by Mary Shelley
The occupation of Ancona by the French is an event quite distinct from the insurrection of Romagna, though our vague recollections confuse them together. Abandoned by the French, hemmed in by an Austrian army, the insurgents had surrendered, and the pontifical flag again waved over the citadel of Ancona. Still Romagna was full of commotions, occasioned by their desire for some amelioration of the laws. The five Powers of Europe interfered to prevail on the Pope to yield in some degree to the desires of his subjects. His answer was an edict that overthrew all hope, and confirmed the worst abuses — the superiority of the ecclesiastical courts over the civil, the minor punishments for the clergy compared with the laity, and the continuation of the Inquisition. To enforce these edicts the Pope, helped by Austria, transacted a loan, and declared his intention of sending troops to occupy the four legations.
The account of this military occupation is one of the most frightful passages of modem history. The papal regiments were recruited from the prisons, and formed of bands of San Fedisti — the name of troops half brigands, half soldiers, formed by the priests in opposition to the Carbonari, whose frightful history you may find in the pages of Coletta. This soldiery committed every excess: whether they met with resistance, or, hoping to disarm their ferocity, they were welcomed in the towns as friends, the result was the same — outrage, rapine, massacre. The spirit of the people was roused, and Cardinal Albani’s army, stained by multiplied acts of barbarity, no longer sufficed for the mastery of the whole of Romagna. Succour was requested from Austria, and promptly afforded. Six thousand Austrians, dragging with them the five thousand brigands rather than troops, under the pay of the Head of the Catholic Church, entered Bologna a second time. The severest discipliné was enjoined to the German soldiers, and strictly observed. Prince Metternich was praised for his interference; the result showed his secret intentions. The Italian populace compared the discipline and moderation of the Germans with the recent excesses of the papal soldiery, and it was hoped that an impression would be made of the preference that ought to be given to the Austrian over the pontifical sway, which hereafter might serve the former in good stead.
When the Pope declared his intention of a military occupation of the discontented provinces, the five Powers, whose ambassadors had just been urging milder measures, with one exception only, approved. England, represented by Sir George Seymour, expressed dissent, and her minister withdrew from the councils of the other diplomatic agents. On the other hand, France expressed her approbation in emphatic terms. The second occupation of Bologna by the Austrians, and the dexterity shown by Prince Metternich, however, made a deep impression cm Casimir Perrier, then Minister for Foreign Affairs. This was a step in advance made by the Austrian under cover of friendship; but if Romagna was to be lost to the Pope, he saw no reason why the French should not divide the spoil, and he suddenly resolved to occupy Ancona. A ship and two frigates received orders to sail for that city, and carry thither eleven hundred men, under the command of a naval captain Gallois, and of Colonel Combes. General Cubières was named commander-in-chief of the expedition. He set out for Rome, by way of Leghorn, for the purpose of communicating with the Pope with regard to this seizure of one of his principal cities. The French government calculated that General Cubières would have time to see the Pope, and obtain his consent, and reach Ancona before Captain Gallois and Colonel Combes could arrive; but contrary winds delayed Cubières, while on the other hand, the little French fleet doubled the coasts of Italy with an expedition that could not be foreseen, and which indeed excited general surprise; so that when Cubières arrived at Rome he found the French ambassador in a violent rage; the tidings of the occupation of Ancona having reached Rome a few hours before; the Pontiff also was inexpressibly indignant.
Ancona was taken in the night of the 22-23d February, 1832. On their arrival, Colonel Combes and Captain Gallois did not find Cubières. He held the instructions of government, without which, strictly speaking, they could not commence the attack. They did not, however, hesitate to assume the responsibility of the assault — a resolution which they regarded due to the honour of their flag. The fleet cast anchor three miles distant from the city.
A portion of the French soldiers disembarked without impediment, and in a short time, by a hurried march, they arrived under the walls. The gates were closed; the papal troops would not open them. The sappers of the 66th regt broke one open with furious blows of the axe, and were aided in the work by some of the populace. The French dispersed themselves quickly in the city, disarming the posts. Colonel Lazzarini was made prisoner in his bed before he awoke; and thus, by a coup-de-main, the French possessed themselves of the city. At daybreak the rest of the troops were disembarked. Colonel Combes, at the head of a battalion, marched against the citadel. The pontifical troops, frightened, yielded immediately; the French were received as friends into the fortress, and the tri-coloured flag was hoisted. The people of Ancona co-operated actively with the French, and not a drop of blood was shed; the inhabitants looked on the occupation as the beginning of liberty, and rejoicing and gladness everywhere prevailed. The Italian tricolor floated in all the streets, and over every square. The French raised the cry of Vive la liberté! which was responded to by the Italians with tumults of joy. The governor of the province and the commandant of the piazza were made prisoners, but afterwards set at liberty; they left Ancona. The state prisons were thrown open, and several chiefs of the insurgents liberated. The city was that night illuminated, and the theatres resounded with patriotic songs. A staff officer got upon a bench in one of the principal cafés, and brandishing a naked sword, declared that the regiment occupying Ancona was merely a vanguard, which announced the liberty of Italy.
All Europe was astonished by this event. Austria, in its first movement of surprise, demanded categorical explanations; at the same time that the general of the Austrian troops stationed at Bologna, published a proclamation, in which he declared that the French had occupied Ancona through the same motives, and for the same ends, which had guided the Austrians in Romagna. The Pope gave immediate orders that his troops should retire from Ancona, and that the provincial government should be removed to Osimo: but this anger on the part of the Vatican was of short duration; it listened to the declarations and protestations of the French government, which had in truth no notion of favouring Italian liberty, but intended simply to check Austria, or at least obtain a part of the spoils, if the Pope lost Romagna. Sad were the conditions upon which the French were permitted to prolong their sojourn at Ancona. The part they filled afterwards redounded to their shame in the eyes of the Italians. They averred that the French soldiers, until the evacuation, only served as sbirri of the papal power. And while the government of France held language openly that made Europe believe that Ancona, while in their possession, was a place of refuge for the liberals, it by its acts proved to the various cabinets, that its views were in unison with those of Austria, Prussia, and Russia. A few years ago Ancona was made over again to the Pontiff, the French saving their credit by having the reputation of obtaining in exchange the pardon of some of the exiles of Lombardy; which, in fact, Austria only wanted a pretext and a fair occasion to grant.
At present the spirit of revolt is checked, but not quelled in the pontifical states. A volcanic fire smoulders near the surface, ready at every moment to burst forth in a flame. The whole of the country before disturbed, the Marches, Romagna, the four legations, together with the population of the mountains, are bound together by secret associations, and wait impatiently for the favourable moment when to break their chains. These secret societies, unfortunately, are bad means for seeking a good result; and it is to be feared that the country will never attain a high moral tone and a true feeling of independence, till the means used by their leaders are changed.
Secret associations ought to be particularly eschewed by the Italians, as tending to foster their principal defect — their cunning. The violence of their passions, which they are so little taught to con
trol, is the source of much crime and unhappiness; but under better laws they would be checked. The cowardice of which they are accused, I regard as a mistake: mingled with other soldiers the Italians are as brave as they — it is the want of leaders which has occasioned this low estimation of their courage. No troops will hold together who have not confidence in their generals. In all instances of their defeat it seems evident that their disasters were not occasioned by cowardice in the soldiers, but absence of military skill among those in command.
The habit of deception is the worst fault of the Italians; accustomed to look on the dark side of human nature and to disbelieve in its virtues, they are ever awake to ward off covert injury by astuteness; while the purer virtues, stainless honour and unspotted truth, belong to few (yet to a few they do belong), among them.
The evil has been fostered by the bad use to which the confessional has been put during troubled times; by the institution of a secret police by the governments, and by the spread of secret societies. For what is held mysterious, concealed by oaths, and carried on in the dark, must use falsehood as a shield, and terror as a weapon.
Little good, I am afraid, has been operated by these associations on the character of the people; and the real interests of the country must result from the improvement of the moral sense. Meanwhile, they occasion frequent and partial insurrections, that keep the sovereigns in alarm, but do not advance their cause. It cannot be expected that Italy should be able to liberate itself in a time of lethargic peace like the present. And the attempts of the few who, from time to time, are driven by indignation and shame to take up arms, are but the occasion of tears and grief. They form a band of hidden and obscure victims, which each year that power devours that holds them in slavery. It may even be doubted whether an European commotion would give an occasion favourable to Italy.
Gli altrui peccati, e li sommesse, arcane
Parole mormorate ai proni orecchi
Sono alla nostra libertà fatali.
Perché nuda e tremante al lor corpetto
Ogni alma è tratta dalle sue lattèbre,
E assoluto non è chi si confessa
Se gli altri non accusa.”
Niccolini; Arnaldo da Brescia.
We must not forget that the people are demoralised and degenerate. The present affords no glimmering light by which we may perceive how the regeneration of Italy will be effected. It is one of the secrets of futurity at which it is vain to guess. Yet the hour must and will come. For there are noble spirits who live only in this hope; and every man of courage and genius throughout the country — and several such exist — consecrates his moral and intellectual faculties to this end only.
LETTER XXII.
Sorrento. — Capri. — Pompeii.
SORRENTO, JUNE 1.
IT seems to me as if I had never before visited Italy — as if now, for the first time, the charm of the country was revealed to me. At every moment the senses, lapped in delight, whisper — this is Paradise. Here I find the secret of Italian poetry: not of Dante; he belonged to Etruria and Cisalpine Gaul: Tuscany and Lombardy are beautiful — they are an improved France, an abundant, sunshiny England — but here only do we find another earth and sky. Here the poets of Italy tasted the sweets of those enchanted gardens which they describe in their poems — and we wonder at their bright imaginations; but they drew only from reality — the reality of Sorrento. Call to mind those stanzas of Tasso, those passages of Berni and Ariosto, which have most vividly transported you into gardens of delight, and in them you will find the best description of the charms of this spot. I had visited Naples before, but that was in winter — and beautiful as I thought it, I did not then guess what this land is in all the glory of its summer dress.
Here is the house in which Tasso was born — what wonder that the gardens of Armida convey to the mind the feeling that the poet had been carried away by enchantment to an Elysium, whose balmy atmosphere hung about him, and he wrote under its influence. — So indeed was it — here is the radiance, here the delights which he describes — here he passed his childhood; the fragrance of these bowers, the glory of this sky, haunted him in the dark cell of the convent of St. Anna.
I know not whether I should prefer the view of the bay which his house (now occupied as an hotel) commands, to our own from the Cocumella — the scene from his windows is certainly completer; situated more in the bend of the bay, turned northwards towards Vesuvius, he looked upon a circle of mountain crags, embracing the sea; our view is more turned to the west — it is less picturesque — perhaps more sublime.
The portion of the bay that belongs to Sorrento is singularly formed. For the most part steep cliffs rise from the water, with here and there a break, where there intervenes a short space of sands, hedged round by cliffs. The cliffs are perforated with caverns, some open to the air, and clothed with luxuriant vegetation; others scooped deep in the face of the rock. Many of them have been enlarged, and openings made for ventilation, and passages cut down to the sands, and up to the gardens above. Every house almost has one of these calate or descents, down from the heights above to the beach; some cut in the face of the cliffs — corkscrew galleries — some communicating with the caverns; most of them are walled up to prevent smuggling. I believe when the family to whom the house belongs resides on the spot, at their request the calata belonging to them is opened. One of the royal family had been staying at or near the Cocumella; the passage was opened for their convenience, and the keys were left at our inn; so we had full command of the descent from the garden of our house. Our calata is considered one of the best; it opens into a huge double cavern, which tradition or imagination has appropriated to Polyphemus. It is large enough for him and his flock, and within is an inner cave, where the giant-shepherd stored his cheeses, and against whose rough surface the luckless voyagers clung, hoping to escape: the rock he flung to sink the vessel of Ulysses still lies a furlong from the mouth of the cavern. In the morning nothing can be cooler than the sands shaded by the cliff; later in the day the sun descending to set behind Ischia, strikes on the rocks and beach, and they become burningly hot.
P — has got a nice sailing-boat over from Naples; too small, but still a wonderfully safe, good boat, considering its size, and we have a marinaro also from Naples, to whom it belongs; he takes care of it all day, and sleeps in it at night. He is a young fellow, and certainly never shows any signs of timidity, but considers his little skiff charmed from danger within the bay; beyond, the seas are far heavier; his father ha timore and will not let him venture. He tries to persuade us to go with him to Ischia and Capri. I am shy of this — the boat is so small; but P — and his friend often sail some miles from shore, and run down to Castelamare; and on calm days I go on exploring expeditions into the frequent and strange caves of the coast, or stretch across to the Temple of Neptune, and roam about the ruin-strewed shore. These caverns are mysterious recesses, which the fancy is excited to people with a thousand fairy tales. As I have said, some are like ours of the Cocumella, scooped out in the face of the rock — others, narrow clefts in the rock, open to the sky. Into the strangest you enter by narrow passages, just large enough to let the boat pass; they are covered at top, and paved by the waves, which play flickering with a turquoise tint quite peculiar and very beautiful. The plain of Sorrento, which is spread on the top of the cliffs that overlook the sea, is shut in all round by a belt of hills — intersected here and there by narrow ravines — clefts, as it were, in the soil, thickly clothed with various trees and underwood. The plain itself is planted with orange trees. These gardens being shut in by high walls, the walks near us are not at all agreeable; therefore, when we leave our terrace, and our beach, and our cavern, it is in a boat or on mules — the rides are delightful. To Capo del Monte, which those who live nearer to Sorrento than ourselves can reach by a walk, and therefore to live nearer has advantages — but I like our greater retirement better; or to the Calmaldoli, or to the Conti delle Fontanelle, a height whence we command a v
iew of the Gulf of Salerno, the rocks of the Syrens, and the long line of coast that runs southward, on which Pæstum is situated; and of Capri rising abrupt and dark. I can only compare the difference between these enchanting scenes and those of other countries which have heretofore delighted me, by saying, that in all others it was like seeing a lovely countenance behind a dusky veil; here the veil is withdrawn, and the senses ache with the effulgent beauty which is revealed.
JUNE 3.
To-day we visited Capri. The winds here are so regular, that with the exception of a scirocco which will sometimes intervene, you know exactly in summer-time on what you may depend. At noon the Ponente rises — a west wind, brisk and fresh, which crisps the sea into sparkling waves, that dance beneath the sun. This wind goes on increasing till about five or six in the afternoon, and then dies away; at about nine or ten an air comes off from Vesuvius — a land-wind, in fact — which lasts till morning. Thus to go to Capri, it was necessary to set out early to profit by this breeze, which wafted us southward to the island. I do not know anything more striking than the manner in which, as we stretch out from our bay, the island of Capri, with its two peaks and beetling cliffs, rises upon us. As we ran down towards it, headland after headland opened, and disclosed the bays between. In two hours we reached the island, and ran into the little bay in which the town of Capri is situated. We then transferred ourselves to two small boats, for the purpose of visiting the Grotto Azzurro. We were rowed under the high, dark, bare, perpendicular cliffs, and with anxious curiosity I looked for the opening to the grotto. The mountains grew higher, the precipices more abrupt and black, as we rowed slowly in the deep calm water beneath their shadow. At length we came to a small opening; it was necessary to sit at the bottom of the boat, as it shot through the narrow, low, covered entrance; within, the strangest sight is revealed: we entered a large cavern, formed by the sea; the hue resembles that which I mentioned as belonging to the caves of the Sorrentine coast; only here it is brighter — a turquoise, milky, pellucid, living azure. The white roof and walls of the cave reflect the tints, and the shimmering motion of the waves being also mirrored on the rock, the effect is more fairy-like and strange than can be conceived. This cave was discovered by two Englishmen, who went to swim under the cliffs, and penetrated by chance its narrow opening. It deserves the renown it has gained. I cannot explain from what effect of the laws of light this singular and beautiful hue proceeds. Partly it is the natural azure of the waves of this bright sea, which, entering, reflects the snow-white cavern, and is turned as it were into transparent milk; another cause may be, that the walls of the cavern do not reach deeper than the surface of the water; they just touch it — and the sea flows beneath. The water is icy cold, and the adventure would be perilous; but a good swimmer might be excited to dive beneath the paving water, strike out under the cave, and seek for wonders beyond.