JUSTICE AND LIBERTY IN THE PAPAL STATES.
Justice the Pillar of the State--Claim implied in being God's
Vicar, namely, that the Pope governs the World as God would govern
it, were He personally present in it--No Civil Code in the Papal
States--Citizens have no Rights save as Church Members--No Lay
Judges--The Pontifical Government simply the Embodiment of the
Papacy--Courts of Justice visited--Papal Tribunals--The
Rota--Signatura--Cassation--Exceptional Tribunals--Apostolical
Chamber--House of Peter--Justice bought and sold at Rome--POLITICAL
JUSTICE--Gregorian Code--Case of Pietro Leoni--Accession of Pius
IX.--His Popularity at first--Re-action--Case of Colonel
Calendrelli--The Three Citizens of Macarata--The Hundred Young Men
of Faenza--Butchery at Sinigaglia--Horrible Executions at
Ancona--Estimated Number of Political Prisoners 30,000--Pope's
Prisons described--Horrible Treatment of Prisoners--The Sbirri--The
Spies--Domiciliary Restraint--Expulsions from Rome--Imprisonment
without reason assigned--Manner in which Apprehensions are
made--Condemnations without Evidence or Trial--Misery of Rome--The
Pope's Jubilee.
We turn now to the JUSTICE of the Papal States. Alas! if in the
preceding chapters on _Trade_ we were discoursing on what does not
exist, we are now emphatically to speak of what is but a shadow, a
mockery. To say that in the Papal States Justice is not,--that it is a
negation,--is only to state half the truth. Were that all, thankful
indeed would the Romans be. But, alas! in the seat of Justice there sits
a stern, irresponsible, lawless power, before which virtue is
confounded and dumb, and wickedness only can stand erect.
On the importance of justice to the welfare of society I need not
enlarge. It is the main pillar of the State. But where are you to look
for justice,--justice in its unmixed, eternal purity,--if not at Rome?
Rome is the seat of the Vicar of God. Ponder, I pray you, all that this
title imports. The Vicar of God is just God on earth; and the government
of God's Vicar is just the government of God. It is the possession and
exercise of the same authority, the same attributes, the same moral
infallibility, and the same moral omnipotence, in the government of
mankind, which God possesses and exercises in the government of the
universe. The government of the Pope is a model set up on the earth,
before kings and nations, of God's righteous and holy government in the
heavens. As I, the Vicar of Christ, govern men, so would Christ himself,
were he here in the Vatican, govern them. If the claim advanced by the
Pope, when he takes to himself the title of God's Vicar, amounts to
anything, it amounts to this,--to all this, and nothing less than this.
The case being so, where, I ask, are you entitled to look for justice,
if not at Rome? This is her throne: here she sits, or should, according
to the theory of the popedom, high above the disturbing and blinding
passions of earth, serenely calm and inexorably true, weighing all
actions in her awful scales, and giving forth those solemn awards which
find their response in the universal reason and conscience of mankind.
If so, what mean these dungeons? Why these trials shrouded in secrecy?
Why this clanking of chains, and that cry which has gone up to heaven,
and which pleads for justice there? Come near, I pray you, and look at
the Pope's justice; enter his tribunals, and see the working of his
courts; listen to the evidence which is there received, and the
sentences which are there pronounced; visit his dungeons and galleys;
and then tell me what you think of the administration of this man who
styles himself God's Vicar.
Let me first of all give prominence to the fact that in the Papal States
there is no _civil_ code. It is a purely _spiritually_ governed region.
The Church sustains herself as judge in _all_ causes, and holds her law
as sufficiently comprehensive in its principles, and sufficiently
flexible and practical in its special provisions, to determine all
questions that can arise, of whatever nature,--whether relating to the
body or the soul of man, to his property or his conscience. By what is
strictly and purely church law are all things here adjudicated, for
other law there is none. That law is the decretals and bulls of the
popes. Only think of such a code! The Roman jurisprudence amounts to
many hundreds of volumes, and its precedents range over many centuries,
so that the most plodding lawyer and the most industrious judge may well
despair of ever being able to tell exactly what the law says on any
particular case, or of being able to find a clue to the true
interpretation, granting that he sincerely wishes to do so, through the
inextricable labyrinth of decisions by which he is to be guided. This
law was made by the Church and for the Church, and gives to the citizen,
as such, no right or privilege of any kind. Whatever rights the Roman
possesses, he possesses solely in his character of Church member; he has
a right to absolution when he confesses; a right to the undisturbed
possession of his goods when he takes the sacrament; but he has no
rights in his character of citizen; and when he falls out of communion
with the Church, he falls at the same time from all rights whatever. He
is beyond the pale of the Church, and beyond the pale of the law. Our
freethinkers, who are so ready to fraternise with the Romanists, would
do well to consider how they would like this sort of regimen.
Let me, in the second place, give prominence to the fact, that in the
Papal States there are no lay judges. There all are "anointed prelates."
This applies to all the tribunals, from the highest to the lowest. In
short, the whole machinery of the Government is priestly. Its head is a
priest,--the Pope; its Prime Minister is a priest; its Chancellor of the
Exchequer is a priest; its Secretary at War is a priest; all are
priests. These functionaries cannot be impeached. However gross their
blunders, or glaring their malversations, they are secure from censure;
because to punish them would be to say that they had erred, and to say
that they had erred would be to impeach the infallibility of the
Pontifical Government. A treasurer who enriches himself and robs the
exchequer may be promoted to the cardinalate, but cannot be censured.
The highest mark of displeasure on which the popes have ventured in such
cases has been, to appoint to a dignity with a very inadequate salary.
The Government of the Papal States, both in its _law_ and in its
_administration_, being strictly sacerdotal, the great fairness of the
test we are now applying to the Papacy is undeniable. It would be very
unfair to try the religion of Britain by the government of Britain, or
to charge on Christianity the errors, the injustice, and the oppression
which our rulers may commit, because our religion is one thing, and our
Government is another. But it is not so in the Papal States. There the
Church is the Government. The papal Government is simply the embodiment
of the papal religion. And I cannot conceive a fairer, a more accurate,
or a more comprehensive test of the genius and tendency of a religion,
than simply the condition of that country where the making of the law,
the administration of the law, the control of all persons, the
regulation of all affairs, and the adjudication of all questions, are
done by that religion; and where, with no one impediment to obstruct it,
and with every conceivable advantage to aid it, it can exhibit all its
principles and accomplish all its objects. If that religion be true, the
condition of such country ought to be the most blessed on the face of
the earth.
One day I visited the courts of justice, which are on Mount Citorio. We
ascended a spacious staircase (I say we, for Mr Stewart, the intelligent
and obliging companion of my wanderings in Rome, was with me), and
entered a hall crowded with a number of shabby-looking people. We turned
off into a side-room, not larger than one's library, where the court was
sitting. Behind a table slightly raised, and covered with green cloth,
sat two priests as judges. A counsel sat with them, to assist
occasionally. On the wall at their back hung a painting of Pont. Max.
Pius IX.; and on the table stood a crucifix. The judges wore the round
cap of the Jesuits. I saw men in coarse bombazeen gowns, which I took
for macers: these, I soon discovered, were the advocates. They were
clownish-looking men, with great lumpish hands, and an unmistakeably
cowed look. They addressed the court in short occasional speeches in
Latin; for it is one of the privileges of the Roman people to have their
suits argued in a tongue they don't understand. There were some
half-dozen people lounging in the place. There was an air of unconcern
and meanness on the court, and all its practitioners and attendants;
but, being infallible, it can dispense with the appearance of dignity. I
asked Mr Stewart to conduct me to the criminal court, which was sitting
in another apartment under the same roof. He showed me the door within
which the assize is held, but told me at the same time, that neither
myself nor any one in Rome could cross that threshold,--the judge, the
prisoner, his advocate, the public prosecutor, and the guard, being the
only exceptions. Let me now describe the machinery by which justice, as
it is called, is administered.
The judges, I have said, are prelates; and as in Rome the administration
of justice is a low occupation compared with the Church, priests which
are incapable, or which have sinned against their order, are placed on
the tribunals. A prelate who has a knowledge of jurisprudence is a
phenomenon; hence the judges do not themselves examine the merits of
causes, but cause them to be investigated by a private auditor, whom
they select from the practising counsel. According to the report of this
individual, the members of the tribunal pronounce their judgment, no
matter what objections may be pled, or arguments offered, to the
contrary. This system gives rise, as may well be conceived, to
innumerable acts of partiality and injustice.
There is a tribunal of appeal for the Romagnias, another for the
Marshes, and a third for the Capitol. Besides these, there are tribunals
of the third class throughout the States. The tribunal of appeal for the
Capitol is the ROMAN ROTA. Before this court our own Henry, and the
other kings of Europe, carried their causes, in those days when the Pope
was really a grand authority, and ruled Christendom. Having now little
business as regards monarchs and the international quarrels of kingdoms,
it has been converted into a tribunal for private suits. It still
shrouds itself in its mediaeval secresy, which, if it robs its decisions
of public confidence, at least screens the ignorance of its judges from
public contempt. There are, besides, the tribunals of the _Signatura_
and of _Cassation_, in which partiality examines, incompetence
pronounces judgment, delays exhaust the patience and the money of the
suitors, and the decent veil of a dead language wraps up the illegality.
Besides these, there are the _exceptional_ tribunals, which are very
numerous. Among them the chief is the _ecclesiastical_ jurisdiction, so
extensive, that it is sufficient that some very trifling interest of a
priest, or of some charity fund, or even of a Jew or a recent convert,
is concerned, to transfer the cause to the bar of the privileged
tribunal. The jurisdiction of the exceptional tribunal is exercised in
the provinces by the vicar-general of the bishop; and in Rome the suits
are laid before the private auditors of the cardinal-vicar, and of the
bishop _in partibus_, his assistant. The auditors pronounce judgment in
the name of the cardinal or the bishop, who signs it without any
examination on his part. The suits which concern the public finances are
decided by the exceptional tribunal, and a tribunal called the "_Plena
Camera_" (full chamber); and any private person who might chance to gain
his cause is condemned, as an invariable maxim, to pay the costs.
Exceptional tribunals are to be found in very many parochial places,
especially in those parishes near Rome where the judges are named by,
and are removable at the will of, the baron. It can easily be imagined
what sort of a chance any one may have who should have a suit with the
baron. Besides all these, we must not omit the _Reverend Apostolical
Chamber_, always on the brink of bankruptcy, which has been in the habit
of exacting contributions, that they may sell to speculators the
revenues of succeeding years. Thus private families, invested with
iniquitous privileges, extort money from the unfortunate labourers, by
royal authority and the help of the bailiff.
There is another tribunal which should be styled _monstrous_, rather
than by the milder term of exceptional; this is the "_Fabbrica di S.
Petro_" (house of St Peter.) To this was granted, by the caprice of the
Pope, the right to claim from the immediate or distant heirs of any
testator, _even at remote epochs_, the sum of unpaid legacies for pious
purposes. The Cardinal Arch-Priest and the Commons, who represent the
pretended creditor, are judges between themselves and the presumed
debtor. They search the archives; they open and they close testamentary
documents not ever published; they arbitrarily burden the estates of the
citizens with mortgages or charges; and they commence their proceedings
where other tribunals leave off,--that is, by an execution and seizure,
under the pretence of securing the credits not yet determined upon. To
the commissaries of this strange tribunal in the provinces is awarded
the fifth of the sum claimed. Whosoever desires to settle the question
by a compromise is not permitted to attempt it, unless he shall first
have satisfied this fifth, and paid the expenses, besides the fees of
the fiscal advocate. If any one should have the rare luck to gain his
suit, as, for instance, by producing the receipt in full, he must
nevertheless pay a sum for the judgment absolving him.
The presidents of the tribunals--the minor judges, comprising the
private auditors of the Vicar of Rome--have the power of legitimatizing
all contracts for persons affected by legal incapacity. This is
generally done without examination, and merely in consideration of the
fee which they receive. It would take a long chapter to narrate the sums
which have been, by a single stroke of the pen, wrongfully taken from
poor widows and orphans. Incapacity for the management of one's affairs
is sometimes pronounced by the tribunal, but very frequently is decreed
by the prelate-auditor of the Pope, without any judicial formality. Thus
any citizen may at any moment find himself deprived of the direction of
his private affairs and business.
Such is the machinery employed for dispensing justice by a man who
professes to be the infallible fountain of equity, and the world's
teacher as regards the eternal maxims of justice. Justice! The word is a
delusion,--a lie. It is a term which designates a tyranny worse than any
under which the populations of Asia groan.[5]
It would be wearisome to adduce individual cases, even were I able
to do so. But, indeed, the vast corruption of the _civil justice_
of the Papal States must be evident from what I have said. A
law so inextricable!--judges so incompetent, who decide without
examining!--tribunals which sit in darkness! Why, justice is not
dispensed in Rome; it is bought and sold; it is simply a piece of
merchandise; and if you wish to obtain it, you cannot, but by going to
the market, where it is openly put up for sale, and buying it with your
money. Mr Whiteside, a most competent witness in this case, who spent
two winters in Rome, and made it his special business to investigate the
Roman jurisprudence, both in its theory and in its practice, tells us in
effect, in his able work on Italy, that if you are so unfortunate as to
have a suit in the Roman courts, the decision will have little or no
reference to the merits of the cause, but will depend on whether you or
your opponent is willing to approach the judgment-seat with the largest
bribe. Such, in substance, is Mr Whiteside's testimony; and precisely
similar was the evidence of every one whom I met in Rome who had had any
dealings with the papal tribunals.
But I turn to the political justice of the Papal States,--a department
even more important in the present state of Italy, and where the
specific acts are better known. Let us look first at the tribunal set up
in Rome for the trial of all crimes against the State. And let the
reader bear in mind, that offences against the Church are crimes against
the State, for there the Church is the State. A secret, summary, and
atrocious tribunal it is, differing in no essential particular from that
sanguinary tribunal in Paris where Robespierre passed sentence, and the
guillotine executed it. The Gregorian Code[6] enacts, that in cases of
sedition or treason, the trial may take place by a commission nominated
by the Pope's Secretary; that the trial shall be secret; that the
prisoner shall not be confronted with the witnesses, or know their
names; that he may be examined in prison and by torture. The accused,
according to this barbarous code, has no means of proving his
innocence, or defending his life, beyond the hasty observations on the
evidence which his advocate, who is appointed in all cases by the
tribunal, may be able to make on the spur of the moment. This tribunal
is simply the Inquisition; and yet it is by this tribunal that the Pope,
who professes to be the first minister of justice on earth, governs his
kingdom. No man is safe at Rome. However innocent, his liberty and life
hang by a single thread, which the Government, by the help of such a
tribunal as this, may snap at any moment.
This is the established, the legal course of papal justice. Let the
reader lift his eyes, and survey, if he have courage, the wide weltering
mass of misery and despair which the Papal States present. We cannot
bring all into view; we must permit a few only to speak for the rest.
Here they come from a region of doom, to tell to the free people of
Britain, if they will hear them, the dread secrets of their
prison-house; and, we may add, to warn them, "lest they also come into
this place of torment." I shall first of all take a case that occurred
before the Revolution, lest any one should affirm of the cases that are
to follow, that the Pontifical Government had been exascerbated by the
insurrection, and hurried into measures of more than usual severity.
This case I give on the authority of Mr Whiteside, who, being curious to
see a _political process_ in the Roman law, after some trouble procured
the following, which, having been compiled under the orders of Pius IX.,
may be relied on as strictly accurate. Pietro Leoni had acted as
official attorney to the poor. Well, in 1831, under the pontificate of
Gregory XVI., he was arrested on a charge of being a member of a
political club. He was brought to trial, acquitted, set free, but
deprived of his office, though why I cannot say, unless it was for the
crime of being innocent. To sustain an aged father, a wife and children,
Pietro had to work harder than ever. In 1836 he was again
arrested,--suddenly, without being told for what,--hurried to the Castle
of St Angelo, in the dungeons of which he had to undergo a rigorous
examination, from which nothing could be elicited. He was not released,
however, but kept there, till witnesses could be found or hired. At
length a certain vine-dresser came forward to accuse Leoni. One day,
said the vine-dresser, Pietro Leoni, whom he had never seen till then,
came to his door, and, after a short conversation with him, in the
presence of his sons, handed him a manuscript relating to a _reform
society_, of which, he said, he had been a member for years. The
vine-dresser buried this document at the bottom of a tree in his garden.
The spot was searched, but nothing was found; his strange story was
contradicted by his wife and sons; and the Pontifical Government could
not for very shame condemn him on such evidence; but neither did they
let him go. A full year passed over him in the dungeons of St Angelo. At
last three additional witnesses--(their names never were known)--were
produced against him. And what did they depose? Why, that they had heard
some one say that he had heard Pietro Leoni say, that he (Leoni) was a
member of a secret society; and on this hearsay evidence did the
Pontifical Government condemn the poor attorney to a life-long slavery
in the galleys. We find him ten long years thereafter still in the
dungeons of the Castle of St Angelo, and writing the Pope in a strain
which one would think might have moved a heart of stone. The petition is
printed in the process. It begins,--
"Most holy father, divest yourself of the splendours of royalty,
and, dressed in the garb of a private citizen, cause yourself to be
conducted into these subterranean prisons, where there is buried,
not an enemy of his country, not a violator of the laws, but an
innocent citizen, whom a secret enemy has calumniated, and who has
had the courage to sustain his innocence in presence of a judge
prejudiced or corrupted.... Command this living tomb to be opened,
and ask an unhappy man the cause of his misfortunes."
And concludes thus,--
"But, holy father, neither the prolonged imprisonment of ten years,
nor separation from my family, nor the total ruin of my earthly
prospects, should ever reduce me to the baseness of admitting a
crime which I did not commit. And I call God to witness that I am
innocent of the accusation brought against me; and that the true
cause of my unjust condemnation was, and is, a private pique and
personal enmity.... Listen, therefore, to justice,--to the humble
entreaties of an aged father,--a desolate wife,--unhappy
children,--who exist in misery, and who with tears of anguish
implore your mercy."
Did the heart of Gregory relent? Did he hasten to the prison, and beg
his prisoner to come forth? Ah, no: the petition was received, flung
aside, and forgotten; and Pietro Leoni continued to lie in the dungeons
of St Angelo till death came to the Vatican, and Gregory went to his
account, and the prison-doors of St Angelo were opened, as a matter of
course, not of right, on the accession of a new Pope. No wonder that
Lambruschini and Marini, the chief actors in the atrocities committed
under Gregory, resisted that amnesty by which Pietro Leoni, and hundreds
more, were raised from the grave, as it were, to proclaim their
villanies. I give this case because it occurred before the Revolution,
and is a fair sample, as a Roman advocate assured Mr Whiteside, of the
calm, every-day working of the Pontifical Government under Gregory XVI.
I come now to relate other cases, if possible more affecting, which came
under my own cognizance, more or less, while in Rome.
But let me first glance at the rejoicings that filled Rome on the
accession of Pius IX. A bright but perfidious gleam heralded the night,
which has since settled down so darkly on the Papal States. The scene I
describe in the words of Mr Stewart, who was an eye-witness of it:--"I
was at Rome when Pope Pius IX. made his formal triumphal entrance into
the city by the Porta del Popolo, where was a magnificent arch entering
to the Corso. The arch was erected specially for the occasion, and
executed with much artistic skill. Banners were waving in profusion
along the Corso, bearing, some of them, very far-fetched epithets; while
every balcony and window was studded with gay and admiring citizens, all
alike eager in demonstrating their attachment to the Holy Father.
Nothing, in fact, could exceed the gaiety of the scene: all and sundry
seemed bent on the one idea of displaying their loyalty. What with
garlands of flowers, white handkerchiefs, and vivas, the feelings were
worked up to such a pitch, that the _young nobles_, when the state
carriage arrived at the Piazza Colonna, actually unyoked the horses, and
scampered off with carriage and Pope, to the Quirinal Palace, nearly a
mile. This ebullition of feeling was undoubtedly the result of the
general amnesty, and the bright expectations then cherished of a new era
for Italy." Such an ebullition may appear absurd, and even childish, to
us, who have been so long accustomed to liberty; but we must bear in
mind that the Romans had groaned in fetters for centuries, and these, as
they believed, had now been struck off for ever. "Was there," asked Mr
Whiteside of a sculptor in Rome, "really affecting yourself, any
practical oppression under old Gregory?" The artist started. "No man,"
said he, "could count on one hour's security or happiness: I knew not
but there might be a spy behind that block of marble: the pleasure of
life was spoiled. I had three friends, who, supping in a garden near
this spot, were suddenly arrested, flung into prison, and lay there,
though innocent, till released by Pio Nono." As regards the amnesty of
Pio Nono, which so intoxicated the Romans, it is common for popes to
make political capital of the errors and crimes of their predecessors;
and as regards his reforming policy, which deluded others besides the
Italians, it was a very transparent dodge to restore the papacy to its
old supremacy. The Cobra di Capella relaxed its folds on Italy for a
moment, to coil itself more firmly round the rest of the world. Of this
none are now better aware than the Romans.
The re-action,--the flight,--the Republic,--the bombardment,--the return
to the Vatican on a path deluged with his subjects' blood,--all I pass
over. But how shall I describe or group the horrors that have darkened
and desolated the Papal States from that hour to this? What has their
history been since, but one terrible tale of apprehensions,
proscriptions, banishments, imprisonments, and executions, the full
recital of which would make the ear of him that hears it to tingle? Nero
and Caligula were monsters of crime; but their capricious tyranny, while
it fell heavily on individuals, left the great body of the empire
comparatively untouched. But the tyranny of the Pope penetrates every
home, and crushes every person and thing. There was not under Nero a
tenth part of the misery in Rome which there is now. Were the acts of
Nero and of Pio to be fully written, I have not a doubt,--I am
certain,--that the government of the imperial despot would be seen to be
liberty itself, compared with the measureless, remorseless,
inappeasable, wide-wasting tyranny of the sacerdotal one. The diadem was
light indeed, compared with the tiara. The little finger of the Popes is
thicker than the loins of the Caesars. The sights I saw, and the facts I
heard, actually poisoned my enjoyment of Rome. What pleasure could I
take in statues and monuments, when I saw the wretched beings that
lived beside them, and marked the faces on which despair was painted,
the forms that grief had bowed to the very dust, the dead men who
wandered in the streets and about the old ruins, as if they sought, but
could not find, their graves? Ah! there _is_ not, there never _was_, on
earth a tyranny like the Papacy. But let me come to particulars.
I shall first narrate the story of Colonel Calendrelli. It was told me
by our own consul in Rome, Mr Freeborn, who knew intimately the colonel,
and deeply interested himself in his case. Colonel Calendrelli was
treasurer at war during the Republic. The Republic came to an end; the
Pontifical Government returned; and Colonel Calendrelli, being unable to
get away along with the other agents and friends of the Republic, was,
of course, apprehended by the restored Government. It was necessary to
find some pretext on which to condemn the colonel; and what, does the
reader think, was the charge preferred against Colonel Calendrelli? Why,
it was this, that the colonel had embezzled the public funds to the
amount of twenty scudi. Twenty scudi! How much is that? Only five pounds
sterling! That Colonel Calendrelli, a gentleman, a scholar, a man on
whose honesty a breath had never been blown, should risk character and
liberty for five pounds sterling! Why, the Pontifical Government should
have made it five hundred or five thousand pounds, if they wished to
have the accusation believed. Well, then, on the charge of defrauding
the public treasury to the extent of twenty Roman scudi was Colonel
Calendrelli brought to trial, and condemned! Condemned to what? To the
galleys. Nor does that bring fully out the iniquity of the sentence. Our
consul in Rome assured me that he had investigated the case, from his
friendship for the colonel, and that the matter stood thus:--The colonel
had engaged a man to do a piece of work, for which he was to receive
five pounds as wages. The work was done, the wages were paid, the man's
receipt was tendered, and the witnesses in whose presence the money had
been paid bore their testimony to the fact. All these proofs were before
Mr Freeborn. Nay, more; the papal tribunal that tried the case was told
that all these witnesses and documents were ready to be produced. And
yet, in the teeth of this evidence, completely establishing the
innocence of Colonel Calendrelli, which, indeed, no one doubted, was the
colonel condemned to the galleys; and when I was in Rome, he was working
as a galley-slave on the high-road near Civita Vecchia, chained to
another galley-slave. This is a sample of the pontifical justice. Take
another case.
The tragedy I am now to relate was consummated during my stay in the
Eternal City. In the town of Macerata, to the east of Rome, it happened
one day that a priest was fired at as he was passing along the street at
dusk. He was not shot, happily;--the ball, missing the priest, sank deep
in a door on the other side of the way. This happened under the
Republic; and the police either could not or would not discover the
perpetrator of the deed. The thing was the talk of the town for a day or
so, and was then forgotten for ever, as every one thought. But no. The
Republic came to an end; back came the pontifical police to Macerata;
and then the affair of the priest was brought up. The prefect had not
been installed in his office many days till a person presented himself
before him, and said, "I am the man who shot at the priest." "You!"
exclaimed the prefect. "Yes; and I was hired to shoot him by----,"
naming three young men of the town, who had been the most active
supporters of the Republic. These were precisely the three young men, of
all others in Macerata, whom it was most for the interest of the Papacy
to get rid of. That very day these three young men were apprehended.
They were at last brought to trial; and will it be believed, that on the
solitary and uncorroborated testimony of a man who, according to his own
confession, was a hired assassin,--and surely I do the man no injustice
if I suppose that, if he was willing for money to commit murder, he
might be willing for money, or some priestly consideration, to commit
perjury,--on the single and unsupported evidence, I say, of this man, a
hired assassin according to his own confession, were these three young
men condemned? And to what? To death!--and while I was in Rome they were
actually guillotined! I saw their sentence placarded on the Piazza
Colonna on the morning after my arrival in Rome. This writing of doom
was the first thing I read in that city. It bore the names of the
accused, the alleged crime, and an abstract of the evidence, or, I
should say, volunteered statement, of the would-be assassin. It had the
terrible guillotine at the top, and the fisherman's ring at the bottom;
and though I had known nothing more of the case than the Government
account of it, as contained in that paper, I would have said that it was
enough to cover any Government with eternal infamy. Indeed, I don't
believe that there is a Government under the sun, save the Pope's, that
would have done an atrocity like it. I had some talk with our consul, Mr
Freeborn, about that case too, and he assured me that, bad as these
cases were, they were not worse than scores, aye, hundreds, that to his
knowledge had been perpetrated in Rome, and all over the Papal States,
since the return of the Pontifical Government. He added, that if Mr
Gladstone would come to Rome, and visit the prisons, and examine the
state of the country generally, he would have a more harrowing tale to
unfold than that with which he had recently thrilled the British public
on the subject of Naples: that in Naples there was still something like
trade, but in Rome there was nothing but downright grinding misery.
There are few tales in any history more harrowing than the following.
The events were posterior to my visit to Rome, and were published at the
time in the American _Crusader_. It happened that several papal
proconsuls were slain in the city of Faenza: all of them had served
under Gregory XVI., in the galleys, as felons and forgers. Being
favoured by the papal power, they tried to deserve it by becoming the
tyrants of the unhappy population. When the gloomy news of their
tragical end reached the Holy Father, the answer returned to the
governor of that city, as to what he should do in such a case, as the
true perpetrators could not be found, was, "_Arrest all the young men of
Faenza!_" and more than a hundred youths were immediately snatched away
from the bosom of their families, handcuffed and chained, thrown into
the city prisons, and distributed afterwards among the gangs of
malefactors, whose lives had been a continual series of robberies and
murders! Thirty of these unfortunate victims were marched off to Rome,
where they were locked up in a dungeon. Innocent as well as unconscious
of the crime of which they were accused, they supplicated the President
of the Sacred Consulta,--who is an anointed prelate,--asking only for
justice; not for mercy and forgiveness, but for a regular trial. All was
useless; the archbishop had neither ear nor heart, and the petition was
forgotten. Thinking that, after all, even at Rome, and even among the
high dignitaries of the Church of Sodom and Gomorrah, there might be
found a man of human feeling, they wrote a second petition, which was
this time addressed to a different personage of the Church, his
Excellency Mgr. Mertel, Minister of Grace and Justice!
The prisoners asserted to the high papal functionary the illegality of
their arrest,--their sufferings without any imputation of guilt,--the
painful condition of their families, increased still more by the famine
which now desolates the Roman States, and the want of their support. The
supplicants were brought before Mgr. Mertel, who, feigning pity and
interest for the sufferers (attention, reader!) offered them the choice
of _ten years in the chain-gang, or to be transported to the United
States_, the _refugium peccatorum_! They protested; but of what benefit
is a legal and natural protest to thirty poor defenceless and guiltless
young men, loaded with chains by a papal bureaucrat, surrounded by fifty
ruffians armed to the teeth?
On the night of the 5th of May 1853, the sepulchral silence of the
subterranean prisons of St Angelo was interrupted by the rattling of
keys and muskets. The thirty young citizens of Faenza were called out of
their dens, and one by one, bending under his fetters, was escorted to a
steamer waiting on the muddy Tiber to carry them to a distant land! The
beautiful moon of Italy, as some call it, was shining benevolently over
Rome and her iniquities; the streets, deserted by the people, were
trodden by French patrols; all was silent as the grave itself; and not a
friend was there to bid them adieu; not a relative to speak a consoling
word to the departing; and none to acquaint the unfortunates who
remained behind with their terrible calamity! This was their parting
from Rome, at three o'clock, after midnight! But let us follow the
victims of papal fury over the wide waters. Cast into the steerage,
always handcuffed, the vessel rolling in a heavy and tempestuous sea,
these wretched young men remained eighty hours in a painful position,
till they reached Leghorn, where they were conducted to the quarantine,
as though affected with leprosy and plague, and thence embarked for New
York, where they arrived totally destitute of clothes and means of
subsistence.
The autumn of 1852 will be long remembered in the Papal States, from the
occurrence of numerous tragedies of a like deplorable character.
Sixty-five citizens of Sinigaglia had been apprehended on the charge of
being concerned in the political disturbances of 1848,--an accusation on
which the Pope himself might have been apprehended. These citizens,
however, had not been so prudent as to turn when the Pope did. In the
August of 1852 they were all brought to trial before the Sacra Consulta
of Rome, with the exception of thirteen who had made their escape.
Twenty-eight of these persons were condemned to the galleys for life,
and twenty-four were sentenced to be shot. These unhappy men displayed
great unconcern at their execution,--some singing the _Marseillaise_,
others crying _Viva Mazzini_. The Swiss troops, not the Austrian
soldiers, were made the executioners in this case.
The Sinigaglia trials were followed by similar prosecutions at Ancona,
Jesi, Pesaro, and Funa, where unhappy groupes of citizens, indicted for
political offences, waited the tender mercies which the "Holy Father"
dispenses to his _figli_ by the hands of Swiss and Austrian carabiniers.
Let us state the result at Ancona.
The executions took place on the 25th of October 1852, and they may be
reckoned amongst the most appalling ever witnessed. The sentence was
officially published at Rome after the execution, and contained, as
usual, simply the names of the judges and the prisoners, a summary of
the evidence unsupported by the names of any witnesses, and the penalty
awarded--_death_. The victims were nine in number. The sacerdotal
Government gave them a priest as well as a scaffold, but only one would
accept the insulting mockery. The others, being hopelessly recusant,
were allowed to intoxicate themselves with rum. "The shooting of them
was entrusted to a detachment of Roman artillerymen, armed with short
carbines, old-fashioned weapons, many of which missed fire, so that at
the first discharge some of the prisoners did not fall, but ran off,
with the soldiers pursuing and firing at them repeatedly; others crawled
about; and one wretch, after being considered dead, made a violent
exertion to get up, rendering a final _coup de grace_ necessary." The
writer who recorded these accounts added, that other executions were to
follow, and that, if these wholesale slaughters were necessary, they
ought, in the dominions of a pontifical sovereign, to be conducted with
more delicacy, that is, in a more summary fashion. In truth, such
executions are a departure from the approved pontifical method of
killing,--which is not by fusillades and in open day, but in silence and
night, by the help of the rack and the dungeon.
I cannot go into any minute detail of the imprisonments, banishments,
and massacres by which the Pope has signalized his return to his palace
and the chair of Peter. But I may state a few facts, from which some
idea of their number may be gathered. When Pio Nono fled from Rome to
Gaeta, what was the amount of its population? Not less than a hundred
and sixty thousand. I conversed with a distinguished literary Englishman
who chanced to visit Rome at the time I speak of, and who assured me
that there could not be fewer than two hundred thousand in Rome then,
for Italians had flocked thither from every country under heaven,
expecting a new era for their city and nation. But I shall give the Pope
the benefit of the smaller number. When he fled, there were, I shall
suppose, only a hundred and sixty thousand human beings in his city of
Rome. Take the same Rome six months after his return, and how many do
you find in it? According to the most credible accounts, the population
of the Eternal City had dwindled down to little above a hundred
thousand. Here are sixty thousand human beings lacking in this one city.
What has become of them? Where have they gone to? I shall suppose that
some were fortunate enough to escape to Malta, some to Belgium, some to
England, and others to America. I shall suppose that twenty thousand
contrived to get away. And let me here do justice to Mr Freeborn, the
British consul, who saved much blood by issuing British passports to
these unhappy men when the French entered Rome. Twenty thousand, I shall
suppose, made good their flight. But thirty thousand and upwards are
still lacking. Where are your subjects, Pio Nono? Were we to put this
interrogatory to the Pope, he would reply, I doubt not, as did another
celebrated personage in history, "Am I my brother's keeper?" But ah!
might not the same response as of old be made to this disclaimer, "The
voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground?" Again we
say, Where are your subjects, Pio Nono? Ask any Roman, and he will tell
you where these men are. Ask our own consul, Mr Freeborn, and he will
tell you where they are. They are, those of them that have not been
shot, rotting at this hour at the bottom of the Pope's dungeons. That is
where they are.
There is a singular unanimity in Rome amongst all parties, as to the
number of political prisoners now under confinement. This I had many
opportunities of testing. I met a Roman one evening in a book-shop, and,
after a rather lengthened conversation, I said to him, "Can you tell me
how many prisoners there are at present in the Roman States?" "No," he
replied, "I cannot." "But," I rejoined, "have you no idea of their
number?" He solemnly said, "God only knows." I pressed him yet farther,
when he stated, that the common estimate, which he believed to be not
above the truth, rather under, was, that there were not fewer than
thirty thousand political prisoners in the various fortresses and
dungeons of the Papal States. Thirty thousand was the estimate of Mr
Freeborn. Thirty thousand was the estimate of Mr Stewart, who, mingling
with the Romans, knew well the prevailing opinion. Of course, precise
accuracy is unattainable in such a case. No one ever counted these
prisoners. No list of them is kept,--none that is open to the public eye
at least; but it is well known, that there is scarce a family in Rome
which does not mourn some of its members lost to it, and scarce an
individual who has not an acquaintance in prison; and I have little
doubt that the Roman estimate is not far from the truth, and that it is
just as likely to be below as above it. When I was in Rome, all the
jails in the city were crowded. The cells in the Castle of St
Angelo,--those subterranean dungeons where day never dawned, and where
the captive's groan can never reach a human ear,--were filled. All the
great fortresses throughout the country,--the vast ranges of
galley-prisons at Civita Vecchia, the fortress of Ancona, the castle of
Bologna, the fortress of Ferrara, and hundreds of minor prisons over the
country,--all were filled,--filled, do I say! they were
crowded,--crowded to suffocation with choking, despairing victims. In
the midst of this congeries of dungeons, surrounded by clanking chains
and weeping captives, stands the chair of the "Holy Father."
Let us take a look into these prisons, as described to me by reputable
and well-informed parties in Rome. These prisons are of three classes.
The first class consists of cells of from seven to eight feet square.
The space is little more than a man's height when he stands erect, and a
man's length when he stretches himself on the floor, and can contain
only that amount of atmospheric air necessary for the consumption of one
person. These cells are now made to receive two prisoners, who are
compelled to divide betwixt them the air adequate for only one. The
second class consists of cells constructed to hold ten persons each. In
the present great demand for prison-room these are held to afford ample
accommodation for a little crowd of twenty persons. Their one window is
so high in the wall, that the wretched men who are shut in here are
obliged to mount by turns on each other's shoulders, to obtain a breath
of air. Last of all comes the common prison. It is a spacious place,
containing from forty to fifty persons, who lie day and night on straw
too foul for a stable. It matters not what the means of the prisoner may
be; he must wear the prison dress, and live on the prison diet. The
jailor is empowered, should the slightest provocation be offered, to
flog the prisoner, or to load his limbs so heavily with irons, that he
scarce can move. And who are they who tenant these places? Violators of
the law,--brigands, murderers? No! Those who have been dragged thither
are the very _elite_ of the Roman population. There many of them lie for
years, without being brought to trial; and if they thus escape the
scaffold, they perish more slowly, but not less surely, and much more
miserably, by the pestilential air, the unwholesome food, and the
horrible treatment of the jail. Nor is this the worst of it. I was told
by those in Rome who had the best opportunities of knowing, but whose
names I do not here choose to mention, that the sufferings of the
prisoners had been much aggravated,--indeed, made unendurable,--by the
expedient of the Government which confines malefactors and desperadoes
along with them. These characters are permitted to have their own way in
the prisons; they lord it over the rest, compel them to do the most
disgusting offices, and attempt even outrages on their person, which
propriety leaves without a name. Their sufferings are indescribable. The
consequence of this accumulation of horrors,--foul air, insufficient
food, and the fearful society with which the walls and chains of their
prison compel them to mingle,--is, that a great many of the prisoners
have died, some have sought to terminate their woe by suicide, while
others have been carried raving to a madhouse. Mr Freeborn assured me
that several of his Roman acquaintances had been carried to these places
sane men, as well as innocent men, and, after a short confinement, they
had been brought out maniacs and madmen. He would have preferred to have
seen them shot at once. It is a prelate who has charge of these prisons.
I have described the higher machinery which the Pope employs,--the
tribunals,--judges,--the secret process,--the tyrannous Gregorian Code;
let me next bring into view the inferior machinery of the Pontifical
Government. The Roman _sbirri_ have an European reputation. One must be
no ordinary villain,--he must be, in short, a perfected and finished
scoundrel,--to merit a place in this honourable corps. The _sbirri_ are
chiefly from the kingdom of Naples. They dress in plain clothes, go in
twos and threes, are easily distinguished, and are permitted to carry
larger walking-sticks than the Romans, whom the French commandant has
forbidden to come abroad with any but the merest twig. Some of these
spies wear spurs, the better to deceive and to succeed in their fiendish
work. No disguise, however, can conceal the _sbirro_. His look, so
unmistakeably villanous, proclaims the spy. These fellows will not be
defeated in their purposes. They carry, it is said, _articles of
conviction_, that is, political papers, on their person, which they use,
in lack of other material, to compass the ruin of their victim. They can
stop any one they please on the street, compel him to produce his
papers, and, when they choose not to be satisfied with them, march him
off to prison. When they visit a house where they have resolved to make
a seizure, they search it; and if they do not find what may criminate
the man, they drop the papers they have brought with them, and swear
that they found them in the house. What can solemn protestations do
against armed ruffians, backed by hireling judges, who, like Impaccianti
and Belli, have been taken from the bagnio and the galleys, thrust into
orders, and elevated to the bench, to do the work of their patrons?[7]
Such must show that they deserve promotion. The people loathe and dread
the _sbirri_, knowing that whatever they do in their official capacity
is done well, and speedily followed up by those in authority.
But there is a class in the service of the Pontifical Government yet
more wicked and dangerous. What! exclaims the reader, more wicked and
dangerous than the _sbirri_! Yes, the _sbirri_ profess to be only what
they are,--the base tools of a tyrannical Government, which seems to
thirst insatiably for vengeance; but there exists an invisible power,
which the citizen feels to be ever at his side, listening to his every
word, penetrating his inmost thought, and ready at any moment to effect
his destruction. At noonday, at midnight, in society, in private, he
feels that its eye is upon him. He can neither see it nor avoid it.
Would he flee from it, he but throws himself into its jaws. I refer to a
class of vile and abandoned men, entirely at the service of the
Government, whose position in society, agreeable manners, flexibility
of disposition, and thorough knowledge of affairs, which they study for
base ends, and handle most adroitly in conversation, enable them to
penetrate the secret feelings of all classes. They now condemn and now
applaud the conduct of Government, as the subject and circumstances
require, and all to extract an unfriendly sentiment against those in
authority, if such there be in the mind of the man with whom they are
conversing. If they succeed, the person is immediately denounced; an
arrest follows, or domiciliary restraint. The numbers that have found
their way to prison and to the galleys through this secret and
mysterious agency are incredible. Nor can any man imagine to himself the
dreadful state of Rome under this terrible espionage. The Roman feels
that the air around him is full of eyes and ears; he dare not speak; he
dreads even to think; he knows that a thought or a look may convey him
to prison.
The oppression is not of equal intensity in all cases. Some are
subjected only to domiciliary restraint. In this predicament are many
respectably connected young men. They are told to consider themselves as
prisoners in their own houses, and not to appear beyond the threshold,
but at the penalty of exchanging their homes for the common jail.
Others, again, whose apparent delinquency has been less, are allowed the
freedom of the open air during certain specified hours. At the expiry of
this time they must withdraw to their houses: Ave Maria is in many cases
the retiring hour.
Another tyrannical proceeding on the part of the Government, which was
productive of wide-spread misery, was the compelling hundreds of people,
from the labourer to the man in business, to leave Rome for their place
of birth. These measures, which would have been oppressive under any
circumstances, were rendered still more oppressive by the shortness of
the notice given to those on whom this sentence of expulsion fell. Some
had twenty-four hours, and others thirty-six, to prepare for their
departure. The labourer might plead that he had no money, and must beg
his way with wife and children. The man in business might justly
represent that to eject him in this summary fashion was just to ruin
him; for his business could not be properly wound up; it must be
sacrificed. But no appeal was sustained; no remonstrance was listened
to. The stern mandate must be obeyed, though the poor man should die on
the road. Go he must, or be conveyed in irons. And, as regards those who
were fortunate enough to reach their native villages, alas! their
sufferings did then but begin. These villages, in most cases, did not
need them, and could afford no opening in the line of business or of
labour in which they had been trained. They were houseless and workless
in their native place; and, if they did not die of a broken heart, which
many of them did, they went "into the country," as they say in
Italy,--that is, they became brigands, or are at this hour dragging out
the remainder of their lives in poverty and wretchedness.
How atrociously, too, have many of the Romans been carried from their
business to prison. Against these men neither proof nor witness existed;
but a spy had denounced them, or they had fallen under the suspicions of
the Government, and there they are in the dungeon. Their families might
starve, their business might go to the dogs, but the vengeance of the
Government must be satiated. Such persons are confined for a longer or
shorter period, according to the view taken of their character or
associates; and if nothing be elicited by the secret ordeal of
examination, the prison-door is opened, and the prisoner is requested to
go home. No apology is offered; no redress is obtained.
Such cases, I was told, were numerous. One such came to my knowledge
through Mr Stewart. An acquaintance of his, a druggist, was one day
dragged summarily from his business, and lodged in jail, where he was
detained a whole month, although to this hour he has not been told what
he had done, or said, or thought amiss. During the Constitution this man
had been called in, in his scientific capacity simply, to superintend an
electric telegraph which ran, if I mistake not, betwixt the Capitol and
St Peter's. But beyond this he had taken no political action and
expressed no political sentiment whatever. He knew well that this would
avail him nothing; and glad he was to escape from incarceration with the
remark, _meno male, alias_, it might have been worse.
They say that the Inquisition was an affair of the sixteenth century;
that its fires are cold; its racks and screws are rusted; and that it
would be just as impossible to bring back the Inquisition as to bring
back the centuries in which it flourished. That is fine talking; and
there are simpletons who believe it. But look at Rome. What is the
Government of the Papal States, but just the Government of the
Inquisition? There there are midnight apprehensions, secret trials,
familiars, torture by flogging, by loading with irons, and other yet
more refined modes of cruelty,--in short, all the machinery of the Holy
Office. The canon law, whose full blessing Italy now enjoys, is the
Inquisition; for wherever the one comes, there the other will follow it.
Let me describe the secresy and terror with which apprehensions are made
at Rome. The forms of the Inquisition are closely followed herein. The
deed is one of darkness, and the darkest hours of the twenty-four,
namely, from twelve till two of the morning, are taken for its
perpetration. At midnight half a dozen _sbirri_ proceed to the house of
the unhappy man marked out for arrest. Two take their place at the
door, two at the windows, and two at the back-door, to make all sure.
They knock gently at the door. If it is opened, well; if not, they knock
a second time. If still it is not opened, it is driven in by force. The
_sbirri_ rush in; they seize the man; they drag him from his bed; there
is no time for parting adieus with his family; they hurry him through
the streets to prison. That very night, or the next, his trial is
proceeded with,--that is, when it is intended that there shall be
further proceedings; for many, as we have said, are imprisoned for long
months, without either accusation or trial. But what a mockery is the
trial! The prisoner is never confronted with his accuser, or with the
impeaching witnesses. He is allowed no opportunity of disproving the
charge; sometimes he is not even informed what that charge is. He has no
means of defending his life. He has no doubt an advocate to defend him;
but the advocate is always nominated by the court, and is usually taken
from the partizans of the Government; and nothing would astonish him
more than that he should succeed in bringing off his prisoner. And even
when he honestly wishes to serve him, what can he do? He has no
exculpatory witnesses; he has had no time to expiscate facts; the
evidence for the prosecution is handed to him in court; and he can make
only such observations as occur at the moment, knowing all the while
that the prisoner's fate is already determined on. Sometimes the
prisoner, I was told, is not even produced in court, but remains in his
cell while his liberty and life are hanging in the balance. At day-break
his prison-door opens, and the jailor enters, holding in his hand a
little slip of paper. Ah! well does the prisoner know what that is. He
snatches it hastily from the jailor's hands, hurries with it to his
grated window, through which the day is breaking, holds it up with
trembling hands, and reads his doom. He is banished, it may be, or he
is sentenced to the galleys; or, more wretched still, he is doomed to
the scaffold. Unhappy man! 'twas but last eve that he laid him down in
the midst of his little ones, not dreaming of the black cloud that hung
above his dwelling; and now by next dawn he is in the Pope's dungeons,
parted from all he loves, most probably for ever, and within a few hours
of the galleys or the scaffold.
I saw these men taken out of Rome morning by morning,--that is, such of
them as were banished. They passed under the windows of my own apartment
in the Via Babuino. I have seen as many as twenty-four led away of a
morning. They were put by half-dozens into carts, to which they were
tied by twos, and chained together, as if they had been brigands. Thus
they moved on to the Flaminian gate, each cart escorted by a couple of
mounted gendarmes. The spectacle, alas! was too common to find
spectators; not a Roman followed it, or showed that he was conscious of
it, save by a mournful look at the melancholy cavalcade from his window,
knowing that what was their lot to-day might be his to-morrow. And what
the appearance and apparent profession of these men? Those I saw had
much the air of intelligent and respectable artizans; for I believe it
is this class that are now bearing the brunt of the papal tyranny. The
higher classes were swept off before, and the rage of the Government is
now venting itself in a lower and wider sphere. An intelligent
Scotchman, who had charge of the one iron-shop in the Corso, informed me
that now all the tolerably skilled workmen had been so weeded out of the
city by the Pope, that it was scarce possible to find hands to do the
little work that requires to be done in Rome. If there be among my
readers a mechanic who has been indifferent to the question between this
country and the Papacy, as one the settlement of which could not affect
his interests either way, I tell him he never made a greater mistake all
his life. If the Papacy succeed, his interests will be the very first to
suffer, in the ruin of trade. Nor will that suffice; if a skilled man,
he will be held to be a dangerous man; and, having taken from him his
bread, the Papacy will next take from him his liberty, as she is now
doing to his brethren in Rome.
And what becomes of the families of these unhappy men? This is the most
painful part of the business. Their livelihood is gone; and nothing
remains but to go out into the street and beg,--to beg, alas! from
beggars. It is not unfrequent in Rome to find families in competence
this week, and literally soliciting alms the next. You may see matrons
deeply veiled, that they may not be known by their acquaintances,
hanging on at the doors of hotels, in the hope of receiving the charity
of English travellers. Shame on the tyranny that has reduced the Roman
matrons to this! Nor is even this the worst. Deprived of their
protectors, moral ruin sometimes comes in the wake of the physical
privations and sufferings by which these families are overtaken. Thus
the misery of Rome is widening every day. Ah! could I bring before my
readers the picture of that doomed city;--could I show them Rome as it
sits cowering beneath the shadow of this terrible tyranny;--could I make
them see the cloud that day and night hangs above it;--could I paint the
sorrow that darkens every face; the suspicion and fear that sadden the
Roman's every word and look;--could I tell the number of the broken
hearts and the desolate hearths which these old walls enclose;--ah,
there is not one among my readers who would not give me his tears as
plenteously as ever the clouds of heaven gave their rain. And he who
styles himself God's Vicar sees all this misery! Sees it, do I say! he
is the author of it. It is to uphold his miserable throne that these
prisons are filled, and that these widows and orphans cry in the
streets. And yet he tells us that his reign is a model of Christ's
reign. 'Tis a fearful blasphemy. When did Christ build dungeons, or
gather _sbirri_ about him, or send men to the galleys and the scaffold?
Is that the account which we have of his ministry? No; it is very
different. "The Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the
meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty
to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." A
few months ago, when the Pope proclaimed his newest invented dogma,--the
Immaculate Conception,--he gave, in honour of the occasion, a grand
jubilee to the Roman Catholic world. We all know what a jubilee is.
There is a vast treasury above, filled with the merits of Pio Nono and
of such as he, out of which those who have not enough for their own
salvation may supplement their deficiencies. At the Pope's girdle hangs
the key of this treasury; and when he chooses to open it, straightway
down there comes a shower of celestial blessings. Well, the Pope told
his children throughout the world that he meant to unlock this treasury;
and bade his children be ready to receive with open arms and open
hearts, this vast beneficence of his. Ah! Pio Nono, this is not the
jubilee we wish. Draw your bolts; break the fetters of your thirty
thousand captives; open your dungeons, and give back the fathers, the
husbands, the sons, the brothers, which you have torn from their
families. Put off your robe, quit your palace, take the Bible in your
hand, and go round the world preaching the gospel, as your Master did.
Do this, and we shall have had a jubilee such as the world has not seen
for many a long year. But ah! you but mock us,--bitterly, cruelly mock
us,--when you deny us blessings which it is in your power to give, and
offer us those which are not yours to bestow. But it is a mockery which
will return, and at no distant day, in sevenfold vengeance upon, we say
not Pio Nono, but the papal system. Untie the fetters of these men; make
them free for but a few hours; and with what terrible emphasis will they
demand back the friends whom the Papacy has buried in dungeons or
murdered on the open scaffold! They will seek their lost sons and
brothers with an eye that will not pity, and a hand that will not spare.