Part 2 — THINGS AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. (continued 6)

The Roman still plays amid his serious affairs, and very serious have they been this past winter. The Roman legions went out singing and dancing to fight in Lombardy, and they fought no less bravely for that.

When I wrote last, the Pope had fled, guided, he says, "by the hand of Providence,"—Italy deems by the hand of Austria,—to Gaëta. He had already soiled his white robes, and defamed himself for ever, by heaping benedictions on the king of Naples and the bands of mercenaries whom he employs to murder his subjects on the least sign of restlessness in their most painful position. Most cowardly had been the conduct of his making promises he never meant to keep, stealing away by night in the coach of a foreign diplomatist, protesting that what he had done was null because he had acted under fear,—as if such a protest could avail to one who boasts himself representative of Christ and his Apostles, guardian of the legacy of the martyrs! He selected a band of most incapable men to face the danger he had feared for himself; most of these followed his example and fled. Rome sought an interview with him, to see if reconciliation were possible; he refused to receive her messengers. His wicked advisers calculated upon great confusion and distress as inevitable on the occasion; but, for once, the hope of the bad heart was doomed to immediate disappointment. Rome coolly said, "If you desert me,—if you will not hear me,—I must act for myself." She threw herself into the arms of a few men who had courage and calmness for this crisis; they bade her think upon what was to be done, meanwhile avoiding every excess that could give a color to calumny and revenge. The people, with admirable good sense, comprehended and followed up this advice. Never was Rome so truly tranquil, so nearly free from gross ill, as this winter. A few words of brotherly admonition have been more powerful than all the spies, dungeons, and scaffolds of Gregory.

"The hand of the Omnipotent works for us," observed an old man whom I saw in the street selling cigars the evening before the opening of the Constitutional Assembly. He was struck by the radiant beauty of the night. The old people observe that there never has been such a winter as this which follows the establishment by the French of a republic.

May the omens speed well! A host of enemies without are ready to levy war against this long-suffering people, to rivet anew their chains. Still there is now an obvious tide throughout Europe toward a better order of things, and a wave of it may bear Italy onward to the shore.

The revolution, like all genuine ones, has been instinctive, its results unexpected and surprising to the greater part of those who achieved them. The waters, which had flowed so secretly beneath the crust of habit that many never heard their murmur, unless in dreams, have suddenly burst to light in full and beautiful jets; all rush to drink the pure and living draught.

As in the time of Jesus, the multitude had been long enslaved beneath a cumbrous ritual, their minds designedly darkened by those who should have enlightened them, brutified, corrupted, amid monstrous contradictions and abuses; yet the moment they hear a word correspondent to the original nature, "Yes, it is true," they cry. "It is spoken with, authority. Yes, it ought to be so. Priests ought to be better and wiser than other men; if they were, they would not need pomp and temporal power to command respect. Yes, it is true; we ought not to lie; we should not try to impose upon one another. We ought rather to prefer that our children should work honestly for their bread, than get it by cheating, begging, or the prostitution of their mothers. It would be better to act worthily and kindly, probably would please God more than the kissing of relics. We have long darkly felt that these things were so; now we know it."

The unreality of relation between the people and the hierarchy was obvious instantly upon the flight of Pius. He made an immense mistake then, and he made it because neither he nor his Cardinals were aware of the unreality. They did not know that, great as is the force of habit, truth only is imperishable. The people had abhorred Gregory, had adored Pius, upon whom they looked as a saviour, as a liberator; finding themselves deceived, a mourning-veil had overshadowed their love. Still, had Pius remained here, and had courage to show himself on agitating occasions, his position as the Pope, before whom they had been bred to bow, his aspect, which had once seemed to them full of blessing and promise, like that of an angel, would have still retained power. Probably the temporal dominion of the Papacy would not have been broken up. He fled; the people felt contempt for his want of force and truth. He wrote to reproach them with ingratitude; they were indignant. What had they to be grateful for? A constitution to which he had not kept true an instant; the institution of the National Guard, which he had begun to neutralize; benedictions, followed by such actions as the desertion of the poor volunteers in the war for Italian independence? Still, the people were not quite alienated from Pius. They felt sure that his heart was, in substance, good and kindly, though the habits of the priest and the arts of his counsellors had led him so egregiously to falsify its dictates and forget the vocation with which he had been called. Many hoped he would see his mistake, and return to be at one with the people. Among the more ignorant, there was a superstitious notion that he would return in the night of the 5th of January. There were many bets that he would be found in the palace of the Quirinal the morning of the 6th. All these lingering feelings were finally extinguished by the advice of excommunication. As this may not have readied America, I subjoin a translation. Here I was obliged to make use of a manuscript copy; all the printed ones were at once destroyed. It is probably the last document of the kind the world will see.

MANIFESTO OF PIUS IX.

"To OUR MOST BELOVED SUBJECTS:—

"From this pacific abode to which it has pleased Divine Providence to conduct us, and whence we can freely manifest our sentiments and our will, we have waited for testimonies of remorse from our misguided children for the sacrileges and misdeeds committed against persons attached to our service,—among whom some have been slain, others outraged in the most barbarous manner,—as well as for those against our residence and our person. But we have seen nothing except a sterile invitation to return to our capital, unaccompanied by a word of condemnation for those crimes or the least guaranty for our security against the frauds and violences of that same company of furious men which still tyrannizes with a barbarous despotism over Rome and the States of the Church. We also waited, expecting that the protests and orders we have uttered would recall to the duties of fidelity and subjection those who have despised and trampled upon them in the very capital of our States. But, instead of this, a new and more monstrous act of undisguised felony and of actual rebellion by them audaciously committed, has filled the measure of our affliction, and excited at the same time our just indignation, as it will afflict the Church Universal. We speak of that act, in every respect detestable, by which, it has been pretended to initiate the convocation of a so-called General National Assembly of the Roman States, by a decree of the 29th of last December, in order to establish new political forms for the Pontifical dominion. Adding thus iniquity to iniquity, the authors and favorers of the demagogical anarchy strive to destroy the temporal authority of the Roman Pontiff over the dominions of Holy Church,—however irrefragably established through the most ancient and solid rights, and venerated, recognized, and sustained by all the nations,—pretending and making others believe that his sovereign power can be subject to controversy or depend on the caprices of the factious. We shall spare our dignity the humiliation of dwelling on all that is monstrous contained in that act, abominable through the absurdity of its origin no less than the illegality of its form and the impiety of its scope; but it appertains to the apostolic authority, with which, however unworthy, we are invested, and to the responsibility which binds us by the most sacred oaths in the sight of the Omnipotent, not only to protest in the most energetic and efficacious manner against that same act, but to condemn it in the face of the universe as an enormous and sacrilegious crime against our independence and sovereignty, meriting the chastisements threatened by divine and human laws. We are persuaded that, on receiving the impudent invitation, you were full of holy indignation, and will have rejected far from you this guilty and shameful provocation. Notwithstanding, that none of you may say he has been deluded by fallacious seductions, and by the preachers of subversive doctrines, or ignorant of what is contriving by the foes of all order, all law, all right, true liberty, and your happiness, we to-day again raise and utter abroad our voice, so that you may be more certain of the absoluteness with which we prohibit men, of whatever class and condition, from taking any part in the meetings which those persons may dare to call, for the nomination of individuals to be sent to the condemned Assembly. At the same time we recall to you how this absolute prohibition is sanctioned by the decrees of our predecessors and of the Councils, especially of the Sacred Council-General of Trent, Sect. XXII. Chap. 11, in which the Church has fulminated many times her censures, and especially the greater excommunication, as incurred without fail by any declaration of whomsoever daring to become guilty of whatsoever attempt against the temporal sovereignty of the Supreme Pontiff, this we declare to have been already unhappily incurred by all those who have given aid to the above-named act, and others preceding, intended to prejudice the same sovereignty, and in other modes and under false pretexts have, perturbed, violated, and usurped our authority. Yet, though we feel ourselves obliged by conscience to guard the sacred deposit of the patrimony of the Spouse of Jesus Christ, confided to our care, by using the sword of severity given to us for that purpose, we cannot therefore forget that we are on earth the representative of Him who in exercise of his justice does not forget mercy. Raising, therefore, our hands to Heaven, while we to it recommend a cause which is indeed more Heaven's than ours, and while anew we declare ourselves ready, with the aid of its powerful grace, to drink even to the dregs, for the defence and glory of the Catholic Church, the cup of persecution which He first wished to drink for the salvation of the same, we shall not desist from supplicating Him benignly to hear the fervent prayers which day and night we unceasingly offer for the salvation of the misguided. No day certainly could be more joyful for us, than that in which it shall be granted to see return into the fold of the Lord our sons from whom now we derive so much bitterness and so great tribulations. The hope of enjoying soon the happiness of such a day is strengthened in us by the reflection, that universal are the prayers which, united to ours, ascend to the throne of Divine Mercy from the lips and the heart of the faithful throughout the Catholic world, urging it continually to change the hearts of sinners, and reconduct them into the paths of truth and of justice. "Gaëta, January 6, 1849."

The silliness, bigotry, and ungenerous tone of this manifesto excited a simultaneous movement in the population. The procession which carried it, mumbling chants, for deposit in places provided for lowest uses, and then, taking from, the doors of the hatters' shops the cardinals' hats, threw them into the Tiber, was a real and general expression of popular disgust. From that hour the power of the scarlet hierarchy fell to rise no more. No authority can survive a universal movement of derision. From that hour tongues and pens were loosed, the leaven of Machiavellism, which still polluted the productions of the more liberal, disappeared, and people talked as they felt, just as those of us who do not choose to be slaves are accustomed to do in America.

"Jesus," cried an orator, "bade them feed his lambs. If they have done so, it has been to rob their fleece and drink their blood."

"Why," said another, "have we been so long deaf to the saying, that the temporal dominion of the Church was like a thorn in the wound of Italy, which shall never be healed till that thorn is extracted?"

And then, without passion, all felt that the temporal dominion was in fact finished of itself, and that it only remained to organize another form of government.

LETTER XXVIII.

Gioberti, Mamiani, and Mazzini.—Formation of the Constitutional Assembly.—The Right of Suffrage.—A Procession.—Proclamation of the Republic.—Results.—Decree of the Assembly.—Americans in Rome: Difference of Impressions.—Flight of the Grand Duke of Tuscany.—Charles Albert.—Present State of Rome.—Reflections and Conclusions.—Latest Intelligence.

Rome, Evening of Feb. 20, 1849.

The League between the Italian States, and the Diet which was to establish it, had been the thought of Gioberti, but had found the instrument at Rome in Mamiani. The deputies were to be named by princes or parliaments, their mandate to be limited by the existing institutions of the several states; measures of mutual security and some modifications in the way of reform would be the utmost that could be hoped from this Diet. The scope of this party did not go beyond more vigorous prosecution of the war for independence, and the establishment of good, institutions for the several principalities on a basis of assimilation.

Mazzini, the great radical thinker of Italy, was, on the contrary, persuaded that unity, not union, was necessary to this country. He had taken for his motto, GOD AND THE PEOPLE, and believed in no other powers. He wished an Italian Constitutional Assembly, selected directly by the people, and furnished with an unlimited mandate to decide what form was now required by the needs of the Peninsula. His own wishes, certainly, aimed at a republic; but the decision remained with the representatives of the people.

The thought of Gioberti had been at first the popular one, as he, in fact, was the seer of the so-called Moderate party. For myself, I always looked upon him as entirely a charlatan, who covered his want of all real force by the thickest embroidered mantle of words. Still, for a time, he corresponded with the wants of the Italian mind. He assailed the Jesuits, and was of real use by embodying the distrust and aversion that brooded in the minds of men against these most insidious and inveterate foes of liberty and progress. This triumph, at least, he may boast: that sect has been obliged to yield; its extinction seems impossible, of such life-giving power was the fiery will of Loyola. In the Primate he had embodied the lingering hope of the Catholic Church; Pius IX. had answered to the appeal, had answered only to show its futility. He had run through Italy as courier for Charles Albert, when the so falsely styled Magnanimous entered, pretending to save her from the stranger, really hoping to take her for himself. His own cowardice and treachery neutralized the hope, and Charles Albert, abject in his disgrace, took a retrograde ministry. This the country would not suffer, and obliged him after a while to reassume at least the position of the previous year, by taking Gioberti for his premier. But it soon became evident that the ministry of Charles Albert was in the same position as had been that of Pius IX. The hand was powerless when the head was indisposed. Meantime the name of Mazzini had echoed through Tuscany from the revered lips of Montanelli; it reached the Roman States, and though at first propagated by foreign impulse, yet, as soon as understood, was welcomed as congenial. Montanelli had nobly said, addressing Florence: "We could not regret that the realization of this project should take place in a sister city, still more illustrious than ours." The Romans took him at his word; the Constitutional Assembly for the Roman States was elected with a double mandate, that the deputies might sit in the Constitutional Assembly for all Italy whenever the other provinces could send theirs. They were elected by universal suffrage. Those who listened to Jesuits and Moderates predicted that the project would fail of itself. The people were too ignorant to make use of the liberty of suffrage.

But ravens now-a-days are not the true prophetic birds. The Roman eagle recommences her flight, and it is from its direction only that the high-priest may draw his augury. The people are certainly as ignorant as centuries of the worst government, the neglect of popular education, the enslavement of speech and the press, could make them; yet they have an instinct to recognize measures that are good for them. A few weeks' schooling at some popular meetings, the clubs, the conversations of the National Guards in their quarters or on patrol, were sufficient to concert measures so well, that the people voted in larger proportion than at contested elections in our country, and made a very good choice.

The opening of the Constitutional Assembly gave occasion for a fine procession. All the troops in Rome defiled from the Campidoglio; among them many bear the marks of suffering from the Lombard war. The banners of Sicily, Venice, and Bologna waved proudly; that of Naples was veiled with crape. I was in a balcony in the Piazza di Venezia; the Palazzo di Venezia, that sternest feudal pile, so long the head-quarters of Austrian machinations, seemed to frown, as the bands each in passing struck up the Marseillaise. The nephew of Napoleon and Garibaldi, the hero of Montevideo, walked together, as deputies. The deputies, a grave band, mostly advocates or other professional men, walked without other badge of distinction than the tricolored scarf. I remembered the entrance of the deputies to the Council only fourteen months ago, in the magnificent carriages lent by the princes for the occasion; they too were mostly nobles, and their liveried attendants followed, carrying their scutcheons. Princes and councillors have both fled or sunk into nothingness; in those councillors was no counsel. Will it be found in the present? Let us hope so! What we see to-day has much more the air of reality than all that parade of scutcheons, or the pomp of dress and retinue with which the Ecclesiastical Court was wont to amuse the people.

A few days after followed the proclamation of a Republic. An immense crowd of people surrounded the Palazzo della Cancelleria, within whose court-yard Rossi fell, while the debate was going on within. At one o'clock in the morning of the 9th of February, a Republic was resolved upon, and the crowd rushed away to ring all the bells.

Early next morning I rose and went forth to observe the Republic. Over the Quirinal I went, through the Forum, to the Capitol. There was nothing to be seen except the magnificent calm emperor, the tamers of horses, the fountain, the trophies, the lions, as usual; among the marbles, for living figures, a few dirty, bold women, and Murillo boys in the sun just as usual. I passed into the Corso; there were men in the liberty cap,—of course the lowest and vilest had been the first to assume it; all the horrible beggars persecuting as impudently as usual. I met some English; all their comfort was, "It would not last a month." "They hoped to see all these fellows shot yet." The English clergyman, more mild and legal, only hopes to see them (i.e. the ministry, deputies, &c.) hung.

Mr. Carlyle would be delighted with his countrymen. They are entirely ready and anxious to see a Cromwell for Italy. They, too, think, when the people starve, "It is no matter what happens in the back parlor." What signifies that, if there is "order" in the front? How dare the people make a noise to disturb us yawning at billiards!

I met an American. He "had no confidence in the Republic." Why? Because he "had no confidence in the people." Why? Because "they were not like our people." Ah! Jonathan and John,—excuse me, but I must say the Italian has a decided advantage over you in the power of quickly feeling generous sympathy, as well as some other things which I have not time now to particularize. I have memoranda from you both in my note-book.

At last the procession mounts the Campidoglio. It is all dressed with banners. The tricolor surmounts the palace of the senator; the senator himself has fled. The deputies mount the steps, and one of them reads, in a clear, friendly voice, the following words:—

"FUNDAMENTAL DECREE OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL ASSEMBLY OF ROME.

"ART. I.—The Papacy has fallen in fact and in right from the temporal government of the Roman State.

"ART. II.—The Roman Pontiff shall have all the necessary guaranties for independence in the exercise of his spiritual power.

"ART. III.—The form of government of the Roman State shall be a pure democracy, and will take the glorious name of Roman Republic.

"ART. IV.—The Roman Republic shall have with the rest of Italy the relations exacted by a common nationality."

Between each of these expressive sentences the speaker paused; the great bell of the Capitol gave forth its solemn melodies; the cannon answered; while the crowd shouted, Viva la Republica! Viva Italia!

The imposing grandeur of the spectacle to me gave new force to the emotion that already swelled my heart; my nerves thrilled, and I longed to see in some answering glance a spark of Rienzi, a little of that soul which made my country what she is. The American at my side remained impassive. Receiving all his birthright from a triumph of democracy, he was quite indifferent to this manifestation on this consecrated spot. Passing the winter in Rome to study art, he was insensible to the artistic beauty of the scene,—insensible to this new life of that spirit from which all the forms he gazes at in galleries emanated. He "did not see the use of these popular demonstrations."

Again I must mention a remark of his, as a specimen of the ignorance in which Americans usually remain during their flighty visits to these scenes, where they associate only with one another. And I do it the rather as this seemed a really thoughtful, intelligent man; no vain, vulgar trifler. He said, "The people seem only to be looking on; they take no part."

What people? said I.

"Why, these around us; there is no other people."

There are a few beggars, errand-boys, and nurse-maids.

"The others are only soldiers."

Soldiers! The Civic Guard! all the decent men in Rome.

Thus it is that the American, on many points, becomes more ignorant for coming abroad, because he attaches some value to his crude impressions and frequent blunders. It is not thus that any seed-corn can be gathered from foreign gardens. Without modest scrutiny, patient study, and observation, he spends his money and goes home, with a new coat perhaps, but a mind befooled rather than instructed. It is necessary to speak the languages of these countries, and know personally some of their inhabitants, in order to form any accurate impressions.

The flight of the Grand Duke of Tuscany followed. In imitation of his great exemplar, he promised and smiled to the last, deceiving Montanelli, the pure and sincere, at the very moment he was about to enter his carriage, into the belief that he persevered in his assent to the liberal movement. His position was certainly very difficult, but he might have left it like a gentleman, like a man of honor. 'T was pity to destroy so lightly the good opinion the Tuscans had of him. Now Tuscany meditates union with Rome.

Meanwhile, Charles Albert is filled with alarm. He is indeed betwixt two fires. Gioberti has published one of his prolix, weak addresses, in which, he says, that in the beginning of every revolution one must fix a limit beyond which he will not go; that, for himself, he has done it,—others are passing beyond his mark, and he will not go any farther. Of the want of thought, of insight into historic and all other truths, which distinguishes the "illustrious Gioberti," this assumption is a specimen. But it makes no difference; he and his prince must go, sooner or later, if the movement continues, nor is there any prospect of its being stayed unless by foreign intervention. This the Pope has not yet, it is believed, solicited, but there is little reason to hope he will be spared that crowning disgrace. He has already consented to the incitement of civil war. Should an intervention be solicited, all depends on France. Will she basely forfeit every pledge and every duty, to say nothing of her true interest? It seems that her President stands doubtful, intending to do what is for his particular interest; but if his interest proves opposed to the republican principle, will France suffer herself again to be hoodwinked and enslaved? It is impossible to know, she has already shown such devotion to the mere prestige of a name.

On England no dependence can be placed. She is guided by no great idea; her Parliamentary leaders sneer at sentimental policy, and the "jargon" of ideas. She will act, as always, for her own interest; and the interest of her present government is becoming more and more the crushing of the democratic tendency. They are obliged to do it at home, both in the back and the front parlor; it would not be decent as yet to have a Spielberg just at home for obstreperous patriots, but England has so many ships, it is just as easy to transport them to a safe distance. Then the Church of England, so long an enemy to the Church of Rome, feels a decided interest with it on the subject of temporal possessions. The rich English traveller, fearing to see the Prince Borghese stripped of one of his palaces for a hospital or some such low use, thinks of his own twenty-mile park and the crowded village of beggars at its gate, and muses: "I hope to see them all shot yet, these rascally republicans."

How I wish my country would show some noble sympathy when an experience so like her own is going on. Politically she cannot interfere; but formerly, when Greece and Poland were struggling, they were at least aided by private contributions. Italy, naturally so rich, but long racked and impoverished by her oppressors, greatly needs money to arm and clothe her troops. Some token of sympathy, too, from America would be so welcome to her now. If there were a circle of persons inclined to trust such to me, I might venture to promise the trust should be used to the advantage of Italy. It would make me proud to have my country show a religious faith in the progress of ideas, and make some small sacrifice of its own great resources in aid of a sister cause, now.

But I must close this letter, which it would be easy to swell to a volume from the materials in my mind. One or two traits of the hour I must note. Mazzarelli, chief of the present ministry, was a prelate, and named spontaneously by the Pope before his flight. He has shown entire and frank intrepidity. He has laid aside the title of Monsignor, and appears before the world as a layman.

Nothing can be more tranquil than has been the state of Rome all winter. Every wile has been used by the Oscurantists to excite the people, but their confidence in their leaders could not be broken. A little mutiny in the troops, stimulated by letters from their old leaders, was quelled in a moment. The day after the proclamation of the Republic, some zealous ignoramuses insulted the carriages that appeared with servants in livery. The ministry published a grave admonition, that democracy meant liberty, not license, and that he who infringed upon an innocent freedom of action in others must be declared traitor to his country. Every act of the kind ceased instantly. An intimation that it was better not to throw large comfits or oranges during the Carnival, as injuries have thus been sometimes caused, was obeyed with equal docility.

On Sunday last, placards affixed in the high places summoned the city to invest Giuseppe Mazzini with the rights of a Roman citizen. I have not yet heard the result. The Pope made Rossi a Roman citizen; he was suffered to retain that title only one day. It was given him on the 14th of November, he died the 15th. Mazzini enters Rome at any rate, for the first time in his life, as deputy to the Constitutional Assembly; it would be a noble poetic justice, if he could enter also as a Roman citizen.

February 24.

The Austrians have invaded Ferrara, taken $200,000 and six hostages, and retired. This step is, no doubt, intended to determine whether France will resent the insult, or whether she will betray Italy. It shows also the assurance of the Austrian that the Pope will approve of an armed intervention. Probably before I write again these matters will reach some decided crisis.

LETTER XXIX.

The Roman Republic.—Charles Albert a Traitor.—Fall of Gioberti.—Mazzini.—His Character.—His Address to the People.—His Oratory.—American Artists.—Brown, Terry, and Freeman.—Hicks and his Pictures.—Cropsey and Cranch contrasted.—American Landscape Paintings.—Sculptors.—Story's "Fisher Boy."—Mozier's "Pocahontas."—Greenough's Group.—Powers's "Slave."—The Equestrian Statue of Washington.—Crawford's Design.—Trials of the Artist.—American Patrons of Art.—Expenses of Artist Life.—A German Sculptor.—Overbeck and his Paintings.—Festival of Fried Rice.—An Ave Maria.

Rome, March 20, 1849.

The Roman Republic moves on better than could have been expected. There are great difficulties about money, necessarily, as the government, so beset with trials and dangers, cannot command confidence in that respect. The solid coin has crept out of the country or lies hid, and in the use of paper there are the corresponding inconveniences. But the poor, always the chief sufferers from such a state of things, are wonderfully patient, and I doubt not that the new form, if Italy could be left to itself, would be settled for the advantage of all. Tuscany would soon be united with Rome, and to the Republic of Central Italy, no longer broken asunder by petty restrictions and sacrificed to the interests of a few persons, would come that prosperity natural to a region so favored by nature.

Could Italy be left alone! But treacherous, selfish men at home strive to betray, and foes threaten her from without on every side. Even France, her natural ally, promises to prove foolishly and basely faithless. The dereliction from principle of her government seems certain, and thus far the nation, despite the remonstrance of a few worthy men, gives no sign of effective protest. There would be little hope for Italy, were not the thrones of her foes in a tottering state, their action liable at every moment to be distracted by domestic difficulties. The Austrian government seems as destitute of support from the nation as is possible for a government to be, and the army is no longer what it was, being made up so largely of new recruits. The Croats are uncertain in their adhesion, the war in Hungary likely to give them much to do; and if the Russian is called in, the rest of Europe becomes hostile. All these circumstances give Italy a chance she otherwise could not have; she is in great measure unfurnished with arms and money; her king in the South is a bloody, angry, well-armed foe; her king in the North, a proved traitor. Charles Albert has now declared, war because he could not do otherwise; but his sympathies are in fact all against liberty; the splendid lure that he might become king of Italy glitters no more; the Republicans are in the ascendant, and he may well doubt, should the stranger be driven out, whether Piedmont could escape the contagion. Now, his people insisting on war, he has the air of making it with a good grace; but should he be worsted, probably he will know some loophole by which to steal out. The rat will get out and leave the lion in the trap.

The "illustrious Gioberti" has fallen,—fallen for ever from his high scaffold of words. His demerits were too unmistakable for rhetoric to hide. That he sympathized with the Pope rather than the Roman people, and could not endure to see him stripped of his temporal power, no one could blame in the author of the Primato. That he refused the Italian General Assembly, if it was to be based on the so-called Montanelli system instead of his own, might be conviction, or it might be littleness and vanity. But that he privily planned, without even adherence of the council of ministers, an armed intervention of the Piedmontese troops in Tuscany, thus willing to cause civil war, and, at this great moment, to see Italian blood shed by Italian hands, was treachery. I think, indeed, he has been probably made the scape-goat in that affair; that Charles Albert planned the measure, and, finding himself unable to carry it out, in consequence of the vigilance and indignant opposition of the Chamber of Deputies, was somewhat consoled by making it an occasion to victimize the "Illustrious," whom four weeks before the people had forced him to accept as his minister.

Now the name of Gioberti is erased from the corners of the streets to which it was affixed a year ago; he is stripped of all his honorary degrees, and proclaimed an unworthy son of the country. Mazzini is the idol of the people. "Soon to be hunted out," sneered the sceptical American. Possibly yes; for no man is secure of his palm till the fight is over. The civic wreath may be knocked from his head a hundred times in the ardor of the contest. No matter, if he can always keep the forehead pure and lofty, as will Mazzini.

In thinking of Mazzini, I always remember Petrarch's invocation to Rienzi. Mazzini comes at a riper period in the world's history, with the same energy of soul, but of purer temper and more enlarged views to answer them.

I do not know whether I mentioned a kind of poetical correspondence about Mazzini and Rossi. Rossi was also an exile for liberal principles, but he did not value his birthright; he alienated it, and as a French citizen became peer of France and representative of Louis Philippe in Italy. When, with the fatuity of those whom the gods have doomed to perish, Pius IX. took the representative of the fallen Guizot policy for his minister, he made him a Roman citizen. He was proclaimed such on the 14th of November. On the 15th he perished, before he could enter the parliament he had called. He fell at the door of the Cancelleria when it was sitting.

Mazzini, in his exile, remained absolutely devoted to his native country. Because, though feeling as few can that the interests of humanity in all nations are identical, he felt also that, born of a race so suffering, so much needing devotion and energy, his first duty was to that. The only powers he acknowledged were God and the People, the special scope of his acts the unity and independence of Italy. Rome was the theme of his thoughts, but, very early exiled, he had never seen that home to which all the orphans of the soul so naturally turn. Now he entered it as a Roman citizen, elected representative of the people by universal suffrage. His motto, Dio e Popolo, is put upon the coin with the Roman eagle; unhappily this first-issued coin is of brass, or else of silver, with much alloy. Dii, avertite omen, and may peaceful days turn it all to pure gold!

On his first entrance to the house, Mazzini, received with fervent applause and summoned, to take his place beside the President, spoke as follows:—

"It is from me, colleagues, that should come these tokens of applause, these tokens of affection, because the little good I have not done, but tried to do, has come to me from Rome. Rome was always a sort of talisman for me; a youth, I studied the history of Italy, and found, while all the other nations were born, grew up, played their part in the world, then fell to reappear no more in the same power, a single city was privileged by God to die only to rise again greater than before, to fulfil a mission greater than the first. I saw the Rome of the Empire extend her conquests from the confines of Africa to the confines of Asia. I saw Rome perish, crushed by the barbarians, by those whom even yet the world, calls barbarians. I saw her rise again, after having chased away these same barbarians, reviving in its sepulchre the germ of Civilization. I saw her rise more great for conquest, not with arms, but with words,—rise in the name of the Popes to repeat her grand mission. I said in my heart, the city which alone in the world has had two grand lives, one greater than the other, will have a third. After the Rome which wrought by conquest of arms, the Rome which wrought by conquest of words, must come a third which shall work by virtue of example. After the Rome of the Emperors, after the Rome of the Popes, will come the Rome of the People. The Rome of the People is arisen; do not salute with applauses, but let us rejoice together! I cannot promise anything for myself, except concurrence in all you shall do for the good of Rome, of Italy, of mankind. Perhaps we shall have to pass through great crises; perhaps we shall have to fight a sacred battle against the only enemy that threatens us,—Austria. We will fight it, and we will conquer. I hope, please God, that foreigners may not be able to say any more that which so many of them repeat to-day, speaking of our affairs,—that the light which, comes from Rome is only an ignis fatuus wandering among the tombs. The world shall see that it is a starry light, eternal, pure, and resplendent as those we look up to in the heavens!"

On a later day he spoke more fully of the difficulties that threaten at home the young republic, and said:—

"Let us not hear of Right, of Left, of Centre; these terms express the three powers in a constitutional monarchy; for us they have no meaning; the only divisions for us are of Republicans or non-Republicans,—or of sincere men and temporizing men. Let us not hear so much of the Republicans of to-day and of yesterday; I am a Republican of twenty years' standing. Entertaining such hopes for Italy, when many excellent, many sincere men held them as Utopian, shall I denounce these men because they are now convinced of their practicability?"

This last I quote from memory. In hearing the gentle tone of remonstrance with those of more petty mind, or influenced by the passions of the partisan, I was forcibly reminded of the parable by Jesus, of the vineyard and the discontent of the laborers that those who came at the eleventh hour "received also a penny." Mazzini also is content that all should fare alike as brethren, if only they will come into the vineyard. He is not an orator, but the simple conversational tone of his address is in refreshing contrast with the boyish rhetoric and academic swell common to Italian speakers in the present unfledged state. As they have freer use of the power of debate, they will become more simple and manly. The speech of Mazzini is laden with thought,—it goes straight to the mark by the shortest path, and moves without effort, from the irresistible impression of deep conviction and fidelity in the speaker. Mazzini is a man of genius, an elevated thinker; but the most powerful and first impression from his presence must always be of the religion of his soul, of his virtue, both in the modern and antique sense of that word.

If clearness of right, if energy, if indefatigable perseverance, can steer the ship through this dangerous pass, it will be done. He said, "We will conquer"; whether Rome will, this time, is not to me certain, but such men as Mazzini conquer always,—conquer in defeat. Yet Heaven grant that no more blood, no more corruption of priestly government, be for Italy. It could only be for once more, for the strength, of her present impulse would not fail to triumph at last; but even one more trial seems too intolerably much, when I think of the holocaust of the broken hearts, baffled lives, that must attend it.

But enough of politics for the present; this letter goes by private hand, and, as news, will be superseded before it can arrive.

Let me rather take the opportunity to say some things that I have let lie by, while writing of political events. Especially of our artists I wish to say something. I know many of thorn, if not all, and see with pleasure our young country so fairly represented.

Among the painters I saw of Brown only two or three pictures at the exhibition in Florence; they were coarse, flashy things. I was told he could do better; but a man who indulges himself with such, coarse sale-work cannot surely do well at any time.

The merits of Terry and Freeman are not my merits; they are beside both favorites in our country, and have a sufficient number of pictures there for every one to judge. I am no connoisseur as regards the technical merits of paintings; it is only poetic invention, or a tender feeling of nature, which captivates me.

Terry loves grace, and consciously works from the model. The result is a pleasing transposition of the hues of this clime. But the design of the picture is never original, nor is it laden with any message from, the heart. Of Freeman I know less; as the two or three pictures of his that I have seen never interested me. I have not visited his studio.

Of Hicks I think very highly. He is a man of ideas, an original observer, and with a poetic heart. His system of coloring is derived from a thoughtful study, not a mere imitation of nature, and shows the fineness of his organization. Struggling unaided to pursue the expensive studies of his art, he has had only a small studio, and received only orders for little cabinet pictures. Could, he carry out adequately his ideas, in him would be found the treasure of genius. He has made the drawings for a large picture of many figures; the design is original and noble, the grouping highly effective. Could he paint this picture, I believe it would be a real boon to the lovers of art, the lovers of truth. I hope very much that, when he returns to the United States, some competent patron of art—one of the few who have mind as well as purse—will see the drawings and order the picture. Otherwise he cannot paint it, as the expenses attendant on models for so many figures, &c. are great, and the time demanded could not otherwise be taken from the claims of the day.

Among landscape painters Cropsey and Cranch have the true artist spirit. In faculties, each has what the other wants. Cropsey is a reverent and careful student of nature in detail; it is no pedantry, but a true love he has, and his pictures are full of little, gentle signs of intimacy. They please and touch; but yet in poetic feeling of the heart of nature he is not equal to Cranch, who produces fine effects by means more superficial, and, on examination, less satisfactory. Each might take somewhat from the other to advantage, could he do it without diminishing his own original dower. Both are artists of high promise, and deserve to be loved and cherished by a country which may, without presumption, hope to carry landscape painting to a pitch of excellence unreached before. For the historical painter, the position with us is, for many reasons, not favorable; but there is no bar in the way of the landscape painter, and fate, bestowing such a prodigality of subject, seems to give us a hint not to be mistaken. I think the love of landscape painting is genuine in our nation, and as it is a branch of art where achievement has been comparatively low, we may not unreasonably suppose it has been left for us. I trust it will be undertaken in the highest spirit. Nature, it seems to me, reveals herself more freely in our land; she is true, virgin, and confiding,—she smiles upon the vision of a true Endymion. I hope to see, not only copies upon canvas of our magnificent scenes, but a transfusion of the spirit which is their divinity.

Then why should the American landscape painter come to Italy? cry many. I think, myself, he ought not to stay here very long. Yet a few years' study is precious, for here Nature herself has worked with man, as if she wanted to help him in the composition of pictures. The ruins of Italy, in their varied relations with vegetation and the heavens, make speeches from every stone for instruction of the artist; the greatest variety here is found with the greatest harmony. To know how this union may be accomplished is a main secret of art, and though the coloring is not the same, yet he who has the key to its mysteries of beauty is the more initiated to the same in other climates, and will easily attune afresh his more instructed eye and mind to the contemplation of that which moulded his childhood.

I may observe of the two artists I have named, that Cranch has entered more into the spirit of Italian landscape, while Cropsey is still more distinguished on subjects such as he first loved. He seemed to find the Scotch lake and mountain scenery very congenial; his sketches and pictures taken from a short residence there are impressive. Perhaps a melancholy or tender subject suits him best; something rich, bold, and mellow is more adapted to call out the genius of Cranch.

Among the sculptors new names rise up, to show that this is decidedly a province for hope in America. I look upon this as the natural talent of an American, and have no doubt that glories will be displayed by our sculptors unknown to classic art. The facts of our history, ideal and social, will be grand and of new import; it is perfectly natural to the American to mould in clay and carve in stone. The permanence of material and solid, relief in the forms correspond to the positiveness of his nature better than the mere ephemeral and even tricky methods of the painter,—to his need of motion and action, better than the chambered scribbling of the poet. He will thus record his best experiences, and these records will adorn the noble structures that must naturally arise for the public uses of our society.

It is particularly gratifying to see men that might amass far more money and attain more temporary power in other things, despise those lower lures, too powerful in our country, and aim only at excellence in the expression of thought. Among these I may mention Story and Mozier. Story has made in Florence the model for a statue of his father. This I have not seen, but two statuettes that he modelled here from the "Fisher" of Goethe pleased me extremely. The languid, meditative reverie of the boy, the morbid tenderness of his nature, is most happily expressed in the first, as is the fascinated surrender to the siren murmur of tire flood in the second. He has taken the moment

I hope some one will give him an order to make them in marble. Mozier seemed to have an immediate success. The fidelity and spirit of his portrait-busts could be appreciated by every one; for an ideal head of Pocahontas, too, he had at once orders for many copies. It was not an Indian head, but, in the union of sweetness and strength with a princelike, childlike dignity, very happily expressive of his idea of her character. I think he has modelled a Rebecca at the Well, but this I did not see.

These have already a firm hold on the affections of our people; every American who comes to Italy visits their studios, and speaks of them with pride, as indeed they well may, in comparing them with artists of other nations. It will not be long before you see Greenough's group; it is in spirit a pendant to Cooper's novels. I confess I wish he had availed himself of the opportunity to immortalize the real noble Indian in marble. This is only the man of the woods,—no Metamora, no Uncas. But the group should be very instructive to our people.

You seem as crazy about Powers's Greek Slave as the Florentines were about Cimabue's Madonnas, in which we still see the spark of genius, but not fanned to its full flame. If your enthusiasm be as genuine as that of the lively Florentines, we will not quarrel with it; but I am afraid a great part is drawing-room rapture and newspaper echo. Genuine enthusiasm, however crude the state of mind from which it springs, always elevates, always educates; but in the same proportion talking and writing for effect stultifies and debases. I shall not judge the adorers of the Greek Slave, but only observe, that they have not kept in reserve any higher admiration for works even now extant, which are, in comparison with that statue, what that statue is compared with any weeping marble on a common monument.

I consider the Slave as a form of simple and sweet beauty, but that neither as an ideal expression nor a specimen of plastic power is it transcendent. Powers stands far higher in his busts than in any ideal statue. His conception of what is individual in character is clear and just, his power of execution almost unrivalled; but he has had a lifetime of discipline for the bust, while his studies on the human body are comparatively limited; nor is his treatment of it free and masterly. To me, his conception of subject is not striking: I do not consider him rich in artistic thought.

He, no less than Greenough and Crawford, would feel it a rich reward for many labors, and a happy climax to their honors, to make an equestrian statue of Washington for our country. I wish they might all do it, as each would show a different kind of excellence. To present the man on horseback, the wise centaur, the tamer of horses, may well be deemed a high achievement of modern, as it was of ancient art. The study of the anatomy and action of the horse, so rich in suggestions, is naturally most desirable to the artist; happy he who, obliged by the brevity of life and the limitations of fortune, to make his studies conform to his "orders," finds himself justified by a national behest in entering on this department.

At home one gets callous about the character of Washington, from a long experience of Fourth of July bombast in his praise. But seeing the struggles of other nations, and the deficiencies of the leaders who try to sustain them, the heart is again stimulated, and puts forth buds of praise. One appreciates the wonderful combination of events and influences that gave our independence so healthy a birth, and the almost miraculous merits of the men who tended its first motions. In the combination of excellences needed at such a period with the purity and modesty which dignify the private man in the humblest station, Washington as yet stands alone. No country has ever had such a good future; no other is so happy as to have a pattern of spotless worth which will remain in her latest day venerable as now.

Surely, then, that form should be immortalized in material solid as its fame; and, happily for the artist, that form was of natural beauty and dignity, and he who places him on horseback simply represents his habitual existence. Everything concurs to make an equestrian statue of Washington desirable.

The dignified way to manage that affair would be to have a committee chosen of impartial judges, men who would look only to the merits of the work and the interests of the country, unbiassed by any personal interest in favor of some one artist. It is said it is impossible to find such a committee, but I cannot believe it. Let there be put aside the mean squabbles and jealousies, the vulgar pushing of unworthy friends, with which, unhappily, the artist's career seems more rife than any other, and a fair concurrence established; let each artist offer his design for an equestrian statue of Washington, and let the best have the preference.

Mr. Crawford has made a design which he takes with him to America, and which, I hope, will be generally seen. He has represented Washington in his actual dress; a figure of Fame, winged, presents the laurel and civic wreath; his gesture declines them; he seems to say, "For me the deed is enough,—I need no badge, no outward, token in reward."

This group has no insipid, allegorical air, as might be supposed; and its composition is very graceful, simple, and harmonious. The costume is very happily managed. The angel figure is draped, and with, the liberty-cap, which, as a badge both of ancient and modern times, seems to connect the two figures, and in an artistic point of view balances well the cocked hat; there is a similar harmony between the angel's wings and the extremities of the horse. The action of the winged figure induces a natural and spirited action of the horse and rider. I thought of Goethe's remark, that a fine work of art will always have, at a distance, where its details cannot be discerned, a beautiful effect, as of architectural ornament, and that this excellence the groups of Raphael share with the antique. He would have been pleased with the beautiful balance of forms in this group, with the freedom with which light and air play in and out, the management of the whole being clear and satisfactory at the first glance. But one should go into a great number of studies, as you can in Rome or Florence, and see the abundance of heavy and inharmonious designs to appreciate the merits of this; anything really good seems so simple and so a matter of course to the unpractised observer.

Some say the Americans will not want a group, but just the fact; the portrait of Washington riding straight onward, like Marcus Aurelius, or making an address, or lifting his sword. I do not know about that,—it is a matter of feeling. This winged figure not only gives a poetic sense to the group, but a natural support and occasion for action to the horse and rider. Uncle Sam must send Major Downing to look at it, and then, if he wants other designs, let him establish a concurrence, as I have said, and choose what is best. I am not particularly attached to Mr. Greenough, Mr. Powers, or Mr. Crawford. I admire various excellences in the works of each, and should be glad if each received an order for an equestrian statue. Nor is there any reason why they should not. There is money enough in the country, and the more good things there are for the people to see freely in open daylight, the better. That makes artists germinate.

I love the artists, though I cannot speak of their works in a way to content their friends, or even themselves, often. Who can, that has a standard of excellence in the mind, and a delicate conscience in the use of words? My highest tribute is meagre of superlatives in comparison with the hackneyed puffs with which artists submit to be besmeared. Submit? alas! often they court them, rather. I do not expect any kindness from my contemporaries. I know that what is to me justice and honor is to them only a hateful coldness. Still I love them, I wish for their good, I feel deeply for their sufferings, annoyances, privations, and would lessen them if I could. I have thought it might perhaps be of use to publish some account of the expenses of the artist. There is a general impression, that the artist lives very cheaply in Italy. This is a mistake. Italy, compared with America, is not so very cheap, except for those who have iron constitutions to endure bad food, eaten in bad air, damp and dirty lodgings. The expenses, even in Florence, of a simple but clean and wholesome life, are little less than in New York. The great difference is for people that are rich. An Englishman of rank and fortune does not need the same amount of luxury as at home, to be on a footing with the nobles of Italy. The Broadway merchant would find his display of mahogany and carpets thrown away in a country where a higher kind of ornament is the only one available. But poor people, who can, at any rate, buy only the necessaries of life, will find them in the Italian cities, where all sellers live by cheating foreigners, very little cheaper than in America.

The patrons of Art in America, ignorant of these facts, and not knowing the great expenses which attend the study of Art and the production of its wonders, are often guilty of most undesigned cruelty, and do things which it would grieve their hearts to have done, if they only knew the facts. They have read essays on the uses of adversity in developing genius, and they are not sufficiently afraid to administer a dose of adversity beyond what the forces of the patient can bear. Laudanum in drops is useful as a medicine, but a cupful kills downright.

Beside this romantic idea about letting artists suffer to develop their genius, the American Mæcenas is not sufficiently aware of the expenses attendant on producing the work he wants. He does not consider that the painter, the sculptor, must be paid for the time he spends in designing and moulding, no less than in painting and carving; that he must have his bread and sleeping-house, his workhouse or studio, his marbles and colors,—the sculptor his workmen; so that if the price be paid he asks, a modest and delicate man very commonly receives no guerdon for his thought,—the real essence of the work,—except the luxury of seeing it embodied, which he could not otherwise have afforded, The American Mæcenas often pushes the price down, not from want of generosity, but from a habit of making what are called good bargains,—i.e. bargains for one's own advantage at the expense of a poorer brother. Those who call these good do not believe that

They have not read the life of Jesus Christ.

Then the American Mæcenas sometimes, after ordering a work, has been known to change his mind when the statue is already modelled. It is the American who does these things, because an American, who either from taste or vanity buys a picture, is often quite uneducated as to the arts, and cannot understand why a little picture or figure costs so much money. The Englishman or Frenchman, of a suitable position to seek these adornments for his house, usually understands better than the visitor of Powers who, on hearing the price of the Proserpine, wonderingly asked, "Isn't statuary riz lately?" Queen Victoria of England, and her Albert, it is said, use their royal privilege to get works of art at a price below their value; but their subjects would be ashamed to do so.

To supply means of judging to the American merchant (full of kindness and honorable sympathy as beneath the crust he so often is) who wants pictures and statues, not merely from ostentation, but as means of delight and improvement to himself and his friends, who has a soul to respect the genius and desire the happiness of the artist, and who, if he errs, does so from ignorance of the circumstances, I give the following memorandum, made at my desire by an artist, my neighbor:—

"The rent of a suitable studio for modelling in clay and executing statues in marble may be estimated at $200 a year.

"The best journeyman carver in marble at Rome receives $60 a month. Models are paid $1 a day.

"The cost of marble varies according to the size of the block, being generally sold by the cubic palm, a square of nine inches English. As a general guide regarding the prices established among the higher sculptors of Rome, I may mention that for a statue of life-size the demand is from $1,000 to $5,000, varying according to the composition of the figure and the number of accessories.

"It is a common belief in the United States, that a student of Art can live in Italy and pursue his studies on an income of $300 or $400 a year. This is a lamentable error; the Russian government allows its pensioners $700, which is scarcely sufficient. $1,000 per annum should be placed at the disposal of every young artist leaving our country for Europe."

Let it be remembered, in addition to considerations inevitable from this memorandum, that an artist may after years and months of uncheered and difficult toil, after he has gone through the earlier stages of an education, find it too largely based, and of aim too high, to finish in this world.

The Prussian artist here on my left hand learned not only his art, but reading and writing, after he was thirty. A farmer's son, he was allowed no freedom to learn anything till the death of the head of the house left him a beggar, but set him free; he walked to Berlin, distant several hundred miles, attracted by his first works some attention, and received some assistance in money, earned more by invention of a ploughshare, walked to Rome, struggled through every privation, and has now a reputation which has secured him the means of putting his thoughts into marble. True, at forty-nine years of age he is still severely poor; he cannot marry, because he cannot maintain a family; but he is cheerful, because he can work in his own way, trusts with childlike reliance in God, and is still sustained by the vigorous health he won laboring in his father's fields. Not every man could continue to work, circumstanced as he is, at the end of the half-century. For him the only sad thing in my mind is that his works are not worth working, though of merit in composition and execution, yet ideally a product of the galvanized piety of the German school, more mutton-like than lamb-like to my unchurched eyes.

You are likely to have a work to look at in the United States by the great master of that school, Overbeck; Mr. Perkins of Boston, who knows how to spend his money with equal generosity and discretion, having bought his "Wise and Foolish Virgins." It will be precious to the country from great artistic merits. As to the spirit, "blessed are the poor in spirit." That kind of severity is, perhaps has become, the nature of Overbeck. He seems like a monk, but a really pious and pure one. This spirit is not what I seek; I deem it too narrow for our day, but being deeply sincere in him, its expression is at times also deeply touching. Barabbas borne in triumph, and the child Jesus, who, playing with his father's tools, has made himself a cross, are subjects best adapted for expression of this spirit.

I have written too carelessly,—much writing hath made me mad of late. Forgive if the "style be not neat, terse, and sparkling," if there be naught of the "thrilling," if the sentences seem not "written with a diamond pen," like all else that is published in America. Some time I must try to do better. For this time

March 21.

Day before yesterday was the Feast of St. Joseph. He is supposed to have acquired a fondness for fried rice-cakes during his residence in Egypt. Many are eaten in the open street, in arbors made for the occasion. One was made beneath my window, on Piazza Barberini. All the day and evening men, cleanly dressed in white aprons and liberty caps, quite new, of fine, red cloth, were frying cakes for crowds of laughing, gesticulating customers. It rained a little, and they held an umbrella over the frying-pan, but not over themselves. The arbor is still there, and little children are playing in and out of it; one still lesser runs in its leading-strings, followed by the bold, gay nurse, to the brink of the fountain, after its orange which has rolled before it. Tenerani's workmen are coming out of his studio, the priests are coming home from Ponte Pio, the Contadini beginning to play at moro, for the setting sun has just lit up the magnificent range of windows in the Palazzo Barberini, and then faded tenderly, sadly away, and the mellow bells have chimed the Ave Maria. Rome looks as Roman, that is to say as tranquil, as ever, despite the trouble that tugs at her heart-strings. There is a report that Mazzini is to be made Dictator, as Manin is in Venice, for a short time, so as to provide hastily and energetically for the war. Ave Maria Sanissima! when thou didst gaze on thy babe with such infinite hope, thou didst not dream that, so many ages after, blood would be shed and curses uttered in his name. Madonna Addolorata! hadst thou not hoped peace and good-will would spring from his bloody woes, couldst thou have borne those hours at the foot of the cross. O Stella! woman's heart of love, send yet a ray of pure light on this troubled deep?

LETTER XXX.

The Struggle in Rome.—Position of the French.—The Austrians.—Feeling of the Roman People.—The French Troops.—Effects of War.—Hospitals.—The Princess Belgioioso.—Position of Mr. Cass as Envoy.—Difficulties and Suggestions.—America and Rome.—Reflections on the Eternal City.—The French: The People.

Rome, May 27, 1849.

I have suspended writing in the expectation of some decisive event; but none such comes yet. The French, entangled in a web of falsehood, abashed by a defeat that Oudinot has vainly tried to gloss over, the expedition disowned by all honorable men at home, disappointed at Gaëta, not daring to go the length Papal infatuation demands, know not what to do. The Neapolitans have been decidedly driven back into their own borders, the last time in a most shameful rout, their king flying in front. We have heard for several days that the Austrians were advancing, but they come not. They also, it is probable, meet with unexpected embarrassments. They find that the sincere movement of the Italian people is very unlike that of troops commanded by princes and generals who never wished to conquer and were always waiting to betray. Then their troubles at home are constantly increasing, and, should the Russian intervention quell these to-day, it is only to raise a storm far more terrible to-morrow.

The struggle is now fairly, thoroughly commenced between the principle of democracy and the old powers, no longer legitimate. That struggle may last fifty years, and the earth be watered with the blood and tears of more than one generation, but the result is sure. All Europe, including Great Britain, where the most bitter resistance of all will be made, is to be under republican government in the next century.

Every struggle made by the old tyrannies, all their Jesuitical deceptions, their rapacity, their imprisonments and executions of the most generous men, only sow more dragon's teeth; the crop shoots up daily more and more plenteous.

When I first arrived in Italy, the vast majority of this people had no wish beyond limited monarchies, constitutional governments. They still respected the famous names of the nobility; they despised the priests, but were still fondly attached to the dogmas and ritual of the Roman Catholic Church. It required King Bomba, the triple treachery of Charles Albert, Pius IX., and the "illustrious Gioberti," the naturally kind-hearted, but, from the necessity of his position, cowardly and false Leopold of Tuscany, the vagabond "serene" meannesses of Parma and Modena, the "fatherly" Radetzsky, and, finally, the imbecile Louis Bonaparte, "would-be Emperor of France," to convince this people that no transition is possible between the old and the new. The work is done; the revolution in Italy is now radical, nor can it stop till Italy becomes independent and united as a republic. Protestant she already is, and though the memory of saints and martyrs may continue to be revered, the ideal of woman to be adored under the name of Mary, yet Christ will now begin to be a little thought of; his idea has always been kept carefully out of sight under the old régime; all the worship being for the Madonna and saints, who were to be well paid for interceding for sinners;—an example which might make men cease to be such, was no way coveted. Now the New Testament has been translated into Italian; copies are already dispersed far and wide; men calling themselves Christians will no longer be left entirely ignorant of the precepts and life of Jesus.

The people of Rome have burnt the Cardinals' carriages. They took the confessionals out of the churches, and made mock confessions in the piazzas, the scope of which was, "I have sinned, father, so and so." "Well, my son, how much will you pay to the Church for absolution?" Afterward the people thought of burning the confessionals, or using them for barricades; but at the request of the Triumvirate they desisted, and even put them back into the churches. But it was from no reaction of feeling that they stopped short, only from respect for the government. The "Tartuffe" of Molière has been translated into Italian, and was last night performed with great applause at the Valle. Can all this be forgotten? Never! Should guns and bayonets replace the Pope on the throne, he will find its foundations, once deep as modern civilization, now so undermined that it falls with the least awkward movement.

But I cannot believe he will be replaced there. France alone could consummate that crime,—that, for her, most cruel, most infamous treason. The elections in France will decide. In three or four days we shall know whether the French nation at large be guilty or no,—whether it be the will of the nation to aid or strive to ruin a government founded on precisely the same basis as their own.

I do not dare to trust that people. The peasant is yet very ignorant. The suffering workman is frightened as he thinks of the punishments that ensued on the insurrections of May and June. The man of property is full of horror at the brotherly scope of Socialism. The aristocrat dreams of the guillotine always when he hears men speak of the people. The influence of the Jesuits is still immense in France. Both in France and England the grossest falsehoods have been circulated with unwearied diligence about the state of things in Italy. An amusing specimen of what is still done in this line I find just now in a foreign journal, where it says there are red flags on all the houses of Rome; meaning to imply that the Romans are athirst for blood. Now, the fact is, that these flags are put up at the entrance of those streets where there is no barricade, as a signal to coachmen and horsemen that they can pass freely. There is one on the house where I am, in which is no person but myself, who thirst for peace, and the Padrone, who thirsts for money.

Meanwhile the French troops are encamped at a little distance from Rome. Some attempts at fair and equal treaty when their desire to occupy Rome was firmly resisted, Oudinot describes in his despatches as a readiness for submission. Having tried in vain to gain this point, he has sent to France for fresh orders. These will be decided by the turn the election takes. Meanwhile the French troops are much exposed to the Roman force where they are. Should the Austrians come up, what will they do? Will they shamelessly fraternize with the French, after pretending and proclaiming that they came here as a check upon their aggressions? Will they oppose them in defence of Rome, with which they are at war?

Ah! the way of falsehood, the way of treachery,—how dark, how full of pitfalls and traps! Heaven defend from it all who are not yet engaged therein!

War near at hand seems to me even more dreadful than I had fancied it. True, it tries men's souls, lays bare selfishness in undeniable deformity. Here it has produced much fruit of noble sentiment, noble act; but still it breeds vice too, drunkenness, mental dissipation, tears asunder the tenderest ties, lavishes the productions of Earth, for which her starving poor stretch out their hands in vain, in the most unprofitable manner. And the ruin that ensues, how terrible! Let those who have ever passed happy days in Rome grieve to hear that the beautiful plantations of Villa Borghese—that chief delight and refreshment of citizens, foreigners, and little children—are laid low, as far as the obelisk. The fountain, singing alone amid the fallen groves, cannot be seen and heard without tears; it seems like some innocent infant calling and crowing amid dead bodies on a field which battle has strewn with the bodies of those who once cherished it. The plantations of Villa Salvage on the Tiber, also, the beautiful trees on the way from St. John Lateran to La Maria Maggiore, the trees of the Forum, are fallen. Rome is shorn of the locks which lent grace to her venerable brow. She looks desolate, profaned. I feel what I never expected to,—as if I might by and by be willing to leave Rome.

Then I have, for the first time, seen what wounded men suffer. The night of the 30th of April I passed in the hospital, and saw the terrible agonies of those dying or who needed amputation, felt their mental pains and longing for the loved ones who were away; for many of these were Lombards, who had come from the field of Novarra to fight with a fairer chance,—many were students of the University, who had enlisted and thrown themselves into the front of the engagement. The impudent falsehoods of the French general's despatches are incredible. The French were never decoyed on in any way. They were received with every possible mark of hostility. They were defeated in open field, the Garibaldi legion rushing out to meet them; and though they suffered much from the walls, they sustained themselves nowhere. They never put up a white flag till they wished to surrender. The vanity that strives to cover over these facts is unworthy of men. The only excuse for the imprudent conduct of the expedition is that they were deceived, not by the Romans here, but by the priests of Gaëta, leading them to expect action in their favor within the walls. These priests themselves were deluded by their hopes and old habits of mind. The troops did not fight well, and General Oudinot abandoned his wounded without proper care. All this says nothing against French valor, proved by ages of glory, beyond the doubt of their worst foes. They were demoralized because they fought in so bad a cause, and there was no sincere ardor or clear hope in any breast.

But to return to the hospitals: these were put in order, and have been kept so, by the Princess Belgioioso. The princess was born of one of the noblest families of the Milanese, a descendant of the great Trivalzio, and inherited a large fortune. Very early she compromised it in liberal movements, and, on their failure, was obliged to fly to Paris, where for a time she maintained herself by writing, and I think by painting also. A princess so placed naturally excited great interest, and she drew around her a little court of celebrated men. After recovering her fortune, she still lived in Paris, distinguished for her talents and munificence, both toward literary men and her exiled countrymen. Later, on her estate, called Locate, between Pavia and Milan, she had made experiments in the Socialist direction with fine judgment and success. Association for education, for labor, for transaction of household affairs, had been carried on for several years; she had spared no devotion of time and money to this object, loved, and was much beloved by, those objects of her care, and said she hoped to die there. All is now despoiled and broken up, though it may be hoped that some seeds of peaceful reform have been sown which will spring to light when least expected. The princess returned to Italy in 1847-8, full of hope in Pius IX and Charles Albert. She showed her usual energy and truly princely heart, sustaining, at her own expense, a company of soldiers and a journal up to the last sad betrayal of Milan, August 6th. These days undeceived all the people, but few of the noblesse; she was one of the few with mind strong enough to understand the lesson, and is now warmly interested in the republican movement. From Milan she went to France, but, finding it impossible to effect anything serious there in behalf of Italy, returned, and has been in Rome about two months. Since leaving Milan she receives no income, her possessions being in the grasp of Radetzky, and cannot know when, if ever, she will again. But as she worked so largely and well with money, so can she without. She published an invitation to the Roman women to make lint and bandages, and offer their services to the wounded; she put the hospitals in order; in the central one, Trinita de Pellegrini, once the abode where the pilgrims were received during holy week, and where foreigners were entertained by seeing their feet washed by the noble dames and dignitaries of Rome, she has remained day and night since the 30th of April, when the wounded were first there. Some money she procured at first by going through Rome, accompanied by two other ladies veiled, to beg it. Afterward the voluntary contributions were generous; among the rest, I am proud to say, the Americans in Rome gave $250, of which a handsome portion came from Mr. Brown, the Consul.

I value this mark of sympathy more because of the irritation and surprise occasioned here by the position of Mr. Cass, the Envoy. It is most unfortunate that we should have an envoy here for the first time, just to offend and disappoint the Romans. When all the other ambassadors are at Gaëta, ours is in Rome, as if by his presence to discountenance the republican government, which he does not recognize. Mr. Cass, it seems, is required by his instructions not to recognize the government till sure it can be sustained. Now it seems to me that the only dignified ground for our government, the only legitimate ground for any republican government, is to recognize for any nation the government chosen by itself. The suffrage had been correct here, and the proportion of votes to the whole population was much larger, it was said by Americans here, than it is in our own country at the time of contested elections. It had elected an Assembly; that Assembly had appointed, to meet the exigencies of this time, the Triumvirate. If any misrepresentations have induced America to believe, as France affects to have believed, that so large a vote could have been obtained by moral intimidation, the present unanimity of the population in resisting such immense odds, and the enthusiasm of their every expression in favor of the present government, puts the matter beyond a doubt. The Roman people claims once more to have a national existence. It declines further serfdom to an ecclesiastical court. It claims liberty of conscience, of action, and of thought. Should it fall from its present position, it will not be from, internal dissent, but from foreign oppression.

Since this is the case, surely our country, if no other, is bound to recognize the present government so long as it can sustain itself. This position is that to which we have a right: being such, it is no matter how it is viewed by others. But I dare assert it is the only respectable one for our country, in the eyes of the Emperor of Russia himself.

The first, best occasion is past, when Mr. Cass might, had he been empowered to act as Mr. Rush did in France, have morally strengthened the staggering republic, which would have found sympathy where alone it is of permanent value, on the basis of principle. Had it been in vain, what then? America would have acted honorably; as to our being compromised thereby with the Papal government, that fear is idle. Pope and Cardinals have great hopes from America; the giant influence there is kept up with the greatest care; the number of Catholic writers in the United States, too, carefully counted. Had our republican government acknowledged this republican government, the Papal Camarilla would have respected us more, but not loved us less; for have we not the loaves and fishes to give, as well as the precious souls to be saved? Ah! here, indeed, America might go straightforward with all needful impunity. Bishop Hughes himself need not be anxious. That first, best occasion has passed, and the unrecognized, unrecognizing Envoy has given offence, and not comfort, by a presence that seemed constantly to say, I do not think you can sustain yourselves. It has wounded both the heart and the pride of Rome. Some of the lowest people have asked me, "Is it not true that your country had a war to become free?" "Yes." "Then why do they not feel for us?"

Yet even now it is not too late. If America would only hail triumphant, though she could not sustain injured Rome, that would be something. "Can you suppose Rome will triumph," you say, "without money, and against so potent a league of foes?" I am not sure, but I hope, for I believe something in the heart of a people when fairly awakened. I have also a lurking confidence in what our fathers spoke of so constantly, a providential order of things, by which brute force and selfish enterprise are sometimes set at naught by aid which seems to descend from a higher sphere. Even old pagans believed in that, you know; and I was born in America, Christianized by the Puritans,—America, freed by eight years' patient suffering, poverty, and struggle,—America, so cheered in dark days by one spark of sympathy from a foreign shore,—America, first "recognized" by Lafayette. I saw him when traversing our country, then great, rich, and free. Millions of men who owed in part their happiness to what, no doubt, was once sneered at as romantic sympathy, threw garlands in his path. It is natural that I should have some faith.

Send, dear America! to thy ambassadors a talisman precious beyond all that boasted gold of California. Let it loose his tongue to cry, "Long live the Republic, and may God bless the cause of the people, the brotherhood of nations and of men,—equality of rights for all." Viva America!

Hail to my country! May she live a free, a glorious, a loving life, and not perish, like the old dominions, from, the leprosy of selfishness.

Evening.

I am alone in the ghostly silence of a great house, not long since full of gay faces and echoing with gay voices, now deserted by every one but me,—for almost all foreigners are gone now, driven by force either of the summer heats or the foe. I hear all the Spaniards are going now,—that twenty-one have taken passports to-day; why that is, I do not know.

I shall not go till the last moment; my only fear is of France. I cannot think in any case there would be found men willing to damn themselves to latest posterity by bombarding Rome. Other cities they may treat thus, careless of destroying the innocent and helpless, the babe and old grandsire who cannot war against them. But Rome, precious inheritance of mankind,—will they run the risk of marring her shrined treasures? Would they dare do it?

Two of the balls that struck St. Peter's have been sent to Pius IX. by his children, who find themselves so much less "beloved" than were the Austrians.

These two days, days of solemn festivity in the calends of the Church, have been duly kept, and the population looks cheerful as it swarms through the streets. The order of Rome, thronged as it is with troops, is amazing. I go from one end to the other, and amid the poorest and most barbarous of the population, (barbarously ignorant, I mean,) alone and on foot. My friends send out their little children alone with their nurses. The amount of crime is almost nothing to what it was. The Roman, no longer pent in ignorance and crouching beneath espionage, no longer stabs in the dark. His energies have true vent; his better feelings are roused; he has thrown aside the stiletto. The power here is indeed miraculous, since no doubt still lurk within the walls many who are eager to incite brawls, if only to give an excuse for slander.

To-day I suppose twelve thousand Austrians marched into Florence. The Florentines have humbled and disgraced themselves in vain. They recalled the Grand Duke to ward off the entrance of the Austrians, but in vain went the deputation to Gaëta—in an American steamer! Leopold was afraid to come till his dear cousins of Austria had put everything in perfect order; then the Austrians entered to take Leghorn, but the Florentines still kept on imploring them not to come there; Florence was as subdued, as good as possible, already:—they have had the answer they deserved. Now they crown their work by giving over Guerazzi and Petracci to be tried by an Austrian court-martial. Truly the cup of shame brims over.

I have been out on the balcony to look over the city. All sleeps with that peculiar air of serene majesty known to this city only;—this city that has grown, not out of the necessities of commerce nor the luxuries of wealth, but first out of heroism, then out of faith. Swelling domes, roofs softly tinted with yellow moss! what deep meaning, what deep repose, in your faintly seen outline!

The young moon climbs among clouds,—the clouds of a departing thunderstorm. Tender, smiling moon! can it be that thy full orb may look down on a smoking, smouldering Rome, and see her best blood run along the stones, without one nation in the world to defend, one to aid,—scarce one to cry out a tardy "Shame"? We will wait, whisper the nations, and see if they can bear it. Rack them well to see if they are brave. If they can do without us, we will help them. Is it thus ye would be served in your turn? Beware!

LETTER XXXI.

The French Treason at Rome.—Oudinot.—Lesseps.—Letter of the Triumvirate.—Reply of Lesseps.—Course of Oudinot.—The Wounded Italians.—Garibaldi.—Italian Young Men.—Military Funeral.—Havoc of the Siege.—Courage of Mazzini.—Falseness of the London Times.

Rome, June 10, 1849.

What shall I write of Rome in these sad but glorious days? Plain facts are the best; for my feelings I could not find fit words.

When I last wrote, the French were playing the second act of their farce.

In the first, the French government affected to consult the Assembly. The Assembly, or a majority of the Assembly, affected to believe the pretext it gave, and voted funds for twelve thousand men to go to Civita Vecchia. Arriving there, Oudinot proclaimed that he had come as a friend and brother. He was received as such. Immediately he took possession of the town, disarmed the Roman troops, and published a manifesto in direct opposition to his first declaration.

He sends to Rome that he is coming there as a friend; receives the answer that he is not wanted and cannot be trusted. This answer he chooses to consider as coming from a minority, and advances on Rome. The pretended majority on which he counts never shows itself by a single movement within the walls. He makes an assault, and is defeated. On this subject his despatches to his government are full of falsehoods that would disgrace the lowest pickpocket,—falsehoods which it is impossible he should not know to be such.

The Assembly passed a vote of blame. M. Louis Bonaparte writes a letter of compliment and assurance that this course of violence shall be sustained. In conformity with this promise twelve thousand more troops are sent. This time it is not thought necessary to consult the Assembly. Let us view the

SECOND ACT.

Now appears in Rome M. Ferdinand Lesseps, Envoy, &c. of the French government. He declares himself clothed with full powers to treat with Rome. He cannot conceal his surprise at all he sees there, at the ability with which preparations have been made for defence, at the patriotic enthusiasm which pervades the population. Nevertheless, in beginning his game of treaty-making, he is not ashamed to insist on the French occupying the city. Again and again repulsed, he again and again returns to the charge on this point. And here I shall translate the letter addressed to him by the Triumvirate, both because of its perfect candor of statement, and to give an idea of the sweet and noble temper in which these treacherous aggressions have been met.

LETTER OF THE TRIUMVIRS TO MONSIEUR LESSEPS.

"May 25, 1849.

"We have had the honor, Monsieur, to furnish you, in our note of the 16th, with some information as to the unanimous consent which was given to the formation of the government of the Roman Republic. We to-day would speak to you of the actual question, such as it is debated in fact, if not by right, between the French government and ours. You will allow us to do it with the frankness demanded by the urgency of the situation, as well as the sympathy which ought to govern all relations between France and Italy. Our diplomacy is the truth, and the character given to your mission is a guaranty that the best possible interpretation will be given to what we shall say to you.

"With your permission, we return for an instant to the cause of the present situation of affairs.

"In consequence of conferences and arrangements which took place without the government of the Roman Republic ever being called on to take part, it was some time since decided by the Catholic Powers,—1st. That a modification should take place in the government and institutions of the Roman States; 2d. That this modification should have for basis the return of Pius IX., not as Pope, for to that no obstacle is interposed by us, but as temporal sovereign; 3d. That if, to attain that aim, a continuous intervention was judged necessary, that intervention should take place.

"We are willing to admit, that while for some of the contracting governments the only motive was the hope of a general restoration and absolute return to the treaties of 1815, the French government was drawn into this agreement only in consequence of erroneous information, tending systematically to depict the Roman States as given up to anarchy and governed by terror exercised in the name of an audacious minority. We know also, that, in the modification proposed, the French government intended to represent an influence more or less liberal, opposed to the absolutist programme of Austria and of Naples. It does none the less remain true, that under the Apostolic or constitutional form, with or without liberal guaranties to the Roman people, the dominant thought in all the negotiations to which we allude has been some sort of return toward the past, a compromise between the Roman people and Pius IX. considered as temporal prince.

"We cannot dissemble to ourselves, Monsieur, that the French expedition has been planned and executed under the inspiration of this thought. Its object was, on one side, to throw the sword of France into the balance of negotiations which were to be opened at Rome; on the other, to guarantee the Roman people from the excess of retrograde, but always on condition that it should submit to constitutional monarchy in favor of the Holy Father. This is assured to us partly from information which we believe we possess as to the concert with Austria; from the proclamations of General Oudinot; from the formal declarations made by successive envoys to the Triumvirate; from the silence obstinately maintained whenever we have sought to approach the political question and obtain a formal declaration of the fact proved in our note of the 16th, that the institutions by which the Roman people are governed at this time are the free and spontaneous expression of the wish of the people inviolable when legally ascertained. For the rest, the vote of the French Assembly sustains implicitly the fact that we affirm.

"In such a situation, under the menace of an inadmissible compromise, and of negotiations which the state of our people no way provoked, our part, Monsieur, could not be doubtful. To resist,—we owed this to our country, to France, to all Europe. We ought, in fulfilment of a mandate loyally given, loyally accepted, maintain to our country the inviolability, so far as that was possible to us, of its territory, and of the institutions decreed by all the powers, by all the elements, of the state. We ought to conquer the time needed for appeal from France ill informed to France better informed, to save the sister republic the disgrace and the remorse which must be hers if, rashly led on by bad suggestions from without, she became, before she was aware, accomplice in an act of violence to which we can find no parallel without going back to the partition of Poland in 1772. We owed it to Europe to maintain, as far as we could, the fundamental principles of all international life, the independence of each people in all that concerns its internal administration. We say it without pride,—for if it is with enthusiasm that we resist the attempts of the Neapolitan monarchy and of Austria, our eternal enemy, it is with profound grief that we are ourselves constrained to contend with the arms of France,—we believe in following this line of conduct we have deserved well, not only of our country, but of all the people of Europe, even of France herself.