POPE PIUS IX
Director of Ospizio di San Michele—A Splendid Record—Archbishop
of Spoleto—A Turbulent Populace—Order Restored—Revolution
in Europe—Spoleto Saved—The Earthquake in Umbria—New Post
at Imola—Secret Societies—A Cardinal—Attack upon the Three
Prelates—The Cardinal’s Bravery—How the Saints Forgive—Pope Pius
IX—His Charity and Justice—Defenders of the Poor—Anecdotes of the
Cardinal’s Generosity.
After his return from Chile, Father Giovanni Maria Mastai was appointed
Director of the Ospizio di San Michele, a position which could not be
called a great advancement in the eyes of the world, but which carried
with it a most weighty burden of responsibility. Some idea of this
charge can be grasped when we explain that the so-called “Hospital”
embraced six separate large establishments: namely, an orphanage for
boys, another for girls, both containing complete schools for general
education as well as for the learning of trades and arts; a home
for the aged poor, a “protectory” for unruly boys, a reformatory for
fallen women—and a prison for political offenders. The endowments of
the Ospizio, together with its earnings, rendered an income of fifty
thousand dollars a year, then considered an ample sum for providing for
the wants of some thousands of persons. It will readily be understood
that this left little or nothing over for salaries to those in charge,
but, fortunately, in those days these were not needed, as all the
employés, except a few servants, were priests and religious, who gave
their services for nothing except food and shelter.
In his own financial affairs, Father Mastai was the worst manager
possible; he never kept any money longer than was needed to give it
away; but where other funds were concerned he made no mistakes, and
his administration was as wise and careful as possible. His friends
and family seem to have been a little surprised when his labours
and trials during the South American mission received no more public
recognition than this appointment to a burdensome task, but he himself
was delighted. He had looked back to the years spent with “Tata
Giovanni’s” boys with homesick regret; the work at San Michele was of
the same kind on a much larger scale, more orphans to train, more poor
to cherish, more sinners to help and save, and his generous heart was
fully satisfied. The Holy Father, Leo XII, watched the new Director
closely during the two years he left him in charge. At the end of that
short time the improvement in all the different departments of the
Ospizio was fully evident, and its self-supporting funds had increased,
in spite of the innovation introduced by the new Director, who ordained
that a fair share of the inmates’ earnings should be set aside for
their own after use and benefit.
Leo XII was now satisfied that he had not been mistaken in his judgment
of Father Mastai’s abilities and virtues, so, without any intermediate
promotion, on the 21st of May, 1827, he appointed him Archbishop of
Spoleto, the Pope’s own native town. Great was the grief of the vast
family at San Michele on learning the news, for whether as simple
priest, powerful prelate, or Supreme Pontiff, Pius IX was always
enthusiastically loved by all who approached him.
Spoleto, as we know it to-day—but how can I describe it? One magic
pen has pictured the Umbrian cities with such divine felicity that the
rest of us must be for ever mute. Read what Edward Hutton says about
Spoleto—“a beautiful city of rose colour set on a high hill.”—“Spoleto,
like a tall and sweet maiden,—kneeling at the head of her long valley
under the soft sky.” Read all that that pure-souled genius has written
about Umbria and Tuscany, and you will know whatever your mind can
grasp of that which the poet and the mystic and the artist feel in
that immortal region; my business is not with them, but with the
“anima latina” of a holy, hard-working prelate sent in troublous times
to govern a turbulent populace already inoculated with the fever
of revolution, and preserving, in its murderous hatreds, the best
traditions of the late Middle Ages.
This was what the new Archbishop saw before him as, with his two
brothers, he approached Spoleto towards the end of June, 1827: “A
violent party feud raging between two factions, finding its way into
families, separating father from son, brother from brother, sister
from sister. Even the clergy had allowed themselves to be drawn into
the unhappy conflict, and, as a natural consequence, the interests
of religion were suffering lamentably.”[7] So the new Archbishop had
no light task before him. I fancy, however, that his was a nature
which was happiest in strenuous effort. There are people, even in
the modern world, who seem out of place unless they are leading a
forlorn hope. We had a friend long years ago, the Marquis de Bâcourt,
a delightful French diplomatist, with whom, after the vagrant manner
of diplomatists, we foregathered in various parts of the world before
meeting him again in Chile, which certainly just then was not a bed
of roses for foreign representatives. I was bewailing our own luck and
commiserating his, when he interrupted me by exclaiming: “Oh, but I am
really enjoying myself! I _love_ difficult and disagreeable affairs!”
Of these we know that Monsignor Mastai found many to adjust in his new
charge, and that he was signally successful in smoothing them out.
Within two years faction had died in the pretty Umbrian city on the
hill, enemies were reconciled, order restored, and the clergy aroused
to new zeal and regularity under his wise, strict rule. At the end of
those two years he held the people’s hearts in his hands, and well it
was for them that he did, for thus he was enabled to save the town and
its inhabitants from the terrible danger which suddenly threatened to
overwhelm Spoleto in 1830. Leo XII had died on the 10th of February
of the preceding year, and had been succeeded by Pius VIII, whose
beneficent reign was ended all too soon by death on the eve of All
Saints’, 1830. The gentle old man had, during his short Pontificate,
attacked and handled with vigour and wisdom some of the most important
questions of the day, notably in his regulations for mixed marriages
and in his stern condemnation of the secret societies; these had,
during the last momentous year of his life, produced the harvest of
revolution which convulsed Europe more or less from Warsaw to Rome; yet
worse was to come, but Pius VIII was spared the trial of witnessing
it. That was reserved for his successor, Gregory XVI, sturdy,
imperturbable, broad-shouldered, bringing with him the breezes of the
Julian Alps and the hard good sense of the Venetian from the mountains
and the sea. He needed it all, for, as I have said elsewhere, the
storm that had muttered so long broke loose even before his election;
the henchmen of anarchy, who had long been secretly busy in the Papal
States, started a revolution in Rome itself in February, 1830; this was
promptly quelled, but the trouble in the more northerly provinces was
very serious and the Pope had to appeal to Austria to subdue it.
Spoleto had by no means escaped the general infection, but the
Archbishop had, by constant watchfulness and his great personal
influence, succeeded in preventing any open outbreak of the
revolutionary spirit which lurked there; what was his horror and that
of the citizens when it became known that a body of four thousand
insurgents, retreating before the Austrians, were approaching the
town with the intention of holding it against their pursuers! The
place was in a panic—the inhabitants already saw themselves trampled
down and massacred in the bloody conflict that would take place—saw
the stern punishment that the Austrians would inflict upon them for
harbouring the desperate revolutionaries. It was in this emergency
that Giovanni Maria Mastai showed the coolness of a statesman and the
courage of a soldier. At the risk of his life he drove at full speed to
the Austrian headquarters and insisted on interviewing the Commander.
To the surprised General he explained that the armed insurgents who
were demanding Spoleto’s hospitality at the point of the bayonet were
strangers to her, that she was in no way responsible for them and
that she disclaimed all part in their designs. This point being made
clear, he undertook to bring the rebels to submission, single-handed,
if the General would promise not to let his own men enter Spoleto. The
promise was, naturally, most readily given, the irritated commander
being only too glad to relinquish an unpleasant job. And then the
Archbishop, getting into his carriage again, rushed off to intercept
the revolutionaries in their march on the town.
To them he spoke only in words of tenderest pity. He said he knew that
they had been misled and deceived by wicked men, that their hearts were
not in this conflict, but really loyal to their sovereign, the Pope;
he told them that he could sympathise with their present situation,
brought about by despair at finding themselves far from their houses,
without means of returning, and threatened with the reprisals of
the Austrians. He showed them the hopelessness of the struggle into
which they had been drawn, and promised them, if they would lay down
their arms, not only a free pardon, but the means of returning to
their homes. His fatherly kindness carried all before it. Touched and
grateful, they surrendered their funny old muskets and cannon; the
Archbishop went to his palace, scraped together all the money he had
or could borrow on his own credit, and came back with twenty thousand
francs which he distributed amongst them according to their needs, and
had the joy of seeing them all depart, pacified and sober, for their
respective provinces.
History does not say that the people of Spoleto suggested any refunding
of that big sum of money, but they showed their gratitude and delight
in very enthusiastic ways, illuminating the city, having processions
and fireworks in honour of him who had obtained its deliverance, and
cheering to the skies whenever he showed himself, all of which was
doubtless most gratifying to their kind Pastor’s heart; but he was
almost too busy to think much about such things at that moment, having
been charged by the Secretary of State with the conduct of all civil
matters in Umbria, the proper authorities—to a man—having fled at the
approach of the Austrians.
Talking of those penniless rebels, I ought to say that there was one
among them whom the Archbishop did not send home, because the man had
no home to go to. So he brought him into his own house, kept him there
in safety and comfort, and, regardless of what was sure to be said
in Rome about his interceding for such a character, sent to beg the
Pope to give him a passport which would take him across the frontier.
The passport was granted, and the next time any communication passed
between the charitable host and his quondam pensioner the former had
become Pius IX and the latter Napoleon III, Emperor of the French.
In 1832 the whole province of Umbria was desolated by a destructive
earthquake, in which a great number of lives were lost and many
thousands of persons rendered homeless. Spoleto suffered severely
and once more the good Archbishop was the comfort and mainstay of
his people. He seemed to be everywhere at once and called up doctors,
nurses, and provisions with miraculous celerity, finding money somehow
for all the dreadful needs and sending aid of every kind to the more
distant places where he could not go himself. Other pastors were
doing all they could for their own flocks, but Monsignor Mastai’s
zeal and charity were so conspicuous as to draw down the special and
enthusiastic commendation of Gregory XVI, who immediately promoted
him to the Archbishopric of Imola, a far more important See than that
of Spoleto. Naturally the Spoleto people were frantic at the idea
of losing him and sent a deputation of their most notable citizens
to Rome to beg the Pope to change his mind. But they failed in their
object, and at the appointed time their Archbishop received their last
farewells—a tumult of tears and blessings—and set out for his new post,
stopping on the road at Loreto to ask for Heaven’s assistance, as he
had asked for it in his early youth, when his malady appeared to be
barring his way to the priesthood.
He found even more to do at Imola than he had at Spoleto in the matters
of reorganisation and reform, and he threw himself into the work with
all the ardour of his brave energetic soul, encountering many trials,
but coming victoriously through them all. Of course he made bitter
enemies, for his boundless charity to the poor broke out in a blaze
of indignation whenever he found that they were being oppressed or
defrauded. In such cases instant retribution overtook the offender, and
no amount of apparent contrition could ever obtain office for him again
if it depended on the decision of the Archbishop.
The secret societies, following their usual programme, had decided
to “remove” Monsignor Mastai without delay. He was sitting in his
study one morning when his faithful old servant, Baladelli, who had
accompanied him everywhere, entered to say that a lady, who seemed in a
great hurry, begged him to grant her a few minutes’ “conversation.”
“Ask her to wait a little,” said the Archbishop, as he rose and went
into his private chapel. Some time passed and the servant came and
found his master on his knees.
“Monsignor, will you not speak to that lady now?” he asked.
“Tell her to wait a little longer,” was the reply.
The man retreated, to return more than once; Monsignor, still on his
knees, always gave the same message, and at last Baladelli, after the
manner of old servants, lost his temper and exclaimed: “For goodness’
sake, come and speak with that poor woman! She has been waiting for
hours.”
Then the Archbishop looked around at him and said, very quietly, “I
speak with the living, not with the dead.”
The frightened domestic rushed into the anteroom where the petitioner
had been left, and beheld a tumbled heap on the floor. Calling his
fellow-servants to help him, he raised it up. The heavy veil had
slipped from the face. The “lady” was a man, with a great sharp knife
concealed in his feminine garments. He was stone dead.
Monsignor Mastai was made a Cardinal (with the titular of the Church
of St. Peter[8] and Marcellinus) on the 14th of December, 1840, to
the great happiness of his mother, a widow since 1833. During her
lifetime he made a point of going once or more every year to visit her
at Sinigaglia in the old house where his childhood had been passed. He
frequently was obliged to come to Rome on business, and so long as he
was Archbishop of Spoleto, he lodged at the orphanage of Tata Giovanni
on these occasions. That was no longer possible after he had been
promoted to the more important See of Imola, as he was then expected
to travel with a larger suite, for whom the Orphanage did not provide
fitting quarters. He resented the expense of these more ostentatious
journeys, complaining that the money they cost would have been better
spent among his poor at Imola, but he had no choice in the matter and
had to submit to custom and tradition.
A very unpleasant adventure marked the third year of his cardinalate.
In the heat of the summer he and two of his colleagues in the Sacred
College arranged to take a few weeks of rest in a small and lonely
villa in a remote part of the country. They knew, of course, that
the revolutionary agents were abroad and at work, but it had not
occurred to any of the trio that their own illustrious persons might
be designated as worthy objects of attack. But a certain Riotti, a
Piedmontese, deep-dyed in conspiracy, conceived the brilliant idea
of kidnapping the three prelates and holding them as hostages, to
be ransomed at the price of his own immunity should his treasonable
designs be discovered. So, in the dead of night this hero, with six
of his fellow-conspirators, broke into the villa, and the unfortunate
prelates were roused from their sleep to find themselves confronted
with a band of desperate men armed to the teeth. The two other
Cardinals were not fighters, but Giovanni Maria Mastai was. What
weapons he used I know not—he had none at hand except his high courage
and biting tongue, but the outcome was that the ruffians fled from his
presence and were heard of no more. His companions said that it was
entirely owing to his bravery that the whole party was saved.
One spring day at Imola, while the Carnival was roaring through the
streets, the Archbishop was down on his knees in the Church praying
for his people that they might not sin in their mirth. Alas! even his
fervent prayers could not altogether avert that calamity! A sudden
tumult of cries and footsteps came from the sacristy and he rushed
thither to almost fall over a young man, who lay gasping in his blood
on the pavement. At the same moment his pursuers broke in after him,
three men with knives in their hands, furiously intent on finishing
their victim. The Cardinal instantly placed himself before him and,
holding up the gold cross which he wore on his breast, forbade them to
come a step nearer. In a torrent of burning eloquence he reproached
them with their atrocious cruelty and sacrilege of which they had
been guilty, and ordered them to quit the Church. They stood for a
moment cowed and broken, then they fled, and he turned to the poor
boy on the ground. Very tenderly he knelt down beside him, and soothed
and comforted him, pillowing his bleeding neck on his arm, while the
attendants who had arrived on the scene ran for a physician. The latter
came promptly, but said that the wound was mortal—there was nothing to
be done. Then, still kneeling on the ground and holding the poor dying
boy in his arms, the Cardinal helped him to make his confession, called
one of the priests of the Church to administer the last Sacraments, and
knelt there till the young soul passed away, comforted and at peace.
Where injuries or insults were offered to himself, Cardinal Mastai
forgave as only the Saints can forgive. The chief magistrate of Imola,
a hard and cruel man, had conceived the most bitter hatred of him for
his gentle methods and broad, progressive views, and expressed his
hostility with much violence. The Mayor’s wife, a good devout woman,
was much distressed at his attitude, and sought by every means in her
power to heal the one-sided feud. A child was born to her, and she
secretly begged the Cardinal to volunteer to be its godfather—she
was sure her husband’s heart would be softened at such an evidence
of condescension and good-will! Nothing loath, the good Cardinal
approached the Mayor, personally, and with much gentleness and humility
asked if he would permit him to stand sponsor for the baby. Whereupon
the Mayor flew into a passion and exclaimed: “You! You presume to
suggest such a thing! You, who are a friend of malcontents and rebels!
No, indeed! You are too liberal for me!” Then he turned his back on his
Archbishop and left him—a suppliant refused!
The Archbishop accepted both the insult and the calumny without a
word of protest. A month later he changed his name and assumed that
of Pius IX. Learning that his old enemy was in Rome with his family
at the time, he sent him word that, although he had refused to allow
the Archbishop of Imola to stand godfather to his child, he might not
feel the same objection to the Pope, who, if the infant were not yet
baptised, would be glad to be its sponsor. _En passant_ one is struck
with wonder that, amid all the preoccupation and inevitable excitement
of that great change in his life, Pius IX should have found time to
think of the man at all. Naturally, he had conquered, and his old enemy
could scarcely express his gratitude at receiving such an honour. Even
then the Pope remembered him again, and very soon afterwards seized an
opportunity of conferring on him a great material benefit. That is how
the Saints forgive!
Naturally he had conquered, and the favour was received with almost
unbelieving joy.
Oh, they were a good family, those Mastai-Ferrettis. After the
accession of Pius IX, his brother, Cardinal Ferretti, a most wise
and saintly man, acted as his Prime Minister for a time, before the
revolution. His memory was greatly venerated in Rieti, of which place
he was Cardinal Bishop. A terrible thing happened while he was there.
One of the Churches was broken into at night, the Tabernacle violated,
and the pyx containing the Blessed Sacrament stolen. On learning of
this frightful sacrilege the next morning, the Cardinal called all his
clergy together, and he and they, with bare feet and ropes round their
necks, went in procession to the public square. The entire population
gathered round them, and then the Cardinal, standing bareheaded and
barefooted under the noonday sun, preached a sermon, taking for his
text the cry of Mary Magdalene on Easter morning: “They have taken away
my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him.”
When the sermon ended the people were kneeling on the stones, sobbing
like children. That night the door of the Church was left open, and the
pyx was restored; its sacred contents were intact.
Pius IX early let his family know that they were to expect neither
wealth nor promotion from his hands. One ambitious relation asked him
for a title. “You have not the income to maintain it, my dear fellow,”
the Pope replied, “and I shall not provide you with one. Stay as you
are.” Another, a young nephew, was idling about Rome, giving himself
no end of airs because his uncle was on the throne. His uncle sent
him back to Sinigaglia to learn sense in obscurity. Yet the poorest
and meanest could always obtain aid and sympathy from Pius IX. I
remember seeing the people push forward their written petitions as he
used to drive through the city or walk in the environs. The queer,
often dirty, scraps of paper were received by one of the Cardinals
or the chamberlain who accompanied the Pope on these occasions, and
every one was examined, the circumstances verified, and genuine cases
relieved within twenty-four hours. Only one class dreaded the approach
of the Holy Father—neglectful or fraudulent officials. He relied on
no reports of public or private institutions, but descended on them
at all hours of the day or night, in person and without giving the
slightest warning, to see for himself how things were being managed.
Like Haroun-al-Raschid he would slip out alone, dressed as a layman,
and dive unrecognised into hospitals, schools, and prisons, only
revealing his rank when he could not obtain admittance otherwise;
and where he found anything out of order, correction, and in serious
cases heavy retribution, instantly followed. One night, dressed as a
private gentleman, he was thus going through the wards of the great
Hospital of Santo Spirito, where, as in most of the Roman hospitals,
charitable visitors were always free to come and cheer or tend the
sick. That night a poor French artist was dying, and he called for a
priest. The attendants looked everywhere for the Almoner or Chaplain
of the Institution, but he was not to be found. The Pope said, “I will
take his place,” and to him the dying man made his confession, from him
received the last Sacraments, and passed away, comforted and in peace.
The next morning the Almoner was dismissed.
One day the Holy Father, walking in the Quirinal Gardens, passed a
sentry on duty. The man silently held out a loaf of bread for his
inspection. Pius IX took it, examined it, and asked one question, “Do
you always get bread as bad as this?” “Always, Santo Padre,” was the
reply. A sudden descent on the Commissariat department showed that he
had spoken the truth. When the sun rose again the cheating commissary
was repenting of his sins in prison. There is a beautifully practical
side to autocratic government!
Justice had nothing to blush for in the Rome of those days, and the
poor could obtain it as promptly and easily as the rich. There were
three separate institutions devoted entirely to the legal defence and
protection of persons who could not pay for the services of a lawyer.
One was the Arch-Confraternity of St. Ives, thus named after the Saint
still so dear to the people of Brittany, the lawyer who was a priest
and who devoted all his talents to the defence and protection of the
poor. But long before his time (he died on the 19th of May, 1303) St.
Gregory had instituted in Rome seven official defenders of the poor,
one for each Region of the city. They were called “defensori”; some
eight hundred years later their official descendants, the College of
Procurators, took the title of “the Rights of the Poor,” and there was
also a civil office established by Urban VIII, of which the holder,
who had to be a noble and a layman, took the title of “Advocate
of the Poor,” exercising his powers in cases that came outside any
ecclesiastical administration. The Congregation of St. Ives remained
the great standby of the lower classes down to my own time. It was
partly a religious sodality, comprising both prelates and lawyers, who
met every Sunday for pious exercises, which were followed by a careful
examination of such appeals as had been laid before them during the
week. They took up all just and genuine claims and defended them at
their own expense. Besides looking after the rights of their humble
fellow-countrymen, they undertook the cases of all poor strangers who
got into trouble in the city.
There was a third body, the Arch-Confraternity of San Girolamo,
that devoted itself to the defence and aid of prisoners and, more
especially, of poor widows. The gentlemen composing it—and they were
the flower of the aristocracy, ecclesiastical and social—made it their
business to assist impecunious prisoners in every possible way, paying
their fines, if such had been imposed on them, and arranging matters
with their creditors if they had been imprisoned for debt. The members
had free access to all the prisons and they took their duties very
seriously, some of their number examining the food every day of the
year, and enquiring into all matters connected with the treatment of
the prisoners. Indeed some of the most important prisons were confided
to their sole charge. They did no end of good, particularly in bringing
about amicable settlements of disputes which would otherwise have
caused fierce litigation.
Our blessed Pius IX had a tender sympathy for poor debtors and often
came to their assistance. He was constantly in money difficulties
himself—as generous people so often are—during the earlier part of his
career. When he became Archbishop of Spoleto he had to borrow a goodly
sum, on his brother’s security, from a Roman money-lender to defray the
expenses of his installation, and he was so recklessly charitable that
again and again there was not wherewithal to buy food.
His old housekeeper at Spoleto used to weep over the bare shelves of
her larder—everybody was fed, she declared, except her master and his
household! It was hoped that things would be better when he moved to
Imola, where the Episcopal revenue was double that of Spoleto, but
the master’s ways were hopeless and he only laughed when his people
remonstrated with him. There came a day at Imola when the distracted
steward, ready to tear his hair, exclaimed: “Eminenza, there was a
hundred dollars in the treasury this morning, and _it is all gone_! I
have not a cent for the ‘spese’” (the current expenses); “what shall we
do?”
The Cardinal reminded him that the good God had promised daily bread to
His children. “That is true, Eminenza,” said the poor man, “but—I am in
terrible difficulty, all the same!”
“Well,” said his master, “to-morrow is a fast day. I know you have some
cheese in the house. Serve that for dinner.”
“But the next day, Eminenza?”
“Oh, I will take care to leave enough for the next day!” was the
Cardinal’s reply.
On another occasion he was about to entertain a distinguished party at
dinner. The gentlemen were already gathered in the drawing-room when
their host was informed that a man wished to speak with him on urgent
business. He excused himself and came into the dining-room, where he
found one of his parishioners in frantic distress. He wanted a loan
to save him from immediate bankruptcy. “I have not a single dollar in
my possession, my poor friend,” said the Cardinal, “but——” He glanced
round the room, where all his best plate was laid out in preparation
for the coming feast, and pounced on a great gold soup tureen, a
cherished gift from his mother. “Take this,” he said, putting it into
the man’s hands, “it will pay your debts.”
With sublime carelessness he returned to his guests, and they and he
soon began to wonder why dinner was not served. A long time passed,
and then the steward, pale as death and with tears in his eyes, came
and informed him that somebody had stolen the gold soup tureen! He had
looked everywhere, searched the servants’ rooms—the household was in an
uproar—but the tureen was gone!
“Oh, is that all?” he laughed. “I stole it myself! Get the old china
one and let us eat.”