Mrs. Hugh Fraser

Director of Ospizio di San Michele—A Splendid Record—Archbishop of Spoleto—A Turbulent Populace—Order Restored—Revolution in Europe—Spoleto Saved—The Earthquake in Umbria—New Post at Imola—Secret Societies—A Cardinal—Attack upon the Three Prelates—The Cardinal’s Bravery—How the Saints Forgive—Pope Pius IX—His Charity and Justice—Defenders of the Poor—Anecdotes of the Cardinal’s Generosity.

After his return from Chile, Father Giovanni Maria Mastai was appointed Director of the Ospizio di San Michele, a position which could not be called a great advancement in the eyes of the world, but which carried with it a most weighty burden of responsibility. Some idea of this charge can be grasped when we explain that the so-called “Hospital” embraced six separate large establishments: namely, an orphanage for boys, another for girls, both containing complete schools for general education as well as for the learning of trades and arts; a home for the aged poor, a “protectory” for unruly boys, a reformatory for fallen women—and a prison for political offenders. The endowments of the Ospizio, together with its earnings, rendered an income of fifty thousand dollars a year, then considered an ample sum for providing for the wants of some thousands of persons. It will readily be understood that this left little or nothing over for salaries to those in charge, but, fortunately, in those days these were not needed, as all the employÉs, except a few servants, were priests and religious, who gave their services for nothing except food and shelter.

In his own financial affairs, Father Mastai was the worst manager possible; he never kept any money longer than was needed to give it away; but where other funds were concerned he made no mistakes, and his administration was as wise and careful as possible. His friends and family seem to have been a little surprised when his labours and trials during the South American mission received no more public recognition than this appointment to a burdensome task, but he himself was delighted. He had looked back to the years spent with “Tata Giovanni’s” boys with homesick regret; the work at San Michele was of the same kind on a much larger scale, more orphans to train, more poor to cherish, more sinners to help and save, and his generous heart was fully satisfied. The Holy Father, Leo XII, watched the new Director closely during the two years he left him in charge. At the end of that short time the improvement in all the different departments of the Ospizio was fully evident, and its self-supporting funds had increased, in spite of the innovation introduced by the new Director, who ordained that a fair share of the inmates’ earnings should be set aside for their own after use and benefit.

Leo XII was now satisfied that he had not been mistaken in his judgment of Father Mastai’s abilities and virtues, so, without any intermediate promotion, on the 21st of May, 1827, he appointed him Archbishop of Spoleto, the Pope’s own native town. Great was the grief of the vast family at San Michele on learning the news, for whether as simple priest, powerful prelate, or Supreme Pontiff, Pius IX was always enthusiastically loved by all who approached him.

Spoleto, as we know it to-day—but how can I describe it? One magic pen has pictured the Umbrian cities with such divine felicity that the rest of us must be for ever mute. Read what Edward Hutton says about Spoleto—“a beautiful city of rose colour set on a high hill.”—“Spoleto, like a tall and sweet maiden,—kneeling at the head of her long valley under the soft sky.” Read all that that pure-souled genius has written about Umbria and Tuscany, and you will know whatever your mind can grasp of that which the poet and the mystic and the artist feel in that immortal region; my business is not with them, but with the “anima latina” of a holy, hard-working prelate sent in troublous times to govern a turbulent populace already inoculated with the fever of revolution, and preserving, in its murderous hatreds, the best traditions of the late Middle Ages.

This was what the new Archbishop saw before him as, with his two brothers, he approached Spoleto towards the end of June, 1827: “A violent party feud raging between two factions, finding its way into families, separating father from son, brother from brother, sister from sister. Even the clergy had allowed themselves to be drawn into the unhappy conflict, and, as a natural consequence, the interests of religion were suffering lamentably.”[7] So the new Archbishop had no light task before him. I fancy, however, that his was a nature which was happiest in strenuous effort. There are people, even in the modern world, who seem out of place unless they are leading a forlorn hope. We had a friend long years ago, the Marquis de BÂcourt, a delightful French diplomatist, with whom, after the vagrant manner of diplomatists, we foregathered in various parts of the world before meeting him again in Chile, which certainly just then was not a bed of roses for foreign representatives. I was bewailing our own luck and commiserating his, when he interrupted me by exclaiming: “Oh, but I am really enjoying myself! I love difficult and disagreeable affairs!”

Of these we know that Monsignor Mastai found many to adjust in his new charge, and that he was signally successful in smoothing them out. Within two years faction had died in the pretty Umbrian city on the hill, enemies were reconciled, order restored, and the clergy aroused to new zeal and regularity under his wise, strict rule. At the end of those two years he held the people’s hearts in his hands, and well it was for them that he did, for thus he was enabled to save the town and its inhabitants from the terrible danger which suddenly threatened to overwhelm Spoleto in 1830. Leo XII had died on the 10th of February of the preceding year, and had been succeeded by Pius VIII, whose beneficent reign was ended all too soon by death on the eve of All Saints’, 1830. The gentle old man had, during his short Pontificate, attacked and handled with vigour and wisdom some of the most important questions of the day, notably in his regulations for mixed marriages and in his stern condemnation of the secret societies; these had, during the last momentous year of his life, produced the harvest of revolution which convulsed Europe more or less from Warsaw to Rome; yet worse was to come, but Pius VIII was spared the trial of witnessing it. That was reserved for his successor, Gregory XVI, sturdy, imperturbable, broad-shouldered, bringing with him the breezes of the Julian Alps and the hard good sense of the Venetian from the mountains and the sea. He needed it all, for, as I have said elsewhere, the storm that had muttered so long broke loose even before his election; the henchmen of anarchy, who had long been secretly busy in the Papal States, started a revolution in Rome itself in February, 1830; this was promptly quelled, but the trouble in the more northerly provinces was very serious and the Pope had to appeal to Austria to subdue it.

Spoleto had by no means escaped the general infection, but the Archbishop had, by constant watchfulness and his great personal influence, succeeded in preventing any open outbreak of the revolutionary spirit which lurked there; what was his horror and that of the citizens when it became known that a body of four thousand insurgents, retreating before the Austrians, were approaching the town with the intention of holding it against their pursuers! The place was in a panic—the inhabitants already saw themselves trampled down and massacred in the bloody conflict that would take place—saw the stern punishment that the Austrians would inflict upon them for harbouring the desperate revolutionaries. It was in this emergency that Giovanni Maria Mastai showed the coolness of a statesman and the courage of a soldier. At the risk of his life he drove at full speed to the Austrian headquarters and insisted on interviewing the Commander. To the surprised General he explained that the armed insurgents who were demanding Spoleto’s hospitality at the point of the bayonet were strangers to her, that she was in no way responsible for them and that she disclaimed all part in their designs. This point being made clear, he undertook to bring the rebels to submission, single-handed, if the General would promise not to let his own men enter Spoleto. The promise was, naturally, most readily given, the irritated commander being only too glad to relinquish an unpleasant job. And then the Archbishop, getting into his carriage again, rushed off to intercept the revolutionaries in their march on the town.

To them he spoke only in words of tenderest pity. He said he knew that they had been misled and deceived by wicked men, that their hearts were not in this conflict, but really loyal to their sovereign, the Pope; he told them that he could sympathise with their present situation, brought about by despair at finding themselves far from their houses, without means of returning, and threatened with the reprisals of the Austrians. He showed them the hopelessness of the struggle into which they had been drawn, and promised them, if they would lay down their arms, not only a free pardon, but the means of returning to their homes. His fatherly kindness carried all before it. Touched and grateful, they surrendered their funny old muskets and cannon; the Archbishop went to his palace, scraped together all the money he had or could borrow on his own credit, and came back with twenty thousand francs which he distributed amongst them according to their needs, and had the joy of seeing them all depart, pacified and sober, for their respective provinces.

History does not say that the people of Spoleto suggested any refunding of that big sum of money, but they showed their gratitude and delight in very enthusiastic ways, illuminating the city, having processions and fireworks in honour of him who had obtained its deliverance, and cheering to the skies whenever he showed himself, all of which was doubtless most gratifying to their kind Pastor’s heart; but he was almost too busy to think much about such things at that moment, having been charged by the Secretary of State with the conduct of all civil matters in Umbria, the proper authorities—to a man—having fled at the approach of the Austrians.

Talking of those penniless rebels, I ought to say that there was one among them whom the Archbishop did not send home, because the man had no home to go to. So he brought him into his own house, kept him there in safety and comfort, and, regardless of what was sure to be said in Rome about his interceding for such a character, sent to beg the Pope to give him a passport which would take him across the frontier. The passport was granted, and the next time any communication passed between the charitable host and his quondam pensioner the former had become Pius IX and the latter Napoleon III, Emperor of the French.

In 1832 the whole province of Umbria was desolated by a destructive earthquake, in which a great number of lives were lost and many thousands of persons rendered homeless. Spoleto suffered severely and once more the good Archbishop was the comfort and mainstay of his people. He seemed to be everywhere at once and called up doctors, nurses, and provisions with miraculous celerity, finding money somehow for all the dreadful needs and sending aid of every kind to the more distant places where he could not go himself. Other pastors were doing all they could for their own flocks, but Monsignor Mastai’s zeal and charity were so conspicuous as to draw down the special and enthusiastic commendation of Gregory XVI, who immediately promoted him to the Archbishopric of Imola, a far more important See than that of Spoleto. Naturally the Spoleto people were frantic at the idea of losing him and sent a deputation of their most notable citizens to Rome to beg the Pope to change his mind. But they failed in their object, and at the appointed time their Archbishop received their last farewells—a tumult of tears and blessings—and set out for his new post, stopping on the road at Loreto to ask for Heaven’s assistance, as he had asked for it in his early youth, when his malady appeared to be barring his way to the priesthood.

He found even more to do at Imola than he had at Spoleto in the matters of reorganisation and reform, and he threw himself into the work with all the ardour of his brave energetic soul, encountering many trials, but coming victoriously through them all. Of course he made bitter enemies, for his boundless charity to the poor broke out in a blaze of indignation whenever he found that they were being oppressed or defrauded. In such cases instant retribution overtook the offender, and no amount of apparent contrition could ever obtain office for him again if it depended on the decision of the Archbishop.

The secret societies, following their usual programme, had decided to “remove” Monsignor Mastai without delay. He was sitting in his study one morning when his faithful old servant, Baladelli, who had accompanied him everywhere, entered to say that a lady, who seemed in a great hurry, begged him to grant her a few minutes’ “conversation.”

“Ask her to wait a little,” said the Archbishop, as he rose and went into his private chapel. Some time passed and the servant came and found his master on his knees.

“Monsignor, will you not speak to that lady now?” he asked.

“Tell her to wait a little longer,” was the reply.

The man retreated, to return more than once; Monsignor, still on his knees, always gave the same message, and at last Baladelli, after the manner of old servants, lost his temper and exclaimed: “For goodness’ sake, come and speak with that poor woman! She has been waiting for hours.”

Then the Archbishop looked around at him and said, very quietly, “I speak with the living, not with the dead.”

The frightened domestic rushed into the anteroom where the petitioner had been left, and beheld a tumbled heap on the floor. Calling his fellow-servants to help him, he raised it up. The heavy veil had slipped from the face. The “lady” was a man, with a great sharp knife concealed in his feminine garments. He was stone dead.

Monsignor Mastai was made a Cardinal (with the titular of the Church of St. Peter[8] and Marcellinus) on the 14th of December, 1840, to the great happiness of his mother, a widow since 1833. During her lifetime he made a point of going once or more every year to visit her at Sinigaglia in the old house where his childhood had been passed. He frequently was obliged to come to Rome on business, and so long as he was Archbishop of Spoleto, he lodged at the orphanage of Tata Giovanni on these occasions. That was no longer possible after he had been promoted to the more important See of Imola, as he was then expected to travel with a larger suite, for whom the Orphanage did not provide fitting quarters. He resented the expense of these more ostentatious journeys, complaining that the money they cost would have been better spent among his poor at Imola, but he had no choice in the matter and had to submit to custom and tradition.

A very unpleasant adventure marked the third year of his cardinalate. In the heat of the summer he and two of his colleagues in the Sacred College arranged to take a few weeks of rest in a small and lonely villa in a remote part of the country. They knew, of course, that the revolutionary agents were abroad and at work, but it had not occurred to any of the trio that their own illustrious persons might be designated as worthy objects of attack. But a certain Riotti, a Piedmontese, deep-dyed in conspiracy, conceived the brilliant idea of kidnapping the three prelates and holding them as hostages, to be ransomed at the price of his own immunity should his treasonable designs be discovered. So, in the dead of night this hero, with six of his fellow-conspirators, broke into the villa, and the unfortunate prelates were roused from their sleep to find themselves confronted with a band of desperate men armed to the teeth. The two other Cardinals were not fighters, but Giovanni Maria Mastai was. What weapons he used I know not—he had none at hand except his high courage and biting tongue, but the outcome was that the ruffians fled from his presence and were heard of no more. His companions said that it was entirely owing to his bravery that the whole party was saved.

One spring day at Imola, while the Carnival was roaring through the streets, the Archbishop was down on his knees in the Church praying for his people that they might not sin in their mirth. Alas! even his fervent prayers could not altogether avert that calamity! A sudden tumult of cries and footsteps came from the sacristy and he rushed thither to almost fall over a young man, who lay gasping in his blood on the pavement. At the same moment his pursuers broke in after him, three men with knives in their hands, furiously intent on finishing their victim. The Cardinal instantly placed himself before him and, holding up the gold cross which he wore on his breast, forbade them to come a step nearer. In a torrent of burning eloquence he reproached them with their atrocious cruelty and sacrilege of which they had been guilty, and ordered them to quit the Church. They stood for a moment cowed and broken, then they fled, and he turned to the poor boy on the ground. Very tenderly he knelt down beside him, and soothed and comforted him, pillowing his bleeding neck on his arm, while the attendants who had arrived on the scene ran for a physician. The latter came promptly, but said that the wound was mortal—there was nothing to be done. Then, still kneeling on the ground and holding the poor dying boy in his arms, the Cardinal helped him to make his confession, called one of the priests of the Church to administer the last Sacraments, and knelt there till the young soul passed away, comforted and at peace.

Where injuries or insults were offered to himself, Cardinal Mastai forgave as only the Saints can forgive. The chief magistrate of Imola, a hard and cruel man, had conceived the most bitter hatred of him for his gentle methods and broad, progressive views, and expressed his hostility with much violence. The Mayor’s wife, a good devout woman, was much distressed at his attitude, and sought by every means in her power to heal the one-sided feud. A child was born to her, and she secretly begged the Cardinal to volunteer to be its godfather—she was sure her husband’s heart would be softened at such an evidence of condescension and good-will! Nothing loath, the good Cardinal approached the Mayor, personally, and with much gentleness and humility asked if he would permit him to stand sponsor for the baby. Whereupon the Mayor flew into a passion and exclaimed: “You! You presume to suggest such a thing! You, who are a friend of malcontents and rebels! No, indeed! You are too liberal for me!” Then he turned his back on his Archbishop and left him—a suppliant refused!

The Archbishop accepted both the insult and the calumny without a word of protest. A month later he changed his name and assumed that of Pius IX. Learning that his old enemy was in Rome with his family at the time, he sent him word that, although he had refused to allow the Archbishop of Imola to stand godfather to his child, he might not feel the same objection to the Pope, who, if the infant were not yet baptised, would be glad to be its sponsor. En passant one is struck with wonder that, amid all the preoccupation and inevitable excitement of that great change in his life, Pius IX should have found time to think of the man at all. Naturally, he had conquered, and his old enemy could scarcely express his gratitude at receiving such an honour. Even then the Pope remembered him again, and very soon afterwards seized an opportunity of conferring on him a great material benefit. That is how the Saints forgive!

Naturally he had conquered, and the favour was received with almost unbelieving joy.

Oh, they were a good family, those Mastai-Ferrettis. After the accession of Pius IX, his brother, Cardinal Ferretti, a most wise and saintly man, acted as his Prime Minister for a time, before the revolution. His memory was greatly venerated in Rieti, of which place he was Cardinal Bishop. A terrible thing happened while he was there. One of the Churches was broken into at night, the Tabernacle violated, and the pyx containing the Blessed Sacrament stolen. On learning of this frightful sacrilege the next morning, the Cardinal called all his clergy together, and he and they, with bare feet and ropes round their necks, went in procession to the public square. The entire population gathered round them, and then the Cardinal, standing bareheaded and barefooted under the noonday sun, preached a sermon, taking for his text the cry of Mary Magdalene on Easter morning: “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him.”

When the sermon ended the people were kneeling on the stones, sobbing like children. That night the door of the Church was left open, and the pyx was restored; its sacred contents were intact.

Pius IX early let his family know that they were to expect neither wealth nor promotion from his hands. One ambitious relation asked him for a title. “You have not the income to maintain it, my dear fellow,” the Pope replied, “and I shall not provide you with one. Stay as you are.” Another, a young nephew, was idling about Rome, giving himself no end of airs because his uncle was on the throne. His uncle sent him back to Sinigaglia to learn sense in obscurity. Yet the poorest and meanest could always obtain aid and sympathy from Pius IX. I remember seeing the people push forward their written petitions as he used to drive through the city or walk in the environs. The queer, often dirty, scraps of paper were received by one of the Cardinals or the chamberlain who accompanied the Pope on these occasions, and every one was examined, the circumstances verified, and genuine cases relieved within twenty-four hours. Only one class dreaded the approach of the Holy Father—neglectful or fraudulent officials. He relied on no reports of public or private institutions, but descended on them at all hours of the day or night, in person and without giving the slightest warning, to see for himself how things were being managed. Like Haroun-al-Raschid he would slip out alone, dressed as a layman, and dive unrecognised into hospitals, schools, and prisons, only revealing his rank when he could not obtain admittance otherwise; and where he found anything out of order, correction, and in serious cases heavy retribution, instantly followed. One night, dressed as a private gentleman, he was thus going through the wards of the great Hospital of Santo Spirito, where, as in most of the Roman hospitals, charitable visitors were always free to come and cheer or tend the sick. That night a poor French artist was dying, and he called for a priest. The attendants looked everywhere for the Almoner or Chaplain of the Institution, but he was not to be found. The Pope said, “I will take his place,” and to him the dying man made his confession, from him received the last Sacraments, and passed away, comforted and in peace. The next morning the Almoner was dismissed.

One day the Holy Father, walking in the Quirinal Gardens, passed a sentry on duty. The man silently held out a loaf of bread for his inspection. Pius IX took it, examined it, and asked one question, “Do you always get bread as bad as this?” “Always, Santo Padre,” was the reply. A sudden descent on the Commissariat department showed that he had spoken the truth. When the sun rose again the cheating commissary was repenting of his sins in prison. There is a beautifully practical side to autocratic government!

Justice had nothing to blush for in the Rome of those days, and the poor could obtain it as promptly and easily as the rich. There were three separate institutions devoted entirely to the legal defence and protection of persons who could not pay for the services of a lawyer. One was the Arch-Confraternity of St. Ives, thus named after the Saint still so dear to the people of Brittany, the lawyer who was a priest and who devoted all his talents to the defence and protection of the poor. But long before his time (he died on the 19th of May, 1303) St. Gregory had instituted in Rome seven official defenders of the poor, one for each Region of the city. They were called “defensori”; some eight hundred years later their official descendants, the College of Procurators, took the title of “the Rights of the Poor,” and there was also a civil office established by Urban VIII, of which the holder, who had to be a noble and a layman, took the title of “Advocate of the Poor,” exercising his powers in cases that came outside any ecclesiastical administration. The Congregation of St. Ives remained the great standby of the lower classes down to my own time. It was partly a religious sodality, comprising both prelates and lawyers, who met every Sunday for pious exercises, which were followed by a careful examination of such appeals as had been laid before them during the week. They took up all just and genuine claims and defended them at their own expense. Besides looking after the rights of their humble fellow-countrymen, they undertook the cases of all poor strangers who got into trouble in the city.

There was a third body, the Arch-Confraternity of San Girolamo, that devoted itself to the defence and aid of prisoners and, more especially, of poor widows. The gentlemen composing it—and they were the flower of the aristocracy, ecclesiastical and social—made it their business to assist impecunious prisoners in every possible way, paying their fines, if such had been imposed on them, and arranging matters with their creditors if they had been imprisoned for debt. The members had free access to all the prisons and they took their duties very seriously, some of their number examining the food every day of the year, and enquiring into all matters connected with the treatment of the prisoners. Indeed some of the most important prisons were confided to their sole charge. They did no end of good, particularly in bringing about amicable settlements of disputes which would otherwise have caused fierce litigation.

Our blessed Pius IX had a tender sympathy for poor debtors and often came to their assistance. He was constantly in money difficulties himself—as generous people so often are—during the earlier part of his career. When he became Archbishop of Spoleto he had to borrow a goodly sum, on his brother’s security, from a Roman money-lender to defray the expenses of his installation, and he was so recklessly charitable that again and again there was not wherewithal to buy food.

His old housekeeper at Spoleto used to weep over the bare shelves of her larder—everybody was fed, she declared, except her master and his household! It was hoped that things would be better when he moved to Imola, where the Episcopal revenue was double that of Spoleto, but the master’s ways were hopeless and he only laughed when his people remonstrated with him. There came a day at Imola when the distracted steward, ready to tear his hair, exclaimed: “Eminenza, there was a hundred dollars in the treasury this morning, and it is all gone! I have not a cent for the ‘spese’” (the current expenses); “what shall we do?”

The Cardinal reminded him that the good God had promised daily bread to His children. “That is true, Eminenza,” said the poor man, “but—I am in terrible difficulty, all the same!”

“Well,” said his master, “to-morrow is a fast day. I know you have some cheese in the house. Serve that for dinner.”

“But the next day, Eminenza?”

“Oh, I will take care to leave enough for the next day!” was the Cardinal’s reply.

On another occasion he was about to entertain a distinguished party at dinner. The gentlemen were already gathered in the drawing-room when their host was informed that a man wished to speak with him on urgent business. He excused himself and came into the dining-room, where he found one of his parishioners in frantic distress. He wanted a loan to save him from immediate bankruptcy. “I have not a single dollar in my possession, my poor friend,” said the Cardinal, “but——” He glanced round the room, where all his best plate was laid out in preparation for the coming feast, and pounced on a great gold soup tureen, a cherished gift from his mother. “Take this,” he said, putting it into the man’s hands, “it will pay your debts.”

With sublime carelessness he returned to his guests, and they and he soon began to wonder why dinner was not served. A long time passed, and then the steward, pale as death and with tears in his eyes, came and informed him that somebody had stolen the gold soup tureen! He had looked everywhere, searched the servants’ rooms—the household was in an uproar—but the tureen was gone!

“Oh, is that all?” he laughed. “I stole it myself! Get the old china one and let us eat.”