Margaret Fuller Ossoli - At Home And Abroad

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"Viva Italy! viva the Italian people!"[A]

[Footnote A: Close of "A Comment by Pio Angelo Fierortino on the
Allocution of Pius IX. spoken in the Secret Consistory of 29th April,
1848," dated Italy, 30th April, 1st year of the Redemption of Italy.]

These events make indeed a crisis. The work begun by Napoleon is
finished. There will never more be really a Pope, but only the effigy
or simulacrum of one.

The loss of Pius IX. is for the moment a great one. His name had real
moral weight,--was a trumpet appeal to sentiment. It is not the same
with any man that is left. There is not one that can be truly a leader
in the Roman dominion, not one who has even great intellectual weight.

The responsibility of events now lies wholly with the people, and
that wave of thought which has begun to pervade them. Sovereigns and
statesmen will go where they are carried; it is probable power will be
changed continually from, hand to hand, and government become, to all
intents and purposes, representative. Italy needs now quite to throw
aside her stupid king of Naples, who hangs like a dead weight on her
movements. The king of Sardinia and the Grand Duke of Tuscany will be
trusted while they keep their present course; but who can feel sure
of any sovereign, now that Louis Philippe has shown himself so mad
and Pius IX. so blind? It seems as if fate was at work to bewilder
and cast down the dignities of the world and democratize society at a
blow.

In Rome there is now no anchor except the good sense of the people.
It seems impossible that collision should not arise between him who
retains the name but not the place of sovereign, and the provisional
government which calls itself a ministry. The Count Mamiani, its new
head, is a man of reputation as a writer, but untried as yet as a
leader or a statesman. Should agitations arise, the Pope can no longer
calm them by one of his fatherly looks.

All lies in the future; and our best hope must be that the Power which
has begun so great a work will find due means to end it, and make the
year 1850 a year of true jubilee to Italy; a year not merely of pomps
and tributes, but of recognized rights and intelligent joys; a year of
real peace,--peace, founded not on compromise and the lying etiquettes
of diplomacy, but on truth and justice.

Then this sad disappointment in Pius IX. may be forgotten, or, while
all that was lovely and generous in his life is prized and reverenced,
deep instruction may be drawn from his errors as to the inevitable
dangers of a priestly or a princely environment, and a higher
knowledge may elevate a nobler commonwealth than the world has yet
known.

Hoping this era, I remain at present here. Should my hopes be dashed
to the ground, it will not change my faith, but the struggle for its
manifestation is to me of vital interest. My friends write to urge my
return; they talk of our country as the land of the future. It is so,
but that spirit which made it all it is of value in my eyes, which
gave all of hope with which I can sympathize for that future, is
more alive here at present than in America. My country is at present
spoiled by prosperity, stupid with the lust of gain, soiled by crime
in its willing perpetuation of slavery, shamed by an unjust war, noble
sentiment much forgotten even by individuals, the aims of politicians
selfish or petty, the literature frivolous and venal. In Europe, amid
the teachings of adversity, a nobler spirit is struggling,--a spirit
which cheers and animates mine. I hear earnest words of pure faith and
love. I see deeds of brotherhood. This is what makes _my_ America. I
do not deeply distrust my country. She is not dead, but in my time she
sleepeth, and the spirit of our fathers flames no more, but lies hid
beneath the ashes. It will not be so long; bodies cannot live when the
soul gets too overgrown with gluttony and falsehood. But it is not the
making a President out of the Mexican war that would make me wish to
come back. Here things are before my eyes worth recording, and, if I
cannot help this work, I would gladly be its historian.

May 13.

Returning from a little tour in the Alban Mount, where everything
looks so glorious this glorious spring, I find a temporary quiet. The
Pope's brothers have come to sympathize with him; the crowd sighs over
what he has done, presents him with great bouquets of flowers, and
reads anxiously the news from the north and the proclamations of the
new ministry. Meanwhile the nightingales sing; every tree and plant
is in flower, and the sun and moon shine as if paradise were already
re-established on earth. I go to one of the villas to dream it is so,
beneath the pale light of the stars.

LETTER XXV.

REVIEW OF THE COURSE OF PIUS IX.--MAMIANI.--THE PEOPLE'S DISAPPOINTED
HOPES.--THE MONUMENTS IN MILAN, NAPLES, ETC.--THE KING OF NAPLES AND
HIS TROOPS.--CALAMITIES OF THE WAR.--THE ITALIAN PEOPLE.--CHARLES
ALBERT.--DEDUCTIONS.--SUMMER AMONG THE MOUNTAINS OF ITALY.

Rome, December 2, 1848.

I have not written for six months, and within that time what changes
have taken place on this side "the great water,"--changes of how
great dramatic interest historically,--of bearing infinitely important
ideally! Easy is the descent in ill.

I wrote last when Pius IX. had taken the first stride on the downward
road. He had proclaimed himself the foe of further reform measures,
when he implied that Italian independence was not important in his
eyes, when he abandoned the crowd of heroic youth who had gone to the
field with his benediction, to some of whom his own hand had given
crosses. All the Popes, his predecessors, had meddled with, most
frequently instigated, war; now came one who must carry out,
literally, the doctrines of the Prince of Peace, when the war was
not for wrong, or the aggrandizement of individuals, but to
redeem national, to redeem human, rights from the grasp of foreign
oppression.

I said some cried "traitor," some "imbecile," some wept, but In the
minds of all, I believe, at that time, grief was predominant. They
could no longer depend on him they had thought their best friend. They
had lost their father.

Meanwhile his people would not submit to the inaction he urged. They
saw it was not only ruinous to themselves, but base and treacherous
to the rest of Italy. They said to the Pope, "This cannot be; you
must follow up the pledges you have given, or, if you will not act to
redeem them, you must have a ministry that will." The Pope, after he
had once declared to the contrary, ought to have persisted. He should
have said, "I cannot thus belie myself, I cannot put my name to acts I
have just declared to be against my conscience."

The ministers of the people ought to have seen that the position they
assumed was utterly untenable; that they could not advance with an
enemy in the background cutting off all supplies. But some patriotism
and some vanity exhilarated them, and, the Pope having weakly yielded,
they unwisely began their impossible task. Mamiani, their chief, I
esteem a man, under all circumstances, unequal to such a position,--a
man of rhetoric merely. But no man could have acted, unless the
Pope had resigned his temporal power, the Cardinals been put under
sufficient check, and the Jesuits and emissaries of Austria driven
from their lurking-places.

A sad scene began. The Pope,--shut up more and more in his palace, the
crowd of selfish and insidious advisers darkening round, enslaved by
a confessor,--he who might have been the liberator of suffering Europe
permitted the most infamous treacheries to be practised in his name.
Private letters were written to the foreign powers, denying the
acts he outwardly sanctioned; the hopes of the people were evaded
or dallied with; the Chamber of Deputies permitted to talk and pass
measures which they never could get funds to put into execution;
legions to form and manoeuvre, but never to have the arms and
clothing they needed. Again and again the people went to the Pope for
satisfaction. They got only--benediction.

Thus plotted and thus worked the scarlet men of sin, playing the hopes
of Italy off and on, while _their_ hope was of the miserable defeat
consummated by a still worse traitor at Milan on the 6th of August.
But, indeed, what could be expected from the "Sword of Pius IX.," when
Pius IX. himself had thus failed in his high vocation. The king of
Naples bombarded his city, and set on the Lazzaroni to rob and murder
the subjects he had deluded by his pretended gift of the Constitution.
Pius proclaimed that he longed to embrace _all_ the princes of Italy.
He talked of peace, when all knew for a great part of the Italians
there was no longer hope of peace, except in the sepulchre, or
freedom.

The taunting manifestos of Welden are a sufficient comment on the
conduct of the Pope. "As the government of his Holiness is too weak
to control his subjects,"--"As, singularly enough, a great number of
Romans are found, fighting against us, contrary to the _expressed_
will of their prince,"--such were the excuses for invasions of the
Pontifical dominions, and the robbery and insult by which they were
accompanied. Such invasions, it was said, made his Holiness very
indignant; he remonstrated against these; but we find no word of
remonstrance against the tyranny of the king of Naples,--no word
of sympathy for the victims of Lombardy, the sufferings of Verona,
Vicenza, Padua, Mantua, Venice.

In the affairs of Europe there are continued signs of the plan of the
retrograde party to effect similar demonstrations in different places
at the same hour. The 15th of May was one of these marked days.
On that day the king of Naples made use of the insurrection he had
contrived to excite, to massacre his people, and find an excuse for
recalling his troops from Lombardy. The same day a similar crisis was
hoped in Rome from the declarations of the Pope, but that did not work
at the moment exactly as the foes of enfranchisement hoped.

However, the wounds were cruel enough. The Roman volunteers received
the astounding news that they were not to expect protection or
countenance from their prince; all the army stood aghast, that they
were no longer to fight in the name of Pio. It had been so dear,
so sweet, to love and really reverence the head of their Church,
so inspiring to find their religion for once in accordance with the
aspirations of the soul! They were to be deprived, too, of the aid of
the disciplined Neapolitan troops and their artillery, on which they
had counted. How cunningly all this was contrived to cause dissension
and dismay may easily be seen.

The Neapolitan General Pepe nobly refused to obey, and called on the
troops to remain with him. They wavered; but they are a pampered army,
personally much attached to the king, who pays them well and indulges
them at the expense of his people, that they may be his support
against that people when in a throe of nature it rises and striven
for its rights. For the same reason, the sentiment of patriotism was
little diffused among them in comparison with the other troops. And
the alternative presented was one in which it required a very clear
sense of higher duty to act against habit. Generally, after wavering
awhile, they obeyed and returned. The Roman States, which had received
them with so many testimonials of affection and honor, on their
retreat were not slack to show a correspondent aversion and contempt.
The towns would not suffer their passage; the hamlets were unwilling
to serve them even with fire and water. They were filled at once with
shame and rage; one officer killed himself, unable to bear it; in the
unreflecting minds of the soldiers, hate sprung up for the rest of
Italy, and especially Rome, which will make them admirable tools of
tyranny in case of civil war.

This was the first great calamity of the war. But apart from the
treachery of the king of Naples and the dereliction of the Pope,
it was impossible it should end thoroughly well. The people were
in earnest, and have shown themselves so; brave, and able to bear
privation. No one should dare, after the proofs of the summer, to
reiterate the taunt, so unfriendly frequent on foreign lips at the
beginning of the contest, that the Italian can boast, shout, and fling
garlands, but not _act_. The Italian always showed himself noble and
brave, even in foreign service, and is doubly so in the cause of his
country. But efficient heads were wanting. The princes were not in
earnest; they were looking at expediency. The Grand Duke, timid and
prudent, wanted to do what was safest for Tuscany; his ministry,
"_Moderate_" and prudent, would have liked to win a great prize at
small risk. They went no farther than the people pulled them. The king
of Sardinia had taken the first bold step, and the idea that treachery
on his part was premeditated cannot be sustained; it arises from the
extraordinary aspect of his measures, and the knowledge that he is not
incapable of treachery, as he proved in early youth. But now it was
only his selfishness that worked to the same results. He fought and
planned, not for Italy, but the house of Savoy, which his Balbis and
Giobertis had so long been prophesying was to reign supreme in the
new great era of Italy. These prophecies he more than half believed,
because they chimed with his ambitious wishes; but he had not soul
enough to realize them; he trusted only in his disciplined troops;
he had not nobleness enough to believe he might rely at all on
the sentiment of the people. For his troops he dared not have good
generals; conscious of meanness and timidity, he shrank from the
approach of able and earnest men; he was inly afraid they would,
in helping Italy, take her and themselves out of his guardianship.
Antonini was insulted, Garibaldi rejected; other experienced leaders,
who had rushed to Italy at the first trumpet-sound, could never
get employment from him. As to his generalship, it was entirely
inadequate, even if he had made use of the first favorable moments.
But his first thought was not to strike a blow at the Austrians before
they recovered from the discomfiture of Milan, but to use the panic
and need of his assistance to induce Lombardy and Venice to annex
themselves to his kingdom. He did not even wish seriously to get the
better till this was done, and when this was done, it was too late.
The Austrian army was recruited, the generals had recovered their
spirits, and were burning to retrieve and avenge their past defeat.
The conduct of Charles Albert had been shamefully evasive in the first
months. The account given by Franzini, when challenged in the Chamber
of Deputies at Turin, might be summed up thus: "Why, gentlemen,
what would you have? Every one knows that the army is in excellent
condition, and eager for action. They are often reviewed, hear
speeches, and sometimes get medals. We take places always, if it is
not difficult. I myself was present once when the troops advanced; our
men behaved gallantly, and had the advantage in the first skirmish;
but afterward the enemy pointed on us artillery from the heights, and,
naturally, we retired. But as to supposing that his Majesty Charles
Albert is indifferent to the success of Italy in the war, that is
absurd. He is 'the Sword of Italy'; he is the most magnanimous of
princes; he is seriously occupied about the war; many a day I have
been called into his tent to talk it over, before he was up in the
morning!"

Sad was it that the heroic Milan, the heroic Venice, the heroic
Sicily, should lean on such a reed as this, and by hurried acts,
equally unworthy as unwise, sully the glory of their shields. Some
names, indeed, stand, out quite free from this blame. Mazzini, who
kept up a combat against folly and cowardice, day by day and hour by
hour, with almost supernatural strength, warned the people constantly
of the evils which their advisers were drawing upon them. He was heard
then only by a few, but in this "Italia del Popolo" may be found many
prophecies exactly fulfilled, as those of "the golden-haired love of
Phoebus" during the struggles of Ilium. He himself, in the last sad
days of Milan, compared his lot to that of Cassandra. At all events,
his hands are pure from that ill. What could be done to arouse
Lombardy he did, but the "Moderate" party unable to wean themselves
from old habits, the pupils of the wordy Gioberti thought there could
be no safety unless under the mantle of a prince. They did not foresee
that he would run away, and throw that mantle on the ground.

Tommaso and Manin also were clear in their aversion to these measures;
and with them, as with all who were resolute in principle at that
time, a great influence has followed.

It is said Charles Albert feels bitterly the imputations on his
courage, and says they are most ungrateful, since he has exposed the
lives of himself and his sons in the combat. Indeed, there ought to
be made a distinction between personal and mental courage. The former
Charles Albert may possess, may have too much of what this still
aristocratic world calls "the feelings of a gentleman" to shun
exposing himself to a chance shot now and then. An entire want of
mental courage he has shown. The battle, decisive against him, was
made so by his giving up the moment fortune turned against him. It is
shameful to hear so many say this result was inevitable, just because
the material advantages were in favor of the Austrians. Pray, was
never a battle won against material odds? It is precisely such that a
good leader, a noble man, may expect to win. Were the Austrians driven
out of Milan because the Milanese had that advantage? The Austrians
would again, have suffered repulse from them, but for the baseness of
this man, on whom they had been cajoled into relying,--a baseness that
deserves the pillory; and on a pillory will the "Magnanimous," as he
was meanly called in face of the crimes of his youth and the timid
selfishness of his middle age, stand in the sight of posterity. He
made use of his power only to betray Milan; he took from the citizens
all means of defence, and then gave them up to the spoiler; he
promised to defend them "to the last drop of his blood," and sold
them the next minute; even the paltry terms he made, he has not seen
maintained. Had the people slain him in their rage, he well deserved
it at their hands; and all his conduct since show how righteous would
have been that sudden verdict of passion.

Of all this great drama I have much to write, but elsewhere, in a more
full form, and where I can duly sketch the portraits of actors little
known in America. The materials are over-rich. I have bought my right
in them by much sympathetic suffering; yet, amid the blood and tears
of Italy, 'tis joy to see some glorious new births. The Italians are
getting cured of mean adulation and hasty boasts; they are learning
to prize and seek realities; the effigies of straw are getting knocked
down, and living, growing men take their places. Italy is being
educated for the future, her leaders are learning that the time is
past for trust in princes and precedents,--that there is no hope
except in truth and God; her lower people are learning to shout less
and think more.

Though my thoughts have been much with the public in this struggle for
life, I have been away from it during the summer months, in the quiet
valleys, on the lonely mountains. There, personally undisturbed, I
have seen the glorious Italian summer wax and wane,--the summer of
Southern Italy, which I did not see last year. On the mountains it was
not too hot for me, and I enjoyed the great luxuriance of vegetation.
I had the advantage of having visited the scene of the war minutely
last summer, so that, in mind, I could follow every step of the
campaign, while around me were the glorious relics of old times,--the
crumbling theatre or temple of the Roman day, the bird's-nest village
of the Middle Ages, on whose purple height shone the sun and moon of
Italy in changeless lustre. It was great pleasure to me to watch the
gradual growth and change of the seasons, so different from ours.
Last year I had not leisure for this quiet acquaintance. Now I saw the
fields first dressed in their carpets of green, enamelled richly with
the red poppy and blue corn-flower,--in that sunshine how resplendent!
Then swelled the fig, the grape, the olive, the almond; and my food
was of these products of this rich clime. For near three months I had
grapes every day; the last four weeks, enough daily for two persons
for a cent! Exquisite salad for two persons' dinner and supper cost
but a cent, and all other products of the region were in the same
proportion. One who keeps still in Italy, and lives as the people do,
may really have much simple luxury for very little money; though both
travel, and, to the inexperienced foreigner, life in the cities, are
expensive.

LETTER XXVI.

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

Rome, December 2, 1848.

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

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

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

The rivers had burst their bounds, and beneath the moon the fields
round Rome lay one sheet of silver. Entering the gate while the
baggage was under examination, I walked to the entrance of a villa.
Far stretched its overarching shrubberies, its deep green bowers; two
statues, with foot advanced and uplifted finger, seemed to greet me;
it was near the scene of great revels, great splendors in the old
time; there lay the gardens of Sallust, where were combined palace,
theatre, library, bath, and villa. Strange things have happened since,
the most attractive part of which--the secret heart--lies buried or
has fled to animate other forms; for of that part historians have
rarely given a hint more than they do now of the truest life of our
day, which refuses to be embodied, by the pen, craving forms more
mutable, more eloquent than the pen can give.

I found Rome empty of foreigners. Most of the English have fled in
affright,--the Germans and French are wanted at home,--the Czar has
recalled many of his younger subjects; he does not like the schooling
they get here. That large part of the population, which lives by the
visits of foreigners was suffering very much,--trade, industry, for
every reason, stagnant. The people were every moment becoming more
exasperated by the impudent measures of the Minister Rossi, and their
mortification at seeing Rome represented and betrayed by a foreigner.
And what foreigner? A pupil of Guizot and Louis Philippe. The news of
the bombardment and storm of Vienna had just reached Rome. Zucchi,
the Minister of War, at once left the city to put down over-free
manifestations in the provinces, and impede the entrance of the troops
of the patriot chief, Garibaldi, into Bologna. From the provinces came
soldiery, called by Rossi to keep order at the opening of the Chamber
of Deputies. He reviewed them in the face of the Civic Guard; the
press began to be restrained; men were arbitrarily seized and sent
out of the kingdom. The public indignation rose to its height; the cup
overflowed.

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