thought too dangerous a man to be at large, and so was finally given
his choice between nominal imprisonment in a small town and exile.
France was throbbing with a new democracy, Paris was the center of
revolutionary propaganda, and so Mazzini chose exile there. Early in
1831 he parted from his family at Savona and started north. He felt that
he had come to the parting of the ways, and that henceforth his life
was to be absolutely given to the cause. For the first time he saw the
Alps, and his nature, always strongly susceptible to heroic scenery,
was deeply stirred. He watched the sunrise from Mont Cenis and wrote,
"The first ray of light trembling on the horizon, vague and pale, like
a timid, uncertain hope, then the long line of fire cutting the blue
heaven, firm and decided as a promise;" here was the poet soul free at
last to speak its message.
With the date of this first exile begins Mazzini's call to "Young
Italy." He had recognized that his countrymen must waken to a new
religion, that their souls must be touched rather than their ambitions.
The youth of Italy would feel the call more strongly than the
middle-aged. "Place," he said, "the young at the head of the insurgent
masses; you do not know what strength is latent in those young bands,
what magic influence the voice of the young has on the crowd; you will
find in them a host of apostles for the new religion. But youth lives
on movement, grows great in enthusiasm and faith. Consecrate them with
a lofty mission, inflame them with emulation and praise; spread through
their ranks the word of fire, the word of inspiration; speak to them of
country, of glory, of power, of great memories." "All great national
movements," he wrote later, "begin with the unknown men of the people,
without influence except for the faith and will that counts not time or
difficulties." Mazzini was not diffident with regard to his own youthful
powers, nor was Cavour, five years Mazzini's junior, who wrote to a
friend at this time prophesying that he would one morning wake up Prime
Minister of Italy.
The most important feature of "Young Italy" was its religion, the
Carbonari had had none. Men were now told that they had a mission given
them by God, and that what had been before a mere personal right had
become a sacred duty. The second feature was the liberation of the poor,
a need which all former revolutionists had seemed to overlook. The
French Revolution had had no such substructure, the poets and dramatists
had idealized national rather than social liberty, but Mazzini saw that
the time had come for a further step, that Austria was not the only
enemy his people had to fear. He wrote, "I see the people pass before my
eyes in the livery of wretchedness and political subjection, ragged and
hungry, painfully gathering the crumbs that wealth tosses insultingly
to it, or lost and wandering in riot and the intoxication of a brutish,
angry, savage joy; and I remember that these brutalized faces bear the
finger-print of God, the mark of the same mission as my own. I lift
myself to the vision of the future and behold the people rising in its
majesty, brothers in one faith, one bond of equality and love, one ideal
of citizen virtue that ever grows in beauty and might; the people of
the future, unspoilt by luxury, ungoaded by wretchedness, awed by the
consciousness of its rights and duties, and in the presence of that
vision my heart beats with anguish for the present and glorying for
the future." Mazzini gave "Young Italy" as its watchword "God and the
People."
There can be no question but that "Young Italy" was strong where the
Carbonari had been weak, but both movements had of necessity many of
the same defects. Government espionage forced the new movement like
its predecessors to choose the devious courses of a secret society.
The restlessness of the age caused the new movement to take each
fitful start as a momentous signal. The strength of Austria was not
underestimated, but the weakness of the disunited Italian states was.
Diplomacy was disregarded; it was only many years later that Mazzini
the prophet learned the value of Cavour the statesman. "Young Italy"
was launched in a troublous sea, destined to encounter many storms, but
fated ultimately to spread abroad the seeds of the hope that was to
awaken republicans throughout all European countries.
Mazzini no sooner arrived in Lyons than he found himself in the center
of plots. The French government, still fresh from the days of July, was
in two minds; first they aided a band of Italian refugees who were
planning a raid into Savoy, then they faced about and scattered the
conspirators. Another plan was for a trip to Corsica, there to gather
arms to aid the insurgents in Romagna, but the funds for this attempt
were lacking. Mazzini gave up immediate action for the moment, and
locating at Marseilles started with a few youthful friends to organize
his great concerted movement. They had nothing but youth and audacity. A
contemporary (probably Enrico Mayer) described Mazzini at this time as
"about 5 feet 8 inches high, and slightly made; he was dressed in black
Genoa velvet, with a large 'republican' hat; his long, curling black
hair, which fell upon his shoulders, the extreme freshness of his clear
olive complexion, the chiseled delicacy of his regular and beautiful
features, aided by his very youthful look and sweetness and openness of
expression, would have made his appearance almost too feminine, if it
had not been for his noble forehead, the power of firmness and decision
that was mingled with their gaiety and sweetness in the bright flashes
of his dark eyes and in the varying expression of his mouth, together
with his small and beautiful mustachios and beard. Altogether he was
at that time the most beautiful being, male or female, that I had ever
seen, and I have not since seen his equal."
Mazzini was proud of these early days when he looked back upon them
later. He wrote, "We had no office, no helpers. All day, and a great
part of the night, we were buried in our work, writing articles and
letters, getting information from travelers, enlisting seamen, folding
papers, fastening envelopes, dividing our time between literary and
manual work. La Cecilia was compositor; Lamberti corrected the proofs;
another of us made himself literally porter, to save the expense of
distributing papers. We lived as equals and brothers; we had but one
thought, one hope, one ideal to reverence. The foreign republicans loved
and admired us for our tenacity and unflagging industry; we were often
in real want, but we were light-hearted in a way, and smiling because we
believed in the future." It was Mazzini's period of boundless hope.
Much of this hope throbbed through the literature that the small
Marseilles press scattered throughout Europe, men were in such a
state of unrest that the burning words became to them a prophetic
writing on the wall. In a hundred ways the contraband pamphlets were
smuggled across frontiers, all classes sent assurances of support
and aid to the young men in Marseilles, everywhere lodges of "Young
Italy" were started, and local editors scattered Mazzini's doctrines
through their immediate territories. Priests, attracted by the strong
religious tenor, professional and business men, many of the nobility
even joined the new movement. Garibaldi, a young officer in the Genoese
merchant service, Gioberti, then a teacher at Vercelli, Ruffini, and
his fellow-conspirators working under the very shadow of destruction
at Genoa, enrolled under the new standard of "God and the People." The
old members of the Carbonari, the followers of Buonarotti and his "veri
Italiani" joined the ranks, within two years "Young Italy" counted
its members by the tens of thousands. Not since the era of the great
Crusades had there been any simultaneous rising to compare with it.
All men who hoped for the coming of a united Italy looked towards
Piedmont as the state by which the first step must be taken. Piedmont
had great military traditions. It supported an efficient army, it was
so situated that it held the key of entrance into Lombardy, and had
the Alps and the Apennines as a base of retreat. In Piedmont there was
moreover an intense national feeling, the House of Savoy was deeply
rooted in the affections of the people, and almost alone among the
Italian sovereignties that House was practically indigenous to the
soil. In Charles Albert Piedmont had just received a king who was an
intense nationalist, to whom the name of "Italia" was sacred, and who,
at certain times, seems to have felt that he was destined to drive the
foreigner beyond the Alps. He was no liberal, both his nature and his
priestly advisers counseled him against revolutionary measures, he
had not the sanguine temper of the leader, he was more the theorist
than the actor. Yet with all his temperamental defects the men of
the new generation looked on him as a possible saviour, he had given
countenance to the Carbonari in his youth, and had led the conspirators
of 1821 to believe that he would side with them in any war for Lombard
independence. He had not given such aid as they expected, but he was
still the one sovereign to whom "Young Italy" could look with any
measure of hope. Mazzini was never an ardent believer in monarchies,
but now, when his new party was growing with tremendous leaps and
bounds, he felt that even the leadership of a king was better than no
leadership at all. He was ready at this time to sacrifice republicanism
for nationalism; how far he would then have followed a monarchy, if
successful, is a difficult question to decide. He was so much in earnest
that he could not always critically balance the means and the end.
Early in 1831 Mazzini published his famous letter to Charles Albert. It
was the cry of a prophet to a later generation. He pointed out that the
King of Piedmont needed no aid from Austria or France. "There is a crown
more brilliant and sublime than that of Piedmont, a crown that waits the
man who dares to think of it, who dedicates his life to winning it, and
scorns to dull the splendor with thoughts of petty tyranny. Sire, have
you ever cast an eagle glance upon this Italy, so fair with nature's
smile, crowned by twenty centuries of noble memory, the land of genius,
strong in the infinite resources that only want a common purpose, girt
round with barriers so impregnable, that it needs but a firm will and
a few brave breasts to shelter it from foreign insult? Place yourself
at the head of the nation, write on your flag, 'Union, Liberty,
Independence.' Free Italy from the barbarian, build up the future, be
the Napoleon of Italian freedom. Do this and we will gather round you,
we will give our lives for you, we will bring the little states of Italy
under your flag. Your safety lies on the sword's point, draw it and
throw away the scabbard. But remember, if you do it not, others will do
it without you and against you."
Charles Albert had moments of heroism, but they were only too often
followed by moments of overwhelming caution. If he ever read Mazzini's
letter he must have thrilled at the call to save a country he loved
with the whole ardor of his nature. After that first thrill had passed
he must have realized that the time to take such a supreme step had not
come, or that he had not the will to lead it. Once harboring such a
doubt the King became a battle-ground for advisers, and when the short
fight for control of the King's mind was won, the reactionaries proved
themselves the victors. The unfortunate King allowed others to act
against his better judgment; when the fire of revolt next blazed up in
Piedmont the government turned a savage face towards the conspirators.
The little band of revolutionists was hounded without mercy, terror
reigned in Genoa, and the only choice offered the rebels was between
betrayal of their friends and execution. Jacopo Ruffini, one of
Mazzini's dearest boyhood friends, killed himself in prison when offered
such an alternative. The pendulum swung back, gaining momentum thereby
for its coming flight. "Ideas," wrote Mazzini, "ripen quickly when
nourished by the blood of martyrs."
At twenty-eight Mazzini found himself an outcast, hunted at last
from France as he had been before from Italy, living in the closest
concealment in Switzerland, all his hopes tumbling about him. He
tried to organize a band of raiders who should enter Savoy from the
Swiss frontier; they were disrupted by treachery and distrust before
the first shot was fired. Mazzini's health broke under the endless
strain, there were nights when he never went to bed, days when he had
to lie concealed in a goatherd's hut. At times he seemed to find his
only consolation in the white-capped mountains, them he passionately
worshiped, the Alps were always nearest to him after Italy. He had very
few friends, almost no books; there were no presses now to speak his
words to the young hearts of Europe, only occasionally word came to him
that his great idea was growing in the outer world.
In those dark days in Switzerland Mazzini suffered most from the thought
that he had entailed all his family and friends in his vain sacrifice.
His boyhood confidants were dead or in exile, families he loved were
scattered over many countries, the few women he knew well were left
solitary in their homes. The woman he loved he felt he could not ask to
marry him, he had no home to give her, and scarcely knew whether his
next day's food would be forthcoming. He wrote to a friend, "I wanted to
do good, but I have always done harm to everybody, and the thought grows
and grows until I think I shall go mad. Sometimes I fancy I am hated
by those I love most." In all his letters of this period we catch the
note of a spirit torn between pity for sufferings he thinks himself to
have caused, and the stern sense of a duty given him by God. They are
wonderful letters, the thoughts of a man who could put no limits to his
own self-sacrifice nor value too highly the sacrifices of others. In one
letter he wrote: "I think over it from morning to night, and ask pardon
of my God for having been a conspirator; not that I in the least repent
the reasons for it, or recant a single one of my beliefs, which were and
are and will be a religion to me, but because I ought to have seen that
there are times when a believer should only sacrifice himself to his
belief. I have sacrificed everybody."
A great heroic spirit was trying to justify, not its own aims, but the
sorrows it had brought upon others. Mazzini could never have seemed hard
and cold, but in those dark days in Switzerland, and in those later to
come in London, the gentle, humble spirit of him was pre-eminent. He
loved friendship, home life, the arts; he had met his ideal woman; and
yet each and every joy life had to offer him he gave up on the altar of
his duty. "Duty," he said, "an arid, bare religion, which does not save
my heart a single atom of unhappiness, but still the only one that can
save me from suicide;" and again he wrote, "When a man has once said to
himself in all seriousness of thought and feeling, I believe in liberty
and country and humanity, he is bound to fight for liberty and country
and humanity--fight while life lasts, fight always, fight with every
weapon, face all from death to ridicule, face hatred and contempt, work
on because it is his duty, and for no other reason."
In 1837 Mazzini gave up the heights of Switzerland for the fogs of
London, moved largely to this change by the fact that in England
he need no longer live in hiding. He did not look forward with any
eagerness to life in England; if the English cared little what political
beliefs refugees brought with them, they were not the people to flame
with interest in a cause. Byron, Mazzini considered more Italian than
English; he could not conceive of poetry as stirring the British blood.
He took cheap lodgings, and set himself to writing for support, finding
time to keep up his correspondence with members of "Young Italy"
scattered over Europe, and also time to look after such Italians in
London as were in greater straits than he. The Ruffini family were with
him for a time, then misunderstandings separated them, and the last
tie that bound him to Genoa was gone. He lived the pathetic life of a
literary hack, spending his days working in the British Museum, and his
nights writing in his own small room. The one charm he found about
London was its fog. "The whole city," he wrote, "seems under a kind of
spell, and reminds me of the witches' scene in Macbeth or the Brocksberg
or the Witch of Endor. The passers-by look like ghosts--one feels almost
a ghost oneself."
The lack of money oppressed him sorely; he would give to every Italian
who begged of him on the score of universal brotherhood, gradually his
few possessions went their way to the pawnshop. He said that he needed
only a place to write and a few pennies to buy cigars. Then by one of
those curious chances of fate he met the Carlyles, and his life became
a little less cramped and lonely, although perhaps more tempestuous.
There are a score of accounts of evenings Mazzini spent with these new
friends, the one of whom he admired as a great thinker, the other as a
truly noble woman. In time Carlyle tried the gentle Italian sorely; the
story goes that the philosopher would rage at all human institutions
with the violence of a hurricane and then turn to his guest with the
words, "You have not succeeded yet because you have talked too much." We
can picture the boisterous, stormy Englishman thundering at those ideals
which the sensitive, passionate Italian was trying to defend. It speaks
well for Mazzini that he said of Carlyle, "He is good, good, good; and
still, I think in spite of his great reputation, unhappy." Carlyle's
estimate of Mazzini was that he was "by nature a little lyrical poet."
This opposition of ideas did not, however, keep him from defending his
Italian friend when others attacked him. The London _Times_ saw fit to
speak slightingly of Mazzini, and Carlyle wrote the editors in noble
indignation. "Whatever I may think of his practical insight and skill
in worldly affairs," he said, "I can with great freedom testify to all
men that he, if I have ever seen such, is a man of genius and virtue, a
man of sterling veracity, humanity, and nobleness of mind, one of those
rare men, numerable, unfortunately, but as units in this world, who are
worthy to be called martyr souls; who in silence, piously in their daily
life, understand and practise what is meant by that." These were glowing
words, and thrilled Mazzini as he read them. They were a tribute to
Carlyle's justice, but it is doubtful if he ever really understood the
Italian. He would have found it difficult to discover a prophet living
in lodgings so near to his own house.
Gradually Mazzini made other English friends, and he worked his way into
the pages of the best reviews. In time also his political efforts were
revived; he never let any temporary interest dim his goal. He started a
society of Italian workmen in London, and edited a paper for them, and
opened an evening school where poor Italian boys were taught to read and
write and learn something of Italian history. This school was very near
his heart, he was always devoted to children.
During Mazzini's exiled years in London, "Young Italy" had spread over
Europe, and through countless secret channels was gradually making its
strength felt. Outside circumstances were needed to bring its forces
to a head, but there was no doubt that Mazzini's words had called a
power into being that must in time inevitably come to a life and death
struggle with the Austrians. It is difficult to point out the exact
minor causes of each fluctuation in Italian opinion, it is certain
that the new popular literature called readers to take account of the
words of Dante, and that the more they read the great poet the more
they longed for liberty from the foreigner. Charles Albert, it was
felt, was again dreaming of heroic measures, and something of the old,
almost legendary faith in the house of Savoy as a national deliverer,
re-awakened. Manzoni and Gioberti were prophesying a great Catholic
revival, and the election of Pius the Ninth seemed for the moment to
justify the hope. The half-pitiful words of Pius, "They want to make a
Napoleon of me who am only a poor country parson," was a more correct
estimate of the Pontiff than the glowing words of his contemporaries; he
was no more in accord with the spirit of his time than was Metternich.
Still his election marked the swing of the pendulum in the liberal
direction, and "Young Italy" was quick to take notice of such a fact.
The year 1848 was remarkable for concerted social movements throughout
Europe. In France the Second Republic overthrew the monarchy, and
throughout the Italian states an electric current shocked the people
into revolution. Leghorn revolted and made Guerrazzi its chief, Milan
fell easy victim to the Tobacco rioters, Sicily sent its Bourbon king
flying, and Naples wrested a popular constitution from the greedy hand
of Ferdinand. Piedmont and Tuscany followed soon, demanded and obtained
constitutions, and the Pope, alarmed at the sudden spread of liberalism,
granted a constitution to Rome. The moment seemed ripe to throw off the
Austrian overlords.
There are few more tangled histories than the record of the next few
months in Italy. It is a drama filled with heroic figures, but one
through which runs the current of continual misunderstandings. Was
Italy to be a kingdom or a republic? Was the Pope a menace or a help?
Was French aid to be courted or rejected? These were only a few of the
questions on which men split. The one glorious fact was the burning
patriotic ardor of Italians in each state from Sicily to Savoy, their
actual belief in the religion of duty Mazzini had been preaching to them.
Word came to Milan that there was revolution in Vienna, and the
Five Days drove the Austrian garrison from their stronghold. Como,
Brescia, Venice, all the northern cities that had so long loathed the
white-coated overlords, won freedom; Metternich's puppet-princes of
Modena and Parma fled. Piedmont declared war, Tuscany declared war,
volunteers of all ranks and ages poured from Umbria to help the northern
armies. Mazzini, hearing the news in London, sped to Milan, and was
received as the prophet of the new day. Italy had its prophet, but the
statesman and the soldier were not yet recognized.
The new provisional government in Milan had no fixed policy, Charles
Albert's advisers still clogged his steps, the volunteers were ready,
but they had neither the arms nor the training to compete with the
war-worn Austrians. While there was discussion and dissension in
Lombardy, the enemy recuperated and returned to besiege the cities they
had lost. By July the Italian army was driven into Milan, there the
spirit of the earlier Five Days revived, but victory appeared hopeless,
and finally Charles Albert, torn and distracted, surrendered the city.
Mazzini passed to Lugano, thence to Leghorn, thence to Florence; in each
city the situation was practically the same, the people were aflame with
devotion to Italy, the leaders had as many plans as there were men.
Rome had driven out the Pope and proclaimed the Republic. The call of
Rome was the call direct to Mazzini's soul, he turned there to find a
solution of all difficulties. Simultaneously the newly formed Roman
Assembly turned to him, and bade him welcome as a citizen of Rome. He
believed that Dante's vision and his own were coming true, and hurried
to the Eternal City. His first work there was to raise ten thousand
troops and send them north. They had scarcely started when the crushing
news of the defeat at Novara stunned all patriots. Rome had to look to
herself, and made Mazzini Triumvir and practically dictator of the city.