy outside the walls of Rome, in contact with the ideas which were the conquest of the nineteenth century, could not admit that the governed had only duties and the ruler only rights, or reconcile with the modern ideal of civil life the notion of a prince-bishop governing a subject people in virtue of a theocratic idea, the abstract idea that certain temporal rights fell--_mal gre bon gre_ of all concerned--to the vicar of Jehovah on earth. The time will come when the existence of such a pretension, the existence of such a government one moment after it responded to the universal sentiment, will appear the strangest fable.

Will they be better or worse times? The future alone knows what it has in store, but we can only say that they cannot ever be worse times than some of those which the papacy created for the Romans. This consideration would have sufficed at any time to make the tenure of temporal power on the part of the Roman bishops, precarious--but it did not by any means stand alone. We have to add to it the rise of Italian patriotism, the pa.s.sionate call for a united Italy, for the country to issue once and for all from the tyrannies, the immoralities, the crus.h.i.+ng canker of pettiness which clung to the princely and ducal governments, and rise to its place among the nations.

Thus in September 1870 the feeling was very mixed in Rome. A large part of the population had helped to prepare the _denouement_, knew its advent was only a question of time; others, members of faithful Roman houses, had used voice and influence to induce the Pope to inst.i.tute necessary reforms and had fallen into despondency when Pius on his return from Gaeta issued his _non possumus_ and settled down to a morose implacable reactionism. There remained the large army of priests, of papal functionaries and retainers, the cardinals and their numerous personnel, the religious orders and congregations of both s.e.xes and the hundreds upon hundreds of persons dependent on them, the papal police and soldiery with their families. There were the great families which owed their t.i.tles and their fortunes to the popes, those whom common grat.i.tude or honour kept at his side. And lastly there was the _popolino_, the ignorant poor, untouched by modern aspirations, by socialistic theories, living from day to day, from hand to mouth in the strictest sense, with no ambitions, no "standard of comfort" or of human dignity--ready to fall on their knees at any hour of the day when the Pope "_Dio in terra_" pa.s.sed, agape at the latest royal visitor to the palace of their pontiff, content to encounter injustice with cunning fraud, to sweeten the hard buffets of life by the _finesse_ required for some small scheme of peculation, some dastardly scheme of revenge. Such human pa.s.sions as lay outside the gratification of hunger and the greed for spectacles were satisfied by the periodical uprising and savage disloyalty habitual to the turbulent Roman people. And what applied to the populace applied in some sense also to the small _bourgeoisie_. There are always those who find it easier and pleasanter to keep within the pale of small joys and small miseries, small achievements and small risks. There were thousands of such people who stood well with the papacy, and who could only lose by a compet.i.tion with the outsider for which they were, by training and talent, unprepared.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ISLAND OF THE TIBER--THE ISOLA SACRA

To the right is the Fabrician bridge, to the left the _pons Cestius_ which joins the island to Trastevere. See pages 7, 229, 240.]

These then were "for the Pope." Not because he had a divine right to be in Rome but because they individually and collectively flourished under his rule. They flourished because there was no hunger, because though there were unsanitary hovels there were no haunts of starving people who could obtain neither bread nor work--if any were in need of bread they threw a _supplica_ into the Pope's carriage and he sent it to them when he got home. They flourished, because "where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise" and no wave of unrest, few of the ign.o.bilities and none of the n.o.bilities of a more strenuous life had pa.s.sed over them. The papal government compared to a modern European government was like a blunderbuss in a modern a.r.s.enal, but though it was entirely ineffectual, though the people under its care merely lived out their lives with enough to eat and generation succeeded generation neither better nor worse than the men who went before them--it was an honest government in the financial sense. The people were not taxed, prices indeed were kept low as a means of humouring them, and the Pope's subjects were not exploited to fill his exchequer. In the strange medley of Roman ideas it seemed better to accomplish this end by the methods of the Jubilee year which exploited the soul of the foreigner. The papal government did not peculate, but the hated _sbirri_--the papal police--were often responsible for a missing bale of cloth or a burglary, and a child who had been left a fortune by her aunt only learnt when she was grown up that the _curato_ of the Pantheon who had been made _erede fiduciario_ (trustee) and executor of the testament had not thereby been const.i.tuted sole beneficiary. The administration in all departments was simpler than now, and the evils of the present bureaucracy were not known, but it was a government of privilege and patronage; "one under which a gentleman could live" said an Irishman, but the unprivileged person might find himself in prison for not kneeling when the Pope pa.s.sed. A resident English sculptor who remembered the days of Gregory XVI. told me that Rome was the paradise of artists, who in their velvet jackets and squash felt hats did what seemed good in their own eyes, no man hindering them. The curious traveller of family and fortune--it was before the day of Cook's tourists--enjoyed every liberty under the hospitable papal government save only the liberty to speak or write about politics and religion, and suffered nothing save the occasional loss of a newspaper or book which the paternal government stopped at the frontier as likely to imperil the peace of mind of the Romans. They lived in a picturesque world, which recalled the middle ages at every step, where the prosaic dead level to which justice and civilisation had reduced the rest of Europe, did not penetrate, and they admired in Rome and for the Romans what they would have exposed in Parliament or the _Times_ as intolerable abuses in their own country. From 1848 onwards political rigours unworthy of the Holy See were resorted to, though these were relaxed before 1870. Some art students who had prepared Bengal fireworks to celebrate the anniversary of the victory over the French at Porta San Pancrazio, were sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment. A similar sentence was pa.s.sed on a "non-smoker" (not to smoke was a protest against the papacy at the expense of its tobacco trade) who came to words with a "smoker" and this barbarous sentence was enthusiastically upheld by such a journal as the _Civilta Cattolica_. Commendatore Silvagni who cites these and similar instances in his _Corte e Societa romana_ writes indeed like a man too sore at what he has seen and too near to what he describes to present it in perspective, and he seems to the present writer a prejudiced guide to Rome before 1870. Sedition and conspiracy have met with scant ceremony at the hands of every nation and every prince in turn, and the way in which Pius IX. treated "the patriots" does not differ from that which may be read of in the history of any other country.

What was peculiar to the papal states was the confusion of the spiritual and the temporal; the special scandal came from the union of these two powers in one authority, the temporal being used to enforce the "spiritual" and the spiritual being abused to a.s.sist the temporal.

The spectacle of priests, your "fathers in G.o.d," your spiritual directors, ordering the public floggings, nay the public torture, of men and women could hardly edify or civilise; Gregory XVI. had abolished these public castigations which used to be suffered in the _Campo de' fiori_ (under an archway which may still be seen), but Antonelli strove to revive them in the _Piazza del Popolo_ in 1856.

Other mediaeval barbarisms ceased the day the Italians entered Rome, among them the _Ghetto_.

The people as we see were not taxed, but neither were they taught.

Some subjects were altogether taboo--modern history was among them.

Obscurantism reigned supreme. Girls were taught to read in order that they might read their prayers, but they did not learn to write lest they should indite love letters. This was typical of the papal system.

You took away the light lest the child should ever happen to burn itself, and you pursued the same policy with the adult. No instruction was vouchsafed, no information given, no education whatever of the intellectual or moral man. Girls were often destined from birth to the nunnery, and the veil was the never-failing remedy against a marriage distasteful to the parents or even the brothers, grand-parents, or uncles of the victim. No one denies that this compulsory enclosure was commonly practised in Rome. "Are you not ashamed to be reading, go and knit stockings" shouted a Jesuit to a poor lady who sat reading in her carriage in the Corso as the worthy father, who had been preaching a retreat to women, crossed the street. Many of the poor ladies in convents became imbecile so void were their minds, so vacuous their lives, and in our own day a Roman community of thirty nuns required the services of no fewer than thirty-one confessors. The education received by the boys of good families sent them home with the airs and gestures of so many little _abbes_. The children's games were tarred with the same brush, the same universal insipidity. The little boys dressed up as priests and said sham ma.s.ses or moved about pieces of white cardboard which represented the host; explaining to their little sisters that such solemn fooling was not for "wicked girls."

Occasionally, the natural talent, the natural wit and moral courage of a girl might provide her with a role and allow her to dominate instead of being the sport of circ.u.mstances. But the young men as a rule fell victims to that weak-kneedness which makes them the prey of the fear of derision in their school-days, intensified by a training which made self-dependence and self-development impossible. Thus one of the Doria, a family which had given heroes to its country, the younger brother of that Doria whose English wife's name _Mary_ is cut in a box hedge in the Villa Pamfili, broke the heart of the n.o.ble Vittoria Savorelli because his uncle, of whom he was independent, objected to their engagement. A Roman _marchese_ having been struck in the face by another Roman in the middle of the Corso at midday rushed off to consult his confessor as to what steps he should take, and we are not surprised to learn that he was able to follow the advice proffered, and "bear it patiently." There is a story of a _frate_ who could have taught him differently. As he was crossing a bridge a man struck him on the cheek; the good _frate_ immediately turned the other, then he picked up his man and pitched him into the river; for, as he explained, the Gospel bid him turn the other cheek to the smiter, but it did not tell him what he was to do afterwards.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE STEPS OF ARA COELI

The church which occupies the site of the Sabine arx. See pages 6, 86, 230-31.]

The fierce light of publicity has transformed the lives of the Roman clergy and religious since 1870. Those Roman priests who live without reproach themselves, confess that "the revolution" has brought about this signal benefit. The _Accademia dei n.o.bili Ecclesiastici_ which received impoverished n.o.bles, ordained them, and sent them _at twenty-five years old_ to rule as prefects over the papal provinces was the fertile nursing-ground of a corrupt prelacy. The proud and affectionate interest with which the Romans, despite many lapses, regarded the popes, was not extended to the great papal officers who from the _Governatore di Roma_ downwards did not cease to provide a scandalous example to the people until the moment when "the Italians"

entered the city.

It will be said: these people at least were taught their religion?

They were taught their religion as they were taught everything else--that is, not at all. They knew that you must obey the pope and obey the priest, that you would be d.a.m.ned if you did not go to confession and hear ma.s.s. But they thought one Madonna would hear their pet.i.tions better than another ("_Non andate da quella, non vale niente_" "don't go to that one, she is no good") and that exorcism was a surer remedy for a plague of bugs than cleanliness. They never heard a single verse of the Gospel explained to them, and young men of the higher _bourgeoisie_ learnt their religion if they learnt it at all, after 1870, when they were grown up and thought and read for themselves. Such men, many of whom belong to the _Circolo San Pietro_, are to-day the mainstay of intelligent and faithful religion in the city. Before 1870 there was in Rome a real ignorance of the doctrines, the beauties, and the duties, of Christianity. The one moment chosen for a great religious impression was of course the first Communion.

Boys and girls were then enclosed and eight days were spent in pious exercises and instruction. The sons of the poor went to the _Cappellette di San Luigi_ at Ponte Rotto, the well to do to the same inst.i.tution near Santa Maria Maggiore. On the other side of the basilica the girls of well to do families were prepared at the Bambin Gesu, the poor at San Pasquale. I am a.s.sured that at Ponte Rotto the effect of these eight days shut up in a religious house frequently changed the lives of boys with vicious tendencies. In other cla.s.ses the appeal to unreal emotions was not always so successful, and the girls at the Bambin Gesu, dressed up in the stiff unaccustomed habit of the religious, often communicated with the one dread filling their minds that they might inadvertently commit "the sin" of touching the host with their teeth. Not less mistaken was the custom of the "Six Sundays," the girls and boys alike for the next six weeks communicating "in honour of the chast.i.ty of S. Lewis Gonzaga." And then _buon viaggio_, as the Italians say; they probably never communicated again except as "paschal lambs" at Easter. They communicated then of course. At the rails, the moment they had received the host, a ticket was handed to them with the name of the parish and some pious Latin verse inscribed on it. To this the communicant appended his name and address, and no succour was given, no "grazia" accorded except to those provided with this ticket. The names of those who had not communicated were posted at the church doors. Thus not only did all who could in conscience do so communicate once a year, but those who could not and would not procured the services of some woman who made it her business to communicate every day, or several times a day, during Easter tide, selling the tickets thus received for a franc or two francs each.

Here was one of the inevitable degradations of a theocracy. Another was this--people found working at their trade, in their back shop, in their private room, on _festas_ were arrested and imprisoned sometimes for several days. Respectable citizens who found themselves compelled to finish a piece of work, behind closed doors, in this way, were subjected to the ignominious and futile punishment, which was certainly not calculated to educate their own religious sense or that of their families and children. Spies, under such a government, were always easy to find, and this and similar laws gave fine scope to the purveyors of private revenge. You could not ostentatiously abstain from going to ma.s.s, if you were poor you could not abstain at all, for the Roman parish priests were so many civil magistrates with definite powers, and if the answers to their numerous questions were not satisfactory it was the worse for the householder and his prospects.

One means of finding out people's private affairs was through the servants who acted as spies reporting everything to the _parocco_.

Pinelli the famous designer and engraver, whose bust to-day adorns the Pincio, who had never been pious or even respectable, repaid the old woman who reported his habitual absence from ma.s.s by ringing up the neighbourhood between half past four and five every morning, and in reply to the usual "_Chi e?_" calling out "_e Pinelli che va a messa_"; nor did he desist ringing at his enemy's door till she got out of bed to hear his announcement. The carabineers of the theocracy also had a mixed service. A room had to be set apart for the temerarious folk who required meat on a Friday or a fast day, and the carabineers entered the restaurants and eating houses, sequestrating the dish which smoked before the customer if this regulation was not observed. Moreover, at the head of every department was a cardinal; the Roman wife of a political exile once described to me what a _via crucis_ it was for a young woman to run the gauntlet of these clerical departments if she had to ask some favour for the exiled husband.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STEPS OF THE CHURCH OF SS. DOMENICO AND SISTO

Above the steps of _Magnanapoli_ which lead from the Forum of Trajan to the Quirinal hill. Their architect was Bernini. See page 231.]