Born a peasant, the unhappy Camilla had, like Italy, the fatal gift
of beauty. Silvio, who was, by vocation, as we have already said, a
wild-boar hunter, used often, in his expeditions to the Pontine Marshes,
to rest at the house of the good Marcello, the father of Camilla, whose
cottage was situated a short distance from Rome. The young pair became
enamored of each other. Silvio demanded her in marriage, and her father,
giving a willing consent, they were betrothed.
Perfectly happy and fair to look upon were this youthful pair, as they
sat, hand in hand, under the shadows of the vine, watching the gorgeous
sunsets of their native clime. This happiness, however, was not of long
duration, for, during one of his hunting expeditions, Silvio caught the
fever so common in the Pontine Marshes, and, as he continued to suffer
for some months, the marriage was indefinitely postponed.
Meanwhile Camilla, who was too lovely and too innocent to dwell in
safety near this most vicious of cities, had been marked as a victim by
the emissaries of his Eminence, the Cardinal Procopio. It was her custom
to carry fruit for sale to the Piazza Navona. On one occasion she was
addressed by an old fruit-woman, previously instructed by Gianni, who
plied her with every conceivable allurement and flattery, praised her
fruit, and promised her the highest price for it at the palace of the
cardinal, if she would take it thither. The rest of the story may be
too easily imagined. In Rome this is an oft-told tale. To hide from
her father and her lover the consequences of her fall, and to suit
the convenience of the prelate, Camilla was persuaded to take up her
residence in the palace Corsini, where, soon after its birth, her
miserable infant was slaughtered by one of its father's murderous
ruffians. This so preyed upon the unhappy mother, that she lost her
reason, and was secretly immured in a mad-house. On the very night
when she effected her escape this meeting was being held, and, after
wandering from place to place, for many hours, without any fixed
direction, she entered the Colosseum at the moment it was illumined by
the lightning, as we have related. That flash disclosed the sentries
at the archway, and she rushed towards them, obeying some instinct of
safety, or at least perceiving that they were not clothed in the garb
of a priest; but they, taking her for a spy, ran forward to make her
prisoner. Thereupon, seemingly possessed of supernatural strength, she
glided from their hands, and finally eluded their pursuit by running
rapidly into the centre of the building, where she fell exhausted in
the midst of the three hundred, at the foot of her outraged and ashamed
lover.
"It is, indeed, time," said Attilio, when Silvio had related the
maniac's story, to purge our city from this priestly ignominy; and
drawing forth his dagger, brandished it above his head, as he exclaimed,
"Accursed is the Roman who does not feel the degradation of his
country, and who is not willing to bathe his sword in the blood of these
monsters, who humiliate it, and turn its very soil into a sink."
"_Accursed! accursed be they!_" echoed back from the old walls, while
the sound of dagger-blades tinkling together made an ominous music
dedicated to the corrupt and licentious rulers of Rome.
Then Attilio turned to Silvio, and said, "This child is more sinned
against than sinning; she requires and deserves protection. You, who are
so generous, will not refuse it to her."
And Silvio was, indeed, generous, for he still loved his wretched
Camilla, who at sight of him had become docile as a lamb. He raised her,
and, enveloping her in his mantle, led her out of the Colosseum towards
her father's dwelling.
"Comrades," shouted Attilio, "meet me on the 15th at the Baths of
Caracalla. Be ready to use your arms if need be."
"We will be ready! we will be ready!" responded heartily the three
hundred, and in a few moments the ruins were left to their former
obscure and fearful solitude.
What a wild, improbable story, methinks we hear some of our readers
remark, as they sit beside their safe coal fires in free England or the
United States. But Popery has not been dominant in England since James
II.'s time, and they I have forgotten it. Let them hear that in the year
1848, when a Republican government was established in France, which was
the signal of a general revolutionary movement throughout Europe, the
present Pope was forced to escape in the disguise of a menial, and
a national government granted, for the first time in Rome, religious
toleration, one of the first orders of the Roman republic was that the
nuns should be liberated, and the convents searched. Guiseppe Garibaldi,
in 1849, then recently arrived in Rome, visited himself every convent,
and was present during the whole of the investigations. In all, without
an exception, he found instruments of torture; and in all, without an
exception, were vaults, plainly dedicated to the reception of the bones
of infants. Statistics prove that in no city is there so great a number
of children born out of wedlock as in Rome; and it is in Rome also that
the greatest number of infanticides take place.
This must ever be the case with a wealthy unmarried priesthood and a
poor and _ignorant_ population.