PRISON AND SCAFFOLD
1821-1831
Political Trials in Venetia and Lombardy--Risings in the South and
Centre--Ciro Menotti.
The Austrians fully expected a rising in Lombardy in the middle of
March, and that they were not without serious fears as to its
consequences is proved by the preparations which they quietly made to
abandon Milan, if necessary. The Court travelling-carriages were got
ready, and the younger princes were sent away. Carbonarism had been
introduced into Lombardy the year before by two Romagnols, Count
Laderchi and Pietro Maroncelli. It was their propaganda that put the
Austrian Government on the alert, and was the cause of the Imperial
decree which denounced the society as a subversive conspiracy, aiming
at the destruction of all constituted authority, and pointed to death
and confiscation of property as the penalty for joining it. There was
the additional clause, destined to bear terrible fruit, which declared
accomplices, punishable with life-imprisonment, all who knew of the
existence of lodges (_Vendite_, as they were called) or the names of
associates, without informing the police. In the autumn of 1820,
Maroncelli and many others, including Silvio Pellico, the young
Piedmontese poet, were arrested as Carbonari, while the arrest of the
so-called accomplices began with Count Giovanni Arrivabene of Mantua,
who had no connection with the society, but was charged with having
heard from Pellico that he was a member. Pellico and his companions
were still lying untried in the horrible Venetian prisons, called,
from their leaden roofs, the 'Piombi,' when the events of 1821 gave
rise to a wholesale batch of new arrests. As soon as they knew of a
movement in Piedmont, the Lombard patriots prepared to co-operate in
it; that they were actually able to do nothing, was because it broke
out prematurely, and also, to some extent, because their head, Count
Confalonieri, was incapacitated by severe illness. But though their
activity profited not at all to the cause, it was fatal to
themselves. The Austrian Government had, as has been stated, a
correct general notion of what was going on, but at the beginning it
almost entirely lacked proofs which could inculpate individuals. In
the matter of arrests, however, there was one sovereign rule which all
the despotic Governments in Italy could and did follow in every
emergency: it was to lay hands on the most intelligent, distinguished
and upright members of the community. This plan never failed; these
were the patriots, the conspirators of those days. The second thing
which the Austrians made a rule of doing, was to extort from the
prisoners some incautious word, some shadow of an assent or admission
which would place them on the track of other compromised persons, and
furnish them with such scraps of evidence as they deemed sufficient,
in order to proceed against those already in their power. In their
secret examination of prisoners, they had reduced the system of
provocative interrogation to a science. They made use of every
subterfuge, and, above all, of fabricated confessions fathered on
friends of the prisoner, to extract the exclamation, the nod of the
head, the confused answer, which served their purpose. The prisoners,
men of good faith, and inexperienced in the arts of deception, were
but children in their hands, and scarcely one of them was not doomed
to be the involuntary cause of some other person's ruin--generally
that of a dear and intimate friend.
The first to be arrested was Gaetano De-Castillia, who went with the
Marquis Giorgio Pallavicini on a mission to Piedmont while the
revolution there was at its height. They even had an interview with
the Prince of Carignano, 'a pale and tall young man, with a charming
expression' (so Pallavicini describes him), but had obtained from him
no assurance, except the characteristic parting word: 'Let us hope in
the future.' When De-Castillia was arrested, Pallavicini, then a youth
of twenty, and full of noble sentiments, rushed to the director of the
police with the avowal: 'It was I who induced De-Castillia to go to
Piedmont; if the journey was a crime, the fault is mine; punish me!'
No error could have proved more calamitous; till that moment the
Austrians were in ignorance of the Piedmontese mission; De-Castillia
was arrested on some far more trifling charge. Pallavicini's generous
folly was rewarded by fourteen years' imprisonment, and its first
consequence was the arrest of Count Confalonieri, at whose instance
the visit to Turin had been made. For months the Austrians had desired
to have a clue against him; the opportunity was come at last.
Federico Confalonieri, brilliant, handsome, persuasive, of great
wealth and ancient lineage, innately aristocratic, but in the best
sense, was morally at the head of Lombardy, by the selection of the
fittest, which at certain junctures makes one man pre-appointed leader
while he is still untried. When in England, the Duke of Sussex
prevailed upon him to become a Freemason, but he was not a Carbonaro
in the technical sense, though both friends and foes believed him to
be one. He knew, however, more about this and the other secret
societies then existing in Italy--even those of the reactionary
party--than did most of the initiated. In an amusing passage in his
memoirs he relates how, when once forcibly detained in a miserable
hostelry in the Calabrian Mountains, a den of brigands, of whom the
chief was the landlord, he guessed that this man was a Calderaio, and
it occurred to him to make the sign of that bloodthirsty sect. Things
changed in a second; the brigand innkeeper was at his feet, the
complete household was set in motion to serve him. In 1821, he
founded at Milan, not a secret society, but an association in which
all the best patriots were enrolled, and of which the sole engagement
was the formula, repeated on entering its ranks: 'I swear to God, and
on my honour, to exert myself to the utmost of my power, and even at
the sacrifice of my life, to redeem Italy from foreign dominion.'
Knowing to what extent he was a marked man, Confalonieri would have
only exercised common prudence in leaving the country, but he could
not reconcile himself to the idea of flight. Anonymous warnings rained
upon him: most likely they all came from the same quarter, from Count
Bubna, the Austrian Field-Marshal, with whom Confalonieri was
personally on friendly terms. On the 12th of December the Countess
Bubna made a last effort to save him; her carriage was ready, she
implored him to take it and escape across the frontier. He refused,
and next day he was arrested.
Austrian legal procedure was slow; the trial of the first Carbonari,
Silvio Pellico and his companions, did not take place till 1822. On
the 22nd of February the sentence of death was read to Silvio Pellico
in his Venetian prison, to be commuted to one of fifteen years'
imprisonment at Spielberg, a fortress converted into a convict prison
in a bleak position in Moravia. To that rock of sorrow, consecrated
for ever by the sufferings of some of the purest of men, Silvio
Pellico and Pietro Maroncelli, with nine or ten companions, condemned
at the same time, were the first Italians to take the road. Here they
remained for the eight years described by the author of _Francesca da
Rimini_, in _Le Mie Prigioni_, a book that served the Italian cause
throughout the world. Even now some Italians are indignant at the
spirit of saintly resignation which breathes upon Silvio Pellico's
pages, at the veil which is drawn over many shocking features in the
treatment of the prisoners; they do not know the tremendous force
which such reticence gave his narrative. _Le Mie Prigioni_ has the
reserve strength of a Greek tragedy.
Maroncelli contracted a disease of the leg through the hardships
endured; amputation became necessary, but could not be performed till
permission was received from Vienna--a detail showing the red-tapism
which governed all branches of the Austrian administration. This
patriot went, after his release, to America, where he died, poor,
blind and mad. Pellico, crushed in soul, devoted his latter years
entirely to religion. Only men of iron fibre could come out as they
went in. The Spielberg prisoners wore chains, and their food was so
bad and scanty that they suffered from continual hunger, with its
attendant diseases. Unlike the thieves and assassins confined in the
same fortress, the State prisoners were given no news of their
families. Such was Spielberg, 'a sepulchre without the peace of the
dead.'
The State trials of the Lombard patriots in 1823 resulted in seven
capital sentences on the Milanese, thirteen on the Brescians, and four
on the Mantuans. The fate of the other prisoners depended on that of
Count Confalonieri. If the sentence on him were not carried out, the
lives at least of the others might be regarded as safe, since he was
looked upon as the head. It is certain that the authorities, and the
Emperor himself, had the most firm intention of having him executed;
the more merciful decision was solely due to the Countess
Confalonieri's journey to Vienna. Accompanied by the prisoner's aged
father, this beautiful and heroic woman, a daughter of the noble
Milanese house of Casati, went to Vienna before the conclusion of the
trial, to be ready for any eventuality. When the sentence of death was
passed, it was announced by the Emperor to old Count Confalonieri,
whom he advised to return with the Countess Teresa as fast as possible
if they wished to see the condemned man alive. Undaunted by the news,
the brave wife sought an interview with the Empress, in whom she found
a warm advocate, but who was obliged to own, after several attempts to
obtain a reprieve, that she despaired of success. Teresa Confalonieri
hurried back to Milan through the bitter winter weather, in doubt
whether she should arrive before the execution had taken place. But
the unceasing efforts of the Empress won the day. The respite was
granted on the 13th of January; life-imprisonment was substituted for
death. The countess sent her husband the pillow which she had bathed
with her tears during her terrible journey; needless to say that it
was not given to him. She died broken-hearted with waiting before he
was set at liberty in the year 1836.
When Count Confalonieri reached Vienna on his way to Spielberg, he was
surprised to find himself installed in a luxurious apartment, with
three servants to wait upon him. Though too ill to touch solid food, a
sumptuous breakfast and dinner were daily set before him; and but for
the constant jingle of his chains, he would have thought himself in a
first-class hotel on a journey of pleasure. The object of these
attentions was clear when one evening Prince Metternich came to see
him, and stayed for three hours, endeavouring by every exquisite
flattery, by every promise and persuasion, to worm out of him the
secrets of which he alone was believed to be the depositary. The
Austrian Government had spent £60,000 on the Milan Commission, and,
practically, they were no wiser than when it began. Would Confalonieri
enlighten them? Whatever scruples he might have felt during the trial
could be now laid aside; there was no question of new arrests. It was
from pure, abstract love of knowledge that the Government, or, rather,
the Emperor, desired to get at the truth. If he preferred to open his
mind to the Emperor in person, His Majesty would grant him a secret
audience. Above all, what was the real truth about the Prince of
Carignano?
All the rest was a blind; it was the wish to have some damnatory
evidence against Charles Albert, such as would for ever exclude him
from the throne, that had induced the Emperor and his astute minister
to make this final attempt.
'Confalonieri need never go to Spielberg,' said the Prince; 'let him
think of his family, of his adored wife, of his own talents, of his
future career, which was on the brink of being blotted out as
completely as if he were dead!' Confalonieri was worthy of his race,
of his class, of himself; he stood firm, and next morning, almost with
a sense of relief, he started for the living grave.
'The struggle was decided,' Prince Metternich had said in the course
of the interview, 'and decided not only for our own, but for many
generations. Those who still hoped to the contrary were madmen.'
Some years of outward quiet doubtless confirmed him in the first
opinion, while the second was not likely to be shaken by the next
attempt that was made to take up arms for freedom. On the 28th of June
1828, several villages in the province of Salerno rose in obedience to
the harangues of two patriotic ecclesiastics, Canon de Luca and Carlo
da Celle, superior of a capuchin convent. This was meant to develop
into a general insurrection, but it was nowhere followed up, and the
sword of vengeance fell speedily on the wretched villagers. Surrounded
by the royal troops, they were forced into submission, many were shot
on the spot, others were dragged in chains to Salerno, not even a drop
of water being allowed them during the journey under the scorching
sun. The village of Bosco was rased to the ground. The priest, the
monk, and twenty-two insurgents were shot after the repression. The
heads of the victims were cut off and placed in iron cages where their
wives or mothers were likely to see them. A woman went to Naples to
beg for the pardon of her two grandsons, by name Diego and Emilio. The
King, with barbarous clemency, told her to choose one. In vain she
entreated that if both could not be saved the choice should be left to
chance, or decided by someone else. But no; unless she chose they
would both be shot. At last she chose Diego. Afterwards she went mad,
and was constantly heard wailing: 'I have killed my grandson Emilio.'
This anecdote gives a fair notion of Francis I., whose short reign
was, however, less signalised by acts of cruelty, though there were
enough of these, than by a venality never surpassed. The
grooms-in-waiting and ladies-of-the-bedchamber sold the public offices
in the daylight; and the King, who was aware of it, thought it a
subject for vulgar jokes with his intimates. Francis died in 1830 of
bad humour at the Paris revolution, and was succeeded by Ferdinand
II., to be known hereafter as Bomba--then a clownish youth, one of
whose first kingly cares was to create St Ignatius Loyola a
Field-Marshal.
The revolution which upset the throne of Charles X., and ushered in
the eighteen years' reign of the Citizen King, seemed likely to have
momentous consequences for Italy. The principle of non-intervention
proclaimed by French politicians would, if logically enforced, sound
the death-knell of the Austrian power in Italy. Dupin, the Minister of
War, enlarged on the theme in a speech which appeared to remove all
doubt as to the real intentions of the Government. 'One phrase,' he
remarked, 'has made a general impression; it expresses the true
position of a loyal and generous Government. Not only has the
President of the Council laid down the principle that France should
abstain from intervention; he has declared that she would not tolerate
intervention on the part of others. France might have shut herself up
in a cold egotism, and simply said that she would not intervene; this
would have been contemptible, but the proclamation of not suffering
the interventions of others is the noblest attitude a strong and
magnanimous people can assume; it amounts to saying: Not only will I
not attack or disturb other nations, but I, France, whose voice is
respected by Europe and by the whole world, will never permit others
to do so. This is the language held by the ministry and by the
ambassadors of Louis Philippe; and it is this which the army, the
National Guard, France entire, is ready to maintain.'
Truly language was invented to travesty the truth, and when French
politicians say they are going to the right it is an almost sure sign
that they are going to the left; nevertheless, is it possible to blame
the Italians who read in these assurances a positive promise affecting
their own case?
The same assurances were repeated again and again through the winter
of 1830-31; they were repeated authoritatively as late as March in the
latter year. Well may a French writer inquire: 'Was it insanity or
treachery?'
The good tidings were published by the Italian exiles, who, living
close to the great centres of European politics, were the first to
intoxicate themselves with the great delusion. From London, Gabriele
Rossetti sent the exultant summons:
Cingi l'elmo, la mitra deponi,
O vetusta Signora del mondo:
Sorgi, sorgi dal sonno profondo,
Io son l'alba del nuovo tuo dì.
Saran rotte le vostre catene,
O Fratelli che in ceppi languite;
O Fratelli che il giogo soffrite
Calcherete quel giogo col piè.
The child beside whose cradle the ode was written, was to grow to
manhood while Italy still remained 'the weeping, desolate mother.' The
cry of the poet was not, however, without an echo. In 1831, Romagna,
Parma and Modena rose in rebellion.
Things had been going, without much variation, from bad to worse in
the Roman states, ever since 1815. Pius VII. (Chiaramonti), who died
in 1823, was succeeded by Leo XII. (Genga), an old man who was in such
enfeebled health that his death was expected at the time of his
election, but, like a more famous pontiff, he made a sudden recovery,
which was attributed to the act of a prelate, who, in prayer, offered
his own life for the Pope's, and who died a few days after resolving
on the sacrifice. During this Pope's reign, the smallpox was rife in
Rome, in consequence of the suppression of public vaccination. The
next conclave, held in 1829, resulted in the election of Pius VIII.
(Castiglioni da Cingoli), who died on the 30th of November 1830, and
was followed by Gregory XVI. (Cappellari). In each conclave, Austria
had secured the choice of a 'Zealot,' as the party afterwards called
Ultramontane was then designated. The last traces of reforms
introduced by the French disappeared; criminal justice was again
administered in secret; the police were arbitrary and irresponsible.
All over the Roman states, but especially in Romagna, the secret
society of the Sanfedesti flourished exceedingly; whether, as is
probable, an offshoot of the Calderai or of indigenous growth, its
aims were the same. The affiliated swore to spill the last drop of the
blood of the Liberals, without regard to sex or rank, and to spare
neither children nor old men. Many Romagnols had left their country
after the abortive agitation of 1821, and amongst these were the
Gambas. Count Pietro died in Greece, where he had gone on the service
of freedom. Had he lived, this young man would have been sure to win a
fair name in the annals of Italian patriotism; he should not, as it
is, be quite forgotten, as it was chiefly due to him that Byron's life
took the redeeming direction which led to Missolonghi.
In February 1831, Romagna and the Marches of Ancona threw off the
Papal Government with an ease which must have surprised the most
sanguine. The white, red and green tricolor was hoisted at Bologna,
where, as far as is known, this combination of colours first became a
political badge. Thirty-six years before Luigi Zamboni and Gian
Battista De Rolandis of Bologna had distributed rosettes of white, red
and green ribbon; Zamboni was arrested, and strangled himself, afraid
of betraying his friends; De Rolandis was hung on the 23rd of April
1796. Such was the origin of the flag, but, until 1831, the Carbonaro
red, blue and black was the common standard of the revolution. From
that year forth, the destinies of Italy were accomplished under the
colours of better augury, so fit to recall her fiery volcanoes, her
wooded Apennines, her snow-crowned Alps; colours which in one sense
she receives from Dante, who clothes in them the vision of the
glorified Beatrice.
The rising at Parma requires but little comment. The Empress
Marie-Louise neither hated her subjects, nor was hated by them, but
her engagements with Austria prevented her from granting the demanded
concessions, and she abandoned her state, to return to it, indeed,
under Austrian protection, but without the odious corollary of
vindictive measures which was generally meant by a restoration.
Much more important is the history of the Modenese revolution.
Apologists have been found for the Bourbons of Naples, but, if anyone
ever said a good word for Francesco d'Este, it has escaped the notice
of the present writer. Under a despotism without laws (for the edicts
of the Prince daily overrode the Este statute book which was supposed
to be in force), Modena was far more in the power of the priests, or
rather of the Jesuits, than any portion of the states of the Church.
Squint-eyed, crooked in mind and bloodthirsty, Francis was as ideal a
bogey-tyrant as can be discovered outside fiction. In 1822, he hung
the priest Giuseppe Andreoli on the charge of Carbonarism; and his
theory of justice is amusingly illustrated by the story of his sending
in a bill to Sir Anthony Panizzi--who had escaped to England--for the
expenses of hanging him in effigy.
Francis felt deeply annoyed by the narrow limits of his dominions, and
his annoyance did not decrease with the decreasing chances of his
ousting the Prince of Carignano from the Sardinian throne. He was
intensely ambitious, and one of his subjects, a man, in other
respects, of high intelligence, thought that his ambition could be
turned to account for Italy. It was the mistake over again that
Machiavelli had made with Cesare Borgia.
Ciro Menotti, who conceived the plan of uniting Italy under the Duke
of Modena, was a Modenese landed proprietor who had exerted himself to
promote the industry of straw-plaiting, and the other branches of
commerce likely to be of advantage to an agricultural population. He
was known as a sound philanthropist, an excellent husband and father,
a model member of society. Francis professed to take an interest in
industrial matters; Menotti, therefore, easily gained access to his
person. In all the negotiations that followed, the Modenese patriot
was supported and encouraged by a certain Dr Misley, who was of
English extraction, with whom the Duke seems to have been on familiar
terms. It appears not doubtful that Menotti was led to believe that
his political views were regarded with favour, and that he also
received the royal promise that, whatever happened, his life would be
safe. This promise was given because he had the opportunity of saving
the Duke from some great peril--probably from assassination, though
the particulars were never divulged.
Misley went to Paris to concert with the Italian committee which had
its seat there; the movement in Modena was fixed for the first days of
February. But spies got information of the preparations, and on the
evening of the 3rd, before anything had been done, Menotti's house was
surrounded by troops, and after defending it, with the help of his
friends, for two hours, he was wounded and captured. Next day the Duke
despatched the following note to the Governor of Reggio-Emilia: 'A
terrible conspiracy against me has broken out. The conspirators are in
my hands. Send me the hangman.--Francis.'
Not all, however, of the conspirators were in his hands; the movement
matured, in spite of the seizure of Menotti, and Francis, 'the first
captain in the world,' as he made his troops call him, was so overcome
with fright that on the 5th of February he left Modena with his
family, under a strong military escort, dragging after him Giro
Menotti, who, when Mantua was reached, was consigned to an Austrian
fortress.
Meanwhile, the revolution triumphed. Modena chose one of her citizens
as dictator, Biagio Nardi, who issued a proclamation in which the
words 'Italy is one; the Italian nation is one sole nation,' testified
that the great lesson which Menotti had sought to teach had not fallen
on unfruitful ground. Wild as were the methods by which, for a moment,
he sought to gain his end, his insistance on unity nevertheless gives
Menotti the right to be considered the true precursor of Mazzini in
the Italian Revolution.
Now that the testing-time was come, France threw to the winds the
principle announced in her name with such solemn emphasis. 'Precious
French blood should never be shed except on behalf of French
interests,' said Casimir Périer, the new President of the Council. A
month after the flight of the Duke of Modena, the inevitable Austrians
marched into his state to win it back for him. The hastily-organised
little army of the new government was commanded by General Zucchi, an
old general of Napoleon, who, when Lombardy passed to Austria, had
entered the Austrian service. He now offered his sword to the Dictator
of Modena, who accepted it, but there was little to be done save to
retire with honour before the 6000 Austrians. Zucchi capitulated at
Ancona to Cardinal Benvenuti, the Papal delegate. Those of the
volunteers who desired it were furnished with regular passports, and
authorised to take ship for any foreign port. The most compromised
availed themselves of this arrangement, but the vessel which was to
bear Zucchi and 103 others to Marseilles, was captured by the Austrian
Admiral Bandiera, by whom its passengers were kidnapped and thrown
into Venetian prisons, where they were kept till the end of May 1832.
This act of piracy was chiefly performed with a view to getting
possession of General Zucchi, who was tried as a deserter, and
condemned to twenty years' imprisonment. Among the prisoners was the
young wife of Captain Silvestro Castiglioni of Modena. 'Go, do your
duty as a citizen,' she had said, when her husband left her to join
the insurrection. 'Do not betray it for me, as perhaps it would make
me love you less.' She shared his imprisonment, but just at the moment
of the release, she died from the hardships endured.
By the end of the month of March, the Austrians had restored Romagna
to the Pope, and Modena to Francis IV. In Romagna the amnesty
published by Cardinal Benvenuti was revoked, but there were no
executions; this was not the case in Modena. The Duke brought back
Ciro Menotti attached to his triumphal car, and when he felt that all
danger was past, and that the presence of the Austrians was a
guarantee against a popular expression of anger, he had him hung.
'When my children are grown up, let them know how well I loved my
country,' Menotti wrote to his wife on the morning of his execution.
The letter was intercepted, and only delivered to his family in 1848.
The revolutionists found it in the archives of Modena. On the
scaffold he recalled how he was once the means of saving the Duke's
life, and added that he pardoned his murderer, and prayed that his
blood might not fall upon his head.
During the insurrection in Romagna, an event occurred which was not
without importance to Europe, though it passed almost unnoticed at the
time. The eldest son of Queen Hortense died in her arms at Forlì, of a
neglected attack of measles; some said of poison, but the report was
unfounded. He and his brother Louis, who had been closely mixed up
with Italian conspiracies for more than a year, went to Romagna to
offer their services as volunteers in the national army. By the death
of the elder of the two, Louis Napoleon became heir to what seemed
then the shadowy sovereignty of the Buonapartes.
No sooner had the Austrians retired from the Legations in July 1831,
than the revolution broke out again. Many things had been promised,
nothing performed; disaffection was universal, anarchy became chronic,
and was increased by the indiscipline of the Papal troops that were
sent to put it down. The Austrians returned and the French occupied
Ancona, much to the Pope's displeasure, and not one whit to the
advantage of the Liberals. This dual foreign occupation of the Papal
states lasted till the winter of 1838.