At Home And Abroad Part 30

Pray send here a good Amba.s.sador,--one that has experience of foreign life, that he may act with good judgment, and, if possible, a man that has knowledge and views which extend beyond the cause of party politics in the United States,--a man of unity in principles, but capable of understanding variety in forms. And send a man capable of prizing the luxury of living in, or knowing Rome; the office of Amba.s.sador is one that should not be thrown away on a person who cannot prize or use it. Another century, and I might ask to be made Amba.s.sador myself, ('tis true, like other Amba.s.sadors, I would employ clerks to do the most of the duty,) but woman's day has not come yet.

They hold their clubs in Paris, but even George Sand will not act with women as they are. They say she pleads they are too mean, too treacherous. She should not abandon them for that, which is not nature, but misfortune. How much I shall have to say on that subject if I live, which I desire not, for I am very tired of the battle with giant wrongs, and would like to have some one younger and stronger arise to say what ought to be said, still more to do what ought to be done. Enough! if I felt these things in privileged America, the cries of mothers and wives beaten at night by sons and husbands for their diversion after drinking, as I have repeatedly heard them these past months,--the excuse for falsehood, "I _dare not_ tell my husband, he would be ready to kill me,"--have sharpened my perception as to the ills of woman's condition and the remedies that must be applied. Had I but genius, had I but energy, to tell what I know as it ought to be told! G.o.d grant them me, or some other more worthy woman, I pray.

_Don Tirlone_, the _Punch_ of Rome, has just come in. This number represents the fortress of Gaeta. Outside hangs a cage containing a parrot (_pappagallo_), the plump body of the bird surmounted by a n.o.ble large head with benign face and Papal head-dress. He sits on the perch now with folded wings, but the cage door, in likeness of a portico, shows there is convenience to come forth for the purposes of benediction, when wanted. Outside, the king of Naples, dressed as Harlequin, plays the organ for instruction of the bird (unhappy penitent, doomed to penance), and, grinning with sharp teeth, observes: "He speaks in my way now." In the background a young Republican holds ready the match for a barrel of gunpowder, but looks at his watch, waiting the moment to ignite it.

A happy New Year to my country! may she be worthy of the privileges she possesses, while others are lavis.h.i.+ng their blood to win them,--that is all that need be wished for her at present.

LETTER XXVII.

ROME.--THE CARNIVAL: THE MOCCOLETTI.--THE ROMAN CHARACTER.--THE POPE'S FLIGHT.--THE a.s.sEMBLY.--THE PEOPLE.--THE POPE'S MISTAKE.--HIS MANIFESTO: ITS TONE AND EFFECT.--DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPORAL DOMINION OF THE CHURCH.

Rome, Evening of Feb. 20, 1849.

It is said you cannot thoroughly know any place till you have both summered and wintered in it; but more than one summer and winter of experience seems to be needed for Rome. How I fretted last winter, during the three months' rain, and sepulchral chill, and far worse than sepulchral odors, which accompanied it! I thought it was the invariable Roman winter, and that I should never be able to stay here during another; so took my room only by the month, thinking to fly so soon as the rain set in. And lo! it has never rained at all; but there has been glorious sun and moon, unstained by cloud, always; and these last days have been as warm as May,--the days of the Carnival, for I have just come in from seeing the _Moccoletti_.

The Republican Carnival has not been as splendid as the Papal, the absence of dukes and princes being felt in the way of coaches and rich dresses; there are also fewer foreigners than usual, many having feared to a.s.sist at this most peaceful of revolutions. But if less splendid, it was not less gay; the costumes were many and fanciful,--flowers, smiles, and fun abundant.

This is the first time of my seeing the true _Moccoletti_; last year, in one of the first triumphs of democracy, they did not blow oat the lights, thus turning it into an illumination. The effect of the swarms of lights, little and large, thus in motion all over the fronts of the houses, and up and down the Corso, was exceedingly pretty and fairy-like; but that did not make up for the loss of that wild, innocent gayety of which this people alone is capable after childhood, and which never s.h.i.+nes out so much as on this occasion. It is astonis.h.i.+ng the variety of tones, the lively satire and taunt of which the words _Senza moccolo_, _senza mo_, are susceptible from their tongues. The scene is the best burlesque on the life of the "respectable" world that can be imagined. A ragam.u.f.fin with a little piece of candle, not even lighted, thrusts it in your face with an air of far greater superiority than he can wear who, dressed in gold and velvet, erect in his carriage, holds aloft his light on a tall pole.

In vain his security; while he looks down on the crowd to taunt the wretches _senza mo_, a weak female hand from a chamber window blots out his pretensions by one flirt of an old handkerchief.

Many handsome women, otherwise dressed in white, wore the red liberty cap, and the n.o.ble though somewhat coa.r.s.e Roman outline beneath this brilliant red, by the changeful glow of million lights, made a fine effect. Men looked too vulgar in the liberty cap.

How I mourn that my little companion E. never saw these things, that would have given him such store of enchanting reminiscences for all his after years! I miss him always on such occasions; formerly it was through him that I enjoyed them. He had the child's heart, had the susceptible fancy, and, naturally, a fine discerning sense for whatever is individual or peculiar.

I missed him much at the Fair of St. Eustachio. This, like the Carnival, was last year entirely spoiled by constant rain. I never saw it at all before. It comes in the first days, or rather nights, of January. All the quarter of St. Eustachio is turned into one toy-shop; the stalls are set out in the street and brightly lighted, up. These are full of cheap toys,--prices varying from half a cent up to twenty cents. The dolls, which are dressed as husband and wife, or sometimes grouped in families, are the most grotesque rag-babies that can be imagined. Among the toys are great quant.i.ties of whistles, tin trumpets, and little tambourines; of these every man, woman, and child has bought one, and is using it to make a noise. This extempore concert begins about ten o'clock, and lasts till midnight; the delight of the numerous children that form part of the orchestra, the good-humored familiarity without the least touch of rudeness in the crowd, the lively effect of the light upon the toys, and the jumping, shouting figures that, exhibit them, make this the pleasantest Saturnalia. Had you only been there, E., to guide me by the hand, blowing the trumpet for both, and spying out a hundred queer things in nooks that entirely escape me!

The Roman still plays amid his serious affairs, and very serious have they been this past winter. The Roman legions went out singing and dancing to fight in Lombardy, and they fought no less bravely for that.

When I wrote last, the Pope had fled, guided, he says, "by the hand of Providence,"--Italy deems by the hand of Austria,--to Gaeta. He had already soiled his white robes, and defamed himself for ever, by heaping benedictions on the king of Naples and the bands of mercenaries whom he employs to murder his subjects on the least sign of restlessness in their most painful position. Most cowardly had been the conduct of his making promises he never meant to keep, stealing away by night in the coach of a foreign diplomatist, protesting that what he had done was null because he had acted under fear,--as if such a protest could avail to one who boasts himself representative of Christ and his Apostles, guardian of the legacy of the martyrs! He selected a band of most incapable men to face the danger he had feared for himself; most of these followed his example and fled. Rome sought an interview with him, to see if reconciliation were possible; he refused to receive her messengers. His wicked advisers calculated upon great confusion and distress as inevitable on the occasion; but, for once, the hope of the bad heart was doomed to immediate disappointment. Rome coolly said, "If you desert me,--if you will not hear me,--I must act for myself." She threw herself into the arms of a few men who had courage and calmness for this crisis; they bade her think upon what was to be done, meanwhile avoiding every excess that could give a color to calumny and revenge. The people, with admirable good sense, comprehended and followed up this advice. Never was Rome so truly tranquil, so nearly free from gross ill, as this winter. A few words of brotherly admonition have been more powerful than all the spies, dungeons, and scaffolds of Gregory.

"The hand of the Omnipotent works for us," observed an old man whom I saw in the street selling cigars the evening before the opening of the Const.i.tutional a.s.sembly. He was struck by the radiant beauty of the night. The old people observe that there never has been such a winter as this which follows the establishment by the French of a republic.

May the omens speed well! A host of enemies without are ready to levy war against this long-suffering people, to rivet anew their chains.

Still there is now an obvious tide throughout Europe toward a better order of things, and a wave of it may bear Italy onward to the sh.o.r.e.

The revolution, like all genuine ones, has been instinctive, its results unexpected and surprising to the greater part of those who achieved them. The waters, which had flowed so secretly beneath the crust of habit that many never heard their murmur, unless in dreams, have suddenly burst to light in full and beautiful jets; all rush to drink the pure and living draught.

As in the time of Jesus, the mult.i.tude had been long enslaved beneath a c.u.mbrous ritual, their minds designedly darkened by those who should have enlightened them, brutified, corrupted, amid monstrous contradictions and abuses; yet the moment they hear a word correspondent to the original nature, "Yes, it is true," they cry. "It is spoken with, authority. Yes, it ought to be so. Priests ought to be better and wiser than other men; if they were, they would not need pomp and temporal power to command respect. Yes, it is true; we ought not to lie; we should not try to impose upon one another. We ought rather to prefer that our children should work honestly for their bread, than get it by cheating, begging, or the prost.i.tution of their mothers. It would be better to act worthily and kindly, probably would please G.o.d more than the kissing of relics. We have long darkly felt that these things were so; _now_ we know it."

The unreality of relation between the people and the hierarchy was obvious instantly upon the flight of Pius. He made an immense mistake then, and he made it because neither he nor his Cardinals were aware of the unreality. They did not know that, great as is the force of habit, truth _only_ is imperishable. The people had abhorred Gregory, had adored Pius, upon whom they looked as a saviour, as a liberator; finding themselves deceived, a mourning-veil had overshadowed their love. Still, had Pius remained here, and had courage to show himself on agitating occasions, his position as the Pope, before whom they had been bred to bow, his aspect, which had once seemed to them full of blessing and promise, like that of an angel, would have still retained power. Probably the temporal dominion of the Papacy would not have been broken up. He fled; the people felt contempt for his want of force and truth. He wrote to reproach them with ingrat.i.tude; they were indignant. What had they to be grateful for? A const.i.tution to which he had not kept true an instant; the inst.i.tution of the National Guard, which he had begun to neutralize; benedictions, followed by such actions as the desertion of the poor volunteers in the war for Italian independence? Still, the people were not quite alienated from Pius. They felt sure that his heart was, in substance, good and kindly, though the habits of the priest and the arts of his counsellors had led him so egregiously to falsify its dictates and forget the vocation with which he had been called. Many hoped he would see his mistake, and return to be at one with the people. Among the more ignorant, there was a superst.i.tious notion that he would return in the night of the 5th of January. There were many bets that he would be found in the palace of the Quirinal the morning of the 6th. All these lingering feelings were finally extinguished by the advice of excommunication. As this may not have readied America, I subjoin a translation. Here I was obliged to make use of a ma.n.u.script copy; all the printed ones were at once destroyed. It is probably the last doc.u.ment of the kind the world will see.

MANIFESTO OF PIUS IX.

"To OUR MOST BELOVED SUBJECTS:--

"From this pacific abode to which it has pleased Divine Providence to conduct us, and whence we can freely manifest our sentiments and our will, we have waited for testimonies of remorse from our misguided children for the sacrileges and misdeeds committed against persons attached to our service,--among whom some have been slain, others outraged in the most barbarous manner,--as well as for those against our residence and our person. But we have seen nothing except a sterile invitation to return to our capital, unaccompanied by a word of condemnation for those crimes or the least guaranty for our security against the frauds and violences of that same company of furious men which still tyrannizes with a barbarous despotism over Rome and the States of the Church. We also waited, expecting that the protests and orders we have uttered would recall to the duties of fidelity and subjection those who have despised and trampled upon them in the very capital of our States. But, instead of this, a new and more monstrous act of undisguised felony and of actual rebellion by them audaciously committed, has filled the measure of our affliction, and excited at the same time our just indignation, as it will afflict the Church Universal. We speak of that act, in every respect detestable, by which, it has been pretended to initiate the convocation of a so-called General National a.s.sembly of the Roman States, by a decree of the 29th of last December, in order to establish new political forms for the Pontifical dominion. Adding thus iniquity to iniquity, the authors and favorers of the demagogical anarchy strive to destroy the temporal authority of the Roman Pontiff over the dominions of Holy Church,--however irrefragably established through the most ancient and solid rights, and venerated, recognized, and sustained by all the nations,--pretending and making others believe that his sovereign power can be subject to controversy or depend on the caprices of the factious. We shall spare our dignity the humiliation of dwelling on all that is monstrous contained in that act, abominable through the absurdity of its origin no less than the illegality of its form and the impiety of its scope; but it appertains to the apostolic authority, with which, however unworthy, we are invested, and to the responsibility which binds us by the most sacred oaths in the sight of the Omnipotent, not only to protest in the most energetic and efficacious manner against that same act, but to condemn it in the face of the universe as an enormous and sacrilegious crime against our independence and sovereignty, meriting the chastis.e.m.e.nts threatened by divine and human laws. We are persuaded that, on receiving the impudent invitation, you were full of holy indignation, and will have rejected far from you this guilty and shameful provocation. Notwithstanding, that none of you may say he has been deluded by fallacious seductions, and by the preachers of subversive doctrines, or ignorant of what is contriving by the foes of all order, all law, all right, true liberty, and your happiness, we to-day again raise and utter abroad our voice, so that you may be more certain of the absoluteness with which we prohibit men, of whatever cla.s.s and condition, from taking any part in the meetings which those persons may dare to call, for the nomination of individuals to be sent to the condemned a.s.sembly. At the same time we recall to you how this absolute prohibition is sanctioned by the decrees of our predecessors and of the Councils, especially of the Sacred Council-General of Trent, Sect. XXII. Chap. 11, in which the Church has fulminated many times her censures, and especially the greater excommunication, as incurred without fail by any declaration of whomsoever daring to become guilty of whatsoever attempt against the temporal sovereignty of the Supreme Pontiff, this we declare to have been already unhappily incurred by all those who have given aid to the above-named act, and others preceding, intended to prejudice the same sovereignty, and in other modes and under false pretexts have, perturbed, violated, and usurped our authority. Yet, though we feel ourselves obliged by conscience to guard the sacred deposit of the patrimony of the Spouse of Jesus Christ, confided to our care, by using the sword of severity given to us for that purpose, we cannot therefore forget that we are on earth the representative of Him who in exercise of his justice does not forget mercy. Raising, therefore, our hands to Heaven, while we to it recommend a cause which is indeed more Heaven's than ours, and while anew we declare ourselves ready, with the aid of its powerful grace, to drink even to the dregs, for the defence and glory of the Catholic Church, the cup of persecution which He first wished to drink for the salvation of the same, we shall not desist from supplicating Him benignly to hear the fervent prayers which day and night we unceasingly offer for the salvation of the misguided. No day certainly could be more joyful for us, than that in which it shall be granted to see return into the fold of the Lord our sons from whom now we derive so much bitterness and so great tribulations. The hope of enjoying soon the happiness of such a day is strengthened in us by the reflection, that universal are the prayers which, united to ours, ascend to the throne of Divine Mercy from the lips and the heart of the faithful throughout the Catholic world, urging it continually to change the hearts of sinners, and reconduct them into the paths of truth and of justice.

"Gaeta, January 6, 1849."

The silliness, bigotry, and ungenerous tone of this manifesto excited a simultaneous movement in the population. The procession which carried it, mumbling chants, for deposit in places provided for lowest uses, and then, taking from, the doors of the hatters' shops the cardinals' hats, threw them into the Tiber, was a real and general expression of popular disgust. From that hour the power of the scarlet hierarchy fell to rise no more. No authority can survive a universal movement of derision. From that hour tongues and pens were loosed, the leaven of Machiavellism, which still polluted the productions of the more liberal, disappeared, and people talked as they felt, just as those of us who do not choose to be slaves are accustomed to do in America.

"Jesus," cried an orator, "bade them feed his lambs. If they have done so, it has been to rob their fleece and drink their blood."

"Why," said another, "have we been so long deaf to the saying, that the temporal dominion of the Church was like a thorn in the wound of Italy, which shall never be healed till that thorn is extracted?"

And then, without pa.s.sion, all felt that the temporal dominion was in fact finished of itself, and that it only remained to organize another form of government.

LETTER XXVIII.

GIOBERTI, MAMIANI, AND MAZZINI.--FORMATION OF THE CONSt.i.tUTIONAL a.s.sEMBLY.--THE RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE.--A PROCESSION.--PROCLAMATION OF THE REPUBLIC.--RESULTS.--DECREE OF THE a.s.sEMBLY.--AMERICANS IN ROME: DIFFERENCE OF IMPRESSIONS.--FLIGHT OF THE GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY.--CHARLES ALBERT.--PRESENT STATE OF ROME.--REFLECTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS.--LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

Rome, Evening of Feb. 20, 1849.

The League between the Italian States, and the Diet which was to establish it, had been the thought of Gioberti, but had found the instrument at Rome in Mamiani. The deputies were to be named by princes or parliaments, their mandate to be limited by the existing inst.i.tutions of the several states; measures of mutual security and some modifications in the way of reform would be the utmost that could be hoped from this Diet. The scope of this party did not go beyond more vigorous prosecution of the war for independence, and the establishment of good, inst.i.tutions for the several princ.i.p.alities on a basis of a.s.similation.

Mazzini, the great radical thinker of Italy, was, on the contrary, persuaded that unity, not union, was necessary to this country. He had taken for his motto, G.o.d AND THE PEOPLE, and believed in no other powers. He wished an Italian Const.i.tutional a.s.sembly, selected directly by the people, and furnished with an unlimited mandate to decide what form was now required by the needs of the Peninsula. His own wishes, certainly, aimed at a republic; but the decision remained with the representatives of the people.

The thought of Gioberti had been at first the popular one, as he, in fact, was the seer of the so-called Moderate party. For myself, I always looked upon him as entirely a charlatan, who covered his want of all real force by the thickest embroidered mantle of words. Still, for a time, he corresponded with the wants of the Italian mind. He a.s.sailed the Jesuits, and was of real use by embodying the distrust and aversion that brooded in the minds of men against these most insidious and inveterate foes of liberty and progress. This triumph, at least, he may boast: that sect has been obliged to yield; its extinction seems impossible, of such life-giving power was the fiery will of Loyola. In the Primate he had embodied the lingering hope of the Catholic Church; Pius IX. had answered to the appeal, had answered only to show its futility. He had run through Italy as courier for Charles Albert, when the so falsely styled Magnanimous entered, pretending to save her from the stranger, really hoping to take her for himself. His own cowardice and treachery neutralized the hope, and Charles Albert, abject in his disgrace, took a retrograde ministry.

This the country would not suffer, and obliged him after a while to rea.s.sume at least the position of the previous year, by taking Gioberti for his premier. But it soon became evident that the ministry of Charles Albert was in the same position as had been that of Pius IX. The hand was powerless when the head was indisposed. Meantime the name of Mazzini had echoed through Tuscany from the revered lips of Montanelli; it reached the Roman States, and though at first propagated by foreign impulse, yet, as soon as understood, was welcomed as congenial. Montanelli had n.o.bly said, addressing Florence: "We could not regret that the realization of this project should take place in a sister city, still more ill.u.s.trious than ours." The Romans took him at his word; the Const.i.tutional a.s.sembly for the Roman States was elected with a double mandate, that the deputies might sit in the Const.i.tutional a.s.sembly for all Italy whenever the other provinces could send theirs. They were elected by universal suffrage. Those who listened to Jesuits and Moderates predicted that the project would fail of itself. The people were too ignorant to make use of the liberty of suffrage.

But ravens now-a-days are not the true prophetic birds. The Roman eagle recommences her flight, and it is from its direction only that the high-priest may draw his augury. The people are certainly as ignorant as centuries of the worst government, the neglect of popular education, the enslavement of speech and the press, could make them; yet they have an instinct to recognize measures that are good for them. A few weeks' schooling at some popular meetings, the clubs, the conversations of the National Guards in their quarters or on patrol, were sufficient to concert measures so well, that the people voted in larger proportion than at contested elections in our country, and made a very good choice.

The opening of the Const.i.tutional a.s.sembly gave occasion for a fine procession. All the troops in Rome defiled from the Campidoglio; among them many bear the marks of suffering from the Lombard war. The banners of Sicily, Venice, and Bologna waved proudly; that of Naples was veiled with c.r.a.pe. I was in a balcony in the Piazza di Venezia; the Palazzo di Venezia, that sternest feudal pile, so long the head-quarters of Austrian machinations, seemed to frown, as the bands each in pa.s.sing struck up the _Ma.r.s.eillaise_. The nephew of Napoleon and Garibaldi, the hero of Montevideo, walked together, as deputies.

The deputies, a grave band, mostly advocates or other professional men, walked without other badge of distinction than the tricolored scarf. I remembered the entrance of the deputies to the Council only fourteen months ago, in the magnificent carriages lent by the princes for the occasion; they too were mostly n.o.bles, and their liveried attendants followed, carrying their scutcheons. Princes and councillors have both fled or sunk into nothingness; in those councillors was no counsel. Will it be found in the present? Let us hope so! What we see to-day has much more the air of reality than all that parade of scutcheons, or the pomp of dress and retinue with which the Ecclesiastical Court was wont to amuse the people.

A few days after followed the proclamation of a Republic. An immense crowd of people surrounded the Palazzo della Cancelleria, within whose court-yard Rossi fell, while the debate was going on within. At one o'clock in the morning of the 9th of February, a Republic was resolved upon, and the crowd rushed away to ring all the bells.

Early next morning I rose and went forth to observe the Republic.

Over the Quirinal I went, through the Forum, to the Capitol. There was nothing to be seen except the magnificent calm emperor, the tamers of horses, the fountain, the trophies, the lions, as usual; among the marbles, for living figures, a few dirty, bold women, and Murillo boys in the sun just as usual. I pa.s.sed into the Corso; there were men in the liberty cap,--of course the lowest and vilest had been the first to a.s.sume it; all the horrible beggars persecuting as impudently as usual. I met some English; all their comfort was, "It would not last a month." "They hoped to see all these fellows shot yet." The English clergyman, more mild and legal, only hopes to see them (i.e. the ministry, deputies, &c.) _hung_.

Mr. Carlyle would be delighted with his countrymen. They are entirely ready and anxious to see a Cromwell for Italy. They, too, think, when the people starve, "It is no matter what happens in the back parlor."

What signifies that, if there is "order" in the front? How dare the people make a noise to disturb us yawning at billiards!

I met an American. He "had no confidence in the Republic." Why?

Because he "had no confidence in the people." Why? Because "they were not like _our_ people." Ah! Jonathan and John,--excuse me, but I must say the Italian has a decided advantage over you in the power of quickly feeling generous sympathy, as well as some other things which I have not time now to particularize. I have memoranda from you both in my note-book.

At last the procession mounts the Campidoglio. It is all dressed with banners. The tricolor surmounts the palace of the senator; the senator himself has fled. The deputies mount the steps, and one of them reads, in a clear, friendly voice, the following words:--

"FUNDAMENTAL DECREE OF THE CONSt.i.tUTIONAL a.s.sEMBLY OF ROME.