I promessi sposi. English

by Alessandro Manzoni

  CHAPTER XXXI.

  The pestilence, as the Tribunal of Health had feared, did enter theMilanese with the German troops. It is also known that it was notlimited to that territory, but that it spread over and desolated a greatpart of Italy. Our story requires us, at present, to relate theprincipal circumstances of this great calamity, as far as it affectedthe Milanese, and principally the city of Milan itself, for thechroniclers of the period confine their relations chiefly to this place.At the same time we cannot avoid giving a general though brief sketch ofan event in the history of our country more talked of than understood.

  Many partial narratives written at the time are still extant; but theseconvey but an imperfect view of the subject, historically speaking. Itis true they serve to illustrate and confirm one another, and furnishmaterials for a history; but the history is still wanting. Strange tosay, no writer has hitherto attempted to reduce them to order, andexhibit all the various events, public and private acts, causes andconjectures, relative to this calamity, in a concatenated series.Ripamonti's narrative, though far more ample than any other, is stillvery defective. We shall, therefore, attempt, in the following pages, topresent the reader with a succinct, but accurate and continuous,statement of this fatal scourge.

  In all the line of country which had been over-run by the army, deadbodies had been found in the houses, as well as on the roads. Soonafter, throughout the whole country, entire families were attacked withviolent disorders, accompanied with unusual symptoms, which the agedonly remembered to have seen at the time of the plague, which,fifty-three years before, had desolated a great part of Italy, andprincipally the Milanese, where it was and still is known by the name ofthe Plague of San Carlo. It derives this appellation from the noble,beneficent, and disinterested conduct of that great man, who at lengthbecame its victim.

  Ludovico Settala, a physician distinguished so long ago as during theformer plague, announced to the Tribunal of Health, by the 20th ofOctober, that the contagion had indisputably appeared at Lecco; but nomeasures were taken upon this report. Further notices of a like importinduced them to despatch a commissioner, with a physician of Como, who,most unaccountably, upon the report of an old barber of Bellano,announced that the prevailing disease arose merely from the autumnalexhalation from the marshes, aggravated by the sufferings caused by thepassage of the German troops.

  Meanwhile, further intelligence of the new disease, and of the number ofdeaths, arriving from all parts, two commissioners were sent to examinethe places where it had appeared, and, if necessary, to use precautionsto prevent its increase. The scourge had already spread to such anextent, as to leave no doubt of its character. The commissioners passedthrough the territories of Lecco, the borders of the lake of Como, thedistricts of Monte-Brianza, and Gera-d'Adda, and found the villagesevery where in a state of barricade, or deserted, and the inhabitantsflying, or encamped in the middle of the fields, or dispersed abroadthroughout the country; "like so many wild creatures," says DoctorTadino, one of the envoys, "they were carrying about them some imaginarysafeguard against the dreaded disease, such as sprigs of mint, rue, orrosemary, and even vinegar." Informing themselves of the number ofdeaths, the commissioners became alarmed, and visiting the sick and thedead, recognised the terrible and infallible evidences of the _plague_!

  Upon this information, orders were given to close the gates of Milan.

  The Tribunal of Health, on the 14th of November, directed thecommissioners to wait on the governor, in order to represent to him thesituation of affairs. He replied, that he was very sorry for it; butthat the cares of war were much more pressing: this was the second timehe had made the same answer under similar circumstances. Two or threedays after, he published a decree, prescribing public rejoicings on thebirth of Prince Charles, the first son of Philip IV., without troublinghimself with the danger which would result from so great a concourse ofpeople at such a time; just as if things were going on in their ordinarycourse, and no dreadful evil was hanging over them.

  This man was the celebrated Ambrose Spinola, who died a few monthsafter, and during this very war which he had so much at heart,--not inthe field, but in his bed, and through grief and vexation at thetreatment he experienced from those whose interests he had served.History has loudly extolled his merits; she has been silent upon hisbase inhumanity in risking the dissemination of that worst of mortalcalamities, plague, over a country committed to his trust.

  But that which diminishes our astonishment at his indifference is theindifference of the people themselves, of that part of the populationwhich the contagion had not yet reached, but who had so many motives todread it. The scarcity of the preceding year, the exactions of the army,and the anxiety of mind which had been endured, appeared to them morethan sufficient to explain the mortality of the surrounding country.They heard with a smile of incredulity and contempt any who hazarded aword on the danger, or who even mentioned the plague. The sameincredulity, the same blindness, the same obstinacy, prevailed in thesenate, the council of ten, and in all the judicial bodies. CardinalFrederick alone enjoined his curates to impress upon the people theimportance of declaring every case, and of sequestrating all infected orsuspected goods. The Tribunal of Health, prompted by the two physicians,who fully apprehended the danger, did take some tardy measures; but invain. A proclamation to prevent the entrance of strangers into the citywas not published until the 29th of November. This was too late; theplague was already in Milan.

  It must be difficult, however interesting, to discover the first causeof a calamity which swept off so many thousands of the inhabitants ofthe city; but both Tadino and Ripamonti agree that it was broughtthither by an Italian soldier in the service of Spain, who had eitherbought or stolen a quantity of clothes from the German soldiers. He wason a visit to his parents in Milan, when he fell sick, and, beingcarried to the hospital, died on the fourth day.

  The Tribunal of Health condemned the house he had lived in; his clothesand the bed he had occupied in the hospital were consigned to theflames. Two servants and a good friar, who had attended him, fell sick afew days after; but the suspicions from the first entertained of thenature of the malady, and the precautions used, prevented its extensionfor the present.

  But in the house from which the soldier had been taken there wereseveral attacked by the disease; upon which all the inhabitants of itwere conducted to the lazaretto, by order of the Tribunal of Health.

  The contagion made but little progress during the rest of this year andthe beginning of the following. From time to time there were a fewpersons attacked, but the rarity of the occurrence diminished thesuspicion of the plague, and confirmed the multitude in their disbeliefof its existence. Added to this, most of the physicians joined with thepeople in laughing at the unhappy presages and threatening opinions ofthe smaller number of their brethren: the cases that did occur theypretended to explain upon other grounds; and the account of these caseswas seldom presented to the Tribunal of Health. Fear of the lazarettokept all on the alert; the sick were concealed, and false certificateswere obtained from some subaltern officers of health, who were deputedto inspect the dead bodies. Those physicians, who, convinced of thereality of the contagion, proposed precautions against it, were theobjects of general animadversion. But the principal objects ofexecration were Tadino and the senator Settala, who were stigmatised asenemies of their country, men whose best exertions had been directedtowards mitigating the severity of the coming mischief. Even theillustrious Settala, the aged father of the senator, whose talents wereequalled by his benevolence, was obliged to take refuge in a friend'shouse from the popular fury, because he had constantly urged thenecessity of precautionary measures.

  Towards the end of the month of March, at first in the suburb of theeastern gate, then in the rest of the city, deaths, attended by singularsymptoms, such as spasms, delirium, livid spots and buboes, began to bemore frequent. Sudden deaths, too, were frequent, without any previousillness. The physicians still perversely held out; but the magistracy
were aroused. The Tribunal of Health called on them to enforce theirdirections; to raise the requisite funds for the growing expenses of thelazaretto, as well as the helpless poor. The malady advanced rapidly. Inthe lazaretto all was confusion, bad arrangement, and anarchy. In theirdifficulty on this point the Tribunal had recourse to the capuchins, andconjured the father provincial to give them a man capable of governingthis region of desolation. He offered them Father Felice Casati, whoenjoyed a high reputation for charity, activity, and kindness ofdisposition, added to great strength of mind, and as a companion to him,Father Michele Pozzobonelli, who, although young, was of a grave andthoughtful character. They were joyfully accepted, and on the 30th ofMarch they entered on their duties. As the crowd in the lazarettoincreased, other capuchins joined them, willingly performing everyoffice both of spiritual and of temporal kindness, even the most menial;the Father Felice, indefatigable in his labours, watched with unceasingand parental care over the multitude. He caught the plague, was cured,and resumed his duties even with greater alacrity. Most of his brethrenjoyfully sacrificed their lives in this cause of afflicted humanity.

  Not being able longer to deny the terrible effects of the malady, whichhad now reached the family of the physician Settala, and was spreadingits ravages in many noble families, those medical men who had beenincredulous were still unwilling to acknowledge its true cause, whichwould have been a tacit condemnation of themselves; they thereforeimagined one entirely conformable to the prejudices of the time. It wasat that period a prevailing opinion in all Europe, that enchantersexisted, diabolical operators, who at this time conspired to spread theplague, by the aid of venomous poisons and witchcraft. Similar thingshad been affirmed and believed in other epidemics; particularly atMilan, in that of the preceding century. Moreover, towards the end ofthe preceding year, a despatch had arrived from King Philip IV. givinginformation that four Frenchmen, suspected of spreading poisons andpestilential substances, had escaped from Madrid, and ordering thatwatch should be kept to ascertain if by chance they had arrived atMilan.

  The governor communicated the despatch to the senate, and the Tribunalof Health. It then excited no attention; but when the plague broke out,and was acknowledged by all, this intelligence was remembered, and itserved to confirm the vague suspicion of criminal agency: two incidentsconverted this vague suspicion into conviction of a positive and realconspiracy. Some persons who imagined they saw, on the evening of the17th of May, individuals rubbing a partition of the cathedral, carriedthe partition out of the church in the night, together with a greatquantity of benches. The president of the senate, with four persons ofhis tribunal, visited the partition, the benches, and the basins of holywater, and found nothing which confirmed the ridiculous suspicion ofpoison. However, to satisfy the disturbed imaginations of the populace,it was decided that the partition should be washed and purified. But theincident became a text for conjecture to the people; it was affirmed,that the poisoners had rubbed all the benches and walls of thecathedral, and even the bell-ropes.

  The next morning a new and more strange and significant spectacle struckthe wondering eyes of the citizens. In all parts of the city the doorsof the houses and the walls were plastered with long streaks of whitishyellow dirt, which appeared to have been rubbed on with a sponge.Whether it was a wicked pleasantry to excite more general and thrillingalarm, or that it had been done from the guilty design of increasing thepublic disorder; whatever was the motive, the fact is so well attested,that it cannot be attributed to imagination. The city, already alarmed,was thrown into the utmost confusion; the owners of houses purified allinfected places; strangers were stopped in the streets on suspicion, andconducted to prison, where they underwent long interrogatories whichnaturally ended in proving none of these absurd and imaginary practicesagainst them. The Tribunal of Health published a decree, offering areward to whomsoever should discover the author or authors of thisattempt; but they did this, as they wrote to the governor, only tosatisfy the people and calm their fears,--a weak and dangerousexpedient, and calculated to confirm the popular belief.

  In the mean time many attributed this story of the poisoned ointment tothe revenge of Gonsalvo Fernandez de Cordova; others to CardinalRichelieu, in order the more easily to get possession of Milan; othersagain affixed the crime to various Milanese gentlemen.

  There were still many who were not persuaded that it was the plague,because if it were, every one infected would die of it; whereas a fewrecovered. To dissipate every doubt, the Tribunal of Health made use ofan expedient conformable to the necessity of the occasion; they made anaddress to the eyes, such as the spirit of the times suggested. On oneof the days of the feast of Pentecost, the inhabitants of the city wereaccustomed to go to the burying ground of San Gregorio, beyond theeastern gate, in order to pray for the dead in the last plague. Turningthe season of devotion into one of amusement, every one was attired inhis best; on that day a whole family, among others, had died of theplague. At the hour in which the concourse was most numerous, the deadbodies of this family were, by order of the Tribunal of Health, drawnnaked on a carriage towards this same burying ground; so that the crowdmight behold for themselves the manifest traces, the hideous impress ofthe disease. A cry of alarm and horror arose wherever the car passed;their incredulity was at least shaken, but it is probable that the greatconcourse tended to spread the infection.

  Still it was not absolutely the _plague_; the use of the word wasprohibited, it was a pestilential fever, the adjective was preferred tothe substantive,--then, not the true plague,--that is to say, theplague, but only in a certain sense,--and further, combined with poisonand witchcraft. Such is the absurd trifling with which men seek to blindthemselves, wilfully abstaining from a sound exercise of judgment toarrive at the truth.

  Meanwhile, as it became from day to day more difficult to raise funds tomeet the painful exigencies of circumstances, the council of tenresolved to have recourse to government. They represented, by twodeputies, the state of misery and distress of the city, the enormity ofthe expense, the revenues anticipated, and the taxes withheld inconsequence of the general poverty which had been produced by so manycauses, and especially by the pillaging of the soldiery. That accordingto various laws, and a special decree of Charles V., the expense of theplague ought by right to devolve upon government. Finally, theyproceeded to make four demands: that the taxes should be suspended; thatthe chamber should advance funds; that the governor should make known tothe king the calamitous state of the city and province; and that theduchy, already exhausted, should be excused from providing quarters forthe soldiery. Spinola replied with new regrets and exhortations;declaring himself grieved not to be able to visit Milan in person, inorder to employ himself for the preservation of the city, but hopingthat the zeal of the magistrates would supply his place: in short, hemade evasive answers to all their requests. Afterwards, when the plaguewas at its height, he transferred, by letters patent, his authority tothe high chancellor Ferrer, being, as he said, obliged to devote himselfentirely to the cares of the war.

  The council of ten then requested the cardinal to order a solemnprocession, for the purpose of carrying through the streets the body ofSan Carlos. The good prelate refused; this confidence in a doubtfulmeans disturbed him, and he feared that, if the effect should not beobtained, confidence would be converted into infidelity, and rebellionagainst God. He also feared that if there really were poisoners, thisprocession would be a favourable occasion for their machinations; and ifthere were not, so great a collection would have a tendency to spreadthe contagion.

  The doors of public edifices and private houses had been again anointedas at first. The news flew from mouth to mouth; the people, influencedby present suffering, and by the imminence of the supposed danger,readily embraced the belief. The idea of subtle instantaneous poisonseemed sufficient to explain the violence, and the almostincomprehensible circumstances, of the disease. Add to this the idea ofenchantment, and any effect was possible, every objection was renderedfeeble, ev
ery difficulty was explained. If the effects did notimmediately succeed the first attempt, the cause was easy to assign: ithad been done by those to whom the art was new; and now that it wasbrought to perfection, the perpetrators were more confirmed in theirinfernal resolution. If any one had dared to suggest its having beendone in jest, or denied the existence of a dark plot, he would havepassed for an obstinate fool, if he did not incur the suspicion of beinghimself engaged in it. With such persuasions on their minds, all were onthe alert to discover the guilty; the most indifferent action excitedsuspicion, suspicion was changed to certainty, and certainty to rage.

  As illustrations of this, Ripamonti cites two examples which fell underhis own observation, and such were of daily occurrence.

  In the church of St. Antonio, on a day of some great solemnity, an oldman, after having prayed for some time on his knees, rose to seathimself, and before doing so, wiped the dust from the bench with hishandkerchief. "The old man is poisoning the bench," cried some women,who beheld the action. The crowd in the church threw themselves uponhim, tore his white hair, and after beating him, drew him out half dead,to carry him to prison and to torture. "I saw the unfortunate man," saysRipamonti; "I never knew the end of his painful story, but at the time Ithought he had but a few moments to live."

  The other event occurred the next day; it was as remarkable, but not asfatal. Three young Frenchmen having come to visit Italy, and study itsantiquities, had approached the cathedral, and were contemplating itvery attentively. Some persons, who were passing by, stopped; a circlewas formed around them; they were not lost sight of for a moment, havingbeen recognised as strangers, and especially Frenchmen. As if to assurethemselves that the wall was marble, the young artists extended theirhands to touch it. This was enough. In a moment they were surrounded,and, with imprecations and blows, dragged to prison. Happily, however,they were proved to be innocent, and released.

  These things were not confined to the city; the frenzy was propagatedequally with the contagion. The traveller encountered off the high road,the stranger whose habits or appearance were in any respect singular,were judged to be poisoners. At the first intelligence of a new comer,at the cry even of a child, the alarm bell was rung; and the unfortunatepersons were assailed with showers of stones, or seized and conducted toprison. And thus the prison itself was, during a certain period, a placeof safety.

  Meanwhile, the council of ten, not silenced by the refusal of the wiseprelate, again urged their request for the procession, which the peopleseconded by their clamours. The cardinal again resisted, but findingresistance useless, he finally yielded; he did more, he consented thatthe case which enclosed the relics of San Carlos should be exposed foreight days on the high altar of the cathedral.

  The Tribunal of Health and the other authorities did not oppose thisproceeding; they only ordained some precautions, which, withoutobviating the danger, indicated too plainly their apprehensions. Theyissued severe orders to prevent people from abroad entering the city;and, to insure their execution, commanded the gates to be closed. Theyalso nailed up the condemned houses; "the number of which," says acontemporary writer, "amounted to about five hundred."

  Three days were employed in preparation; on the 11th of June theprocession left the cathedral at daybreak: a long file of people,composed for the most part of women, their faces covered with silkmasks, and many of them with bare feet, and clothed in sackcloth,appeared first. The tradesmen came next, preceded by their banners; thesocieties, in habits of various forms and colours; then thebrotherhoods, then the secular clergy, each with the insignia of hisrank, and holding a lighted taper in his hand. In the midst, among thebrilliant light of the torches, and the resounding echo of thecanticles, the case advanced, covered with a rich canopy, and carriedalternately by four canons, sumptuously attired. Through the crystalwere seen the mortal remains of the saint, clothed in his pontificalrobes, and his head covered with a mitre. In his mutilated featuresmight still be distinguished some traces of his former countenance, suchas his portraits represent him, and such as some of the spectatorsremembered to have beheld and honoured. Behind the remains of the holyprelate, and resembling him in merit, birth, and dignity, as well as inperson, came the Archbishop Frederick. The rest of the clergy followedhim, and with them the magistrates in their robes, then the nobility,some magnificently clothed, as if to do honour to the pomp of thecelebration, and others as penitents, in sackcloth and bare-footed, eachbearing a torch in his hand. A vast collection of people terminated theprocession.

  The streets were ornamented as on festival days: the rich sent out theirmost precious furniture; and thus the fronts of the poorest houses weredecorated by their more wealthy neighbours, or at the expense of thepublic. Here, in the place of hangings, and there, over the hangingsthemselves, were suspended branches of trees; on all sides hungpictures, inscriptions, devices; on the balconies were displayed vases,rich antiquities, and valuable curiosities; with burning flambeaux atvarious stations. From many of the windows the sequestrated sick lookedout upon the procession, and mingled their prayers with those of thepeople as they passed. The procession returned to the cathedral aboutthe middle of the day.

  But the next day, whilst presumptuous and fanatical assurance had takenpossession of every mind, the number of deaths augmented in all parts ofthe city in a progression so frightful, and in a manner so sudden, thatnone could avoid confessing the cause to have been the processionitself. However, (astonishing and deplorable power of prejudice!) thiseffect was not attributed to the assemblage of so many people, and tothe increase of fortuitous contact, but to the facility afforded to thepoisoners to execute their infernal purposes. But as this opinion couldnot account for so vast a mortality, and as no traces of strangesubstances had been discovered on the road of the procession, recoursewas had to another invention, admitted by general opinion inEurope--magical and poisoned powders! It was asserted that thesepowders, scattered profusely in the road, attached themselves to theskirts of the gowns, and to the feet of those who had been on that daybarefooted: thus the human mind delights itself with contending againstphantoms of its own creating.

  The violence of the contagion increased daily; in short, there washardly a house that was not infected; the number of souls in thelazaretto amounted to 12,000, and sometimes to 16,000. The dailymortality, which had hitherto exceeded 500, soon increased to 1200 and1500.

  We may imagine the agony of the council of ten, on whom rested theweighty burden of providing for the public necessities, and of repairingwhat was reparable in such a disaster: they had to replace every day,and every day to add to the number of individuals charged with publicservices of all kinds. Of these individuals there were three remarkableclasses; the first was that of the _monatti_: this appellation, ofdoubtful origin, was applied to those men who were devoted to the mostpainful and dangerous employment in times of contagion; the taking ofthe dead bodies from the houses, from the streets, and from thelazaretto, carrying them to their graves, and burying them; also,bringing the sick to the lazaretto, and burning and purifying suspectedor infected objects; the second class was that of the _apparitori_,whose special function was to precede the funeral cars, ringing a bellto warn passengers to retire; and the third was that of thecommissaries, who presided over both the other classes, under theimmediate orders of the Tribunal of Health.

  It was necessary to keep the lazaretto furnished with medicine,surgeons, food, and all the requisites of an infirmary; and it was alsonecessary to find and prepare new habitations for new cases. Cabins ofwood and straw were hastily constructed in the interior enclosure of thelazaretto; then a second lazaretto, a little beyond, was erected,capable of containing 4000 persons. Two others were ordered, but means,men, and courage failed, and they were never completed: despair andweakness had attained such a point, that the most urgent and painfulwants were unprovided for; each day, for example, children, whosemothers had perished of the plague, died from neglect. The Tribunal ofHealth proposed to found an hospital for these innoc
ent creatures, butcould obtain no assistance for the purpose; all supplies were for thearmy, "because," said the governor, "it is a time of war, and we musttreat the soldiers well."

  Meanwhile the immense ditch which had been dug near the lazaretto wasfilled with dead bodies; a number still remained without sepulture, ashands were wanting for the work. Without extraordinary aid this calamitymust have remained unremedied. The president of the senate addressedhimself in tears to the two intrepid friars who governed the lazaretto,and the Father Michele pledged himself to relieve in four days the cityof the unburied dead, and to dig, in the course of a week, another ditchsufficient not only for present wants, but even for those which might beanticipated in future. Followed by another friar, and public officerschosen by the president, he went into the country to procure peasants,and partly by the authority of the tribunal, partly by that of hishabit, he gathered 200, whom he employed to dig the earth. He thendespatched _monatti_ from the lazaretto to collect the dead. At theappointed time his promise was fulfilled.

  At one time the lazaretto was left without physicians, and it was onlyafter much trouble and time, and great offers of money and honours, thatothers could be prevailed on to supply their place. Provisions wereoften so scarce, as to create apprehensions of starvation, but more thanonce these necessities were unexpectedly supplied by the charity ofindividuals. In the midst of the general stupor, or the indifference tothe miseries of others, occasioned by personal apprehension, some werefound whose hands and hearts had ever been open to the wretched, andothers with whom the virtue of benevolence had commenced with the lossof all their terrestrial happiness. So also, amidst the destruction ofthe flight of so many men charged with watching over and providing forthe public safety, others were seen, who, well in body and firm in mind,ever remained faithful at their post, and some even, who, by anadmirable self-devotion, sustained with heroic constancy cares to whichtheir duty did not call them.

  The most entire self-devotion was especially conspicuous among theclergy; at the lazarettos, in the city, their assistance was always athand; they were found, wherever there was suffering, always inattendance on the sick and the dying; very often languishing and dyingthemselves: with spiritual, they bestowed, as far as they could,temporal succour. More than sixty clergymen in the city alone died fromthe contagion, which was nearly eight out of nine.

  Frederick, as might be expected, was an example to all; after havingseen all his household perish around him, he was solicited by hisfamily, by the first magistrates, and by the neighbouring princes, tofly the peril, but he rejected their advice and their solicitations withthe same firmness which induced him to write to the clergy of hisdiocese:--"Be disposed to abandon life rather than these sufferers, whoare your children, and your family; go with the same joy into the midstof the pestilence, as to a certain reward, since you may, by thesemeans, win many souls to Christ." He neglected no precaution compatiblewith his duty: he even gave instructions to his clergy on this point;but he betrayed no anxiety, nor did he even appear to perceive danger,where it was necessary to incur it, in order to do good. He was alwayswith the ecclesiastics, to praise and direct the zealous, and to excitethe lukewarm; he visited the lazarettos to console the sick, andencourage those who assisted them; he travelled over the city, carryingaid to the miserable who were sequestered in their houses, stopping attheir doors and under their windows, to listen to their complaints, andto give them words of consolation and encouragement. Having thus thrownhimself into the midst of the contagion, it was truly wonderful that henever was attacked by it.

  In seasons of public calamity, when confusion takes the place of order,we often behold a display of the sublimest virtue, but more frequently,alas! an increase of vice and crime. Instances of the latter were notwanting during the present unhappy period. The profligate, spared by theplague, found in the common confusion, and in the slackening of therestraints of law, new occasions for mischief, and new assurances ofimpunity. And further, power itself had passed into the hands of theboldest among them. There were scarcely found for the functions of_monatti_ and _apparitori_ any, but those over whom the attraction ofrapine and licence had more sway than dread of the contagion. Strictrules had been prescribed to them, and severe penalties threatened forinfringing them, which had some power for awhile; but the number ofdeaths, and the increasing desolation, and the universal alarm, soonrelieved them from all superintendence, and they constituted themselves(the _monatti_ in particular) the arbiters of every thing. They enteredhouses as masters and enemies; and, not to mention their robberies, andthe cruel treatment which those unhappy persons experienced whom theplague condemned to their authority, they applied their infected andcriminal hands to those in health, threatening to carry them to thelazaretto, unless they purchased their exemption with money. At othertimes they refused to carry off the dead bodies already in a state ofputrefaction, without a high price being paid them; it is even said,that they designedly let fall from their carts infected clothing, inorder to propagate the infection from which their wealth was derived.Many ruffians, too, assuming the garb of these wretches, carried onextensive robberies in the houses of the sick, dying, and helpless.

  In the same proportion as vice increased, folly increased; the foolishidea was again revived of _poisonings_; the dread of this fantasticdanger beset and tormented the minds of men more than the real andpresent danger. "While," says Ripamonti, "the heaps of dead bodies lyingbefore the eyes of the living made the city a vast tomb, there wassomething more afflicting and hideous still--reciprocal distrust andextravagant suspicion; and this not only between friends, neighbours,and guests; but husbands, wives, and children, became objects of terrorto one another, and, horrible to tell! even the domestic board and thenuptial bed were dreaded as snares, as places were poison might beconcealed."

  Besides ambition and cupidity, the motives commonly attributed to thepoisoners, it was imagined that this action included an indefinable,diabolical voluptuousness of enjoyment, an attractiveness stronger thanthe will. The ravings of the sick, who accused themselves of that whichthey had dreaded in others, were considered as so many involuntaryrevelations, which rendered belief irresistible.

  Among the stories recorded of this delirium, there is one which deservesto be related, on account of the extensive credence it obtained.

  It was said that on a certain day, a citizen had seen an equipage withsix horses stop in the square of the cathedral. Within it was a personof a noble and majestic figure, dark complexion, eyes inflamed, and lipscompressed and threatening. The spectator being invited to enter thecarriage, complied. After a short circuit, it made a halt before thegate of a magnificent palace. Entering it he beheld mingled scenes ofdelight and horror, frightful deserts and smiling gardens, dark cavernsand magnificent saloons. Phantoms were seated in council. They showedhim large boxes of money, telling him he might take as many of them ashe chose, provided he would accept at the same time a little vase ofpoison, and consent to employ it against the citizens. He refused, andin a moment found himself at the place from which he had been taken.This story, generally believed by the people, spread all over Italy. Anengraving of it was made in Germany. The Archbishop of Mayence wrote toCardinal Frederick, asking him what credence might be attached to theprodigies related of Milan. He received for answer, that they were allidle dreams.

  The dreams of the learned, if they were not of the same nature as thoseof the vulgar, did not exceed them in value; the greater part beheld theforerunner and the cause of these calamities, in a comet which appearedin 1628, and in the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. Another cometthat appeared in June in the same year announced the poisonousanointings. All writings were ransacked that contained any passagesrespecting poisons; amongst the ancients, Livy was cited, Tacitus,Dionysius, even Homer and Ovid were searched. Among the moderns,Cesalpino, Cardan, Grevino, Salio, Pareo Schenchio, Zachia, and lastlythe fatal Delrio, whose _Disquisitions on Magic_ became the text book onsuch subjects, the future rule, and, in fact, the powerful
impulse tohorrible and frequent legal murders.

  The physicians yielded to the popular belief, and attributed to poisonand diabolical conjurations the ordinary symptoms of the malady. EvenTadino himself, one of the most celebrated physicians of his day, whohad witnessed the entrance of the disorder, anticipated its ravages,studied its symptoms, and admitted it to be _the plague_, even he, suchis the strange perversity of human reason, drew from all these facts anargument in proof of the dissemination of some subtle poison, by meansof ointments. Nor was the enlightened Cardinal Frederick himselfaltogether uninfected by the general mania. In a small tract of his onthe subject in the Ambrosian Library, he says, "Of the mode ofcompounding and dispensing these ointments, various statements have beenmade, some of which we hold for true, while others appear imaginary."

  On the other hand, Muratori tells us, that he had met with well-informedpersons in Milan, whose ancestors were decidedly convinced of theabsurdity of this widely spread and extraordinary error, but whosesafety rendered it imperative on them to keep their sentiments on thesubject to themselves.

  The magistrates employed the little vigilance and resolution whichremained to them in searching out the poisoners, and unhappily thoughtthey had detected them. A recital of these and similar cases would forma remarkable feature in the history of jurisprudence. But it is hightime we should resume the thread of our story.