by Mary Shelley
Calabria was convulsed by these various parties; every portion of it was in arms; and its rivers ran red with blood. Then, as is usually the case in countries which are the prey of civil war, the evil was increased by the crimes of ferocious and lawless men, who collected in bands and ravaged the country, intent only on booty, and ever ready to destroy. For two years Calabria could be said to belong neither to the French, nor to Ferdinand, nor to the Carbonari: each had the upper hand by turns, and were, therefore, unable to clear the country of the brigands that infested it. This state of things could not continue, and the French Government resolved by extraordinary and terrible measures to root out the banditti, and to include the widespread and powerful sect of the Carbonari in the destruction. The atrocious and sanguinary methods by which General Manhes succeeded in extirpating the brigands is matter of history. Colletta recounts it in his usual graphic and vigorous manner. In his pages you will find related also how Capo Bianco was deceived, betrayed, and executed, to the shame of the French General, Iannelli, who laid the snare by which he was entrapped. He died with heroic firmness; intrepid and calm, he willingly gave his life for the country and cause which he devotedly loved. Colletta, though no friend to the Carbonari, and accused of being a partisan of the French, yet reprobates the conduct of Murat towards the sect. “The violence and severity exercised towards the brigands,” he says, “ought not to have been turned against the Carbonari, for the bandits were guilty of crimes — the sect demanded laws; the brigands were the refuse of society — the Carbonari were honourable and honest men. Carbonarism degenerated afterwards — but was then innocent; it had been invited and approved by Government, and its rites and tenets were civilised and beneficent. Many friends of Joachim begged him to disarm Carbonarism by mild and judicious measures; but anger, which was powerful in him, prevailed, and kept him firm in his evil counsels.”
During and after the fall of Murat and the return of the Bourbon dynasty, Carbonarism, which had never been destroyed, spread; and while the restored king assumed at once despotic power, the sect, finding every promise of freedom for Italy broken, were the more zealous to acquire partisans, and to labour for the union and independence of their unfortunate country.
Do not think that I advocate any secret society: the principle is bad. The crown of every virtuous act and feeling is, not to fear the light of day. But it must be remembered with what fearful odds the Italians have to contend; they have not only openly against them the whole fabric of their various governments, backed by an overpowering foreign army; but a secret society is spread throughout the country, the friend of existing institutions; — the confessional is an engine of mighty power, diffused through every portion of every city, the most populous; entering every hut, the most retired; acting on the fears of the timid and the credulity of the superstitious; pandering to the bad passions of the wicked and awakening the scruples of the pious. Every priest bids his penitents confess, not only their participation in any act or thought inimical to the church or to the government — not only to denounce father, husband, or child, who might trust to them the secret of their lives — but to reveal every little circumstance that may tend to discover the lovers of liberty. Can it be wondered that men who wished to regenerate their country in the face of so penetrating, so almost omnipotent a power, should cloak themselves in impenetrable secrecy, and strive to check the influence by counter-terrors, — equally awful?
Fearful deeds were the result of the laws of the society; the individuals that composed it, knowing themselves to be supported by numerous companions, and sheltered from detection by the secrecy that veiled their name, lost their moral sense. The act, commanded by a power to which they had sworn obedience, ceased to be a crime, and assassination was no longer looked on as a murder, but as an execution; numbers of Carbonari, suspected or really guilty of treason to their oaths, were assassinated all over Italy, especially during the latter days of the society; and volumes might be filled with the history of these tragedies. If any man to whom the lot fell to execute the sentence of the rest, shrunk from his task, he was considered a traitor, and condemned to death. Such was Carbonarism, at the time when it shook kings on their thrones, and made the sovereigns of Italy tremble, Calabria and the Abruzzi swarmed with sectarians; the society was rapidly propagated throughout the kingdom of Naples, whence it spread to Romagna, Piedmont, and Lombardy; Vendite were even established in fair and tranquil Tuscany. Every Vendita was a permanent conspiracy, — every Carbonaro an enemy to the reigning authority; — yet even sovereigns were their accomplices, since they had made use of the society to overthrow the dominion of the French in Italy.
The early Carbonari were men who were actuated by deep-rooted love of their country, and detestation of the vice, ignorance, and slavery into which Italy had fallen; they entertained the belief that means terrible and unflinching could alone regenerate a people sunk in superstition and slavery. The triumph of the Carbonari was the proclamation of the constitutional government at Naples. But even then the sect was no longer the same. It had transgressed against the great and permanent moral laws by which society ought to be governed; it had been guilty of crimes — now it sunk into feebleness. Its results fell miserably short of its proud promise; for its work had been undertaken by men who were not sufficiently prepared, — who did not look to the future; — who were often swayed by violent and capricious passions, and whose principles were rooted in scepticism. The pure patriotism of its originators became tainted by the personal ambition of their followers. At the very height of its success it was ignominiously vanquished. Unable, from whatever cause, to resist the Austrian invasion of Naples, in 1820 — 21, the constitution they had erected was overthrown, despotism reestablished, and the chiefs of the Carbonari either fled, or died on the scaffold; — the name became the mark for persecution.
Still the spirit of the sect is not conquered; all the outbreaks in the Peninsula may be traced to its influence; and the different governments of Italy have vainly had recourse to every means for its extermination. They were unsparing in bribes to traitors; they suborned spies; they sowed dissension in its councils, and became possessed of all its secrets. On this account, not long ago, the society was reformed, and became merged in other secret associations, among which that named La Giovane Italia, is principal. The heads of this sect are, for the most part, exiled beyond the Alps; but, even in banishment, they maintain their influence, and machinate risings: above all, they sedulously keep awake the spirit of national union. These new societies can never be as powerful as the Carbonari were — they are but a shadow of that mighty influence; but, if they have less power, they have committed no crimes; and work by spreading knowledge and civilisation, instead of striking terror.
It is to be regretted, that the patriots of Italy have recourse to darkness and secrecy to carry on the regeneration of their country: for falsehood is the offspring of mystery, and integrity is destroyed by a system that hides itself from the light of day. The Italians must do away with oaths that cannot bind the traitor; and the dagger, which makes a murderer of him whose intent is virtuous. They must sacrifice the formula of union, and be content with disseminating its spirit. Could they teach inflexible truth, could they inspire military courage, did veneration for just and equal laws spring from their lessons, Italy were nearer the goal it pants to attain.
Meanwhile a certain good has arisen from a sect which, however founded in love for their country, has been polluted by many crimes. Carbonarism cannot be denied the praise of having co-operated to destroy the anti-social municipal prejudices, and the narrow spirit of local attachment, which was long a serious obstacle to the union of a country, divided as Italy is into many states, and subject to the stranger. The Carbonari first taught the Italians to consider themselves as forming a nation. It is to be hoped they will never forget the lesson. When the Roman considers himself, in his heart, the countryman of the Milanese — when the Tuscan looks upon Naples as also his country — then the power of
the Austrian will receive a blow, which it has hitherto warded off, from which it will never recover.
LETTER XV.
Tuscany.
FEBRUARY, 1843.
Nothing is more difficult than for a foreigner to give a correct account of the state of a country — its laws, manners, and customs; — the first often so different in their operation from what outwardly appears; the latter, never fully understood, Proteus-like, assume a thousand contradictory appearances, and elude investigation. A stranger can only glance at the surface of things — often deceptive — and put down the results of conversations, which, after all, if carefully examined, by no means convey the whole truth, even if they are free from some bias, however imperceptible, either in speaker or hearer, the result of which is a false impression — a false view.
An English person, accustomed to the gigantic fortunes and well-ordered luxury, — to the squalid penury, hard labour and famine, — which mark the opposite orders of society in his own country, is struck by the appearance of ease and equality that reigns in Tuscany, and especially at Florence. There is poverty of course — but penury cannot be said to exist; there is work — but there is also rest: nay, there is no lack of enjoyment for the poor — while the nobility, for the most part, scarcely rise above the middling orders; bankers and foreigners being those who make most figure in society, and that, except on particular and infrequent occasions, on no magnificent scale.
Many reasons may be assigned for this equality. During the flourishing days of the republic of Florence, a blow was given to the nobility of the city and surrounding country, from which it never recovered. Those nobles who still preserved their titles and fortunes, were obliged to conceal all pride in the former, in order to preserve the influence naturally resulting from the latter. The Medici were merchants; and when an Austrian prince succeeded to the extinct family, no change was operated. On the contrary, it was, I believe, one of them, Leopold I., who abolished the law of primogeniture in Tuscany. It is true, that the usual result of the prohibition against entails in subdividing estates, is frequently eluded. A father possesses absolute power over his property, with the exception of a tenth or twelfth, which is called the quota legitima, which must descend to his children, and be divided among them in equal portions. The same law appertains even to the mother’s dowry — which becomes her husband’s property. A man may, therefore, accumulate and leave the whole of his possessions to his eldest, son, with the exception of the above-named quota; and, when this has been done for some generations, large fortunes are preserved. But it seldom is: and as a man has absolute propriety in his estates, a spendthrift can alienate the whole for ever. The nobles of Tuscany being for the most part without pride of order, have readily yielded to the spirit of their country, which absorbs them in the democracy. At the same time, the feeling of accumulation being extinct, no barrier exists to prevent the dissipation of property: in the hands of a young heir, extravagance and play (the bane of Italy), soon bring to an end the fortunes of an ancient name. Thus, I am assured, many of the noblest families in Tuscany are reduced to poverty: the capital of the country has fallen into the hands of bankers, the majority of whom are of Jewish origin. A number of illustrious names, consecrated in the pages of history, have almost disappeared. They only mark the walls of palaces, empty of the impoverished descendants of their former possessors. This absence of accumulated riches, of course, checks the arts of luxury, mechanical improvements, and all progress in the framework of society; it multiplies the numbers of those who are just raised above poverty; while the benignant nature of the climate, and the abstemious habits of the Italians, prevent the poor from suffering want. The country is, for the most part, divided into small farms (podere), cultivated by the family of the countryman (contadino) who holds them — he giving his labour, the crops, and tools — the owner the land, dwellings, and substantial repairs; the profits are divided, and the rent, for the most part, paid in kind — a circumstance which aids the farmer, and limits the fortune of the owner. The country-people labour hard — very hard, and live poorly, but they do not suffer want; and if there are no farmers so rich as with us, there is no absolute agricultural distress.
In Florence itself the common people are well to do. They are, perhaps, the least agreeable people to deal with in Italy; self-opiniated, independent, and lazy, they can often scarcely be brought to work at all; and, when they do, it is in their own way and at their own time. They love their ease, and they enjoy it: they are full of humour and intelligence, though their conceit too often acts as a drawback on the latter. I speak especially of the Florentines, as they are represented to me; for conceit is not a usual fault among the Italians.
As I have said, an English person, accustomed to heart-piercing accounts of suffering, hard labour, and starvation among our poor, gladly hails a sort of golden age in this happy country. We must look on the state of society from a wholly different point of view — we must think of the hunger of the mind; of the nobler aspirations of the soul, held in check and blighted — of the tendency of man to improve, here held down — of the peculiar and surpassing gifts of genius appertaining to this people, who are crushed and trod under foot by the jealousy of government — to understand, with how dead and intolerable a weight King Log hangs round the necks of those among them, who regret the generous passions and civic virtues of bygone times. The Florentine reads of Filippo Strozzi, of Ferruccio Ferruccini, of Michael Angelo. He remembers the pure and sacred spirit that Savanarola lighted up among the free and religious citizens; he thinks of the slavery that followed, when genius and valour left the land indignant, and
“For deeds of violence
Done in broad day; and more than half redeemed
By many a great and generous sacrifice of self to others,”
what has come? The poet speaks of —
“the unpledged bowl,
The stab of the stiletto.”
But those days, too, are gone; there has come such life as the flocks lead on the mountain sides — such life as the idle, graceful fallow-deer may spend, from sping-tide to rainy autumn, under the noble trees of some abundant park; but where is the soul of man? In the hands of those who teach him to fast and tell his beads — to bend the neck to the yoke — to obey the church, not God.
Nor is this all; especially among the rich; far — far from it; for men, unless tamed by labour, can never lead the innocent lives of the beasts of the field: if darker crimes are unfrequent, yet vice flourishes, rank and unchecked: the sense of honour is destroyed; the nobler affections are crushed; mental culture is looked on with jealousy, and dies blighted. In the young may be found gleams of inextinguishable genius — a yearning for better things, which terrifies the parents, who see in such the seeds of discontent and ruin: they prefer for their sons the safer course of intrigue, play, idleness — the war of the passions, rather than the aspirations of virtue.
To do nothing has been long the motto of the Tuscan government; had it been strictly observed, still much might be said against it. Leopold I. was a good sovereign, a clever and liberal man; Ferdinand, who succeeded to him, suffered many vicissitudes of fortune during the period of the empire of Napoleon; but he was not, like his namesake of Naples, driven by adversity to cruelty and arbitrary violence. When he was restored to his throne, still it was his wish to keep his people happy and contented. It is his praise, that if authority sheathed its sword and veiled its terrors, nor even used the wholesome restraint of the law to punish crime, it acted simply as a torpedo on the energies of the land, nor used any concealed weapons. Ferdinand constantly and resolutely refused to institute a secret police in Tuscany. It was a story I remember, told at the time, during the revolutionary period of 1821, that the Austrian minister at Florence presented a list of sixty Carbonari to the Grand Duke, and begged that they might be arrested. “I do not know whether these men are Carbonari,” said Ferdinand; “but I am sure, if I imprison them, I shall make them such,” and rejected the list. His s
uccessor, Leopold II., has not had the wisdom to pursue the same course. The bane of Italy is the absence of truth, of honour, of straightforwardness; the vices opposite to these nobler virtues have now the additional culture which must ensue from the circulation of a system of secret police, of spies, of traitors.
Yet still the government is mild. In 31 — 32, the throne of Leopold II. was shaken by several conspiracies; and the revolutionary spirit of Romagna, which tended to unite all Italy in one bond, had numerous proselytes in Tuscany. But for a traitor, it is supposed, that on one occasion the person of the Grand Duke would have fallen into the hands of the conspirators: at the eleventh hour the leader took fright, and discovered all. On this, and on other occasions, the arrests were not numerous; the sentences (to us to whom treason and the gallows are quick following cause and effect,) mild; and these even, after a few months, softened. Leopold wishes his people to be quiet and happy — he hates violence: to pay a traitor to betray, and so to crush a conspiracy noiselessly, appears to him wise and judicious policy. In all respects he is averse to strong measures. For many years no capital punishment has been inflicted in Tuscany; a fact, which of itself demands our admiration, and must be replete with good effects.
“All this is true,” said an Italian to me; “and yet I, who wish my countrymen to cultivate manly habits of thought and action, regard our state as almost worse than any other. Tyranny is, with us, a serpent hid among flowers; and I, for one, sympathise with the sentiment of a Florentine poet — odio il tiranno che col sonno uccide. There are other evils besides those which press upon the material part of our nature, and the new generation in Tuscany feels wrongs of another description. The better spirits of our country pine for the intellectual food of which they are deprived. Thus they tend towards a new and better order of things, the more difficult to realise, because a timid and absurd policy endeavours to throw every obstacle in the way to its attainment.”