THE OLD FORCES AND THE NEW IN THE ETERNAL CITY.
[Sidenote: An Audience with the Pope.]
Well, we have seen the Pope. Hearing that a body of Italian pilgrims
were to be received by the pontiff at the Vatican, and having assured
ourselves that the function was one which would involve no official
recognition of the Pope on our part, and that we should be merely
Protestant spectators, we gladly accepted the offer of tickets for the
audience, and, supposing in our simplicity that, as the reception was
set for noon, we should be sufficiently early if we went at eleven
o'clock, we drove up to the main entrance of the Vatican at that hour.
There was a great throng of people about the door, but our tickets
obtained for us immediate entrance along with a stream of other ladies
and gentlemen. The regulation attire for these functions is full
evening dress for gentlemen, while ladies wear black, with no hat, but
with a lace mantilla on the head. We first passed through a double line
of the famous Swiss Guards, in their extraordinary uniform of crimson,
yellow and black, designed by no less a person than Michael Angelo.
Then we were shown up the great stairway, and passing through a couple
of large rooms, one of which was adorned with Raphael's frescoes, we
found ourselves at the entrance of a long and spacious hall, already
densely crowded, as it seemed to us, but with a space kept open down
the centre between the rows of seats on either side. Looking down
this open space, we could see at the other end, on a slightly raised
platform, the pontifical throne, upholstered in red velvet, with
golden back and arms, effectively set in the midst of crimson hangings,
which swept in rich masses from the lofty ceiling to the floor.
Preceded by guards, we travelled the whole length of the hall, and
found, to our great gratification, that our seats were quite close to
the throne, so that we had an excellent position for seeing and hearing
all that was going on. We soon noticed that many of the hundreds of
people present, like some of us, had not observed the regulations as
to dress. Many others had. Mingled with the soberer attire of the
spectators, pilgrims and priests, we saw now and then a violet cassock,
as one bishop after another drifted in. Apart from these vestments,
there was no semblance of a religious gathering. It was more like a
social function, and the people were chatting gaily, the jolliest and
noisiest crowd being a group of young seminarians, prospective priests,
who occupied the same bench with us and the two or three nearest to
it. After we had been there an hour the great clock of St. Peter's
struck twelve. Instantly all the noisy young seminarians rose to their
feet and began to recite, in a lower, humming tone, their _Ave-Marias_
and _Pater-Nosters_. As soon as the reciting and counting of beads
was over, as it was in a minute, they struck in again with their gay
conversation. We had plenty of time to take it all in. The Pope is
always late, and it was an hour after the time fixed for the audience
when he appeared; but at last he did, and instantly everybody, men and
women, sprang up on the benches and chairs, frantically waving their
handkerchiefs and shouting at the top of their voices, "_Evviva il
Papa-Re! Evviva il Papa-Re!_"--"Long live the Pope-King! Long live the
Pope-King!"--the ablest performer in this part of the ceremony being a
leather-lunged young priest at my elbow, with a voice as powerful and
persistent as that of a hungry calf, and who made known his desire
for the restoration of the temporal power to the Pope with such energy
that the perspiration rolled down his fat face in shining rivulets.
I never heard anything like it except in a political convention or a
stock exchange. Accompanied by the Noble Guard, a body of picked men
renowned for their superb physique and clad in resplendent uniform, the
Holy Father was borne in on an arm-chair, carried by twelve men, also
in uniform. Occasionally he would rise to his feet with evident effort,
leaning on, or rather grasping, one arm of his chair, and bless the
people he was passing, with two fingers outstretched in the familiar
attitude that we have seen in the pictures. At such times the furious
acclamations, and waving of handkerchiefs, and clapping of hands,
would be redoubled. He passed within arm's length of us, a little knot
of Protestants, silent amid the uproar. It was a pitiful spectacle.
A pallid, feeble, tottering old man, with slender, shrunken neck,
and excessively sharp and prominent features, nose and chin almost
meeting--we now understood Zola's description: "The simious ugliness of
his face, the largeness of his nose, the long slit of his mouth, the
hugeness of his ears, the conflicting jumble of his withered features."
But out of this waxen face peered a pair of brilliant dark eyes, the
only sign of real vitality about him. When he had been carefully
lowered by the chair-bearers, and had taken his throne on the platform,
with his attendants ranged round him, the spokesman of the pilgrims
came forward and read an address, to which the Pope's amanuensis,
standing by his side, read a brief reply. Then the Pope pronounced the
benediction in a surprisingly clear voice, after which the pilgrims
were introduced individually, not all of them, but a certain number of
representative persons among them. These all knelt and kissed his hand.
When this ceremony was over the audience closed, and the Pontiff was
borne out as he came in, amid wild applause.
[Sidenote: The Pope's Last Jubilee in St. Peter's.]
On the third of March, while I was in Egypt, our party in Rome saw a
much more imposing ceremony than the one I have just described. Every
one has noticed how numerous the papal jubilees have been during the
last quarter of a century, every year or so seeing the celebration of
some jubilee of the Pope's official life. In twenty-one years he has
had no less than fourteen of them. Their frequency should not surprise
us when we remember that each of them turns a vast stream of gifts and
money into the papal treasury from every part of the world. One of my
correspondents writes me that for the celebration of March 3rd both
sides of the nave of St. Peter's were lined with pens or boxes, all
free except those near the high altar, and in the middle of the nave
a passage about fifteen feet wide was railed off for the procession.
"We drove to St. Peter's through a pouring rain about 7:45 A. M. The
building was already packed with people. It is estimated that there
were fifty thousand of us by eleven o'clock. We walked down the left
aisle and took our position at the base of a pillar, where we could
see the Pope as he entered from the right aisle. There we waited from
eight o'clock till after eleven. He was an hour late. Finally, we heard
the silver trumpets sounding from the gallery in the dome. His guards
preceded him, and other attendants bearing swords, maces and a cross.
The caps indicating the offices he filled before he became Pope were
carried on cushions by three cardinals. He was himself carried on the
shoulders of twelve men, dressed in rich red costumes. The Pope sat in
his red and gold chair, richly robed in white satin embroidered with
gold. He wore a crown of the same materials, white silk mits, and a
large ring. When he entered the nave he stood and blessed the people,
holding up two fingers. The music was fine. We heard the singing as it
came nearer and nearer, but as soon as the Pope appeared the people
broke into shouts, waving handkerchiefs, and making so much noise that
we could no longer hear the music. We left after five hours."
[Illustration: EDWARD VII. OF ENGLAND, AND VICTOR EMMANUEL III. OF
ITALY, IN ROME.]
Later in the season those members of our party who remained in Rome
while we were travelling through Egypt and Palestine, had very
satisfactory views of King Edward VII. of England and William II.,
the Emperor of Germany, on their visits to Rome. As they had seen the
Prince of Wales in London, and young Prince Edward, who will also be
King of England some day if he lives, and the other royal children
at Marlborough House, and as they have repeatedly seen King Victor
Emmanuel and Queen Helena, they have had unusual opportunities for
seeing for themselves whether the royalties are made of common clay. I
must say for them that they are stauncher than ever in their devotion
to the republican ideals of our own country. Their opportunities for
seeing these royalties were better than those enjoyed by most visitors
to Rome, because their rooms overlooked the palace and grounds of the
Queen mother, Marguerita, and King Edward and the Kaiser, like other
royal visitors to Rome, made it their first business to call on her.
She is still the most beloved woman in Italy.
[Sidenote: Our Quarters on the Pincian Hill.]
The location of our rooms was advantageous in many other respects.
They were high up in the southwestern corner of a tall building on
the Pincian Hill, so high that we could look clear across the city
to the Sabine Mountains. As soon as the sun rose over the eastern
hills he looked cheerily into our windows, and continued his genial
companionship with us till he sank into the Mediterranean at night. We
had selected the rooms with a view to this particularly, remembering
the Italian proverb that "When the sun goes out of the window, the
doctor comes in at the door." A room on the north side of a building
should never be taken. The Roman winter is short but sharp. We could
see snow on the mountains during nearly the whole of our stay, which
in the case of the majority of us was five months. Then, too, we were
close to the city wall, and to the gate which led out into the lovely
Borghese Gardens, "whose wooded and flowery lawns are more beautiful
than the finest English park scenery," where "the stone pines lift
their dense clumps of branches upon a slender length of stem, so high
that they look like green islands in the air, flinging down a shadow
upon the turf so far off that you scarcely know which tree made it";
where there are "avenues of cypress, resembling dark flames of huge
funeral candles, which spread dusk and twilight round about them,
instead of cheerful radiance"; and where ancient and majestic ilex
trees "lean over the green turf in ponderous grace.... Never was
there a more venerable quietude than that which sleeps among their
sheltering boughs; never a sweeter sunshine than that which gladdens
the gentle gloom which these leafy patriarchs strive to diffuse over
the swelling and subsiding lawns." Moreover, our quarters were within
so short a walk of the park on the Pincio (where the band plays every
afternoon, and where all Rome drives round and round the little circle
at the top), and of the terrace of the Villa Medici, that we were
drawn thither day after day to watch the picturesque groups of models
lounging in the wintry sun on the great flight of steps that lead
from the Church of Trinita de' Monti down to the Piazza di Spagna,
to muse over the Eternal City spread out below us, with the dome of
St. Peter's, in the distance, standing out against a sky of gold,
and, above all, to watch "the light that broods over the fallen sun."
Nowhere in the world, at least so far as my observation of it extends,
is this wonderful glow which suffuses all the western sky with crimson,
orange and violet lights after the sun goes down--nowhere else is this
afterglow at once so rich and so delicate as at Rome.
[Sidenote: The Sweep of History Seen from the Janiculan.]
But it is from the Janiculan Hill, on the other side of the Tiber,
that one gets the most comprehensive view of the city. Among other
things that take the eye from that commanding point there are three
hills which may be said to epitomize the history of Rome: on the east
the Palatine, where, as its name intimates, the palaces of the Cæsar's
stood, representing the culmination of the glory of pagan Rome; on
the west, the Vatican, where, as its name suggests, a prophet ought
to dwell, though I fear he does not, and where St. Peter's, with its
"insolent opulence of marble" and its colossal apotheosis of the
popedom, represents the culmination of the glory of papal Rome; and,
immediately in front, in the centre of the city, the Quirinal, where
Victor Emmanuel's royal house stands, representing the new government
of free and united Italy. From his windows in the Quirinal Palace, the
King can look across the intervening city to the windows of that other
palace where the relentless foe of his government lives, that vast,
luxurious "prison" of the Vatican, with its eleven thousand rooms, the
largest palace in the world, with its museums and libraries filled with
priceless treasures, and with its extensive gardens and grounds.
Zola has pointed out how persistent, through all these three periods
of Rome's history, has been that passion for cyclopean building, the
"blossoming of that ancient sap, peculiar to the soil of Rome, which in
all ages has thrown up preposterous edifices, of exaggerated hugeness
and dazzling and ruinous luxury." First, the pagan emperors set the
pace, and of their work we may take the Colosseum and the Baths of
Caracalla as specimens.
[Sidenote: The Colosseum and the Baths of Caracalla.]
"The Colosseum. Ah! that colossus, only one-half or so of which has
been destroyed by time as with the stroke of a mighty scythe, it rises
in its enormity and majesty like a stone lacework, with hundreds of
empty bays agape against the blue of heaven! There is a world of halls,
stairs, landings and passages, a world where one loses one's self amid
the death-like silence and solitude. The furrowed tiers of seats, eaten
into by the atmosphere, are like shapeless steps leading down into some
old extinct crater, some natural circus excavated by the force of the
elements in indestructible rock. The hot suns of eighteen hundred years
have baked and scorched this ruin, which has reverted to a state of
nature, bare and golden-brown like a mountain side, since it has been
stripped of its vegetation, the flora which once made it like a virgin
forest. And what an evocation when the mind sets flesh and blood and
life again on all that dead osseous framework, fills the circus with
the ninety thousand spectators which it could hold, marshals the games
and the combats of the arena, gathers a whole civilization together,
from the emperor and the dignitaries to the surging plebeian sea, all
aglow with the agitation and brilliancy of an impassioned people,
assembled under the ruddy reflection of the giant purple _velum_. And
then, yet further on the horizon, were other cyclopean ruins, the Baths
of Caracalla, standing there like relics of a race of giants long
since vanished from the world: halls extravagantly and inexplicably
spacious and lofty; vestibules large enough for an entire population;
a _frigidarium_, where five hundred people could swim together; a
_tepidarium_ and a _calidarium_ on the same proportions, born of a
wild craving for the huge; and then the terrific massiveness of the
structures, the thickness of the piles of brick-work, such as no feudal
castle ever knew; and, in addition, the general immensity which makes
passing visitors look like lost ants; one wonders for what men, for
what multitudes, this monstrous edifice was reared. To-day you would
say a mass of rocks in the rough thrown from some height for building
the abode of Titans."
[Sidenote: The Papal Passion for Terrestrial Immortality.]
Then the Popes, when they came to power, followed this pagan example,
moved by the same spirit of conquest, the same human vanity, the same
passionate desire to set their names on imperishable walls, and, after
dominating the world, to leave behind them indestructible traces,
tangible proofs of their passing glory, eternal edifices of bronze
and marble, to attest that glory till the end of time. "Among the
illustrious popes there has not been one that did not seek to build,
did not revert to the traditions of the Cæsars, eternizing their reigns
in stone and raising temples for resting-places, so as to rank among
the gods. Ever the same passion for terrestrial immortality has burst
forth: it has been a battle as to who should leave the highest, most
substantial, most gorgeous monument; and so acute has been the disease
that those who, for lack of means and opportunity, have been unable
to build, and have been forced to content themselves with repairing,
have, nevertheless, desired to bequeath the memory of their modest
achievements to subsequent generations by commemorative marble slabs
engraved with pompous inscriptions. These slabs are to be seen on every
side; not a wall has ever been strengthened but some pope has stamped
it with his arms, not a ruin has been restored, not a palace repaired,
not a fountain cleaned, but the reigning pope has signed the work with
his Roman and pagan title of 'Pontifex Maximus.'[19] It is a haunting
passion, a form of involuntary debauchery, the fated florescence of
that compost of ruins, that dust of edifices whence new edifices are
ever arising. And given the perversion with which the old Roman soil
almost immediately tarnished the doctrines of Jesus, that resolute
passion for domination, and that desire for terrestrial glory which
wrought the triumph of Catholicism in scorn of the humble and pure, the
fraternal and simple ones of the primitive church, one may well ask
whether Rome has ever been Christian at all."
[Sidenote: The Building Boom under the New Government.]
And, finally, the new government of Victor Emmanuel, for a time at
least, was caught in the same current, infected with the same mania for
building that seems to exhale from the very soil of the Eternal City.
As the popes had not become masters of Rome without feeling impelled
to rebuild it in their passion to rule over the world, so young Italy,
"yielding to the hereditary madness of universal domination, had in
its turn sought to make the city larger than any other, erecting whole
districts for people who never came." But, fortunately for Italy,
the old idea was not unmixed with newer and better ones. Their first
delirious outburst of huge building operations has been explained as "a
legitimate explosion of the delight and the hopes of a young nation
anxious to show its power. The question was to make Rome a modern
capital worthy of a great kingdom, and before aught else there were
sanitary requirements to be dealt with; the city needed to be cleansed
of all the filth which disgraced it. One cannot nowadays imagine in
what abominable putrescence the City of the Popes, the _Roma sporca_
which artists regret, was then steeped: the vast majority of the houses
lacked even the most primitive arrangements, the public thoroughfares
were used for all purposes, noble ruins served as store-places for
sewage, the princely palaces were surrounded by filth, and the streets
were perfect manure beds, which fostered frequent epidemics. Thus, vast
municipal works were absolutely necessary; the question was one of
health and life itself. And in much the same way it was only right to
think of building houses for the new comers who would assuredly flock
into the city. There had been a precedent at Berlin, whose population,
after the establishment of the German Empire, had suddenly increased
by some hundreds of thousands. In the same way the population of Rome
would certainly be doubled, tripled, quadrupled, for, as the new centre
of national life, the city would necessarily attract all the _vis viva_
of the provinces. And at this thought pride stepped in; the fallen
government of the Vatican must be shown what Italy was capable of
achieving, what splendor she would bestow on the new and third Rome,
which, by the magnificence of its thoroughfares and the multitude of
its people, would far excel either the imperial or the papal city." We
need not follow the melancholy story of this delusion. The boom had a
disastrous collapse, and the city was left full of vast, pretentious,
flimsy, deserted palaces. The best thing about them is that they are
perishable. The lesson, happily, was not lost on the men of the new
order in Italy, and they seem at last to have extricated themselves
from the toils of that miasmatic megalo-mania. The government is sane,
sound, conservative, proceeding with care and deliberation in its
upbuilding of the country, understanding the meaning of the proverb
that "Rome was not built in a day," and it has already given the
country more security and prosperity than it has enjoyed for many, many
centuries. If it can continue to maintain itself against the priests,
there is undoubtedly a bright future before Italy.
But can it maintain itself against the priests? I think so. Yet a
man would be blind indeed who could not see their number, power and
activity. Rome swarms with them. Speaking of the incredible number of
cassocks that one encounters in the streets, Zola says: "Ah! that ebb
and flow; that ceaseless tide of black gowns and frocks of every hue!
With their processions of students ever walking abroad, the seminaries
of the different nations would alone suffice to drape and decorate
the streets, for there are the French and the English all in black,
the South Americans in black with blue sashes, the North Americans
in black with red sashes, the Poles in black with green sashes, the
Greeks in blue, the Germans in red, the Scots in violet, the Romans in
black or violet or purple, the Bohemians with chocolate sashes, the
Irish with red lappets, the Spaniards with blue cords, to say nothing
of all the others with broidery and bindings and buttons in a hundred
different styles. And, in addition, there are the confraternities, the
penitents, white, black, blue and gray, with sleeveless frocks and
capes of different hue, gray, blue, black or white. And thus, even
nowadays, papal Rome at times seems to resuscitate, and one can realize
how tenaciously and vigorously she struggles on in order that she may
not disappear in the cosmopolitan Rome of the new era." Yes, Italy will
escape from the clutches of the papacy, but she will have to work.
There must be no relaxation of vigilance or energy on her part--or on
ours. For this multitude of young priests from every part of the world
spells menace for other lands besides Italy.
FOOTNOTE:
[19] On the Appian Way, beyond the tomb of Cecilia Metella, a marble
tablet has been placed, informing all men that here Pius IX. once ate
his lunch.