Political condition of Ancona—Arrogance of the Austrian
General—Strictness of the martial law—A man shot on the
denunciation of his wife—Application of the stick—Republican
excesses—Proneness to assassination—_Infernal Association_ in
1849.
Except passingly I have not yet touched upon the political condition of
Ancona. This town, ever since June, 1849, had been occupied by a large
Austrian force, holding it in the Pope's name, and ostensibly for the
maintenance of his authority.
Never was a garrison more overbearing, or less popular. Even the most
uncompromising among the _Codini_,—attached by their own interests as
well as hereditary sympathies to the absolute party,—even they were
sometimes startled by the measures pursued, and could not conceal
their disapprobation. Although aware that they stood indebted to the
Austrians for the maintenance of things in their accustomed train,
they seemed, notwithstanding, to fret under their yoke; and held back
from any intercourse beyond what absolute necessity demanded. As for
the population in general, they kept determinedly aloof; its long
continuance had evidently not reconciled them to military rule, and
the line of separation continued unbroken. The caffè the officers
frequented was still deserted by the natives, and any house, even
of foreign residents, where Austrians were received, was sedulously
avoided.
Thus repulsed alike by friend and foe, the feelings of the Austrians
were naturally not of the most amicable description; but they were
particularly bitter against the supporters of the Government, who,
owing all to them, were so backward in displaying their adherence;
and whenever brought into contact with the municipality, or other
authorities, the General lost no opportunity of manifesting his
profound disgust.
In all their dealings with this stern old potentate, the papal agents
reminded me of Frankenstein and his monster; they cowered before the
presence it had been their desire and effort to call forth, and the
consciousness of the servile timidity with which he was regarded,
served to render him doubly imperious and exacting. One day, having
encountered some delay in complying with his demand for a large and
immediate supply of fuel for his troops, he sent for two members of the
town-council, and swore that if within two hours' time the wood was not
forthcoming, he would have the whole _municipio_ shot without mercy.
To hear this affront dolorously recounted by some of the worshipful
corporation, accompanied by the pantomime and varied intonations with
which an Italian dramatizes any recital, was inexpressibly amusing to
those who, like us, had no personal interest in the question; while
others again were not displeased at the humiliation inflicted on the
Pope's functionaries by his trusty allies. But this was not the first
instance of vehemence shown by General * * *. Some months previous,
he had subjected one of the leading nobles to the indignity of being
marched through the streets, surrounded by soldiers, on the charge
of having forcibly opposed an officer's being quartered in his house.
The real state of the case was simply that, on returning home from a
journey, the principe found installed in his own private apartments
a stranger, whose peremptory refusal to exchange them for another
suite of rooms in the same palazzo caused high words to ensue, which
ended in the young proprietor's summary arrest, and the uncontrollable
indignation of the General. Twenty-four hours were given the prisoner
to choose between immediate execution or a formal apology to the
officer—unpleasant alternatives both, but of which it is needless to
say the latter was accepted.
An incident of a darker nature occurred soon after, which cast a gloom
over every heart, and made one remember that more than mere threats
and passing alarms are connected with martial law and its inexorable
rigour. The prohibition against possessing or secreting any species
of weapon, necessarily issued by the Austrians on first entering the
country, was still in activity, and the penalty for transgressing it
was death. It entered into the heart of a reckless, abandoned woman,
the wife of a poor, honest, elderly artisan, to have recourse to this
enactment to rid herself of her husband, and make way for a younger
and more attractive suitor. Unknown to him, she had in her possession
a sword belonging to his son by a former marriage, a youth who had
served in the Guardia Civica, but was then absent from Ancona; and one
day, after some angry words had passed between them, she thrust the
weapon into a mattress, hurried to the main guard, and denounced her
husband as having concealed arms in his house. A party of soldiers at
once repaired to the spot, a search was instituted, the fatal sword
soon discovered, and the miserable man, franticly protesting his
innocence, was carried off to confinement. His known good conduct,
his harmless demeanour, availed him nothing; and the next morning, the
terror-stricken captive, almost senseless, and so strongly convulsed
that he was obliged to be propped up to receive the soldiers' fire, was
shot in the courtyard of the prison—the accusation of his guilty wife
having been considered sufficient to convict him. I have heard that the
woman went mad from remorse; but this sounds too like the retributive
winding-up of a tragedy to be implicitly believed. Such, however,
was currently reported to be the close of a tale of horror, which,
frightful as it appears, has had but too many counterparts wherever the
Austrians have held sway.
Almost more terrible than death to the keen sensibility of the south
was the infliction of the stick, applied for minor infractions of
martial law. A blow to an Italian is the deepest degradation. He
is taught to regard it as such from his earliest childhood. The
school-boys are never flogged or caned; even home discipline never
goes beyond a mild _schiaffo_, _i. e._ a slap on the face. For a man,
a gentleman, to be subjected to corporal punishment, was an outrage
never to be forgotten. Two young men of good family underwent this
cruel indignity in Ancona. A few ounces of powder and shot, and _a
broken bayonet_, were found in their lodgings. The latter belonged
to a musket which its owner, who was in the Guardia Civica, gave up
at the general disarmament; as it was broken, he had inadvertently
kept it back, little dreaming of the consequences. The other culprit
protested he fancied the ammunition was innocuous so long as he had no
fire-arms. But these reasons availed nothing. They were conveyed under
a guard to the citadel, and there underwent their sentence. Out of very
shame, their friends kept what had occurred as secret as possible, and
I believe they left the country. But the anguish, the bitterness, the
hatred which this incident aroused, are indescribable.
Still one must be just. Insolent, tyrannical as are the Austrians,
crushing everything beneath the iron heel of military despotism, it
would be gross partisanship to pass over in silence the anarchy and
bloodshed which preceded their occupation of Ancona, on which they
founded the justification of their severities.
The people of the _Marche_ have always been noted for their propensity
for assassination—an imputation which, far from denying, I have often
heard the lower orders excuse, with the remark that, since there was
no other way in the Papal States for _the poor_ to obtain redress, it
became a necessity to take the law into their own hands.
Before the accession of Pius IX. these acts of _vendetta_ (their
perpetrators would have scouted their being termed murders) were
astonishingly frequent, while, through the indolence or connivance of
the police, they commonly escaped detection. During the first golden
period of the new pontificate, however, in the universal concord which
prevailed, the stiletto seemed rusting in its sheath; but ere long,
amid the disturbances and ferment brought upon Italy by the spread of
democracy, these evil tendencies revived in Ancona with tenfold vigour.
Political animosity was now brought into play, and suffered to give a
colour to the most lawless excesses. A band of twenty or thirty of the
lowest dregs of the populace formed a league for the extirpation of
the enemies of freedom. Self-styled the Infernal Association, they met
every night to decree what lives were to be offered up to the public
good, and then became themselves the executioners of the doom they
had pronounced. It was in January, 1849, that the existence of this
self-instituted tribunal was first whispered about the town, and that
three or four assassinations every week attested its reality; from
which time its members went on increasing in audacity and thirst for
blood till the month of April, when the strong remonstrances of the
foreign consuls compelled the Government to employ adequate means for
its suppression.
It is the greatest blot on the reputation of Mazzini, who, as chief
Triumvir, held power during that eventful winter which succeeded
the Pope's flight to Gaeta, that he did not instantly use prompt and
vigorous measures for the punishment of these wretches. He did not, as
was asserted by the Austrians, organize the Infernal Association—it
was already in being when the Roman Republic was proclaimed, and the
materials of which it was formed had their origin in long-gone-by years
of corruption, national debasement, and misrule. But he suffered it
to exist, fancying that by striking terror into the supporters of the
Papacy, the Republic would be strengthened; a most miserable adaptation
of the miserable maxim that means are justified by the end.
A word in disapprobation of the existing authorities, or of regret
for the Pope, was laid hold of by the assassins as a pretext for their
awards. At last, emboldened alike by their immunity from all judicial
control, and the palsy of fear which had fallen upon the inhabitants,
they ceased to wait for the shades of night to perpetrate their crimes,
and stabbed or shot at their victims in broad daylight. These men were
all well known by sight and by name (one amongst them, by the by, was
of English parentage, but had been educated by the Jesuits at Loretto),
and used to stand in groups on the Piazza, laying down the law on all
the political intelligence of the day, and causing the passers-by to
tremble at their frown. The relations of those they had murdered were
forbidden to wear mourning; and a gentleman who, a few days after the
assassination of his brother, appeared abroad with a crape-band round
his hat, was threatened with a similar fate unless it was instantly
removed.
A diary kept by one of my cousins, a girl of fifteen, during this
time, is really a curious document, being full of entries like
the following:—“18th March. We are now in the midst of anxiety and
confusion; one or two assassinations occur every night. 30th.—Sad
news has come! The Piedmontese have been defeated at Novara by the
Austrians. This so enraged the assassins that they went about seizing
all the papers which had brought the intelligence; and murdered the
Marchese Nembrini at the Casino because he ventured to expostulate
with them. Four other people were stabbed last night. 3rd April.—Seven
people stabbed, three of whom died immediately; their bodies remained
out in a pouring rain all night.”
And so on: but not to multiply horrors, and yet give a really faithful
portraiture of this extraordinary state of things, I will simply
transcribe _verbatim_ a conversation I held one evening with a lively
young Roman, whom family affairs occasionally brought to Ancona. It was
at a somewhat ponderous _accademia_, or concert, held at one of the
most precise and old-fashioned houses, where the women sat immovably
round the room, and the men crowded helplessly together in the centre,
that he contrived to get behind my chair, and startled me by saying,—
“Do you know we are in the company of five _assassinati_?”
“_Assassinati!_” I repeated, in astonishment.
“Oh, you do not understand,” he rejoined, laughing. “I did not
mean assassinated outright; but merely those whose lives have been
attempted. Look at that shrivelled yellow man, with a face like a
vulture, and an eye like a stone, the Marchese.
“Well, his share came before our political movement, About ten years
ago, towards dusk, he was standing in the street, on the very threshold
of his house—next door to where your uncle lives—when he was stabbed;
the assassin ran away. It was believed to have been an act of private
vengeance; and being pretty well deserved, nobody troubled himself much
about it. A similar motive, also, is supposed to have been the cause
of my good friend, Count F——, being waylaid, as he was returning from
the theatre, about a twelvemonth after, and very severely wounded—in
fact, he was at first given over. Then there is that tall, white-haired
man, the Cavaliere V——. Well, he was both stabbed and shot at, poor
_diavolo_, during the Reign of Terror here, as he was taking a walk
about three in the afternoon. The wounds he received were very serious;
and in addition, the shock to his system was so great, that brain-fever
came on. He was known to be a _Codino_—that was his only crime; but
the hatred of the _rossi_[4] against him ran so high, that during his
illness they used to come and shout, 'Death to V——! Death to V——!'
under the very windows of his sick-room; and threatened the doctors who
attended him with their vengeance if he recovered. Poor creature, his
hair became blanched as you see it now from terror!”
The gay manner with which he commenced his narration had now quite
subsided, and he looked distressed at witnessing the mingled horror and
incredulity my face depicted.
“You scarcely can believe all this,” he said; “and then, if you are
once penetrated with its truth, you will never be able to understand
how any of us can yet hope for improvement in a people that so
miserably abused their first dawn of freedom. All you English reason
in this way now. But I must finish the account of the personages on
our canvas. There stands the young Marchese D——; he was greeted with
two bullets whizzing past his ears about the same period, as he was
returning from a stroll in the public gardens—their Pincian Hill, their
Villa Borghese here!” he added, contemptuously. “Ah, then, to make
up the fifth; there is that little talkative man, who is conversing
with the _cavaliere_ whose misfortunes I have already narrated. He was
stabbed, or shot at, or something of the sort, in our late troubles;
and, _per Bacco!_ it is a pity they did not make an end of him, for
retrograde as he was before, he has become thoroughly Austrian since!”
At this moment, my companion fancied he could detect some scrutinizing
glances cast upon him, and carelessly changing the low, earnest tone in
which he had been speaking, to one of sportive badinage, said something
very trifling and ludicrous, which, for a few moments, apparently
gave a completely new current to our conversation. Then, as soon as he
thought himself no longer observed, he resumed, “I am not half cautious
enough, even with only these poor _Rococos_[5] to deal with, deaf and
purblind as most of them are. Yet, one never can tell who is listening;
and the very walls have ears, I think, sometimes. Amongst Codini, I
endeavour never to mention the word politics and all its concomitant
delights.”
I told him we had noticed this reserve in others besides himself; and
that it was only at my uncle's house that one ever heard anything like
the true expression of their feelings.
“Yes,” he said; “it is a compliment we pay you. We can trust
strangers—not ourselves! What a miserable people we are! In this late
revolution of ours, what opportunities have been lost—what errors
committed—what fatuity and treachery displayed! How difficult will it
be for future historians to unravel the tangled web of all the events
of those memorable three years—from the accession of Pio Nono in '46,
to the sieges of Bologna and Ancona, the capitulation of Rome, and the
re-establishment of Papal authority. For instance, take as a detached
episode the scenes enacted in this good city of Ancona, and you will
tell me that a people who could commit such crimes on the one hand, or
suffer them to be committed on the other, deserve no better fate than
their present servitude. _Basta!_ You have doubtless heard your cousins
speak often enough on this subject?”
“Sufficiently so to make me wonder how they lived through such horrible
anxiety.”
“Oh, they grew used to it, poor things!” he rejoined; “and they tried
to keep up their courage for their father's sake, whose affairs did
not admit of his leaving, and they would not go away without him. I
remember being at the house one evening, when we heard screams in the
street; we all ran to the window, and there was the servant of the
Count ——, wringing his hands, and calling for help, over the prostrate
body of his master, whose yells of agony mingled with the attendant's
cries. Another time, one of them, walking with your uncle in broad
daylight, saw a poor Irish friar shot dead at a few paces' distance.
Ask them, too, if they remember that Easter Sunday, when, a little
after dusk, they were startled by the report of fire-arms; and on
sending to investigate the cause, their emissary returned, pale with
horror, to say that he had stumbled over two dead bodies yet warm,
lying before the Exchange, in the principal street of the town.”
“And all this time the local authorities never interfered?”
“Interfered! They were utterly powerless. Whether the assassins had
a secret understanding with the Governor, or _Preside_, a certain
Mattioli, a creature of Mazzini's, has never been ascertained. All I
can vouch for is, that people repairing to him to implore justice on
the murderers of their relations, found those murderers familiarly
surrounding him in his audience chamber. The utmost lengths of severity
he went to was one day to harangue his friends from the balcony of the
Palazzo del Governo, and say, _Figliuoli, state buoni_; and another
time to publish a manifesto, in which he deplored that 'the streets of
Ancona were too often stained with the blood of citizens,' and begged
them to 'place bounds to their patriotic ardour.'”
“But he put them down at last with a strong hand?”
“Not he! The order came from Rome; that respected demagogue had nothing
to do with it. Towards the end of April, two envoys arrived from
the Triumvirate, aroused at last to the magnitude of the evil, with
private instructions to the _preside_ to put an end to this overflowing
patriotism in the most summary manner possible. The greatest caution
was observed; the officers of the Guardia Civica, on whom the most
reliance could be placed, were summoned and sworn to secrecy; then
instructed as to what had been decided on. In the dead of the night,
the tocsin sounded, the drums beat the _générale_, and different
detachments of the _civica_ marching to the haunts of the assassins,
captured some twenty-five of them before they were well awake. Oh,
there was such joy all over the town the next morning.”
“I can well imagine that,” said I; “but not how a population of thirty
thousand people endured this bondage for three months without an effort
at deliverance.”
“As for that,” he said, “I think, signorina, there are more wonderful
examples in history of submission than even this affords. What is all I
have been telling you to France under Robespierre?”
“And the siege—when did that begin?” I inquired.
“The siege,” he said—“let me see. It was in May—on the 24th of May—that
the Austrians came in sight of the town, and summoned it to surrender.
It was a mad idea that of holding out against them; still, I am glad
it was attempted, and kept up, too, for twenty-eight days. Your cousins
were safe, and away at that time, or I think even their English courage
would have been sorely tried. And how the shells used to come hissing
through the air, and then fall crashing down, as if the very skies were
riven!... In due succession came the capitulation, and the entrance
of the enemy, and the fall of Rome: and now behold us! Austrians
here; French there; a despised and vindictive Government; a sullen
people; an exhausted treasury; and foreign troops. We are in a bad
way, signorina,” he continued, as he rose to take his departure; “and
were it not for Piedmont and the _Rè galantuomo_, it would be useless
to think of better times. A constitution, such as we see in that noble
State, is the just medium between the ravings of the Mazzinians and
the drivellings of the Codini. As long as we remain in the hands of the
Pope, we shall never be more than a nation of buffoons, opera-dancers,
singers, fiddlers, priests, and slaves!”