Scarpia

by Piers Paul Read

  Scarpia remained standing and frowned. ‘Why has he been arrested?’

  ‘They say he has been conspiring to depose the Pope.’

  ‘And has he? Does such a conspiracy exist?’

  The marchesa looked evasive. ‘That’s such a grand word – conspiracy. You know Cesare. Perhaps not well. He is an idealist. He writes down his thoughts. And he shares those thoughts with his friends. And certainly some of those friends are Masons and artists at the Academy. But how could they bring down the government? The idea is absurd.’

  ‘I can certainly talk to the Treasurer,’ said Scarpia, ‘but he has limited influence with the Inquisition.’

  ‘Of course, I know, but he has the ear of His Holiness. And you were once, I think, at the Castel Sant’Angelo, and Paola tells me that your man Spoletta is part of the garrison, so perhaps you could see Cesare is well treated. I fear they will subject him to the strappado. If only they knew what a sweet man he really is. He would never hurt a fly.’

  ‘I will see what I can do,’ said Scarpia.

  ‘I will be eternally grateful,’ said the marchesa, once again with a look from beneath her eyelashes to suggest how that gratitude might be expressed.

  ‘What were these writings that led to his arrest?’ asked Scarpia.

  ‘Cesare believes there should be new laws to safeguard the value of our currency.’

  ‘Like the worthless assignats issued by the republicans in France?’

  The marchesa blushed. ‘No, of course not. They are worthless, I know. And I am a woman. I do not really understand these things. But I know my brother. He may be foolish, but he is hardly dangerous. If you could convey that to Treasurer Ruffo, I would be forever in your debt.’

  *

  Domenica Attavanti departed.

  ‘Is she your new friend?’ Scarpia asked Paola.

  ‘Of course not, but she asked to see me, and, since she is a friend of your friend Azara, I could hardly refuse.’

  ‘I hear bad things about her.’

  ‘What? Her affair with Pinuchi?’

  ‘And others.’

  ‘Well, that’s hardly surprising if you look at her husband, the marchese. And everyone has affairs. It’s just that among those republicans people are more open about that sort of thing.’

  ‘All the same, I don’t like her.’

  ‘I don’t like her either, but she is a friend of Azara and it was apparently Azara who suggested that she approach you.’

  ‘Why doesn’t Azara do something?’

  ‘Apparently as Spanish ambassador he cannot interfere in the internal affairs of the Papal States.’

  Scarpia nodded.

  ‘Can you do anything?’ asked Paola.

  ‘Spoletta will know which palms to grease to make him more comfortable.’

  ‘I cannot help feeling,’ said Paola, ‘that too much is made of these so-called conspirators.’

  ‘Ideas lead to actions,’ said Scarpia, remembering his conversation with Father Simone. ‘And the government is vulnerable on the question of the currency. Men like Angelotti take advantage of the discontent.’

  *

  The next day, Scarpia told Treasurer Ruffo of the visit of the Marchesa Attavanti, and asked about her brother.

  ‘Angelotti is a nasty piece of work,’ said Ruffo. ‘He’s in with the bankers, who have their eyes on the property of the Church. They look to France, where the lands of the religious orders have been sold off at rock-bottom prices to the only people who have money – the bankers, the Jews, the war profiteers. Cluny, Clairvaux, Molesme, all those precious oases of piety and learning, now in the hands of nouveau-riche bourgeois, the ancient abbeys quarried for stone to build their country houses. That’s what Angelotti and his friends would like to see happen here.’

  Scarpia kept his word to the Marchesa Attavanti: he asked Spoletta to ensure that Angelotti was well treated by his gaolers in the Castel Sant’Angelo. In due course, Angelotti was put on trial. The evidence against him were the seditious pamphlets found in his house, his frequent encounters with known republicans as reported by the spies of the Inquisition, and a large sum of money found in his apartment which he could not explain. As the trial progressed, Angelotti fell ill, or pretended to fall ill. He was allowed to return home under house arrest, and his trial was adjourned with no date set for its resumption.

  2

  In the summer of 1795, Fabrizio Ruffo was dismissed as Treasurer to the Papal States. He had retained the personal esteem of Pope Pius VI, and was rewarded for his loyal service with a cardinal’s hat; but his fiscal reforms had made him so loathed by the Roman nobility that Pope Pius decided that it would be politic to dismiss him. He was offered other minor posts in the curia, but Ruffo saw that he had become redundant and prepared to leave Rome. ‘I have done all I can for the Holy Father,’ he told Scarpia. ‘And now it is better for all that I return to Naples to serve King Ferdinand, who is, after all, my true sovereign. He has asked me to take on the Royal Domains of Caserta. I shall be well employed. But I shall miss Rome, and I shall miss those I have worked with.’ He looked at Scarpia – his habitual detachment giving way to an expression of regret. ‘It is hard to believe that it is only five years since you came through my door, a dishevelled Sicilian, and now you are a Roman nobleman . . .’

  ‘All that I am, Your Eminence, I owe to you.’

  Ruffo looked pensive. ‘I hope you will not come to regret the course your life has taken. Remember the psalm: Put not your faith in princes. We rise and we fall. Only Almighty God is to be trusted, and often His will is difficult to discern. We live in terrible times. Satan has been given leave to tempt us in novel ways. It is as bad as the Reformation – perhaps worse, because Luther, for all his obstinacy, still believed that Christ was the Son of God, whereas these new men with their new ideas believe only in man. I fear for the Church, but most of all I fear for the souls of the many who are led astray.’

  ‘I shall remain faithful,’ said Scarpia.

  ‘Yes, I know.’ The Cardinal’s look that had been pensive now became acute. ‘But do not underestimate Satan. Beware the glamour of evil. You will remain faithful, I know, but those around you . . .’ Ruffo hesitated. ‘I sometimes ask myself whether we did the right thing . . .’

  ‘The right thing?’

  ‘Ambition is not a sin. You were ambitious. And you have no doubt what you wanted. But the Baron di Rubaso is no match for the Marcisanos and I wonder whether they will be as steadfast as you are. These Roman patricians think only of their own survival and many have survived over the ages by joining the winning side. Until now the interests of the Roman nobility and of the Pope have been the same, but should they diverge . . .’ He again looked intently at Scarpia. ‘You may be put to the test, Baron. The pedestal upon which we have placed you may wobble, it may even fall.’

  ‘I shall remain faithful,’ said Scarpia again.

  The cardinal took his hand. ‘You will find me in Naples if you need me. King Ferdinand, after all, is your king too.’

  ‘Indeed, Your Eminence, but I have my wife and family here in Rome.’

  ‘Of course. And you must send my greetings to your wife. You are pleased with her, I hope, and she with you?’

  ‘We are very happy, Your Eminence, and both are aware that we owe that happiness to you.’

  They had talked enough. Scarpia knelt to kiss the hand of the new cardinal, his patron. The cardinal raised him to his feet. ‘God bless you, Baron. Pray for me, and I shall pray for you, for we are all in the hands of God.’

  3

  In October of 1795, soon after Cardinal Ruffo’s departure for Naples, the National Convention in Paris was dissolved and government entrusted to a five-man Directory. It was more than a year since Robespierre had been guillotined and the Jacobin Club closed, but the persecution of the Church in France had not abated. Catholics supporting the royalist cause were fighting an irregular war against the revolution in the Vendée, and the disciples of the p
hilosophes saw the Catholic religion as the source of all bigotry, reaction and superstition. One of the five new directors, Louis-Marie de la Révellière-Lépeaux, meant to replace Catholicism with Theophilanthropism: ceremonies of this new religion had been held in Paris in the cathedral of Notre-Dame.

  Another of the directors was Paul-François Barras, whose former mistress, Josephine de Beauharnais, had recently married Napoleon Bonaparte. Barras used his influence to secure Bonaparte’s appointment as commander of the French army in Italy. Through a series of brilliant manoeuvres and dramatic victories over the superior forces of the Austrian Empire, Bonaparte conquered Lombardy and established his reputation as a military genius. In pursuit of the Austrians, French troops invaded and then occupied the Veneto; the Serene Republic capitulated; and in Paris the director Révellière-Lépeaux persuaded his colleagues that the time had come to invade the Papal States, take Rome and depose the Pope.

  The casus belli would be the earlier refusal of Pope Pius VI to accept the humiliating French demands for reparations following the murder of Bassville. Bonaparte was told that he should march on Rome, and at first the historic role of ending the thousand-year rule of the Roman pontiff appealed to him. ‘Our intention is to restore the Capitol,’ he announced, ‘and to set up there in their honour the statues of the men who won renown, and to free the Roman people from their long slavery.’ Bonaparte ordered his troops to invade the legations at the north of the Papal States and, meeting little resistance, they took the cities of Ravenna, Ferrara and Bologna.

  Pope Pius VI, with no allies to come to his defence, had no choice but to sue for peace. Still refusing to recognise the republican government in France, and so with no legate in Paris, he summoned Azara, the Spanish ambassador, from his country retreat, and asked him to act as a go-between. Azara agreed, and went to Milan, where Bonaparte laid down his terms for a truce. The Pope was to recognise the French Republic and free all political prisoners. He was to send a delegation to Paris to apologise for the murder of Bassville, pay an indemnity of 21 million scudi, and surrender to the French five hundred rare manuscripts and one hundred works of art. All the ports of the Papal States were to be open to French ships, but closed to those of other nations. The French would remain in possession of Bologna and Ferrara and were to be given control of the Adriatic port of Ancona.

  Old and unwell, Pius could not but comply. To raise money to pay the indemnity, the Pope sold many of his personal possessions, and pearls and semi-precious stones were stripped from papal vestments and regalia. Pius urged cardinals, prelates and religious communities to do the same, and the citizens of Rome were told to prepare a list of all objects of value in their possession for possible sequestration by commissioners sent by the French.

  The Romans were enraged. Posters and pamphlets execrated the French, and French residents in the city were attacked when they appeared on the streets. Afraid that Bonaparte would make this a pretext for an invasion, papal troops were stationed to protect the homes of French citizens and known republicans. Pius urged his subjects to divert their rage into prayers to powers even greater than the all-conquering Bonaparte. Special services were held in the churches to invoke divine protection; barefoot pilgrims climbed the scala santa on their knees praying the rosary, and at the service of benediction held in public squares crowds knelt to venerate the white wafer held in a gold monstrance that was to them the body of Christ.

  God turned a deaf ear. In the Romagna, French troops plundered and pillaged, ignoring the terms of the truce. Bonaparte was a man, wrote Azara in a dispatch to Madrid, who ‘breathed only blood and fire . . . I foresee that all the states of the Church and Rome itself will be destroyed’. As a religious sceptic and anti-clerical of the old school, this in itself might not have distressed Azara, but he had lived agreeably in Rome for the past twenty years and had many Roman friends, such as the Marcisanos.

  4

  Obedient to their sovereign, Pope Pius VI, the Roman nobility now prepared lists of all their significant works of art. The collection of the Marcisanos, assembled over the centuries, was not as magnificent as those of the Colonnas, Orsinis or Doria-Pamphilis, but it nonetheless contained works that might appeal to the French commissaries who were due in Rome towards the end of July. Ludovico was put in charge of drawing up the list, aided by Paola and their old art master, Seventi. The prince and princess wandered around their palace like unhappy ghosts. They had read reports of the massacres of Catholics in the Vendée, and now of the depredations made by Bonaparte’s troops in the Romagna. They lived in terror that they would see their possessions plundered, the Pope guillotined and priests drowned in the Tiber as they had been in the Loire.

  Ludovico was more sanguine. Things were bad, but they could be worse. With his exact knowledge of his family’s history, he remembered the sack of Rome by the brutal German Landsknechts in 1527; the discriminating pillage of the French commissioners would not be as bad as that. The French were high-handed, but they were not barbarians, and could be appeased.

  One Sunday in early July, after hearing Mass in their private chapel, and praying for the beatification of Veronica Giuliani, a Capuchin mystic whose cause was dear to the princess, the Marcisano family assembled for lunch. The adults – the prince and princess, Ludovico and his wife Fulvia, and Paola with her husband Vitellio – sat at one end of the table, while the children with their nursemaids and tutors sat at the other. The liveried footmen served the food in the same silver dishes as always, and poured wine from the same cut-glass decanters. The familiar busts remained on their plinths, the fine canvases remained in their gilded frames; but there was all the same a feeling that at any moment the French commissioners might appear at the door.

  ‘Is the list complete?’ the prince asked his two children.

  ‘It is, Father.’

  ‘I only hope that they don’t take that portrait of our ancestor Prince Alberto.’

  ‘It is a pity it is by Pisanello,’ said Paola.

  ‘By Pisanello, is it?’ asked the prince. He had an imprecise knowledge of what works there were in his collection in the Palazzo Marcisano, and almost none as to who had created them.

  ‘And the Cellini salt cellar,’ said Ludovico. ‘That is a charming piece. It might catch their eye.’

  ‘There are far finer pieces by Cellini in the Vatican,’ said Paola. ‘And I am sure His Holiness can manage without them.’

  ‘Paola, please . . .’

  ‘You have to admit, Mother,’ said Paola, ‘that to a large extent our sovereign pontiff has brought all these troubles on himself.’

  ‘Duke Braschi, perhaps . . .’ the princess murmured: it was permissible for the devout to deflect any criticism of the Pope on to his nephew.

  ‘It is not just the duke,’ said Paola. ‘He may have taken advantage of the crisis to line his own pockets: that’s nothing new. But His Holiness, or at any rate Cardinal Zelada, should have seen which way the wind was blowing and trimmed their sails. How can you continue to refuse to recognise a government that is so emphatically established de facto, and why reject as iniquitous all the new ideas?’

  ‘But they are sacrilegious,’ said the princess.

  ‘It suits us to say so,’ said Paola, ‘because we have done well out of the status quo. But privilege has meant that doddering old archdukes are given command of armies because of their pedigree, and so it is hardly surprising that they are defeated by a general with talent.’

  ‘More than talent,’ said Ludovico.

  ‘Are we talking about Bonaparte?’ asked Scarpia.

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘He is certainly adept at the use of his artillery in support of his infantry, but at Lodi he had twice the number of troops and guns, and two thousand cavalry, when the Austrians had none. It isn’t difficult to seem talented with odds like that.’

  Paola frowned. ‘I seem to recall that there were other battles in which it was Bonaparte who was outnumbered.’

  ‘I dare say
,’ said Scarpia. ‘But there are factors that go beyond strategy. The French army is made up of starving conscripts. They barely have boots on their feet. They may fight for liberty, equality and fraternity but they also fight for booty. So too does Bonaparte. His armies are merely brigands on a grand scale.’

  ‘And what a pity that we have no Baron Scarpia to apprehend them,’ said Paola in a tone of icy sarcasm.

  Scarpia bowed coldly across the table. ‘A Baron Scarpia would do his best if he had the means.’

  ‘I am sure,’ said Paola, her tone still sarcastic. ‘A Sicilian would be more than a match for a Corsican were he not surrounded by cowardly and indolent Romans.’

  ‘There is no question that we Romans do lack the martial spirit,’ said Ludovico, upset at the tone of this exchange between his sister and her husband.

  ‘The Venetians too,’ said Scarpia.

  ‘No Roman wants to fight,’ said Scarpia’s father-in-law.

  ‘We have been told for so long,’ said Paola, ‘to love our enemies and turn the other cheek.’

  ‘St Augustine taught that war can be just,’ said Scarpia.

  ‘Of course, a just war,’ said Ludovico, ‘but would our war with France be just? Was there justice for all under King Louis? Or did the French have good reason to revolt?’

  ‘They killed priests,’ said the princess.

  ‘Which came first, though?’ said Ludovico. ‘The Church’s support for the royalists or the killing of the priests? But all this is beside the point. They are not proposing to kill priests here in Rome, but simply claim the spoils of war. And how can we object when Rome is filled with trophies looted after our conquests.’

  ‘And so our new Caesar can do as he likes,’ said the princess miserably.

  ‘I fear so, Mother. There aren’t three hundred Romans to hold back the invader as the Spartans did at Thermopylae.’