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Margaret Fuller Ossoli - At Home And Abroad

M >> Margaret Fuller Ossoli >> At Home And Abroad




"Unify Italy, your country. For this you have no need to work, but
to bless Him who works through you and in your name. Gather round you
those who best represent the national party. Do not beg alliances with
princes. Continue to seek the alliance of our own people; say, 'The
unity of Italy ought to be a fact of the nineteenth century,' and it
will suffice; we shall work for you. Leave our pens free; leave free
the circulation of ideas in what regards this point, vital for us,
of the national unity. Treat the Austrian government, even when it no
longer menaces your territory, with the reserve of one who knows that
it governs by usurpation in Italy and elsewhere; combat it with words
of a just man, wherever it contrives oppressions and violations of
the rights of others out of Italy. Require, in the name of the God of
Peace, the Jesuits allied with Austria in Switzerland to withdraw from
that country, where their presence prepares an inevitable and speedy
effusion of the blood of the citizens. Give a word of sympathy which
shall become public to the first Pole of Galicia who comes into your
presence. Show us, in fine, by some fact, that you intend not only to
improve the physical condition of your own few subjects, but that
you embrace in your love the twenty-four millions of Italians, your
brothers; that you believe them called by God to unite in family unity
under one and the same compact; that you would bless the national
banner, wherever it should be raised by pure and incontaminate hands;
and leave the rest to us. We will cause to rise around you a nation
over whose free and popular development you, living, shall preside.
We will found a government unique in Europe, which shall destroy the
absurd divorce between spiritual and temporal power, and in which you
shall be chosen to represent the principle of which the men chosen by
the nation will make the application. We shall know how to translate
into a potent fact the instinct which palpitates through all Italy.
We will excite for you active support among the nations of Europe; we
will find you friends even in the ranks of Austria; we alone, because
we alone have unity of design, believe in the truth of our principle,
and have never betrayed it. Do not fear excesses from the people once
entered upon this way; the people only commit excesses when left to
their own impulses without any guide whom they respect. Do not pause
before the idea of becoming a cause of war. War exists, everywhere,
open or latent, but near breaking out, inevitable; nor can human
power prevent it. Nor do I, it must be said frankly, Most Holy
Father, address to you these words because I doubt in the least of our
destiny, or because I believe you the sole, the indispensable means
of the enterprise. The unity of Italy is a work of God,--a part of
the design of Providence and of all, even of those who show themselves
most satisfied with local improvements, and who, less sincere than
I, wish to make them means of attaining their own aims. It will be
fulfilled, with you or without you. But I address you, because I
believe you worthy to take the initiative in a work so vast; because
your putting yourself at the head of it would much abridge the road
and diminish the dangers, the injury, the blood; because with you
the conflict would assume a religious aspect, and be freed from many
dangers of reaction and civil errors; because might be attained at
once under your banner a political result and a vast moral result;
because the revival of Italy under the aegis of a religious idea, of
a standard, not of rights, but of duties, would leave behind all the
revolutions of other countries, and place her immediately at the head
of European progress; because it is in your power to cause that God
and the people, terms too often fatally disjoined, should meet at once
in beautiful and holy harmony, to direct the fate of nations.

"If I could be near you, I would invoke from God power to convince
you, by gesture, by accent, by tears; now I can only confide to the
paper the cold corpse, as it were, of my thought; nor can I ever have
the certainty that you have read, and meditated a moment what I write.
But I feel an imperious necessity of fulfilling this duty toward Italy
and you, and, whatsoever you may think of it, I shall find myself more
in peace with my conscience for having thus addressed you.

"Believe, Most Holy Father, in the feelings of veneration and of high
hope which professes for you your most devoted

"JOSEPH MAZZINI."


Whatever may be the impression of the reader as to the ideas and
propositions contained in this document,[A] I think he cannot fail to
be struck with its simple nobleness, its fervent truth.

[Footnote A: This letter was printed in Paris to be circulated in
Italy. A prefatory note signed by a friend of Mazzini's, states that
the original was known to have reached the hands of the Pope. The hope
is expressed that the publication of this letter, though without the
authority of its writer, will yet not displease him, as those who are
deceived as to his plans and motives will thus learn his true purposes
and feelings, and the letter will one day aid the historian who seeks
to know what were the opinions and hopes of the entire people of
Italy.--ED.]

A thousand petty interruptions have prevented my completing this
letter, till, now the hour of closing the mail for the steamer is so
near, I shall not have time to look over it, either to see what I have
written or make slight corrections. However, I suppose it represents
the feelings of the last few days, and shows that, without having lost
any of my confidence in the Italian movement, the office of the Pope
in promoting it has shown narrower limits, and sooner than I had
expected.

This does not at all weaken my personal feeling toward this excellent
man, whose heart I have seen in his face, and can never doubt. It was
necessary to be a great thinker, a great genius, to compete with the
difficulties of his position. I never supposed he was that; I am
only disappointed that his good heart has not carried him on a little
farther. With regard to the reception of the American address, it
is only the Roman press that is so timid; the private expressions of
pleasure have been very warm; the Italians say, "The Americans are
indeed our brothers." It remains to be seen, when Pius IX. receives
it, whether the man, the reforming prince, or the Pope is uppermost at
that moment.




LETTER XXII.

THE CEREMONIES SUCCEEDING EPIPHANY.--THE DEATH OF TORLONIA, AND ITS
PREDISPOSING CAUSES.--FUNERAL HONORS.--A STRIKING CONTRAST IN THE
DECEASE OF THE CARDINAL PRINCE MASSIMO.--THE POPE AND HIS OFFICERS
OF STATE.--THE CARDINAL BOFONDI.--SYMPATHETIC EXCITEMENTS THROUGH
ITALY.--SICILY IN FULL INSURRECTION.--THE KING OF SICILY, PRINCE
METTERNICH, AND LOUIS PHILIPPE.--A RUMOR AS TO THE PARENTAGE OF THE
KING OF THE FRENCH.--ROME: AVE MARIA.--LIFE IN THE ETERNAL CITY.--THE
BAMBINO.--CATHOLICISM: ITS GIFTS AND ITS WORKINGS.--THE CHURCH OF ARA
COELI.--EXHIBITION OF THE BAMBINO.--BYGONE SUPERSTITION AND LIVING
REALITY.--THE SOUL OF CATHOLICISM HAS FLED.--REFLECTIONS.--EXHIBITION
BY THE COLLEGE OF THE PROPAGANDA.--EXERCISES IN ALL LANGUAGES.--
DISTURBANCES AND THEIR CAUSES.--THOUGHTS.--BLESSING ANIMALS.--ACCOUNTS
FROM PAVIA.--AUSTRIA.--THE KING OF NAPLES.--RUMORS FROM OTHER PARTS OF
EUROPE.--FRANCE.--GUIZOT.--APPEARANCES AND APPREHENSIONS.


Rome, January, 1848.

I think I closed my last letter, without having had time to speak of
the ceremonies that precede and follow Epiphany. This month, no day,
scarcely an hour, has passed unmarked by some showy spectacle or some
exciting piece of news.

On the last day of the year died Don Carlo Torlonia, brother of the
banker, a man greatly beloved and regretted. The public felt this
event the more that its proximate cause was an attack made upon his
brother's house by Paradisi, now imprisoned in the Castle of St.
Angelo, pending a law process for proof of his accusations. Don
Carlo had been ill before, and the painful agitation caused by these
circumstances decided his fate. The public had been by no means
displeased at this inquiry into the conduct of Don Alessandro
Torlonia, believing that his assumed munificence is, in this case,
literally a robbery of Peter to pay Paul, and that all he gives
to Rome is taken from Rome. But I sympathized no less with the
affectionate indignation of his brother, too good a man to be made the
confidant of wrong, or have eyes for it, if such exist.

Thus, in the poetical justice which does not fail to be done in the
prose narrative of life, while men hastened, the moment a cry was
raised against Don Alessandro, to echo it back with all kinds of
imputations both on himself and his employees, every man held his
breath, and many wept, when the mortal remains of Don Carlo passed;
feeling that in him was lost a benefactor, a brother, a simple, just
man.

Don Carlo was a Knight of Malta; yet with him the celibate life had
not hardened the heart, but only left it free on all sides to general
love. Not less than half a dozen pompous funerals were given in his
honor, by his relatives, the brotherhoods to which he belonged, and
the battalion of the Civic Guard of which he was commander-in-chief.
But in his own house the body lay in no other state than that of a
simple Franciscan, the order to which he first belonged, and whose vow
he had kept through half a century, by giving all he had for the good
of others. He lay on the ground in the plain dark robe and cowl, no
unfit subject for a modern picture of little angels descending to
shower lilies on a good man's corpse. The long files of armed men,
the rich coaches, and liveried retinues of the princes, were little
observed, in comparison with more than a hundred orphan girls whom his
liberality had sustained, and who followed the bier in mourning robes
and long white veils, spirit-like, in the dark night. The trumpet's
wail, and soft, melancholy music from the bands, broke at times the
roll of the muffled drum; the hymns of the Church were chanted, and
volleys of musketry discharged, in honor of the departed; but much
more musical was the whisper in which the crowd, as passed his mortal
frame, told anecdotes of his good deeds.

I do not know when I have passed more consolatory moments than in the
streets one evening during this pomp and picturesque show,--for once
not empty of all meaning as to the present time, recognizing that
good which remains in the human being, ineradicable by all ill, and
promises that our poor, injured nature shall rise, and bloom again,
from present corruption to immortal purity. If Don Carlo had been a
thinker,--a man of strong intellect,--he might have devised means of
using his money to more radical advantage than simply to give it in
alms; he had only a kind human heart, but from that heart distilled a
balm which made all men bless it, happy in finding cause to bless.

As in the moral little books with which our nurseries are entertained,
followed another death in violent contrast. One of those whom the new
arrangements deprived of power and the means of unjust gain was the
Cardinal Prince Massimo, a man a little younger than Don Carlo,
but who had passed his forty years in a very different manner.
He remonstrated; the Pope was firm, and, at last, is said to have
answered with sharp reproof for the past. The Cardinal contained
himself in the audience, but, going out, literally suffocated with the
rage he had suppressed. The bad blood his bad heart had been so
long making rushed to his head, and he died on his return home.
Men laughed, and proposed that all the widows he had deprived of a
maintenance should combine to follow _his_ bier. It was said boys
hissed as that bier passed. Now, a splendid suit of lace being for
sale in a shop of the Corso, everybody says: "Have you been to look
at the lace of Cardinal Massimo, who died of rage, because he could
no longer devour the public goods?" And this is the last echo of _his_
requiem.

The Pope is anxious to have at least well-intentioned men in places of
power. Men of much ability, it would seem, are not to be had. His last
prime minister was a man said to have energy, good dispositions, but
no thinking power. The Cardinal Bofondi, whom he has taken now, is
said to be a man of scarce any ability; there being few among the
new Councillors the public can name as fitted for important trust.
In consolation, we must remember that the Chancellor Oxenstiern found
nothing more worthy of remark to show his son, than by how little
wisdom the world could be governed. We must hope these men of straw
will serve as thatch to keep out the rain, and not be exposed to the
assaults of a devouring flame.

Yet that hour may not be distant. The disturbances of the 1st of
January here were answered by similar excitements in Leghorn and
Genoa, produced by the same hidden and malignant foe. At the same
time, the Austrian government in Milan organized an attempt to rouse
the people to revolt, with a view to arrests, and other measures
calculated to stifle the spirit of independence they know to be latent
there. In this iniquitous attempt they murdered eighty persons; yet
the citizens, on their guard, refused them the desired means of
ruin, and they were forced to retractions as impudently vile as their
attempts had been. The Viceroy proclaimed that "he hoped the people
would confide in him as he did in them"; and no doubt they will. At
Leghorn and Genoa, the wiles of the foe were baffled by the wisdom of
the popular leaders, as I trust they always will be; but it is needful
daily to expect these nets laid in the path of the unwary.

Sicily is in full insurrection; and it is reported Naples, but this
is not sure. There was a report, day before yesterday, that the poor,
stupid king was already here, and had taken cheap chambers at the
Hotel d'Allemagne, as, indeed, it is said he has always a turn for
economy, when he cannot live at the expense of his suffering people.
Day before yesterday, every carriage that the people saw with a
stupid-looking man in it they did not know, they looked to see if it
was not the royal runaway. But it was their wish was father to that
thought, and it has not as yet taken body as fact. In like manner they
report this week the death of Prince Metternich; but I believe it
is not sure he is dead yet, only dying. With him passes one great
embodiment of ill to Europe. As for Louis Philippe, he seems reserved
to give the world daily more signal proofs of his base apostasy to the
cause that placed him on the throne, and that heartless selfishness,
of which his face alone bears witness to any one that has a mind to
read it. How the French nation could look upon that face, while yet
flushed with the hopes of the Three Days, and put him on the throne
as representative of those hopes, I cannot conceive. There is a story
current in Italy, that he is really the child of a man first a barber,
afterwards a police-officer, and was substituted at nurse for the true
heir of Orleans; and the vulgarity of form in his body of limbs, power
of endurance, greed of gain, and hard, cunning intellect, so unlike
all traits of the weak, but more "genteel" Bourbon race, might well
lend plausibility to such a fable.

But to return to Rome, where I hear the Ave Maria just ringing. By the
way, nobody pauses, nobody thinks, nobody prays.

"Ave Maria! 't is the hour of prayer,
Ave Maria! 't is the hour of love," &c.,

is but a figment of the poet's fancy.

To return to Rome: what a Rome! the fortieth day of rain, and damp,
and abominable reeking odors, such as blessed cities swept by the
sea-breeze--bitter sometimes, yet indeed a friend--never know. It has
been dark all day, though the lamp has only been lit half an hour. The
music of the day has been, first the atrocious _arias_, which last in
the Corso till near noon, though certainly less in virulence on rainy
days. Then came the wicked organ-grinder, who, apart from the horror
of the noise, grinds exactly the same obsolete abominations as at
home or in England,--the Copenhagen Waltz, "Home, sweet home," and all
that! The cruel chance that both an English my-lady and a Councillor
from one of the provinces live opposite, keeps him constantly before
my window, hoping baiocchi. Within, the three pet dogs of my landlady,
bereft of their walk, unable to employ their miserable legs and eyes,
exercise themselves by a continual barking, which is answered by all
the dogs in the neighborhood. An urchin returning from the laundress,
delighted with the symphony, lays down his white bundle in the gutter,
seats himself on the curb-stone, and attempts an imitation of the
music of cats as a tribute to the concert. The door-bell rings. _Chi
e?_ "Who is it?" cries the handmaid, with unweariable senselessness,
as if any one would answer, _Rogue_, or _Enemy_, instead of the
traditionary _Amico_, _Friend_. Can it be, perchance, a letter, news
of home, or some of the many friends who have neglected so long
to write, or some ray of hope to break the clouds of the difficult
Future? Far from it. Enter a man poisoning me at once with the smell
of the worst possible cigars, not to be driven out, insisting I shall
look upon frightful, ill-cut cameos, and worse-designed mosaics,
made by some friend of his, who works in a chamber and will sell _so_
cheap. Man of ill-odors and meanest smile! I am no Countess to be
fooled by you. For dogs they were not even--dog-cheap.

A faint and misty gleam of sun greeted the day on which there was the
feast to the Bambino, the most venerated doll of Rome. This is the
famous image of the infant Jesus, reputed to be made of wood from
a tree of Palestine, and which, being taken away from its present
abode,--the church of Ara Coeli,--returned by itself, making the bells
ring as it sought admittance at the door. It is this which is carried
in extreme cases to the bedside of the sick. It has received more
splendid gifts than any other idol. An orphan by my side, now
struggling with difficulties, showed me on its breast a splendid
jewel, which a doting grandmother thought more likely to benefit her
soul if given to the Bambino, than if turned into money to give her
grandchildren education and prospects in life. The same old lady
left her vineyard, not to these children, but to her confessor, a
well-endowed Monsignor, who occasionally asks this youth, his
godson, to dinner! Children so placed are not quite such devotees to
Catholicism as the new proselytes of America;--they are not so much
patted on the head, and things do not show to them under quite the
same silver veil.

The church of Ara Coeli is on or near the site of the temple of
Capitoline Jove, which certainly saw nothing more idolatrous than
these ceremonies. For about a week the Bambino is exhibited in an
illuminated chapel, in the arms of a splendidly dressed Madonna doll.
Behind, a transparency represents the shepherds, by moonlight, at the
time the birth was announced, and, above, God the Father, with many
angels hailing the event. A pretty part of this exhibition, which I
was not so fortunate as to hit upon, though I went twice on purpose,
is the children making little speeches in honor of the occasion.
Many readers will remember some account of this in Andersen's
"Improvvisatore."

The last time I went was the grand feast in honor of the Bambino. The
church was entirely full, mostly with Contadini and the poorer people,
absorbed in their devotions: one man near me never raised his head
or stirred from his knees to see anything; he seemed in an anguish of
prayer, either from repentance or anxiety. I wished I could have
hoped the ugly little doll could do Mm any good. The noble stair
which descends from the great door of this church to the foot of the
Capitol,--a stair made from fragments of the old imperial time,--was
flooded with people; the street below was a rapid river also, whose
waves were men. The ceremonies began with splendid music from the
organ, pealing sweetly long and repeated invocations. As if answering
to this call, the world came in, many dignitaries, the Conservatori,
(I think conservatives are the same everywhere, official or no,) and
did homage to the image; then men in white and gold, with the candles
they are so fond here of burning by daylight, as if the poorest
artificial were better than the greatest natural light, uplifted high
above themselves the baby, with its gilded robes and crown, and made
twice the tour of the church, passing twice the column labelled "From
the Home of Augustus," while the band played--what?--the Hymn to Pius
IX. and "Sons of Rome, awake!" Never was a crueller comment upon the
irreconcilableness of these two things. Rome seeks to reconcile reform
and priestcraft.

But her eyes are shut, that they see not. O awake indeed, Romans! and
you will see that the Christ who is to save men is no wooden dingy
effigy of bygone superstitions, but such as Art has seen him in your
better mood,--a Child, living, full of love, prophetic of a boundless
future,--a Man acquainted with all sorrows that rend the heart of
all, and ever loving man with sympathy and faith death could not
quench,--_that_ Christ lives and may be sought; burn your doll of
wood.

How any one can remain a Catholic--I mean who has ever been aroused to
think, and is not biassed by the partialities of childish years--after
seeing Catholicism here in Italy, I cannot conceive. There was once a
soul in the religion while the blood of its martyrs was yet fresh
upon the ground, but that soul was always too much encumbered with
the remains of pagan habits and customs: that soul is now quite fled
elsewhere, and in the splendid catafalco, watched by so many white
and red-robed snuff-taking, sly-eyed men, would they let it be opened,
nothing would be found but bones!

Then the College for propagating all this, the most venerable
Propaganda, has given its exhibition in honor of the Magi, wise men of
the East who came to Christ. I was there one day. In conformity with
the general spirit of Rome,--strangely inconsistent in a country where
the Madonna is far more frequently and devoutly worshipped than God or
Christ, in a city where at least as many female saints and martyrs are
venerated as male,--there was no good place for women to sit. All
the good seats were for the men in the area below, but in the gallery
windows, and from the organ-loft, a few women were allowed to peep
at what was going on. I was one of these exceptional characters. The
exercises were in all the different languages under the sun. It would
have been exceedingly interesting to hear them, one after the
other, each in its peculiar cadence and inflection, but much of the
individual expression was taken away by that general false academic
tone which is sure to pervade such exhibitions where young men speak
who have as yet nothing to say. It would have been different, indeed,
if we could have heard natives of all those countries, who were
animated by real feelings, real wants. Still it was interesting,
particularly the language and music of Kurdistan, and the full-grown
beauty of the Greek after the ruder dialects. Among those who appeared
to the best advantage were several blacks, and the majesty of the
Latin hexameters was confided to a full-blooded Guinea negro, who
acquitted himself better than any other I heard. I observed, too, the
perfectly gentlemanly appearance of these young men, and that they
had nothing of that Cuffy swagger by which those freed from a servile
state try to cover a painful consciousness of their position in our
country. Their air was self-possessed, quiet and free beyond that of
most of the whites.


January 22, 2 o'clock, P.M.

Pour, pour, pour again, dark as night,--many people coming in to see
me because they don't know what to do with themselves. I am very glad
to see them for the same reason; this atmosphere is so heavy, I seem
to carry the weight of the world on my head and feel unfitted for
every exertion. As to eating, that is a bygone thing; wine, coffee,
meat, I have resigned; vegetables are few and hard to have, except
horrible cabbage, in which the Romans delight. A little rice still
remains, which I take with pleasure, remembering it growing in the
rich fields of Lombardy, so green and full of glorious light. That
light fell still more beautiful on the tall plantations of hemp, but
it is dangerous just at present to think of what is made from hemp.

This week all the animals are being blessed,[A] and they get a
gratuitous baptism, too, the while. The lambs one morning were taken
out to the church of St. Agnes for this purpose. The little companion
of my travels, if he sees this letter, will remember how often we saw
her with her lamb in pictures. The horses are being blessed by St.
Antonio, and under his harmonizing influence are afterward driven
through the city, twelve and even twenty in hand. They are harnessed
into light wagons, and men run beside them to guard against accident,
in case the good influence of the Saint should fail.

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