OR, PARTICULARS OF THE LAST LODGE OF CARBONARI DISCOVERED IN
THE PAPAL STATES
“STENDHAL” (HENRY BEYLE)
One evening in the spring of 182- all Rome was in a stir: the Duke
of B----, the famous banker, was giving a ball at his new palace in
the Piazza Venezia. The utmost magnificence that the arts of Italy
and the luxury of Paris and London could produce had been brought
together to embellish the palace. The throng was immense. The blonde,
reserved beauties of noble England had solicited the honour of being
present at this ball; they arrived in crowds. The handsomest women in
Rome disputed the prize of beauty with them. A young girl, whom the
brilliance of her eyes and her ebon hair proclaimed a Roman, entered
escorted by her father; all eyes followed her. A singular pride shone
in all her movements.
The strangers as they entered were visibly impressed by the
magnificence of the ball. “None of the fêtes of the kings of Europe
comes anywhere near this,” they said.
The kings have not a palace of Roman architecture: they are obliged to
invite the great ladies of their courts; the Duke of B---- only invites
pretty women. That evening he had been happy in his invitations; the
men seemed dazzled. Among so many remarkable women the difficulty was
to decide who was the handsomest. The choice for some time remained
undecided; but at last the Princess Vanina Vanini, the young girl with
the black hair and the eye of fire, was proclaimed queen of the ball.
At once the strangers and the young men of Rome, abandoning all the
other saloons, formed a crowd in the one where she was.
Her father, Prince Asdrubale Vanini, had wished her to dance first
with two or three German sovereigns. After that she accepted the
invitations of some Englishmen, very handsome and very noble; their
air of solemnity wearied her. She evidently found more pleasure in
tormenting young Livio Savelli, who seemed deeply in love. He was the
most magnificent young man in Rome, and, what was more, he too was a
prince; but, if you had given him a novel to read, he would have thrown
the volume away after twenty pages, saying that it gave him a headache.
That was a disadvantage in Vanina’s eyes.
About midnight a piece of news spread through the ball and produced a
great stir. A young carbonaro, who had been confined in the Castle of
Sant’ Angelo, had just escaped that very night by means of a disguise;
and, with an excess of romantic daring, on arriving at the last ward of
the prison, he had attacked the soldiers with a poniard; but he himself
had been wounded; the police were tracking him through the streets by
his blood, and they hoped to find him.
As this anecdote was being told, Don Livio Savelli, dazzled by the
graces and the triumphs of Vanina, with whom he had just been dancing,
said to her as, almost beside himself with love, he led her back to her
place:
“But, really, who could please you?”
“That young carbonaro who has just escaped,” Vanina answered him; “he
at least has done something more than take the trouble of being born.”
Prince Don Asdrubale came up to his daughter. He was a rich man, who
for the last twenty years had not taken reckoning with his steward,
who lent him his own revenues at a very high rate of interest. If you
met him in the street, you would have taken him for an old actor; you
would not have observed that his hands were ornamented with five or six
enormous rings set with big diamonds. His two sons had become Jesuits
and afterwards died insane. He had forgotten them; but he was vexed
that his only daughter Vanina would not marry. She was now nineteen,
and had refused the most brilliant matches. What was her reason? The
same as Sulla’s for abdicating: _her contempt for the Romans_.
The day after the ball, Vanina noticed that her father, the most
careless of men, who had never in his life taken the trouble to carry
a key, very carefully shut the door of a little stair which led to
some rooms on the third floor of the palace. The windows of these
rooms looked on to a terrace adorned with orange-trees. Vanina went
to pay some visits in Rome; on her return, the main entrance of the
palace was blocked by the preparations for an illumination, so the
carriage went in by the courts at the back. Vanina looked up, and saw
to her astonishment that one of the windows of the rooms which her
father had shut with such care was open. She got rid of her companion,
climbed to the top of the palace, and searched about until she found a
little grated window, which gave a view of the terrace ornamented with
orange-trees. The open window that she had noticed was close beside
her. That room must certainly be occupied; but by whom? Next day,
Vanina managed to obtain the key of a little door which opened on to
the terrace ornamented with orange-trees.
She stealthily approached the window, which was still open. A
sun-shutter helped to cover it. Inside the room was a bed and some one
in the bed. Her first impulse was to withdraw; but she caught sight of
a woman’s dress thrown on a chair. Looking more closely at the person
in the bed, she saw that she was fair and apparently very young. She
had no more doubt about its being a woman. The dress thrown down on the
chair was stained with blood; there was blood on the woman’s shoes,
too, laid on a table. The stranger moved; Vanina perceived that she
was wounded. A large cloth, spotted with blood, covered her breast;
the cloth was only kept on with ribbons; it was no surgeon’s hand that
had fixed it so. Vanina noticed that every day, about four o’clock,
her father shut himself up in his room, then went to see the stranger;
he soon came downstairs again, and took the carriage to visit the
Countess Vitteleschi. Immediately he had gone, Vanina climbed up to
the little terrace from which she could see the stranger. Her feelings
were actively excited in favour of this most unfortunate young woman;
she tried to guess at her adventure. The blood-stained dress thrown on
a chair seemed to have been pierced with dagger-thrusts. Vanina could
count the rents. One day she saw the stranger more distinctly: her
blue eyes were gazing towards heaven; she seemed to be praying. Soon
tears filled her lovely eyes; the young princess could scarcely refrain
from speaking to her. The next day Vanina summoned up courage to hide
herself in the little terrace before her father arrived. She saw Don
Asdrubale go into the stranger’s room; he carried a little basket
containing provisions. The prince seemed to be disturbed and did not
say much. He spoke so low that, although the sash of the window was
open, Vanina could not make out what he said. He went away immediately.
“The poor woman must have some very terrible enemies,” said Vanina to
herself, “that my father, who is usually so careless, dares not trust
anybody, and takes the trouble of climbing a hundred and twenty steps
every day.”
One evening when Vanina softly advanced her head in the direction of
the stranger’s window, she met her eyes, and all was discovered.
Vanina fell on her knees, and exclaimed:
“I love you; I am at your service!”
The stranger signed to her to come in.
“I owe you many apologies!” exclaimed Vanina. “How offensive my foolish
curiosity must seem to you! I swear secrecy, and, if you insist on it,
I shall never return.”
“Who would not be happy to see you?” said the stranger. “Do you live in
this palace?”
“Of course,” replied Vanina; “but I see you do not know me; I am
Vanina, Don Asdrubale’s daughter.”
The stranger looked at her in astonishment, blushed deeply, and then
added:
“Permit me to hope that you will come and see me every day; but I
should like the prince not to know of your visits.”
Vanina’s heart beat fast; the stranger’s manners seemed to her full of
distinction. This poor young woman had no doubt offended some powerful
person. Had she, perhaps, in a moment of jealousy, killed her lover?
Vanina could not conceive of a commonplace reason for her misfortune.
The stranger told her that she had received a wound in the shoulder,
which had penetrated to her chest and was causing her much suffering.
She often found her mouth full of blood.
“Yet you have no surgeon?” exclaimed Vanina.
“You are aware,” said the stranger, “that at Rome the surgeons have
to give the police an exact report of all the wounds that they treat.
The prince condescends to bind up my wounds with his own hands, in the
cloth which you see.”
With the most perfect grace, the stranger avoided any bemoaning
over her accident; Vanina loved her to madness. One thing, however,
astonished the young princess greatly, namely that, in the middle of
a conversation which was certainly serious enough, the stranger had
great difficulty in suppressing a sudden desire to laugh.
“I should be happy,” said Vanina, “to know your name.”
“They call me Clementine.”
“Well, dear Clementine, to-morrow at five o’clock I’ll come and see
you.”
Next day, Vanina found her new friend very ill.
“I want to get a surgeon to you,” said Vanina, embracing her.
“I would rather die,” said the stranger. “Why should I wish to
compromise my benefactors?”
“The surgeon to Monsignore Savelli-Catanzara, the governor of Rome, is
the son of one of our servants,” Vanina replied eagerly; “he is devoted
to us, and, in his position, is afraid of no one. My father does not do
justice to his fidelity; I am going to send for him.”
“I don’t want any surgeon,” the stranger exclaimed, with a sharpness
which surprised Vanina. “Come and see me; and, if God must call me to
Himself, I shall die happy in your arms.”
Next day, the stranger was still worse.
“If you love me,” said Vanina, as she left her, “you’ll see a surgeon.”
“If he comes, my happiness is gone.”
“I’m going to send for one,” replied Vanina.
Without a word, the stranger detained her and took her hand, which she
covered with kisses. There was a long silence; the stranger’s eyes were
full of tears. At last she let go Vanina’s hand, and, with the air with
which she might have gone to her death, said to her:
“I have a confession to make to you. The day before yesterday I
told you a lie when I said I was Clementine; I am an unfortunate
carbonaro----.”
Vanina, astonished, pushed back her chair and stood up at once.
“I am aware,” continued the carbonaro, “that this confession will
cause me to lose the only good thing that attaches me to life; but
it is unworthy of me to deceive you. I am called Pietro Missirilli;
I am nineteen years old; my father is a poor surgeon at Sant’ Angelo
in Vado, for my part I am a carbonaro. Our lodge was surprised; I was
brought, in chains, from Romagna to Rome. Buried in a dungeon lighted
night and day by a lamp, I passed thirteen months there. A charitable
soul conceived the idea of rescuing me. They dressed me in women’s
clothes. As I was coming out of prison and was passing the warders at
the last door, one of them cursed the carbonari; I gave him a slap.
I assure you that this was not a piece of vain bravado, but simply
thoughtlessness. Pursued through the streets of Rome at night after
this imprudence, wounded with bayonets, fast losing my strength, I
rushed up the stairs of a mansion, the door of which was open; I heard
the soldiers coming up after me; I sprang into the garden; I fell down
only a few paces from a woman who was walking there.”
“The Countess Vitteleschi, my father’s friend!” said Vanina.
“What! Has she told you?” exclaimed Missirilli. “In any case, the
lady, whose name must never be uttered, saved my life. As the soldiers
came into her house to seize me, your father took me out of it in
his carriage. I feel very ill; for some days this bayonet-wound in
my shoulder has prevented me from breathing. I am going to die, in
despair, too, because I shall not see you again.”
Vanina had listened with impatience; she went out hastily: Missirilli
could discover no pity in her fine eyes; only the expression of a
haughty character which had been wounded.
At night, a surgeon appeared; he was alone. Missirilli was in despair;
he feared that he would never see Vanina again. He questioned the
surgeon, who bled him and gave him no answer. The succeeding days,
the same silence. Pietro’s eyes never left the terrace-window by which
Vanina had been accustomed to enter; he was very unhappy. Once, about
midnight, he thought he saw some one in the shadow on the terrace: was
it Vanina?
Vanina came every night to press her cheek against the young
carbonaro’s window-panes.
“If I speak to him,” she said to herself, “I am lost! No, I must not
see him again!”
Having taken this resolution, she recalled, in spite of herself,
the fondness which she had conceived for the young man when she so
foolishly took him for a woman. And now, after so sweet an intimacy,
she must forget him! In her more reasonable moments, Vanina was
terrified at the change which had taken place in her thoughts. Since
Missirilli had named himself, all the things she had been accustomed to
think about were as if covered with a veil, and seemed very far away.
A week had not passed before Vanina, pale and trembling, entered the
young carbonaro’s room with the surgeon. She came to tell him that the
prince must be made to promise to let a servant take his place. She
did not remain ten seconds; but some days afterwards she came back
again with the surgeon, out of humanity. One night, though Missirilli
was much better and Vanina had no longer the excuse of fearing for his
life, she ventured to come alone. Nothing could exceed Missirilli’s
happiness at seeing her, but he thought to conceal his love; above all,
he did not wish to forget the dignity of a man. Vanina, who had come to
his room covered with blushes and afraid she would have to listen to
words of love, was disconcerted by the noble and devoted, but far from
tender, friendliness with which he received her. She went away without
his trying to detain her.
Some days after, when she returned, the same conduct, the same
assurances of respectful devotion and eternal gratitude. So far from
having to put a curb on the young carbonaro’s transports, Vanina asked
herself if she alone was in love. This young girl, till then so proud,
bitterly felt the extent of her folly. She affected gaiety, even
coldness, came less often, but could not bring herself to cease seeing
the young invalid.
Missirilli, burning with love, but remembering his obscure birth and
his duty towards himself, had vowed never to descend to talking of love
unless Vanina remained a week without seeing him. The young princess’s
pride disputed every foot of the way.
“Well,” she said to herself at last, “if I see him, it is on my own
account, it is for my amusement, and I will never avow the interest
with which he inspires me.”
She paid long visits to Missirilli, who talked with her as he might
have done if twenty people had been present. One night, after having
spent the whole day in detesting him and promising herself to be even
colder and severer than usual to him, she told him that she loved him.
Soon she had nothing left to refuse him.
Though her folly was great, it must be owned that Vanina was perfectly
happy. Missirilli had no more thought of what he considered due to his
dignity as a man; he loved as they love for the first time at nineteen
and in Italy. He had all the scruples of passionate love, even to the
extent of acknowledging to the proud young princess the policy which he
had employed to make her fall in love with him. He was astonished at
the excess of his happiness. Four months passed only too quickly. One
day the surgeon gave the invalid his liberty. “But what am I to do?”
thought Missirilli. “Am I to remain in hiding under the roof of one of
the handsomest women in Rome? And the vile tyrants who kept me thirteen
months in prison without letting me see the light of day will think
they have broken my spirit! Italy, thou art unfortunate indeed, if thy
children abandon thee for so little!”
Vanina never doubted that Pietro’s greatest happiness would be to
remain attached to her for ever; he seemed only too happy; but a saying
of General Bonaparte rankled in the young man’s soul and influenced all
his conduct towards women. In 1796, when General Bonaparte was leaving
Brescia, the magistrates, who accompanied him to the gate of the town,
said to him that the Brescians loved liberty more than all other
Italians.
“Yes,” he answered, “they love to talk about it to their mistresses.”
Missirilli said to Vanina with some constraint:
“As soon as it is night, I must go out.”
“Take good care to be in the palace again before daybreak; I’ll wait
for you.”
“At daybreak I’ll be several miles from Rome.”
“Indeed,” said Vanina coldly, “and where are you going to?”
“To Romagna, to take my revenge.”
“Seeing that I am rich,” Vanina said with the calmest air imaginable,
“I hope that you will accept some arms and some money from me.”
Missirilli looked at her for a moment without moving a muscle; then,
throwing himself into her arms:
“Soul of my soul, you make me forget everything else, even my duty.
But, the nobler your heart is, the better you should understand me.”
Vanina wept copiously, and it was settled that he should not leave Rome
for another two days yet.
“Pietro,” she said to him next day, “you have often told me that a
well-known man, a Roman prince for example, who had command of plenty
of money, could render great service to the cause of liberty, if ever
Austria should be involved in any great war at a distance from us.”
“Undoubtedly,” said Pietro in astonishment.
“Well then, you have courage; all you lack is position: I am going to
offer you my hand and two hundred thousand livres a year. I undertake
to get my father’s consent.”
Pietro threw himself at her feet; Vanina was radiant with joy.
“I love you passionately,” he said; “but I am a poor servant of my
country; and, the unhappier Italy is, the more faithful I must be to
her. To obtain Don Asdrubale’s consent, I should have to play a sorry
part for many years. Vanina, I refuse you.”
Missirilli was in a hurry to commit himself by this speech. His courage
threatened to fail him.
“My misfortune,” he exclaimed, “is that I love you more than life, that
to leave Rome is the worst of tortures for me. Ah! why is Italy not
delivered from the barbarians? With what pleasure I should embark along
with you to go and live in America!”
Vanina remained as if frozen. This refusal of her hand had astonished
her pride; but soon she cast herself into Missirilli’s arms.
“You never seemed so dear to me as now,” she exclaimed; “yes, my little
country surgeon, I am yours for ever. You are a great man, like our
ancient Romans.”
All ideas of the future, all the gloomy suggestions of good sense
disappeared; there was a moment of perfect love. When they were able to
talk sensibly, Vanina said:
“I shall be in Romagna almost as soon as you. I’ll get sent to the
baths at Poretta. I will stop at our castle at San Nicolo, near
Forli----”
“There I’ll spend my life with you!” exclaimed Missirilli.
“My part in future is to dare everything,” Vanina resumed with a sigh.
“I shall ruin myself for you, but what matter----. Could you love a
woman who has lost her honour?”
“Are you not my wife?” said Missirilli, “and a wife always adored? I
shall know how to love you and protect you.”
Vanina had to go and pay visits. Scarcely had she left Missirilli when
he began to think his conduct barbarous.
“What is our _country_, after all?” he said to himself. “It is not
a being to whom we owe any gratitude for any benefit, and who might
be unhappy and curse us if we failed to be grateful. _Country_ and
_liberty_ are like my cloak, a thing that is useful to me, that I must
buy, no doubt, if I have not inherited it from my father; but after all
I love country and liberty because these two things are useful to me.
If I can do nothing with them, if they are no more use to me than a
cloak in August, what is the good of buying them, at an enormous price
too? Vanina is so beautiful! She has such a remarkable mind! People
will seek to please her; she will forget me. What woman ever had only
one lover? Those Roman princes, whom I despise as citizens, have such
an advantage over me! They must be very lovable! Ah, if I go away, she
will forget me, and I shall lose her for ever!”
In the middle of the night Vanina came to see him; he told her of the
indecision in which he had been plunged, and the examination to which,
because he loved her, he had subjected the great word _country_. Vanina
was very happy.
“If he had to choose definitely between his country and me,” she said
to herself, “the choice would fall on me.”
The clock of the neighbouring church struck three; the moment of
their last farewells arrived. Pietro tore himself from the arms of
his beloved. He was already descending the little stair, when Vanina,
restraining her tears, said to him with a smile:
“If you had been tended by some poor countrywoman, would you not do
something out of gratitude? Would you not try to repay her? The future
is uncertain; you are going to travel amidst enemies; give me three
days out of gratitude, as if I were a poor woman, and in repayment of
my trouble.”
Missirilli remained. At last he quitted Rome. Thanks to a passport
bought from a foreign embassy, he reached his home. There was great
rejoicing; they had given him up for dead. His friends wished to
celebrate his safe return by killing one or two carabineers, as the
police in the Papal states are called.
“Do not let us kill an Italian that knows the use of arms, unless we
are forced to,” said Missirilli; “our country is not an island, like
happy England: we need soldiers to resist the intervention of the kings
of Europe.”
Shortly afterwards, Missirilli, hard pressed by the carabineers, killed
two of them with the pistols that Vanina had given him. A price was set
on his head.
Vanina did not make her appearance in Romagna: Missirilli thought he
was forgotten. His vanity was hurt; he began to dwell on the difference
of rank which separated him from his mistress. In a moment of softening
and regret for his past happiness, he took the notion of returning to
Rome to see what Vanina was doing. This mad thought was on the point
of prevailing over what he believed to be his duty, when one evening
the bell of a mountain-church sounded the angelus in a strange fashion,
as if the ringer were preoccupied. It was the signal for the meeting
of the lodge of carbonari to which Missirilli had been affiliated on
his arrival in Romagna. That same night, they all met in a certain
hermitage in the woods. The two hermits, stupefied with opium, had no
suspicion of the use that was being made of their little dwelling.
Missirilli, who arrived very downcast, learned that the head of the
lodge had been arrested, and that he, a young man of barely twenty,
was to be elected head of a lodge which included men over fifty, who
had been engaged in the conspiracies since Murat’s expedition of 1815.
Pietro felt his heart beat at receiving this unexpected honour. As
soon as he was alone, he resolved to think no more of the young Roman
lady who had forgotten him, and to consecrate all his thoughts to
_delivering Italy from the barbarians_.[18]
Two days later, Missirilli saw in the list of arrivals and departures
sent to him as head of the lodge that the Princess Vanina had just
arrived at her castle of San Nicolo. To read this name caused more
trouble than pleasure to his soul. In vain he thought to make sure
of his fidelity to his country by restraining himself from hastening
that very night to the castle of San Nicolo; the thought of Vanina
whom he was neglecting prevented his fulfilling his duties in a
reasonable fashion. He saw her the next day; she loved him as she had
done at Rome. Her father, who wished to marry her, had hindered her
departure. She brought two thousand sequins with her. This unexpected
assistance helped wonderfully to establish Missirilli in his new
dignity. Thanks to them they got daggers made in Corfu, they gained
over the confidential secretary of the legate charged with pursuing the
carbonari, and also obtained the list of parish priests who served as
spies to the government.
It was at this period that one, not the most unreasonable, of the
conspiracies that have been attempted in unhappy Italy was finally
organized. I shall not enter into details that would be out of place
here. I shall content myself with saying that, if the enterprise had
been crowned with success, Missirilli would have been able to claim a
great share of the glory. According to it several thousand insurgents
would have risen at a given signal, and awaited under arms the arrival
of their superior heads. The decisive moment was at hand, when, as
always happens, the conspiracy was paralysed by the arrests of the
leaders.
Vanina had not long arrived in Romagna when she fancied she could
see that love of country would make her lover forget all other love.
The young Roman’s pride was chafed. She tried in vain to reason with
herself; black disappointment took possession of her; she found herself
cursing liberty. One day when she had come to Forli to see Missirilli,
she was no longer mistress of her grief, which, so far, her pride had
always been able to master.
“Really,” she said to him, “you love me like a husband; that’s not what
I want.”
Her tears soon began to flow; but they were tears of shame at having
descended to reproaches. Missirilli responded to her tears like one
preoccupied. All at once it occurred to Vanina to leave him and return
to Rome. She found a cruel joy in punishing herself for the weakness
which had just made her speak. After some moments’ silence, her mind
was made up; she decided that she was unworthy of Missirilli if she did
not leave him. She rejoiced in the prospect of his sad surprise when
he sought for her at his side, and did not find her. Soon the thought
that she had been unable to win the love of the man for whose sake she
had committed so many follies revived all her tenderness. She thereupon
broke the silence, and did everything in the world to elicit a word
of love from him. He said many very tender things to her, with an air
of abstraction; but it was with quite a much profounder accent that,
talking of his political enterprises, he exclaimed mournfully:
“_Ah, if this affair does not succeed, if the government discovers it
this time, I’ll give it up!_”
Vanina remained motionless. For an hour and more she had had the
feeling that she was seeing her lover for the last time. His words
flashed a fatal ray into her mind. She said to herself:
“The carbonari have already got several thousand sequins from me. There
can be no doubt about my devotion to the conspiracy.”
Vanina at last roused herself from her reverie, to say to Pietro:
“Will you come and spend twenty-four hours with me at the castle of San
Nicolo? Your gathering this evening does not require your presence.
To-morrow morning, at San Nicolo, we can walk about; that will calm
your agitation and give you all the coolness that you need at such an
important juncture.”
Pietro consented.
Vanina left him to make preparations for the journey, locking, as
usual, the little room in which she hid him.
She hastened to a former waiting-woman of hers, who had left her to
get married and set up a small business at Forli. On arriving at
this woman’s, she hurriedly wrote on the margin of a book of hours,
which she found in her room, an exact indication of the place where
the lodge of carbonari was to meet that same night. She concluded
her denunciation with these words: “This lodge consists of nineteen
members; here are their names and addresses.” After writing this list,
very exact, except that Missirilli’s name was omitted, she said to the
woman, whom she could depend on:
“Take this book to the Cardinal Legate; let him read what is written
and give you back the book. Here are ten sequins; if ever the legate
pronounces your name, your death is assured; but you will save my life
if you get the legate to read the page I have just written.”
Everything succeeded perfectly. The legate’s fears prevented him from
behaving like a great lord. He let the woman of the people who asked
to speak with him appear in his presence masked, but on condition that
she had her hands tied. In this state the shopwoman was brought into
the presence of the great person, whom she found entrenched behind an
immense table covered with a green cloth.
The legate read the page of the book of hours, holding it well
away from him, for fear of some subtle poison. He gave it back to
the shopwoman, and did not have her followed. In less than forty
minutes after leaving her lover, Vanina, who had seen her former
waiting-woman’s return, appeared once more to Missirilli, convinced
that thenceforth he was entirely hers. She told him that there was an
extraordinary commotion in the town; patrols of carabineers were to be
seen in streets where they never used to go.
“If you’ll take my advice,” she added, “we’ll start for San Nicolo at
once.”
Missirilli consented to do so. They walked to the young princess’s
carriage, which, with her companion, a discreet and well-paid
confidante, was waiting for her half a league outside the town.
On arriving at the castle of San Nicolo, Vanina, who was uneasy about
the strange step that she had taken, redoubled her tenderness to
her lover. But it seemed to her that in talking love to him she was
acting a part. The night before, when she played the traitor, she had
forgotten about remorse. As she clasped her lover in her arms, she said
to herself:
“There is a word that might be uttered in his hearing, and, once it was
pronounced, he would have a horror of me at once and for ever.”
In the middle of the night, one of Vanina’s servants came abruptly
into her room. This man was a carbonaro, though she did not suspect
it. So, then, Missirilli had secrets from her, even about details like
that. She shuddered. The man had come to warn Missirilli that during
the night the houses of nineteen carbonari at Forli had been searched,
and they themselves arrested the moment they returned from the lodge.
Although taken by surprise, nine had escaped. The carabineers had been
able to take ten of them to prison in the citadel. On entering it, one
of them had thrown himself down the well, which is very deep, and had
killed himself.
Vanina was covered with confusion; fortunately Pietro did not observe
it: he could have read her crime in her eyes.... “At this very moment,”
the servant added, “the garrison of Forli is forming a cordon in all
the streets. Each soldier is within speaking distance of his neighbour.
The inhabitants cannot cross from one side of the street to the other
except where an officer is stationed.”
After the man had gone, Pietro was pensive, but only for an instant.
“There is nothing that can be done for the moment,” he said at last.
Vanina was like to die; she trembled beneath her lover’s glance.
“Whatever is wrong with you?” he said at last.
Then he began to think about something else, and ceased to look at her.
About the middle of the day, she ventured to say to him:
“That’s another lodge discovered; I should think you’ll keep quiet for
some time now.”
“_Very quiet_,” Missirilli answered, with a smile that made her shudder.
She went to make a necessary visit to the village priest of San Nicolo,
perhaps a spy of the Jesuits. On returning for dinner at seven o’clock,
she found the little room where her lover was hidden deserted. Beside
herself, she ran all through the house seeking for him; he was not
there. In despair she returned to the little room; only then did she
catch sight of a note; she read:
“_I am going to surrender myself to the legate; I despair of our cause;
Heaven is against us. Who has betrayed us? Apparently the wretch who
threw himself into the well. Since my life is useless to poor Italy,
I do not wish that my comrades, seeing that I alone have not been
arrested, should imagine that I have sold them. Adieu; if you love me,
think on how to avenge me. Ruin, annihilate, the infamous wretch that
has betrayed us, even though he be my father._”
Vanina fell into a chair, half-fainting and plunged in the most cruel
unhappiness. She was unable to utter a word; her eyes were dry and
burning.
At last she flung herself on her knees.
“Great God! accept my vow,” she exclaimed; “yes, I will punish the
infamous wretch who has been a traitor; but Pietro must first be
restored to liberty.”
An hour later she was on her way to Rome. Her father had long been
urging her to return. During her absence, he had arranged her
marriage with Prince Livio Savelli. Vanina had scarcely arrived
when he mentioned it to her, trembling. To his great astonishment,
she consented at the first word. That same evening, at Countess
Vitteleschi’s house, her father presented Don Livio almost officially
to her; she talked a great deal with him. He was a most elegant young
man, and kept the finest possible horses; but, though he was admitted
to be clever, his character was supposed to be so light that he was not
an object of suspicion to the government. Vanina thought that by first
turning his head she would make a convenient agent of him. Since he was
nephew to Monsignore Savelli-Catanzara, governor of Rome and minister
of police, she supposed that the spies would not presume to follow him.
After having treated the amiable Don Livio exceedingly well for some
days, Vanina announced to him that he would never be her husband; he
was, according to her, empty-headed.
“If you were not a child,” she told him, “your uncle’s clerks would
have no secrets from you. For example, what has been decided about the
carbonari who were discovered recently at Forli?”
Two days later Don Livio came to tell her that all the carbonari taken
at Forli had made their escape. She fastened her great black eyes upon
him with the bitter smile of most profound contempt, and did not deign
to speak to him all that evening. The next day but one Don Livio came
to acknowledge to her with a blush that he had been deceived the first
time.
“But,” he said, “I have got the key to my uncle’s study; I have seen
from the papers that I found there that a Congregation (or Commission)
composed of some of the leading cardinals and prelates is meeting in
the strictest secrecy and discussing whether these carbonari should
be tried at Ravenna or at Rome. The nine carbonari taken at Forli and
their head, one Missirilli, who has been foolish enough to surrender
himself, are at the present moment confined in the castle of San
Leo.[19]
At the word “foolish,” Vanina pinched the prince with all her might.
“I want,” she said, “to see the official papers myself, and go into
your uncle’s study with you; you have most likely read them wrong.”
At these words Don Livio shuddered; Vanina was demanding a thing almost
impossible; but the young woman’s strange genius redoubled his love. A
day or two later Vanina, disguised as a man and wearing a pretty little
coat of the Savelli livery, was able to spend half an hour amidst the
police minister’s most secret papers. She felt a thrill of the keenest
delight when she discovered the daily report on “Pietro Missirilli,
prisoner awaiting trial.” Her hands trembled as she held the paper. As
she read that name she was on the point of being overcome. When they
went out from the governor of Rome’s palace Vanina permitted Don Livio
to embrace her.
“You are coming well out of the tests to which I am submitting you,”
she said.
After a speech like that the young prince would have set fire to the
Vatican to please Vanina. That evening there was a ball at the French
ambassador’s; she danced a great deal, and almost always with Don
Livio. He was intoxicated with happiness; she must not allow him to
reflect.
“My father is sometimes strange,” Vanina said to him one day. “This
morning he dismissed two of his servants, who came to tell me their
sorrows. One of them has asked a place with your uncle, the governor of
Rome; the other, who has been an artilleryman with the French, would
like to be employed in the castle of Sant’ Angelo.”
“I’ll take them both into my service,” said the young prince briskly.
“Is that what I asked you?” Vanina replied proudly. “I repeated those
poor fellows’ petitions word for word; they ought to get what they
asked, and not something else.”
There was nothing more difficult. Monsignore Catanzara was anything but
an imprudent man, and only admitted servants into his house who were
well known to him. In the midst of a life apparently full of all manner
of pleasures, Vanina, tormented by remorse, was very unhappy. The
slowness of events was killing her. Her father’s man of business had
procured money for her. Ought she to flee from her father’s house and
go to Romagna, and attempt to get her lover out of prison? Senseless as
this notion was she was on the point of carrying it into execution when
chance took pity on her.
Don Livio said to her:
“The ten carbonari of Missirilli’s lodge are going to be transferred to
Rome on the understanding that they are to be executed in Romagna after
they have been condemned. That is what my uncle has got the Pope to
sanction this evening. You and I are the only persons in Rome who know
this secret. Are you satisfied!”
“You are becoming a man,” Vanina replied; “make me a present of your
portrait.”
The day before Missirilli was due to arrive at Rome Vanina found a
pretext for going to Città-Castellana. The prison of that town is where
the carbonari spend the night when they are transferred from Romagna
to Rome. She saw Missirilli in the morning as he came out of prison.
He was chained by himself to a cart; he seemed to her to be pale, but
by no means downhearted. An old woman threw a bunch of violets to him;
Missirilli smiled her his thanks.
Vanina had seen her lover; all her thoughts seemed renewed; she had
fresh courage. A long time ago she had procured a good preferment
to the Abbate Cari, the chaplain of the castle of Sant’ Angelo, in
which her lover was to be confined; she had made this good priest her
confessor. At Rome it is no small thing to be confessor of a princess
who is niece to the governor.
The trial of the Forli carbonari did not last long. In revenge for
their arrival in Rome, which it had been unable to prevent, the extreme
party so contrived that the commission which was to try them was
composed of the most ambitious prelates. This commission was presided
over by the minister of police.
The law against carbonari is clear; those from Forli could cherish
no hope; none the less they defended their lives by every possible
subterfuge. Not only did their judges condemn them to death, but
several declared for atrocious tortures, that their hands should be
cut off, and such like. The minister of police, whose fortune was made
(for no one leaves that position except to take a red hat), had no use
for cut-off hands: when he referred the sentence to the Pope he had
the punishment of all the condemned men commuted to several years’
imprisonment. Pietro Missirilli alone was excepted. The minister
regarded that young man as a dangerous fanatic, and besides he had
already been condemned to death as guilty of the murder of the two
carabineers already mentioned. Vanina knew about the sentence and its
commutation a few minutes after the minister had returned from his
audience of the Pope.
Next day Monsignore Catanzara returned to his palace about midnight and
found no sign of his valet in his room; the minister, astonished, rang
several times; at last an old, imbecile servant appeared: the minister,
out of all patience, decided to undress unaided. He locked his door;
it was very warm; he took his gown and threw it in a heap on a chair.
The gown, thrown too hard, went over the chair and struck the muslin
curtain at the window, and showed the form of a man. The minister
quickly rushed to his bed and seized a pistol. As he was returning to
the window a very young man, in his livery, came towards him pistol in
hand. At this sight the minister raised his pistol and took aim; he was
about to fire; the young man said to him, laughing:
“What, Monsignore, do you not recognize Vanina Vanini?”
“What is the meaning of this unseemly pleasantry?” the Minister
retorted angrily.
“Let us discuss things coolly,” said the young woman. “To begin with,
your pistol is not loaded.”
The Minister, astonished, satisfied himself that such was the case;
after which he drew a dagger from his vest-pocket.[20]
Vanina said to him, with a charming little air of authority:
“Let us be seated, Monsignore.”
And she calmly took her place on a sofa.
“Are you alone, though?” the Minister said.
“Absolutely alone, I swear!” exclaimed Vanina.
The Minister was careful to verify this: he went round the room and
looked everywhere; after which he sat down on a chair three paces from
Vanina.
“What interest should I have,” said Vanina in a gentle and reasonable
tone, “in attempting the life of a moderate man, who would probably
be succeeded by some weak, hot-headed person that would be capable of
undoing himself and others besides.”
“What do you want, pray, madam?” the minister said somewhat testily.
“This scene is not to my taste, and must cease.”
“What I am about to add,” Vanina replied haughtily, suddenly forgetting
her gracious air, “concerns you more than me. There is a desire that
the life of the carbonaro Missirilli should be spared: if he is
executed, you will not survive him a week. I have no interest in all
this; the folly which you deplore I did to amuse myself in the first
place, and next, to oblige a lady who is one of my friends. I wished,”
Vanina continued, resuming her affability, “I wished to render a
service to an accomplished man, who soon will be my uncle, and, from
all appearance, should carry the fortunes of his house to a great
pitch.”
The minister cast aside his vexed air: Vanina’s beauty no doubt
contributed to this rapid change. Monsignore Catanzara’s taste for
pretty women was well known in Rome, and in her disguise of a footman
of the house of Savelli, with well-fitting silk stockings, a red vest,
her little sky-blue coat laced with silver, and the pistol in her hand,
Vanina was ravishing.
“My future niece,” said the minister, almost laughing, “you are
committing a great folly, and it will not be your last.”
“I hope that so discreet a person as you will keep my secret,
especially from Don Livio; and, to make sure of your promise, my dear
uncle, if you grant me the life of my friend’s protégé, I’ll give you a
kiss.”
Thus continuing the conversation in that half-jocular tone in which
Roman ladies know how to discuss the most important affairs, Vanina
contrived to give this interview, which she had begun pistol in hand,
the air of a visit paid by the young princess Savelli to her uncle the
governor of Rome.
Soon Monsignore Catanzara, although rejecting with scorn the notion of
being influenced by fear, went so far as to explain to his niece all
the difficulties that he would encounter in saving Missirilli’s life.
As he discussed them, the minister walked up and down the room with
Vanina; he took up a carafe of lemonade that was on the chimney-piece,
and poured some into a crystal glass. When he was on the point of
putting it to his lips, Vanina secured it, and, after holding it some
time, let it fall into the garden, as if by carelessness. A moment
later, the minister took a chocolate pastille out of a sweetmeat-box.
Vanina snatched it from him, and said, laughing as she did so:
“Do take care; everything in the house is poisoned, for they intended
your death. It is I who have obtained the respite of my future uncle,
so as not to enter the family of Savelli absolutely empty-handed.”
Monsignore Catanzara, greatly astonished, thanked his niece, and gave
her great hopes of Missirilli’s life.
“Our bargain is settled,” exclaimed Vanina, “and in proof of it, here
is your reward,” she said, embracing him.
The minister took his reward.
“I must own, my dear Vanina,” he added, “that I am not fond of blood.
Besides, I am still young, though I perhaps look very old to you; and I
may live to see the day when blood shed now will leave a stain.”
Two o’clock was striking when Monsignore Catanzara escorted Vanina to
the private gate of his garden.
The day after next, when the minister appeared before the Pope, not a
little anxious about the course that he had to pursue, His Holiness
said to him:
“Before we go any further, I have a favour to ask you. There is one of
those carbonari from Forli, who is still under sentence of death; the
thought keeps me from sleeping: the man must be saved.”
The minister, seeing that the Pope had made up his mind, made many
objections, and ended by writing a decree, or _motu proprio_, which the
Pope signed, contrary to custom.
It had occurred to Vanina that she might perhaps obtain her lover’s
pardon, but that they would try to poison him. The previous evening,
Missirilli had received some small parcels of ship-biscuit from Abbate
Cari, her confessor, with a warning not to touch the food provided by
the State.
Vanina, having afterwards learned that the Forli carbonari were to be
transferred to the castle of San Leo, wished to try to see Missirilli
at Città-Castellana on his way; she arrived in that town twenty-four
hours in advance of the prisoners; there she found Abbate Cari, who had
preceded her by some days. He had got the jailor’s leave for Missirilli
to hear Mass at midnight in the prison chapel. He had obtained even
more: if Missirilli would allow his arms and legs to be fastened with a
chain, the jailor would withdraw to the door of the chapel, so that he
could always see the prisoner, for whom he was responsible, but could
not hear what he said.
The day which was to decide Vanina’s destiny dawned at last. Early in
the morning she shut herself up in the prison chapel. Who could tell
the thoughts which agitated her during that long day? Did Missirilli
love her sufficiently to pardon her? She had denounced his lodge, but
she had saved his life. When reason regained command of that tortured
soul, Vanina hoped that he would consent to leave Italy in her company;
if she had sinned, it was through excess of love. As four o’clock
struck, she heard the tread of the carabineers’ horses on the pavement
in the distance. Each tread seemed to ring in her heart. Soon she made
out the rumbling of the carts which conveyed the prisoners. They halted
in the little square in front of the prison; she saw two carabineers
lift out Missirilli, who was alone on a cart and so heavily loaded
with irons that he could not move. “At least he is alive,” she said
to herself with tears in her eyes; “they have not poisoned him.” The
evening was cruel; the altar-lamp, which was hung high up, and which
the jailor stinted of oil, was the only light in the gloomy chapel.
Vanina’s eyes wandered over the tombs of some great lords of the Middle
Ages who had died in the neighbouring prison. Their statues looked
ferocious.
All sounds had long ago ceased; Vanina was absorbed in her black
thoughts. Shortly after midnight struck, she thought she heard a
slight noise like the flutter of a bat. She tried to walk, and fell
half-fainting on the altar-rail. At the same instant, two phantoms
stood beside her, without her having heard them come. They were the
jailor and Missirilli, so loaded with chains that he was almost
swathed in them. The jailor opened a lantern, which he placed on the
altar-rail, beside Vanina, in such a position that he could see his
prisoner clearly. Then he withdrew into the background, near the
door. Scarcely had the jailor removed, when Vanina flung herself on
Missirilli’s neck. As she clasped him in her arms, she felt nothing but
his cold, sharp chains. “Who put these chains on him?” she thought. She
felt no pleasure in embracing her lover. To this pain succeeded another
more piercing: she believed, for a moment, that Missirilli knew of her
crime, his reception of her was so chilly.
“Dear friend,” he said to her at last, “I regret the love which you
have conceived for me; though I search, I cannot discover the merit
that might have inspired it. Let us return, I entreat you, to more
Christian feelings, let us forget the illusions which once led us
astray; I cannot be yours. The continual misfortune that has dogged my
enterprises proceeds, perhaps, from the state of mortal sin in which I
have always lived. Even listening to the counsels of human prudence,
why was I not arrested with my friends on that fatal night at Forli?
Why was I not found at my post at the moment of danger? Why was it that
my absence could authorize the most cruel suspicions?--Because I had
another passion than the liberation of Italy.”
Vanina could not recover from the surprise that she felt at the change
in Missirilli. Though he did not appear to have grown thinner, he
looked like thirty. Vanina attributed this change to the bad treatment
that he had suffered in prison; she burst into tears.
“Ah,” she said to him, “the jailors promised so faithfully that they
would treat you kindly!”
The fact was that, at the approach of death, all the religious
principles that were consistent with his passion for the liberation
of Italy had revived in the young carbonaro’s heart. Little by little
Vanina perceived that the astonishing change which she noticed in
her lover was entirely moral, and in no wise the result of physical
ill-treatment. Her grief, which she had thought at its height, was
augmented by this discovery.
Missirilli ceased speaking; Vanina seemed on the point of being
suffocated by her sobs. He added, with some emotion:
“If I loved anything on earth, it would be you, Vanina; but thanks to
God I have only one object left me in life; I will die in prison, or in
the endeavour to restore liberty to Italy.”
There was another silence; evidently Vanina was unable to speak: she
tried to do so, in vain. Missirilli added:
“Duty is cruel, my friend; but, if there were no pain in accomplishing
it, where would heroism be? Give me your word that you will not try to
see me again.”
As well as his close-bound chain allowed him, he made a little motion
with his wrist and stretched out his fingers to Vanina.
“If you will let a man who was dear to you advise you, be sensible and
marry the deserving man whom your father intends for you. Do not make
any awkward confidence to him; but on the other hand do not ever try
to see me again; let us be strangers to each other in future. You have
advanced a considerable sum for the service of your country; if ever
it is delivered from its tyrants, that sum will be repaid to you in
national funds.”
Vanina was overwhelmed. While he spoke to her, Pietro’s eye had never
once flashed, except when he uttered the word “country.”
At last pride came to the rescue of the young princess; she had
provided herself with diamonds and small files. Without a word of
reply, she offered them to Missirilli. “I accept them out of duty,”
he said, “for I must try to escape; but I will never see you again; I
swear it in presence of your new benefits. Adieu, Vanina; promise me
that you will never write to me, never try to see me; leave all of me
to my country, I am dead to you: farewell.”
“No!” Vanina replied furiously, “I wish you to know what I have done,
led by the love I had for you.”
With that she told him all her proceedings from the moment that
Missirilli quitted the castle of San Nicolo to surrender himself to the
legate. When the recital was ended, Vanina said:
“All that is nothing; I did more for love of you.”
And she told him of her treason.
“Ah, monster!” exclaimed Pietro in a rage, hurling himself upon her,
and he tried to fell her with his chains.
He would have succeeded in doing so, but for the jailor, who ran
forward at his first cries. He seized Missirilli.
“Here, monster! I won’t be indebted to you for anything,” said
Missirilli to Vanina, flinging the files and diamonds at her as well as
his chains permitted; and he hastened away.
Vanina remained utterly crushed. She returned to Rome, and the
newspapers announce that she has just married Prince Don Livio Savelli.