OF THE PLEBEIANS.
The subjects of the Holy Father are divided by birth and fortune
into three very distinct classes,--nobility, citizens, and people, or
plebeians. The Gospel has omitted to consecrate the inequality of men,
but the law of the State--that is to say, the will of the
Popes--carefully maintains it. Benedict XIV. declared it honourable
and salutary in his Bull of January 4, 1746, and Pius IX. expressed
himself in the same terms at the beginning of his _Chirografo_ of May
2, 1853.
If I do not reckon the clergy among the classes of society, it is
because that body is foreign to the nation by its interests, by its
privileges, and often by its origin. The Cardinals and Prelates are
not, properly speaking, the Pope's subjects, but rather his ghostly
confederates, and the partners of his omnipotence.
The distinction of class is more especially perceptible at Rome, near
the Pontifical throne. It gradually disappears, together with many
other abuses, in proportion to their distance from their source. There
are bottomless abysses between the noble Roman and the citizen of
Rome, between the citizen of Rome and the plebeian of the city. The
plebeian himself discharges a portion of the scorn expressed by the
two superior classes for himself, upon the peasants he meets at
market: it is a sort of cascade of contempt. At Rome, thanks to the
traditions of history, and the education given by the Popes, the
inferior thinks he can get out of his nothingness, and become
something, by begging the favour and support of a superior. A general
system of dependence and patronage makes the plebeian kneel before the
man of the middle class, who again kneels before the prince, who in
his turn kneels more humbly than all the others before the sovereign
clergy.
At twenty leagues' distance from Rome there is very little kneeling;
beyond the Apennines none at all. When you reach Bologna you find an
almost French equality in the manners: for the simple reason that
Napoleon has left his mark there.
The absolute value of the men in each category increases according to
the square of the distance. You may feel almost certain that a Roman
noble will be less educated, less capable, and less free than a
gentleman of the Marches or of the Romagna. The middle class, with
some exceptions which I shall presently mention, is infinitely more
numerous, more enlightened, and wealthier, to the east of the
Apennines, than in and about the capital. The plebeians themselves
have more honesty and morality when they live at a respectful distance
from the Vatican.
The plebeians of the Eternal City are overgrown children badly brought
up, and perverted in various ways by their education. The Government,
which, being in the midst of them, fears them, treats them mildly. It
demands few taxes of them; it gives them shows, and sometimes bread,
the _panem et circenses_ prescribed by the Emperors of the Decline. It
does not teach them to read, neither does it forbid them to beg. It
sends Capuchins to their homes. The Capuchin gives the wife
lottery-tickets, drinks with the husband, and brings up the children
after his kind, and sometimes in his likeness. The plebeians of Rome
are certain never to die of hunger; if they have no bread, they are
allowed to help themselves from the baker's basket; the law allows it.
All that is required of them is to be good Christians, to prostrate
themselves before the priests, to humble themselves before the rich,
and to abstain from revolutions. They are severely punished if they
refuse to take the Sacrament at Easter, or if they talk
disrespectfully of the Saints. The tribunal of the Vicariates listens
to no excuses on this head; but the police is enough as to everything
else. Crimes are forgiven them, they are encouraged in meanness; the
only offences for which there is no pardon are the cry for liberty,
revolt against an abuse, the assertion of manhood.
It is marvellous to me that with such an education there is any good
left in them at all. The worst half of the people is that which dwells
in the Monti district. If, in seeking the Convent of the Neophytes, or
the house of Lucrezia Borgia, you miss your way among those foul
narrow streets, you will find yourself in the midst of a strange
medley of thieves, sharpers, guitar-players, artists' models, beggars,
_ciceroni_, and _ruffiani_. If you speak to them, you may be sure they
will kiss your Excellency's hand, and pick your Excellency's pocket. I
do not think a worse breed is to be found in any city in Europe, not
even in London. All these people _practise_ religion, without the
least believing in God. The police does not meddle much with them. To
be sure they are sent to prison now and then, but thanks to a
favourable word in the right quarter, or to the want of prison
accommodation, they are soon set at liberty. Even the honest workmen
their neighbours occasionally get into scrapes. They have made plenty
of money in the winter, and spent it all in the Carnival--as is the
common custom. Summer comes, the foreign visitors depart; no more work
and no more money. Moral training, which might sustain them, is wholly
wanting. The love of show, that peculiar disease of Rome, is their
bane. The wife, if she be pretty, sells herself, or the husband does
what he had better leave undone.
Judge them not too harshly. Remember, they have read nothing, they
have never been out of Rome; the example of ostentation is set them by
the Cardinals, of misconduct by the prelates, of venality by the
different functionaries, of squandering by the Finance Minister. And
above all, remember that care has been taken to root out from their
hearts, as if it were a destructive weed, that noble sentiment of
human dignity which is the principle of every virtue.
The blood which flows in Italian veins must be very generous, or so
notable a portion of the plebeians of Rome as the people of the
_Trastevere_, could never have preserved their manly virtues, as is
notoriously the case with them. I have met with men in this quarter of
the city, coarse, violent, sometimes ferocious, but really _men_; nice
as to their honour, to the extent of poniarding any one who is wanting
in respect to them. They are fully as ignorant as the people of the
Monti; they have learnt the same lessons, and witnessed the same
examples; they have the same improvidence, the same love of pleasure,
the same brutality in their passions; but they are incapable of
stooping, even to pick anything up.
A government worthy of the name would make something of this ignorant
force, first taming, and then directing it. The man who stabs his
fellow in a wineshop might prove a good soldier on a battle-field. But
we are in the capital of the Pope. The Trasteverini neither attack God
nor the Government; they meddle neither with theology nor politics; no
more is asked of them. And in token of its appreciation of their good
conduct, a paternal administration allows them to cut one another's
throats _ad libitum_.
Neither the people of the Trastevere nor of the Monti give the least
sign of political existence, whereat the Cardinals rub their hands,
and congratulate themselves upon having kept so many men in profound
ignorance of all their rights. I am not quite certain that the theory
is a sound one. Suppose, for example, that the democratic committees
of London and Leghorn were to send a few recruiting officers into the
Pope's capital. An honest, mild, enlightened plebeian would reflect
twice before enrolling himself. He would weigh the pros and the cons,
and balance for a long time between the vices of the government, and
the dangers of revolution. But the mob of the Monti would take fire
like a heap of straw at the mere prospect of a scramble, while the
Trastevere savages would rise to a man, if the Papal despotism were
represented to them as an attack upon their honour. It would be better
to have in these plebeians foes capable of reasoning. The Pope might
often have to reckon with them, but he need never tremble before them.
I trust the masters of the country may never more be obliged to fight
with the plebeians of Rome. They were easily carried away by the
leaders of 1848, although the name of Republic resounded for the first
time in their ears. Have they forgotten it? No. They will long
remember that magic word, which abased the great, and exalted the
humble. Moreover, the hidden Mazzinists, who agitate throughout the
city, don't collect the workmen in the quarter of the _Regola_ to
preach submission to them.
I have said that the plebeians of the city of Rome despise the
plebeians of the country. Be assured, however, the latter are not
deserving of scorn, even in the Mediterranean provinces. In this
unhappy half of the Pontifical States, the influence of the Vatican
has not yet quite morally destroyed the population. The country people
are poor, ignorant, superstitious, rather wild, but kind, hospitable,
and generally honest. If you wish to study them more closely, go to
one of the villages in the province of Frosinone, towards the
Neapolitan frontier. Cross the plains which malaria has made dreary
solitudes, take the stony path which winds painfully up the side of
the mountain. You will come to a town of five or ten thousand souls,
which is little more than a dormitory for five or ten thousand
peasants. Viewed from a distance, this country town has an almost
grand appearance. The dome of a church, a range of monastic buildings,
the tower of a feudal castle, invest it with a certain air of
importance. A troop of women are coming down to the fountain with
copper vessels on their heads. You smile instinctively. Here is
movement and life. Enter! You are struck with a sensation of coldness,
dampness, and darkness. The streets are narrow flights of steps, which
every now and then plunge beneath low arches. The houses are closed,
and seem to have been deserted for a century. Not a human being at the
doors, or at the windows. The streets, silent and solitary.
You would imagine that the curse of heaven had fallen on the country,
but for the large placards on the house-fronts, which prove that
missionary fathers have passed through the place. "_Viva Gesù! Viva
Maria! Viva il sangue di Gesù! Viva il cor di Maria! Bestemmiatori,
tacetevi per l'amor di Maria!_"
These devotional sentences are like so many signboards of the public
simplicity.
A quarter of an hour's walk brings you to the principal square.
Half-a-dozen civil officials are seated in a circle before a café,
gaping at one another. You join them. They ask you for news of
something that happened a dozen years ago. You ask them in turn, what
epidemic has depopulated the country?
Presently some thirty market-men and women begin to display on the
pavement an assortment of fruit and vegetables. Where are the buyers
of these products of the earth? Here they come! Night is approaching.
The entire population begins to return at once from their labour in
the fields; a stalwart and sturdy population; the thew and sinew of
some fine regiments. Every one of these half-clad men, armed with
pickaxe and shovel, rose two hours before the sun this morning, and
went forth to weed a little field, or to dig round a few olive-trees.
Many of them have their little domains several miles off, and thither
they go daily, accompanied by a child and a pig. The pig is not very
fat, and the man and his child are very lean. Still they seem
light-hearted and merry. They have plucked some wild flowers by the
roadside. The boy is crowned with roses, like Lucullus at table. The
father buys a handful of vegetables, and a cake of maize, which will
furnish the family supper. They will sleep well enough on this
diet--if the fleas allow them. If you like to follow these poor people
home, they will give you a kindly welcome, and will not fail to ask
you to partake of their modest meal. Their furniture is very simple,
their conversation limited; their heads are as well furnished as their
dwellings.
The wife who has been awaiting the return of her lord, will open the
door to you. Of all useful animals, the wife is the one which the
Roman peasant employs most profitably. She makes the bread and the
cakes; she spins, weaves, and sews; she goes every day three miles for
wood, and one and a half for water; she carries a mule's load on her
head; she works from sunrise to sunset, without question or complaint.
Her numerous children are in themselves a precious resource: at four
years old they are able to tend sheep and cattle.
It is vain to ask these country people what is their opinion of Rome
and the government: their idea of these matters is infinitely vague
and shadowy. The Government manifests itself to them in the person of
an official, who, for the sum of three pounds sterling per month,
administers and sells justice among them. This individual is the only
gift Rome has ever conferred upon them. In return for the great
benefit of his presence, they pay taxes on a tolerably extensive
scale: so much for the house, so much for the livestock, so much for
the privilege of lighting a fire, so much on the wine, and so much on
the meat--when they are able to enjoy that luxury. They grumble,
though not very bitterly, regarding the taxes as a sort of periodical
hailstorm falling on their year's harvest. If they were to learn that
Rome had been swallowed up by an earthquake, they certainly would not
put on mourning. They would go forth to their fields as usual, they
would sell their crops for the usual price, and they would pay less
taxes. This is what all towns inhabited by peasants think of the
metropolis. Every township lives by itself, and for itself; it is an
isolated body, which has arms to work, and a belly to fill. The
cultivator of the land is everything, as was the case in the Middle
Ages. There is neither trade, nor manufactures, nor business on any
extended scale, nor movement of ideas, nor political life, nor any of
those powerful bonds which, in well-governed countries, link the
provincial towns to the capital, as the members to the heart.
If there be a capital for these poor people, it is Paradise. They
believe in it fervently, and strive to attain it with all their might.
The very peasant who grudges the State two crowns for his hearth-tax,
willingly pays two and a half to have _Viva Maria_ scrawled over his
door. Another complains of the £3 per month paid to the Government
official, without a murmur at the thirty priests supported by the
township. There is a gentle disease which consoles them for all their
ills, called Faith. It does not restrain them from dealing a stab with
a knife, when the wine is in their brains, or rage in their hearts;
but it will always prevent them from eating meat on a Friday.
If you would see them in all the ardour of their simplicity, you must
visit the town on the day of a grand festival. Everybody, men, women,
and children are rushing to the church. A carpet of flowers is spread
along the road. Every countenance is glowing with excitement. What is
the meaning of it all? Don't you know?--It is the festival of Sant'
Antonio. A musical Mass is being performed in honour of Sant' Antonio.
A grand procession is being formed in honour of that Saint, probably
the patron of the place. There are little boys dressed up as angels,
and men arrayed in the sack-like garment of their brotherhoods: here
we have peasants of _The Heart of Jesus_; here, those of _The Name of
Mary_; and here come _The Souls of Purgatory_. The procession is
formed with some little confusion. The people embrace one another,
upset one another, and fight with one another--all in the name of
Sant' Antonio. But see! The statue of the worthy Saint is coming out
of the church: a wooden doll, with flaming red cheeks. _Victoria_! Off
go the petards! The women weep with joy--the children cry out at the
top of their shrill voices, "_Viva Sant' Antonio_!" At night there are
fireworks: a balloon shaped in the semblance of the Saint ascends amid
the shouts of the people, and bursts in grand style right over the
church. Verily, unless Sant' Antonio be very difficult to please, such
homage must go straight to his heart. And I should think the plebeians
of the country very exacting, if, after such an intoxicating festival,
they were to complain of wanting bread.
Let us seek a little repose on the other side of the Apennines.
Although the population may not be sufficiently sheltered by a chain,
of mountains, you will find in the towns and villages the stuff for a
noble nation. The ignorance is still very great; the blood ever
boiling, and the hand ever quick; but already we find men who reason.
If the workman of the towns be not successful, he guesses the reason;
he seeks a remedy, he looks forward, he economizes. If the tenant be
not rich, he studies with his landlord the means of becoming so.
Everywhere agriculture is making progress, and it will ere long have
no further progress to make. Man becomes better and greater by dint of
struggling with Nature. He learns his own value, he sees whither he is
tending; in cultivating his field, he cultivates himself.
I am compelled in strict truth to admit that religion loses ground a
little in these fine provinces. I vainly sought in the towns of the
Adriatic for those mural inscriptions of _Viva Gesù! Viva Maria!_ and
so on, which had so edified me on the other side of the Apennines. At
Bologna I read sonnets at the corners of all the streets,--sonnet to
Doctor Massarenti, who cured Madame Tagliani; sonnet to young
Guadagni, on the occasion of his becoming Bachelor of Arts, etc., etc.
At Faenza, these mural inscriptions evinced a certain degree of
fanaticism, but the fanaticism of the dramatic art: _Viva la Ristori!
Viva la diva Rossi!_ At Rimini, and at Forlì, I read _Viva Verdi!_
(which words had not then the political significance they have
recently attained,) _Viva la Lotti!_ together with a long list of
dramatic and musical celebrities.
While I was visiting the holy house of Loretto, which, as all the
world knows, or ought to know, was transported by Angels, furniture
and all, from Palestine, to the neighbourhood of Ancona, a number of
pilgrims came in upon their knees, shedding tears and licking the
flags with their tongues. I thought these poor creatures belonged to
some neighbouring village, but I found out my mistake from a workman
of Ancona, who happened to be near me. "Sir," he said, "these unhappy
people must certainly belong to the other side of the Apennines, since
they still make pilgrimages. Fifty years ago we used to do the same
thing; we now think it better to work!"