“Ever since we have established ourselves as a body of action, and that
order has commenced to reign in the bosom of the most distant lodge, as
in that one nearest the centre of action, there is one thought which has
profoundly occupied the men who aspire to universal regeneration. That
is the thought of the enfranchisement of Italy, from which must one day
come the enfranchisement of the entire world, the fraternal republic, and
the harmony of humanity. That thought has not yet been seized upon by
our brethren beyond the Alps. They believe that revolutionary Italy can
only conspire in the shade, deal some strokes of the poinard to sbirri
and traitors, and tranquilly undergo the yoke of events which take place
beyond the Alps for Italy, but without Italy. This error has been fatal
to us on many occasions. It is not necessary to combat it with phrases
which would be only to propagate it. It is necessary to kill it by facts.
Thus, amidst the cares which have the privilege of agitating the minds of
the most vigorous of our lodges, there is one which we ought never forget.
“The Papacy has at all times exercised a decisive action upon the affairs
of Italy. By the hands, by the voices, by the pens, by the hearts of its
innumerable bishops, priests, monks, nuns, and people in all latitudes,
the Papacy finds devotedness without end ready for martyrdom, and that
to enthusiasm. Everywhere, whenever it pleases to call upon them, it
has friends ready to die or lose all for its cause. This is an immense
leverage which the Popes alone have been able to appreciate to its full
power, and as yet they have used it only to a certain extent. To-day
there is no question of reconstituting for ourselves that power, the
prestige of which is for the moment weakened. Our final end is that
of Voltaire and of the French Revolution, the destruction for ever of
Catholicism and even of the Christian idea which, if left standing on the
ruins of Rome, would be the resuscitation of Christianity later on. But
to attain more certainly that result, and not prepare ourselves with
gaiety of heart for reverses which adjourn indefinitely, or compromise
for ages, the success of a good cause, we must not pay attention to
those braggarts of Frenchmen, those cloudy Germans, those melancholy
Englishmen, all of whom imagine they can kill Catholicism, now with an
impure song, then with an illogical deduction; at another time, with a
sarcasm smuggled in like the cottons of Great Britain. Catholicism has a
life much more tenacious than that. It has seen the most implacable, the
most terrible adversaries; and it has often had the malignant pleasure
of throwing holy water on the tombs of the most enraged. Let us permit,
then, our brethren of these countries to give themselves up to the
sterile intemperance of their anti-Catholic zeal. Let them even mock
at our Madonnas and our apparent devotion. With this passport we can
conspire at our ease, and arrive little by little at the end we have in
view.
“Now the Papacy has been for seventeen centuries inherent to the history
of Italy. Italy cannot breathe or move without the permission of the
Supreme Pastor. With him she has the hundred arms of Briareus, without
him she is condemned to a pitiable impotence. She has nothing but
divisions to foment, hatreds to break out, and hostilities to manifest
themselves from the highest chain of the Alps to the lowest of the
Appenines. We cannot desire such a state of things. It is necessary,
then, to seek a remedy for that situation. The remedy is found. The Pope,
whoever he may be, will never come to the secret societies. It is for the
secret societies to come first to the Church, in the resolve to conquer
the two.
“The work which we have undertaken is not the work of a day, nor of a
month, nor of a year. It may last many years, a century perhaps, but in
our ranks the soldier dies and the fight continues.
“We do not mean to win the Popes to our cause, to make them neophytes of
our principles, and propagators of our ideas. That would be a ridiculous
dream, no matter in what manner events may turn. Should cardinals or
prelates, for example, enter, willingly or by surprise, in some manner,
into a part of our secrets, it would be by no means a motive to desire
their elevation to the See of Peter. That elevation would destroy us.
Ambition alone would bring them to apostasy from us. The needs of power
would force them to immolate us. That which we ought to demand, that
which we should seek and expect, as the Jews expected the Messiah, is a
Pope according to our wants. Alexander VI., with all his private crimes,
would not suit us, for he never erred in religious matters. Clement XIV.,
on the contrary, would suit us from head to foot. Borgia was a libertine,
a true sensualist of the eighteenth century strayed into the fifteenth.
He has been anathematized, notwithstanding his vices, by all the voices
of philosophy and incredulity, and he owes that anathema to the vigour
with which he defended the Church. Ganganelli gave himself over, bound
hand and foot, to the ministers of the Bourbons, who made him afraid,
and to the incredulous who celebrated his tolerance, and Ganganelli is
become a very great Pope. He is almost in the same condition that it is
necessary for us to find another, if that be yet possible. With that we
should march more surely to the attack upon the Church than with the
pamphlets of our brethren in France, or even with the gold of England.
Do you wish to know the reason? It is because by that we should have no
more need of the vinegar of Hannibal, no more need the powder of cannon,
no more need even of our arms. We have the little finger of the successor
of St. Peter engaged in the plot, and that little finger is of more value
for our crusade than all the Innocents, the Urbans, and the St. Bernards
of Christianity.
“We do not doubt that we shall arrive at that supreme term of all our
efforts; but when? but how? The unknown does not yet manifest itself.
Nevertheless, as nothing should separate us from the plan traced out;
as, on the contrary, all things should tend to it,—as if success were
to crown the work scarcely sketched out to-morrow,—we wish in this
instruction which must rest a secret for the simple initiated, to give
to those of the Supreme-Lodge, councils with which they should enlighten
the universality of the brethren, under the form of an instruction or
memorandum. It is of special importance, and because of a discretion,
the motives of which are transparent, never to permit it to be felt that
these counsels are orders emanating from the Alta Vendita. The clergy
is put too much in peril by it, that one can at the present hour permit
oneself to play with it, as with one of these small affairs or of these
little princes upon which one need but blow to cause them to disappear.
“Little can be done with those old cardinals or with those prelates,
whose character is very decided. It is necessary to leave them as we
find them, incorrigible, in the school of Consalvi, and draw from our
magazines of popularity or unpopularity the arms which will render useful
or ridiculous the power in their hands. A word which one can ably invent
and which one has the art to spread amongst certain honourable chosen
families by whose means it descends into the _cafés_, and from the
_cafés_ into the streets; a word can sometimes kill a man. If a prelate
comes to Rome to exercise some public function from the depths of the
provinces, know presently his character, his antecedents, his qualities,
his defects above all things. If he is in advance, a declared enemy,
an Albani, a Pallotta, a Bernetti, a Della Genga, a Riverola? Envelope
him in all the snares which you can place beneath his feet; create for
him one of those reputations which will frighten little children and
old women; paint him cruel and sanguinary; recount, regarding him,
some traits of cruelty which can be easily engraved in the minds of
the people. When foreign journals shall gather for us these recitals,
which they will embellish in their turn, (inevitably because of their
respect for truth) show, or rather cause to be shown, by some respectable
fool those papers where the names and the excesses of the personages
implicated are related. As France and England, so Italy will never be
wanting in facile pens which know how to employ themselves in these lies
so useful to the good cause. With a newspaper, the language of which they
do not understand, but in which they will see the name of their delegate
or judge, the people have no need of other proofs. They are in the
infancy of liberalism; they believe in liberals, as, later on, they will
believe in us, not knowing very well why.
“Crush the enemy whoever he may be; crush the powerful by means of lies
and calumnies; but especially crush him in the egg. It is to the youth
we must go. It is that which we must seduce; it is that which we must
bring under the banner of the secret societies. In order to advance by
steps, calculated but sure, in that perilous way, two things are of
the first necessity. You ought have the air of being simple as doves,
but you must be prudent as the serpent. Your fathers, your children,
your wives themselves, ought always be ignorant of the secret which you
carry in your bosoms. If it pleases you, in order the better to deceive
the inquisitorial eye, to go often to confession, you are, as by right
authorised, to preserve the most absolute silence regarding these things.
You know that the least revelation, that the slightest indication escaped
from you in the tribunal of penance, or elsewhere, can bring on great
calamities, and that the sentence of death is already pronounced upon the
revealer, whether voluntary or involuntary.
“Now then, in order to secure to us a Pope in the manner required, it
is necessary to fashion for that Pope a generation worthy of the reign
of which we dream. Leave on one side old age and middle life, go to the
youth, and, if possible, even to infancy. Never speak in their presence
a word of impiety or impurity. _Maxima debetur puero reverentia._ Never
forget these words of the poet for they will preserve you from licences
which it is absolutely essential to guard against for the good of the
cause. In order to reap profit at the home of each family, in order to
give yourself the right of asylum at the domestic hearth, you ought to
present yourself with all the appearance of a man grave and moral. Once
your reputation is established in the colleges, in the gymnasiums,
in the universities, and in the seminaries—once that you shall have
captivated the confidence of professors and students, so act that those
who are principally engaged in the ecclesiastical state should love
to seek your conversation. Nourish their souls with the splendours of
ancient Papal Rome. There is always at the bottom of the Italian heart
a regret for Republican Rome. Excite, enkindle those natures so full of
warmth and of patriotic fire. Offer them at first, but always in secret,
inoffensive books, poetry resplendent with national emphasis; then little
by little you will bring your disciples to the degree of cooking desired.
When upon all the points of the ecclesiastical state at once, this daily
work shall have spread our ideas as the light, then you will be able to
appreciate the wisdom of the counsel in which we take the initiative.
“Events, which in our opinion, precipitate themselves too rapidly, go
necessarily in a few months’ time to bring on an intervention of Austria.
There are fools who in the lightness of their hearts please themselves in
casting others into the midst of perils, and, meanwhile, there are fools
who at a given hour drag on even wise men. The revolution which they
meditate in Italy will only end in misfortunes and persecutions. Nothing
is ripe, neither the men nor the things, and nothing shall be for a long
time yet; but from these evils you can easily draw one new chord, and
cause it to vibrate in the hearts of the young clergy. That is the hatred
of the stranger. Cause the German to become ridiculous and odious even
before his foreseen entry. With the idea of the Pontifical supremacy, mix
always the old memories of the wars of the priesthood and the Empire.
Awaken the smouldering passions of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, and
thus you will obtain for yourselves the reputation of good Catholics and
pure patriots.
“That reputation will open the way for our doctrines to pass to the
bosoms of the young clergy, and go even to the depths of convents. In a
few years the young clergy will have, by the force of events, invaded
all the functions. They will govern, administer, and judge. They will
form the council of the Sovereign. They will be called upon to choose
the Pontiff who will reign; and that Pontiff, like the greater part of
his contemporaries, will be necessarily imbued with the Italian and
humanitarian principles which we are about to put in circulation. It is
a little grain of mustard which we place in the earth, but the sun of
justice will develop it even to be a great power; and you will see one
day what a rich harvest that little seed will produce.
“In the way which we trace for our brethren there are found great
obstacles to conquer, difficulties of more than one kind to surmount.
They will be overcome by experience and by perspicacity; but the end
is beautiful. What does it matter to put all the sails to the wind in
order to attain it? You wish to revolutionize Italy? Seek out the Pope
of whom we give the portrait. You wish to establish the reign of the
elect upon the throne of the prostitute of Babylon? Let the clergy march
under your banner in the belief always that they march under the banner
of the Apostolic Keys. You wish to cause the last vestige of tyranny and
of oppression to disappear? Lay your nets like Simon Barjona. Lay them
in the depths of sacristies, seminaries, and convents, rather than in
the depths of the sea, and if you will precipitate nothing you will give
yourself a draught of fishes more miraculous than his. The fisher of
fishes will become a fisher of men. You will bring yourselves as friends
around the Apostolic Chair. You will have fished up a Revolution in Tiara
and Cope, marching with Cross and banner—a Revolution which it will need
but to be spurred on a little to put the four quarters of the world on
fire.
“Let each act of your life tend then to discover the Philosopher’s Stone.
The alchemists of the middle ages lost their time and the gold of their
dupes in the quest of this dream. That of the secret societies will be
accomplished for the most simple of reasons, because it is based on the
passions of man. Let us not be discouraged then by a check, a reverse, or
a defeat. Let us prepare our arms in the silence of the lodges, dress our
batteries, flatter all passions the most evil and the most generous, and
all lead us to think that our plans will succeed one day above even our
most improbable calculations.”
This document reveals the whole line of action followed since by the
Italian Revolutionists. It gives also a fair insight into tactics with
which other European countries have been made familiar by Freemasonry
generally. But we are in possession of what appears to me a still more
striking document, written for the benefit of the Piedmontese lodges of
Carbonari, by one of the _Alta Vendita_, whose pseudonym was _Piccolo
Tigre_—Little Tiger. I may here mention that the custom of taking these
fanciful appellations has been common to the secret societies from the
very beginning. Arouet became Voltaire, the notorious Baron Knigg was
called Philo, Baron Dittfort was called Minos, and so of the principal
chiefs of the dark Atheistic conspiracy then and since. The first leader
or grand chief of the _Alta Vendita_ was a corrupt Italian nobleman who
took the name of _Nubius_. From such documents as he, before his death,
managed, in revenge for being sacrificed by the party of Mazzini, as we
shall see, to have communicated to the authorities of Rome; or which
were found by the vigilance of the Roman detective police; we find that
his funds, and the funds for carrying on the deep and dark conspiracy in
which he and his confederates were engaged, came chiefly from rich German
Jews. Jews, in fact, from the commencement, played always a prominent
part in the conspiracies of Atheism. They do so still. _Piccolo Tigre_,
who seems to have been the most active agent of _Nubius_, was a Jew.
He travelled under the appearance of an itinerant banker and jeweller.
This character of money-lender or usurer disarmed suspicion regarding
himself and such of his confederates as he had occasion to call upon in
his peregrinations. Of course he had the protection of the Masonic body
everywhere. The most desperate revolutionists were generally the most
desperate scoundrels otherwise. They were gamblers, spendthrifts, and the
very class with which an usurious Jew would be expected to have money
dealings. _Piccolo Tigre_ thus travelled safely; and brought safely to
the superior lodges of the Carbonari, such instructions as the _Alta
Vendita_ thought proper to give. In the document referred to, which I
shall now read for you, it will be seen how anxious the Secret Directory
were to make use of the most common form of Masonry notwithstanding the
contempt they had for the _bons vivants_ who only learned from the craft
how to become drunkards and liberals. Beyond the Masons, and unknown to
them, though formed generally from them, lay the deadly secret conclave
which, nevertheless, used and directed them for the ruin of the world
and of their own selves. The following is a translation of the document
I speak of, called “an instruction,” and addressed by _Piccolo Tigre_ to
the Piedmontese lodges of the Carbonari:—