SIEGE OF ROME.--MARGARET'S CARE OF THE SICK AND WOUNDED.--ANXIETY ABOUT
HER HUSBAND AND CHILD.--BATTLE BETWEEN THE FRENCH AND ITALIAN
TROOPS.--THE SURRENDER.--GARIBALDI'S DEPARTURE.--MARGARET JOINS HER
HUSBAND AT HIS POST.--ANGELO'S ILLNESS.--LETTERS FROM FRIENDS IN
AMERICA.--PERUGIA.--WINTER IN FLORENCE.--MARGARET'S DOMESTIC
LIFE.--ASPECT OF HER FUTURE.--HER COURAGE AND INDUSTRY.--OSSOLI'S
AFFECTION FOR HER.--WILLIAM HENRY HURLBUT'S REMINISCENCES OF THEM
BOTH.--LAST DAYS IN FLORENCE.--FAREWELL VISIT TO THE DUOMO.--MARGARET'S
EVENINGS AT HOME.--HORACE SUMNER.--MARGARET AS A FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE.
Margaret writes to Mr. Emerson in June: "Since the 30th of April I go
almost daily to the hospitals, and, though I have suffered, for I had no
idea before how terrible gun-shot wounds and wound-fever are, yet I have
taken great pleasure in being with the men. There is scarcely one who is
not moved by a noble spirit."
"Night and day," writes the friend cited above,[F] "Margaret was
occupied, and, with the Princess, so ordered and disposed the hospitals
that their conduct was admirable. Of money they had very little, and
they were obliged to give their time and thoughts in its place. I have
walked through the wards with Margaret, and have seen how comforting was
her presence to the poor suffering men. For each one's peculiar tastes
she had a care. To one she carried books; to another she told the news
of the day; and listened to another's oft-repeated tale of wrongs, as
the best sympathy she could give. They raised themselves on their elbows
to get the last glimpse of her" as she went her way.
Ossoli, meanwhile, was stationed, with his command, on the walls of the
Vatican,--a post of considerable danger. This he refused to leave, even
for necessary food and rest. The provisions sent him from time to time
were shared with his needy comrades. As these men were brought, wounded
and dying, to the hospitals, Margaret looked eagerly to see whether her
husband was among them. She was able, sometimes, to visit him at his
post, and to talk with him about the beloved child, now completely
beyond their reach, as the city was invested on all sides, and no sure
means of communication open to them. They remained for many days without
any news of the little one, and their first intelligence concerning him
was to the effect that the nurse with whom he had been left would at
once abandon him unless a certain sum of money should be sent in
prepayment of her services. This it seemed at first impossible to do;
but after a while the money was sent, and the evil day adjourned for a
time.
Margaret's letters of the 10th of June speak of a terrible battle
recently fought between the French troops and the defenders of Rome. The
Italians, she says, fought like lions, making a stand for honor and
conscience' sake, with scarcely any prospect of success. The attack of
the enemy was directed with a skill and order which Margaret was
compelled to admire. The loss on both sides was heavy, and the
assailants, for the moment, gained "no inch of ground." But this was
only the beginning of the dread trial. By the 20th of June the
bombardment had become heavy. On the night of the 21st a practicable
breach was made, and the French were within the city. The defence,
however, was valiantly continued until the 30th, when Garibaldi informed
the Assembly that further resistance would be useless. Conditions of
surrender were then asked for and refused. Garibaldi himself was denied
a safe-conduct, and departed with his troops augmented by a number of
soldiers from other regiments. This was on July 2d, after it became
known that the French army would take possession on the morrow.
Margaret followed the departing troops as far as the Place of St. John
Lateran. Never had she seen a sight "so beautiful, so romantic, and so
sad."
The grand piazza had once been the scene of Rienzi's triumph: "The sun
was setting, the crescent moon rising, the flower of the Italian youth
were marshalling in that solemn place. They had all put on the beautiful
dress of the Garibaldi legion,--the tunic of bright red cloth, the Greek
cap, or round hat with puritan plume. Their long hair was blown back
from resolute faces.... I saw the wounded, all that could go, laden upon
their baggage-cars. I saw many youths, born to rich inheritance,
carrying in a handkerchief all their worldly goods. The wife of
Garibaldi followed him on horseback. He himself was distinguished by the
white tunic. His look was entirely that of a hero of the Middle
Ages,--his face still young.... He went upon the parapet, and looked
upon the road with a spy-glass, and, no obstruction being in sight, he
turned his face for a moment back upon Rome, then led the way through
the gate."
Thus ended the heroic defence of Rome. The French occupation began on
the next day, with martial law and the end of all liberties. Alas! that
it was not given to Margaret to see Garibaldi come again, with the
laurels of an abiding victory! Alas! that she saw not the end of the
Napoleon game, and the punishment of France for her act of insensate
folly!
It was during these days of fearful trial and anxiety that Margaret
confided to Mrs. Story the secret of her marriage. This was done, not
for the relief of her own overtasked feelings, but in the interest of
her child, liable at this time to be left friendless by the death of his
parents. Margaret, in her extreme anxiety concerning her husband's
safety, became so ill and feeble that the duration of her own life
appeared to her very uncertain. In a moment of great depression she
called Mrs. Story to her bedside, related to her all the antecedents of
the birth of the child, and showed her, among other papers, the
certificate of her marriage, and of her son's legal right to inherit the
title and estate of his father. These papers she intrusted to Mrs.
Story's care, requesting her, in case of her own death, to seek her boy
at Rieti, and to convey him to her friends in America.
To Lewis Cass, at that time American Envoy to the Papal Court, the same
secret was confided, and under circumstances still more trying. Shortly
before the conclusion of the siege, Margaret learned that an attack
would probably be made upon the very part of the city in which Ossoli
was stationed with his men. She accordingly sent to request that Mr.
Cass would call upon her at once, which he did. He found her "lying on a
sofa, pale and trembling, evidently much exhausted." After informing him
of her marriage, and of the birth and whereabouts of her child, she
confided to his care certain important documents, to be sent, in the
event of her death, to her family in America. Her husband was, at that
very moment, in command of a battery directly exposed to the fire of the
French artillery. The night before had been one of great danger to him,
and Margaret, in view of his almost certain death, had determined to
pass the coming night at his post with him, and to share his fate,
whatever it might be. He had promised to come for her at the Ave Maria,
and Mr. Cass, departing, met him at the porter's lodge, and shortly
afterward beheld them walking in the direction of his command. It turned
out that the threatened danger did not visit them. The cannonading from
this point was not renewed, and on the morrow military operations were
at an end.
Among our few pictures of Margaret and her husband, how characteristic
is this one, of the pair walking side by side into the very jaws of
death, with the glory of faith and courage bright about them!
The gates once open, Margaret's first thought was of Rieti, and her boy
there. Thither she sped without delay, arriving just in time to save the
life of the neglected and forsaken child, whose wicked nurse, uncertain
of further payment, had indeed abandoned him. His mother found him "worn
to a skeleton, too weak to smile, or lift his little wasted hand." Four
weeks of incessant care and nursing brought, still in wan feebleness,
his first returning smile.
All that Margaret had already endured seemed to her light in comparison
with this. In the Papal States, woman had clearly fallen behind even the
standard of the she-wolf.
After these painful excitements came a season of blessed quietness for
Margaret and her dear ones. Angelo regained his infant graces, and
became full of life and of baby glee. Margaret's marriage was suitably
acknowledged, and the pain and trouble of such a concealment were at
end. The disclosure of the relation naturally excited much comment in
Italy and in America. In both countries there were some, no doubt, who
chose to interpret this unexpected action on the part of Margaret in a
manner utterly at variance with the whole tenor and spirit of her life.
The general feeling was, however, quite otherwise; and it is gratifying
to find that, while no one could have considered Margaret's marriage an
act of worldly wisdom, it was very generally accepted by her friends as
only another instance of the romantic disinterestedness which had always
been a leading trait in her character.
Writing to an intimate friend in America, she remarks: "What you say of
the meddling curiosity of people repels me; it is so different here.
When I made my appearance with a husband, and a child of a year old,
nobody did the least act to annoy me. All were most cordial; none asked
or implied questions."
She had already written to Madame Arconati, asking whether the fact of
her concealed marriage and motherhood would make any difference in their
relations. Her friend, a lady of the highest position and character,
replied: "What difference can it make, except that I shall love you
more, now that we can sympathize as mothers?"
In other letters, Margaret speaks of the loving sympathy expressed for
her by relatives in America. The attitude of her brothers was such as
she had rightly expected it to be. Her mother received the communication
in the highest spirit, feeling assured that a leading motive in
Margaret's withholding of confidence from her had been the desire to
spare her a season of most painful anxiety. Speaking of a letter
recently received from her, Margaret says:--
"She blessed us. She rejoiced that she should not die feeling there was
no one left to love me with the devotion she thought I needed. She
expressed no regret at our poverty, but offered her feeble means."
After a stay of some weeks at Rieti, Margaret, with her husband and
child, journeyed to Perugia, and thence to Florence. At the former place
she remained long enough to read D'Azeglio's "Nicolò dei Lapi," which
she esteemed "a book unenlivened by a spark of genius, but interesting
as illustrative of Florence." Here she felt that she understood, for the
first time, the depth and tenderness of the Umbrian school.
The party reached Florence late in September, and were soon established
in lodgings for the winter. The police at first made some objection to
their remaining in the city, but this matter was soon settled to their
satisfaction. Margaret's thoughts now turned toward her own country and
her own people:--
"It will be sad to leave Italy, uncertain of return. Yet when I think of
you, beloved mother, of brothers and sisters and many friends, I wish to
come. Ossoli is perfectly willing. He will go among strangers; but to
him, as to all the young Italians, America seems the land of liberty."
Margaret's home-letters give lovely glimpses of this season of peace.
Her modest establishment was served by Angelo's nurse, with a little
occasional aid from the porter's wife. The boy himself was now in rosy
health; as his mother says, "a very gay, impetuous, ardent, but
sweet-tempered child." She describes with a mother's delight his visit
to her room at first waking, when he pulls her curtain aside, and goes
through his pretty routine of baby tricks for her amusement,--laughing,
crowing, imitating the sound of the bellows, and even saying "Bravo!"
Then comes his bath, which she herself gives him, and then his walk and
mid-day sleep.
"I feel so refreshed by his young life, and Ossoli diffuses such a power
and sweetness over every day, that I cannot endure to think yet of our
future. We have resolved to enjoy being together as much as we can in
this brief interval, perhaps all we shall ever know of peace. I rejoice
in all that Ossoli did (in the interest of the liberal party); but the
results are disastrous, especially as my strength is now so impaired.
This much I hope, in life or death, to be no more separated from
Angelo."
Margaret's future did indeed look to her full of difficult duties. At
forty years of age, having labored all her life for her father's family,
she was to begin a new struggle for her own. She had looked this
necessity bravely in the face, and with resolute hand had worked at a
history of recent events in Italy, hoping thus to make a start in the
second act of her life-work. The two volumes which she had completed by
this time seemed to her impaired in value by the intense, personal
suffering which had lain like a weight upon her. Such leisure as the
care of Angelo left her, while in Florence, was employed in the
continuation of this work, whose loss we deplore the more for the
intense personal feeling which must have throbbed through its pages.
Margaret had hoped to pass this winter without any enforced literary
labor, learning of her child, as she wisely says, and as no doubt she
did, whatever else she may have found it necessary to do. In the
chronicle of her days he plays an important part, his baby laugh "all
dimples and glitter," his contentment in the fair scene about him when,
carried to the _Cascine_, he lies back in her arms, smiling, singing to
himself, and moving his tiny feet. The Christmas holidays are dearer to
her than ever before, for his sake. In the evening, before the bright
little fire, he sits on his stool between father and mother, reminding
Margaret of the days in which she had been so seated between her own
parents. He is to her "a source of ineffable joys, far purer, deeper,
than anything I ever felt before."
As Margaret's husband was destined to remain a tradition only to the
greater number of her friends, the hints and outlines of him given here
and there in her letters are important, in showing us what companionship
she had gained in return for her great sacrifice.
Ossoli seems to have belonged to a type of character the very opposite
of that which Margaret had best known and most admired. To one wearied
with the over-intellection and restless aspiration of the accomplished
New Englander of that time, the simple geniality of the Italian nature
had all the charm of novelty and contrast. Margaret had delighted in the
race from her first acquaintance with it, but had found its happy
endowments heavily weighted with traits of meanness and ferocity. In her
husband she found its most worthy features, and her heart, wearied with
long seeking and wandering, rested at last in the confidence of a simple
and faithful attachment.
She writes from Florence: "My love for Ossoli is most pure and tender;
nor has any one, except my mother or little children, loved me so
genuinely as he does. To some, I have been obliged to make myself known.
Others have loved me with a mixture of fancy and enthusiasm, excited at
my talent of embellishing life. But Ossoli loves me from simple
affinity; he loves to be with me, and to serve and soothe me."
And in another letter she says: "Ossoli will be a good father. He has
very little of what is called intellectual development, but has
unspoiled instincts, affections pure and constant, and a quiet sense of
duty which, to me who have seen much of the great faults in characters
of enthusiasm and genius, seems of highest value."
Some reminiscences contributed by the accomplished _littérateur_,
William Henry Hurlbut, will help to complete the dim portrait of the
Marchese:--
"The frank and simple recognition of his wife's singular nobleness,
which he always displayed, was the best evidence that his own nature was
of a fine and noble strain. And those who knew him best are, I believe,
unanimous in testifying that his character did in no respect belie the
evidence borne by his manly and truthful countenance to its warmth and
sincerity. He seemed quite absorbed in his wife and child. I cannot
remember ever to have found Madame Ossoli alone, on the evenings when
she remained at home."
Mr. Hurlbut says further: "Notwithstanding his general reserve and
curtness of speech, on two or three occasions he showed himself to
possess quite a quick and vivid fancy, and even a certain share of
humor. I have heard him tell stories remarkably well. One tale
especially, which related to a dream he had in early life, I remember as
being told with great felicity and vivacity of expression."
Though opposed, like all liberals, to the ecclesiastical government of
Rome, the Marchese appeared to Mr. Hurlbut a devout Catholic. He often
attended vesper services in Florence, and Margaret, unwavering in her
Protestantism, still found it sweet to kneel by his side.
Margaret read, this winter, Louis Blanc's "Story of Ten Years," and
Lamartine's "Girondists." Her days were divided between family cares and
her literary work, which for the time consisted in recording her
impressions of recent events. She sometimes passed an evening at the
rooms occupied by the Mozier and Chapman families, where the Americans
then resident in Florence were often gathered together. She met Mr. and
Mrs. Browning often, and with great pleasure. The Marchesa Arconati she
saw almost daily.
One of Margaret's last descriptions is of the Duomo,[G] which she
visited with her husband on Christmas eve:--
"No one was there. Only the altars were lit up, and the priests, who
were singing, could not be seen by the faint light. The vast solemnity
of the interior is thus really felt. The Duomo is more divine than St.
Peter's, and worthy of genius pure and unbroken. St. Peter's is, like
Rome, a mixture of sublimest heaven with corruptest earth. I adore the
Duomo, though no place can now be to me like St. Peter's, where has been
passed the splendidest part of my life."
Thus looked to her, in remembrance, the spot where she had first met her
husband, where she had shared his heroic vigils, and stood beside him
within reach of death.
The little household suffered some inconvenience before the winter was
over. By the middle of December the weather became severely cold, and
Margaret once more experienced the inconvenience of ordinary lodgings in
Italy, in which the means of heating the rooms are very limited. The
baby grew impatient of confinement, and constantly pointed to the door,
which he was not allowed to pass. Of their several rooms, one only was
comfortable under these circumstances. Of this, as occupied in the
winter evenings, Mr. Hurlbut has given a pleasant description:--
"A small, square room, sparingly yet sufficiently furnished, with
polished floor and frescoed ceiling; and, drawn up closely before the
cheerful fire, an oval table, on which stood a monkish lamp of brass,
with depending chains that support quaint classic cups for the olive
oil. There, seated beside his wife, I was sure to find the Marchese,
reading from some patriotic book, and dressed in the dark brown,
red-corded coat of the Guardia Civica, which it was his melancholy
pleasure to wear at home. So long as the conversation could be carried
on in Italian, he used to remain, though he rarely joined in it to any
considerable degree. If many _forestieri_[H] chanced to drop in, he
betook himself to a neighboring _café_,--not absenting himself through
aversion to such visitors, but in the fear lest his silent presence
might weigh upon them."
To complete the picture here given of the Ossoli interior, we should
mention Horace, the youngest brother of Charles Sumner, who was a daily
visitor in this abode of peace. Margaret says of him: "He has solid good
in his mind and heart.... When I am ill, or in a hurry, he helps me like
a brother. Ossoli and Sumner exchange some instruction in English and
Italian."
This young man, remembered by those who knew him as most amiable and
estimable, was abroad at this time for his health, and passed the
winter in Florence. Mr. Hurlbut tells us that he brought Margaret, every
morning, his tribute of fresh wild flowers, and that every evening,
"beside her seat in her little room, his mild, pure face was to be seen,
bright with a quiet happiness," which was in part derived from her
kindness and sympathy.
This brief chronicle of Margaret's last days in Italy would be
incomplete without a few words concerning the enviable position which
she had made for herself in this country of her adoption.
The way in which the intelligence of her marriage was received by her
country-people in Rome and Florence gives the strongest proof of the
great esteem in which they were constrained to hold her. Equally
honorable to her was the friendship of Madame Arconati, a lady of high
rank and higher merit, beloved and revered as few were in the Milan of
that day. She was the friend of Joseph Mazzini, and shared with George
Sand and Elizabeth Barrett Browning the honors of prominence in the
liberal movement and aspiration of the time. But it is in her
intercourse with the people at large that we shall find the deepest
evidence of her true humanity. Hers was no barren creed, divorced from
beneficent action. The wounded soldiers in the hospital, the rude
peasants of Rieti, knew her heart, and thought of her as "a mild saint
and ministering angel."[I] Ferocious and grasping as these peasants
were, she was able to overcome for the time their savage instincts, and
to turn the tide of their ungoverned passions.
In this place, two brothers were one day saved from the guilt of
fratricide by her calm and firm intervention. Both of the men were
furiously angry, and blood had already been drawn by the knife of one,
when she stepped between them, and so reasoned and insisted, that the
weapons were presently flung away, and the feud healed by a fraternal
embrace. After this occurrence, the American lady was recognized as a
peace-maker, and differences of various sorts were referred to her for
settlement, much as domestic and personal difficulties had been
submitted to her in her own New England.
Among the troubles brought under her notice at Rieti were the constant
annoyances caused by the lawless behavior of a number of Spanish troops
who happened to be quartered upon the town. Between these and the
villagers she succeeded in keeping the peace by means of good counsel
and enforced patience. In Florence she seems to have been equally
beloved and respected. A quarrel here took place between her maid, from
Rieti, and a fellow-lodger, in which her earnest effort prevented
bloodshed, and effectually healed the breach between the two women. The
porter of the house in which she dwelt while in Florence was slowly
dying of consumption; Margaret's kindness so attached him to her that he
always spoke of her as _la cara signora_.
The unruly Garibaldi Legion overtook Margaret one day between Rome and
Rieti. She had been to visit her child at the latter place, and was
returning to Rome alone in a vettura. While she was resting for an hour
at a wayside inn, the master of the house entered in great alarm,
crying: "We are lost! Here is the Legion Garibaldi! These men always
pillage, and, if we do not give all up to them without pay, they will
kill us." Looking out upon the road, Margaret saw that the men so much
dreaded were indeed close at hand. For a moment she felt some alarm,
thinking that they might insist upon taking the horses from her
carriage, and thus render it impossible for her to proceed on her
journey. Another moment, and she had found a device to touch their
better nature. As the troop entered, noisy and disorderly, Margaret rose
and said to the innkeeper: "Give these good men bread and wine at my
expense, for after their ride they must need refreshment." The men at
once became quiet and respectful. They partook of the offered
hospitality with the best grace, and at parting escorted her to her
carriage, and took leave of her with great deference. She drove off,
wondering at their bad reputation. They probably were equally astonished
at her dignity and friendliness.
The statements of Margaret's friends touch us with their account of the
charities which this poor woman was able to afford through economy and
self-sacrifice. When she allowed herself only the bare necessaries of
living and diet, she could have the courage to lend fifty dollars to an
artist whom she deemed poorer than herself. Rich indeed was this
generous heart, to an extent undreamed of by wealthy collectors and
pleasure-seekers.