by J.D.B.
Originally published in Belgravia (John Maxwell) vol.4 #13 (Nov 1867).
The situation of Italy, the summer before last, gave promise of incidents likely to prove so highly interesting as well as important in their results, that I determined on visiting that country, after many years of absence, to witness the two great events in the announced programme of political proceedings, namely, the military operations about to be carried on by the Italians for the liberation of Venetia, and the fulfilment of the convention agreed upon between France and Italy for the evacuation of Rome. I was too late in my arrival to witness the ignominious defeat of the Italian navy at Lissa, the repulse of the army under Victor Emanuel, or the dashing attempts subsequently made by the Garibaldians to force their way to Trent. I was present, however, at the occupation of Venice, and the reception of the Galantuomo by his new subjects, and scarcely regretted that the gentle Adriatic was not compelled to receive the pledge of wedlock from her impetuous but remarkably uncouth bridegroom.
There, however, still remained one, and an important part, of the political drama yet to be enacted. Rome was to be deprived of French protection, and the Pontiff was to be left face to face with his discontented subjects, to contend as best he might with the small armed force at his disposal against their revolutionary designs. To the Eternal City, which I had not visited since my boyhood, I then went, fully prepared to see realised the generally anticipated overthrow of the oldest throne in Christendom on the very day after the French garrison should have taken its departure.
Having waited for the advent of the healthy season, after refreshing myself in the pure and crystal waters of the Mediterranean at the admirably arranged baths of Civita Vecchia, I proceeded to Rome at the commencement of October, so as to give myself time, by personal observation, to form my own conjectures as to future events. I am not about to weary my readers by a disquisition on the political state of the city, or to trouble them with any description of its antiquities and treasures of art, which they will find most ably and accurately "done" in Murray. I mean to confine myself simply to an account of the social habits of the people, their occupations, amusements, and mode of life. I found Rome—the change being no doubt in a-great degree due to the dread of cholera then raging at Naples, and the precautions taken to avert its visitation—as well-kept a city as any in Europe; and such it continued to be during my stay there. The unpleasant habits of the lower class of people had been restrained by good municipal regulations rigidly enforced; the streets were kept scrupulously clean, being swept every morning; and the abominations which formerly disgusted the visitors to the ruins bearing testimony to its past greatness, and to its finest more modern temples, no longer offended the eye.
Coming from Ancona, the dirtiest and most unsavoury city in Italy, the odours of whose streets are intolerable to any one gifted with the sense of smell, but through which alone direct access could then be had to Rome by railway,—the change was quite delightful; and the neat, comfortable, and cheap public conveyances (open phaetons, with hoods to preserve the face from cold or sun), superior in every respect to any others in Europe, which awaited our arrival at the station, and took us to the remotest quarter of the city for sevenpence-halfpenny, with their respectably clad drivers and their active and well-conditioned horses, gave us a favourable impression of the place. The Roman horses—in general small, but compactly built, with action equal to the best that draw our hansoms, and extraordinary powers of endurance—are specially remarkable for the soundness and strength of their hoofs. They work upon the closest and hardest pavements it is possible to find without being lamed or having the foot in any way injured, although not one of those employed in the public conveyances, and few of those drawing private carriages, ever carry shoes on their hind feet. They always travel at the top of their speed along narrow streets without flagways and crowded with people, so that those who use them must be astonished at the very few accidents which occur. It is surprising that the breed has not before now been brought to England, as they are peculiarly well adapted for light cavalry, possessing as they do every quality requisite for active and hard service in the field. The colour of the Roman horse is generally black; and in the equipages of the nobles and cardinals may be seen some splendid specimens, which in height and action would do honour to Mayfair. The hotels are large, magnificent in point of decoration, and—unless during the Carnival, when crowds of strangers assemble to enjoy the fun, and Holy Week, when many come to be present at the ceremonies of the Church—are most comfortable, and reasonable in their charges.
While the vineyards of France were being devastated, and her departments inundated by the fall of continued and torrential rains, the weather in Italy was perfectly delightful, the heat being tempered by a sweet and health-giving breeze. An abundant harvest had been already saved in good condition; the vines were laden with delicious grapes, sold at the modest price of a halfpenny the Roman pound. And one cannot help being sorry that, owing to neglect and mismanagement, the wine made from fruit of so sweet and rich a flavour should not be generally of a superior description.
The Romans possess many good qualities, which render them particularly agreeable to strangers. In so far as regards their intercourse with visitors they have (I speak, of course, of the lower classes) but one damning fault, namely, a propensity to use the knife—ordinarily carried in the coat or shirt sleeve—on every occasion when they receive even the slightest personal provocation; and this habit may, no doubt, be in a great measure due to the clemency with which those guilty of so sanguinary a practice are punished by a government which from its nature is habitually averse to the shedding of human blood. The assassin, if he be fortunate enough to effect his escape, instantly seeks asylum in a church, out of which he cannot be taken by the officers of justice without a special order from the Cardinal Minister of State; this is, as a matter of course, instantly granted when applied for. Meantime the doors of the sacred edifice are strictly guarded, to prevent all chance of evasion, until the necessary authorisation to enter it arrives; so that the malefactor, who is sure of being ultimately captured, profits nothing by this temporary protection. Should the wound, whether proving fatal or not, have been inflicted in a sudden paroxysm of passion, the punishment is limited to confinement of no long duration; and it is only in case of a previously planned and deliberately executed murder that the penalty of death is ever inflicted.
The Roman boys (as indeed is the case throughout all Italy) far exceed the girls in personal beauty. The women of the lower class are untidy-looking slatterns, except on fête-days and Sundays, when they appear expensively and gaudily dressed. Many among the aristocracy, who take carriage exercise on the Monte Pincio, may be considered as decidedly fine women; but there is a bold and daring expression in their flashing dark eyes not altogether pleasing, and their voices are totally devoid of that softness which forms one of the most attractive charms of the English lady. The men are amongst the finest specimens of humanity. They are polite and obliging to a degree, and will not only direct a stranger on his way with courtesy, but, if need be, leave their occupations to accompany him. A gentleman remained for nearly half an hour at the post-office window, to ask for my poste restante letters, on the first occasion I went there ; for, strange to say, there was not then (and no doubt it may still be the case) a clerk in the establishment who spoke or understood any language but his own.
Both sexes are temperate, except on particular festivals, in their mode of living. Amongst the poor, the meal generally consists of bread with grapes, peaches, pears, or apples. Should they not be available, a raw cabbage-stalk is substituted in their stead. It is almost invariably eaten while walking about, and at whatever time it suits the convenience or inclination of each member of the family, as they never assemble at table unless on special occasions. Their homes are mean and cheerless-looking, and there is not the slightest attempt at neatness or order exhibited in the arrangement of the scanty furniture.
Neither balls nor cafés chantants are permitted, and the theatres are the only places of public amusement.
There is no appearance of immorality in the streets. The people retire early to rest, and are on foot again, to attend Mass, at five o'clock in the morning.
Mendicity is not forbidden; and though there are many charitable institutions, the poorest Roman, should he have no money, will not hesitate to divide the scanty food he may happen to be eating with an applicant for relief.
The working-classes are not only idle and indolent, but proud, foolishly addicted to show, and the most inveterate of gamblers. The sowing and reaping of the crops, the pruning of the vines and gathering of the grapes—in fact, every process appertaining to agriculture—is performed by strangers, who arrive in shoals at harvest-time, seeking employment; the farmer himself merely superintending the operations, as he considers labour quite beneath him. An anecdote, for the truth of which I can vouch, will exemplify their hauteur. An under-clerk in the Post-office who had stolen letters, was prosecuted and imprisoned, his wife being left in absolute destitution. A friend of mine, having discovered that the wretched woman had lived for a fortnight on one sous-worth of coffee a day, instantly took steps for her relief. She was received into a convent, and most kindly treated; but the nuns assured him her pride was so great, that they could never induce her to make her own bed: she looked on with her arms folded across her breast, while they performed the work she should have done for herself. When any of them accumulates a petty saving, it is no sooner won than spent—one half in the hire of a carriage to drive about with their families on a Sunday, and "make," as they term it, "a respectable appearance;" the remainder of the treasure being invested in the purchase of lottery-tickets; and should the money for these purposes not be forthcoming from other sources, they will not hesitate to take even their bed-clothes to the mont-de-piété to procure it. The drawing of the lottery takes place on every Saturday, at the office of the Secretary of the Treasury. A balcony on the first floor, highly draped with tapestry, is occupied by two bishops, two trumpeters, a clerk, and a boy belonging to one of the religious orders. The bishops stand at either end, and in the centre is a machine exactly similar to those used for roasting coffee, except that it is composed entirely of glass, through which all it contains is distinctly visible to the crowd which fills the large place in front, and every street opening upon it from which a sight of the operation can be witnessed.
All being duly prepared, the trumpeters sound a merry note; the machine is repeatedly turned by the bishop on the right hand, so as to mix its contents, and then the boy, raising his arm to its full height, and presenting his open hand to the multitude before him, passes it slowly over his head, until he touches his left shoulder, then moves it back again and draws a ticket, which he hands to the bishop beside him, who, after opening it and announcing the number, hands it to the prelate at the other end, who proclaims the number again, when it is registered in a book by the clerk, and then placed in a glass case for public inspection. The boy is entitled to a crown for each unit in the number of the first ticket he draws; that is to say, if it be number two, he receives two crowns, and should it be number seventy, seventy. The first step in the proceeding, therefore, is awaited with marked interest.
As each prize is announced, the bugles play with increased vigour, until the formalities of registering and enclosing the ticket in the glass case are concluded. As the drawing proceeds, the agitation amongst the mass of subscribers below, composed of all ages and both sexes, who are awaiting the result of their speculations, increases in intensity. The fortunate winner of some four scudi—about seventeen shillings of our money—receives the warm congratulations of his neighbours; and, after being embraced by his relatives and friends, proceeds forthwith to engage a voiture, in which he and his family take a drive on the Pincio, to enjoy the fruits of his success; while the disappointed again betake themselves to the bureaux, to expend perhaps the last penny they possess in the purchase of other tickets, buoyed up by the hope that their luck may be better another time.
As the revenue derived from this source is considerable, there is no lack of opportunity for speculation, the drawings succeeding each other almost without cessation.
It may be said that this is a species of gambling which should be suppressed by any government, but more particularly by a priestly one, as tending to immorality; but any attempt to do so would be attended with fatal consequences to those who made it. The present Pope determined to put a stop to such a pernicious custom; but he was deterred from carrying out his laudable intention by the dangers which must be encountered, for there can be no doubt that he might with more safety be guilty of the most direct acts of oppression than interfere with this the most cherished institution of his subjects. The low-class Roman never calculates on becoming independent through patient industry; his only hope of attaining wealth is in a happy coup in the lottery. Such is the lesson he learns from his parents, and such the principle on which he has acted, or is prepared to act, during life. Deprive him of the opportunity of profiting by the only means he relies on for becoming rich, and you at once drive him to despair, and prepare him for the commission of the most daring crimes.
The necessaries of life are cheap at Rome. A litre of strong, sound, rough wine may be bought for threepence. The beef fed upon the Campagna is fair in quality; and large flocks of magnificent turkeys, sold at about half-a-crown a head, are daily, during autumn and winter, driven in from the country, their flesh being disposed of by the pound, like butcher's meat, in any quantity required. In the poorer quarters of the city the turkey-dealer, carrying the bird about to be slaughtered by the legs in his hand, proceeds through the streets whose inhabitants he is accustomed to serve ringing a bell, as our muffin-men do here. On his approach the customers descend to meet him, when the unfortunate turkey is thumbed and fingered until a particular part and the weight required are fixed upon, both of which are carefully entered in a book by the vendor, who then continues his way until the whole carcass is finally disposed of.
The shopkeepers, decidedly the least to be liked of the Roman population, partake of the indolence and inertness of their neighbours of lower degree. They exhibit their wares with what we in England should consider an air of unwillingness, and seldom take the trouble of pressing their customers to purchase. They have indeed this merit, that if their goods do not suit you, they willingly direct you to where you may find what you require. Amongst them and the Jews—who were released from the indignity and hardship of being nightly locked up in the Ghetto, like so many sheep, by Pius the Ninth—are to be found the most inveterate enemies of his temporal power.
The most active traffic I saw carried on at Rome was in the sale of a small and pretty species of owl, bred in the numerous ruins about, and sold at the remunerative price of two shillings a head. Having remarked that one merchant in my neighbourhood disposed of nearly one hundred a day, I inquired what they were designed for, and found that they were used for the chase. Every man and boy in the Pontifical States indulges in shooting; and as there is no close season, they destroy and devour every description of bird, even during the period of hatching, so that the breeding being checked, few of the feathered tribe are to be found; and to entrap the small remnant the owl is attached to a pole fixed in the ground, in the vicinity in which any stray bird is suspected to be concealed. The sportsman then hides himself, and pulling a string fastened to the owl's foot, compels him to flutter to the length of the cord which secures him, and his motion attracts the attention of the fovlish victim, who instantly flies from his hiding-place to meet his destruction.
The Romans may justly be called an ignorant people; for in the provinces many persons, male and female, of more than independent means, neither read nor write themselves, nor do they take any trouble to procure instruction for their children; but certainly this is not the fault of the government, for there are many institutions at Rome designed for the education of all classes, supported by the State, and amongst others the Roman College, in which 1800 students on an average receive gratuitously a first-class education, fitting them for any profession; the only qualification for admission being that the applicants should belong to well-conducted parents, able to clothe them in a becoming manner. The quality of the instruction given in this college may be judged of by the fact that the sons of the nobility are invariably sent there.
The subjects of Pius IX. may well be called grown-up children; for, give them only amusements and the excitement of gambling, and they bear tranquilly many things connected with their material interests which would sorely try the temper of any other people.
Some years since, a bank, composed of a large proprietary, was established in the city, under a charter empowering it to issue notes to the extent of 3,000,000 scudi. It was discovered that it had illegally extended its issue to 7,000,000; and its paper being no longer a legal tender, its value had fallen to a discount of seventeen per cent; and such holders of the notes as desired to obtain their full amount took their places en queue in the street at ten o'clock in the evening, so as to obtain entrance when the doors opened at nine next morning, as the bank only paid for two hours, and then dismissed the last comers without the means of procuring food for their families, unless at a ruinous sacrifice; and yet no legal steps had, up to the time I left, been taken to compel the shareholders of a concern, which only discharges its liabilities according to its own good pleasure, to meet them promptly, if they have the means.
The departure of the French army—however strange the assertion may appear—has, in my mind, greatly strengthened the position of the Pope. Its presence was a continued menace in the eyes of the discontented, which they took care to adopt as a grievance; while, although stationed for years in the Papal States, the French soldiers, from the difference of language and from their repeated removals from one station to another, remained strangers to the inhabitants. They held little, if any, intercourse with the pontifical troops, and vented their discontent at being so long detained from their country, in a most unwholesome climate, and on a service from which neither honour nor promotion could be expected, in a continued and unsparing abuse of the government it was their mission to defend.
The antipathy of the officers and soldiers of the army of occupation to priestly rule was manifested on every possible occasion, and specially so when, as the guardians and exhibitors of any public places, they had an opportunity of descanting on the past cruelties perpetrated within their walls, which they amplified to suit their purposes, and in their prognostications that similar scenes of cruelty were likely to be renewed upon their departure.
The guardian of the Castle of St. Angelo was a very self-sufficient and garrulous French sergeant; and nothing could be more disgusting than his avowed disbelief in revealed religion, and his hatred of clergymen of every faith, except the confidence with which he detailed atrocities committed in the place—which were never heard of before—and the flippancy with which he converted objects notoriously used for domestic purposes into instruments of torture.
Accompanying some friends, who were there for the first time, we found this personage absent; but his homme de corvée undertook to guide the party with such empressement, and seemed so anxious at once to proceed, before the return of his superior should deprive him of the unexpected opportunity of displaying his information, that I seconded his efforts for an immediate departure, judging from the personal appearance of the little fellow, as well as from the suppressed laughter of the surrounding soldiery, that we had an original to deal with; and we accordingly set out. He got through the descent into the tomb of Hadrian, explained how it had been lined with marble and despoiled, creditably enough, and then rolled the ball with the usual effect. It was only when we reached the upper part of the fort that he indulged in the most extraordinary flights of fancy, and committed the most ludicrous mistakes. He had taken up the tale of his superior imperfectly; and when the correctness of any of his statements was questioned had a ready reply, to which he invariably had recourse: "Ce n'est pas moi qui dis cela, messieurs; c'est mon caporal;" the corporal, as the foundation-stone of discipline, being an unerring authority in the eyes of the uneducated and simple soldier.
At length we arrived at the dungeon in which Benvenuto Cellini is said to have been confined; when, after he had detailed the prisoner's sufferings in perpetual darkness, and his attempt at escape, I inquired who Benvenuto Cellini was.
"Messieurs," answered our petit homme, assuming a theatrical attitude, contracting the fingers of his right hand into a circle, kissing them with a smack, and then waving the arm from him, as all Frenchmen do when they desire to express their admiration of any fair one surpassingly beautiful, and to whose charms language is inadequate to do justice, "Messieurs, Benvenuto Cellini était la plus belle et la plus jolie femme de Rome." Noticing a decided inclination to laugh on the part of his auditors, he continued: "Messieurs, ce n'est pas moi qui dis cela, parceque je n'étais pas ici à ce temps-là, mais c'est mon caporal."
The large jars well known to have been used for holding the oil necessary for the use of the garrison were converted into boiling caldrons, into which those who underwent the torture were occasionally dipped; and no doubt many of our Popery-hating fellow-countrymen and women left the castle firmly convinced that such tales must be true (Murray notwithstanding), because they were narrated by an authorised official.
That Victor Emanuel's government will neither take any overt measures itself, nor, in so far as its power of repression reaches, permit them to be taken by others for the overthrow of the Pope's temporal power, and consequent annexation of the remaining States of the Church to their already vastly increased dominions, is almost certain. Prudence as well as policy forbids the attempt. The Italians themselves will not sanction such a step, not only because its success might arouse the indignation of the other Catholic powers, but because the acquisition of the Roman States would be of questionable value, and at best but of small advantage to the national interests. They already possess five magnificent cities—Florence, Turin, Milan, Naples, and Venice; each of them far better suited for a metropolis than the Eternal City, which never could, except in name, become the capital and seat of government, from its well-known insalubrity except during the months of winter. It has no facilities for commerce; and the habits, tastes, and feelings of its inhabitants totally unfit them for a manufacturing population. Besides being the suitable residence of the Head of the Roman Catholic Church from the number of its magnificent places of worship and religious establishments, Rome is a museum of antiquities, appertaining, it may be said, to the civilised world; for there students of all nations find, without cost, let, or hindrance, the finest models on which to form their taste; and to this double purpose, of being the chief seat of the Roman Catholic faith, and the indisputably best existing school of the fine arts, the Eternal City should still be devoted.