Mrs. G. Gretton

System pursued towards children—Results of Jesuit training—Anecdotes of the SacrÉ Coeur—A Contessina just out of the convent—Difficulty of giving a liberal education to young nobles—No profession open to them but the church—Their ignorance and idleness.

Amongst those Italians whose minds have risen superior to the disadvantages that surround them, the subject of education is often anxiously discussed. One evening, at my uncle's, we were conversing on this topic with the Conte Enrico A——, a highly intellectual and cultivated young man. He was a native of Ancona, but so far in advance of his townspeople, that he stood almost isolated amongst them. Even as an Englishman, he would have ranked high for mental acquirements, though all perhaps of too dreamy a cast. His was a sort of passive genius, which exhaled itself in poetry and melancholy reflections on the misery of his country, looking upon any individual exertion as impracticable. This want of energy in striving to carry out the superior workings of their intellect was, until lately, peculiar to most Italians who united reflection and high principle with patriotism and talent. For Central and Northern Italy, however, this remark no longer holds good. The moving spirits of the revolutions in Tuscany, the Duchies, and Romagna, have been precisely the most cultivated and moderate amongst the upper and middle classes; but the course recent events have taken in the Marche, confirms the opinion that the political leaders there are still men of thought rather than of action.

On the evening in question, I remember he told us we were not half thankful enough, nor proud enough, of the privilege of being Englishwomen, nor sensible of the blessings which from our very cradles that name conferred.

“As soon as English children can distinguish one letter from another,” he said, “books are put into their hands which inculcate truth, honour, courage; and thus is laid the basis of that education which has made your nation what it is—the envy and wonder of Europe.”

“That reminds me of a plan we have often talked of,” said Lucy D——: “it is that of translating some of our nice children's story-books, and getting them circulated through these States.”

“Ah! you forget,” he replied, shaking his head, “that before teaching the children, you must educate the mothers of Italy; or else your efforts will be paralysed by the ignorance and folly that would be arrayed against you.”

“Besides you forget,” said my uncle, looking up from his paper, “that the mothers of Italy have very little to do with the education of their children: your convents and seminaries relieve them of that task.”

“Too true,” said the count. “As our fathers and grandfathers did before us, so also must we: and that is why, at seven or eight years old, our boys are sent to Jesuit colleges; while our girls, at even an earlier age, are placed in nunneries to learn from women perpetually secluded in the cloister, the duties that are to fit them for wives and mothers in the world.”

“Never even coming home for their holidays,” remarked my uncle. “Strange that there should be people in existence who can consent to this unnecessary separation from their children for ten or eleven years. How the character may be worked upon, and all its fresh impulses destroyed, by this long period of unbroken influence!”

“But do they, then, never see their children?” I inquired.

“Oh yes, they may go and visit them,” he replied; “but an interview of but an hour or so occasionally, is a very poor substitute for more unrestrained intercourse; besides, it often happens that the convent or college is at a considerable distance, and it does not suit people to be always travelling.”

“Talking of these visits,” said the count, “reminds me of one I lately paid to Loretto, to see the eldest son of the Principe L——, a handsome, animated, and promising little fellow of nine years old, who had been placed at the Jesuits' College there about six months before. I could scarcely recognize the child. Without ill-usage, without any compulsory discipline, but simply by the steady workings of their wonderful method of compression, the boy's spirit and originality appeared to be as completely extinguished as if they had never existed. He had become grave, thoughtful beyond his age, with a little demure, bland look, that seemed a reflection of the countenances of his priestly instructors. I horrified the ecclesiastic who was present during the interview, by rather maliciously asking the child if he still continued to take as much interest as ever in all scientific and mechanical pursuits, and in reading of the recent discoveries. As the sworn upholder of a government that opposes railways, and laments the invention of printing, the priest was bound to express his surprise at the suggestion, 'My child,' said he, mildly addressing his pupil, 'is it possible you ever thought thus? You have other tastes now. Tell the signor conte what you most wish to become.' The boy coloured, cast down his eyes, and murmured, 'Un Latinista'—a Latin scholar. Anything like a love of aught relating to progression was a crime.”

There was some bitterness, but no exaggeration, in what the young Anconitan related. The question of the Jesuits is purely a political one, they being supported by the party termed by the liberals Oscurantisti or Codini—the first name signifying literally obscurers, and the last derived from the queue worn by the gentlemen of the last century, and without which, to this day, upon the Italian stage, the portrait of a prejudiced obstinate old noble is incomplete. Families of these views esteem it, therefore, a point of conscience to intrust the education of their children to this order.

The Jesuit colleges nearest Ancona are at Loretto, a distance of twenty miles; and at Fano, about thirty miles off, in an opposite direction. At the former place also, the French Dames du SacrÉ Coeur have a convent for young ladies, embracing much the same line of principles. It cannot be denied that, as respects general accomplishments and ladylike deportment, their pupils infinitely surpass those of all other conventual establishments in the country; but the Jesuit leaven that pervades the whole course of tuition, deters all parents, not devoted to the tenets of Loyola, from placing their daughters under their care.

The House at Loretto was admirably conducted; simplicity, cleanliness, refinement, order, were its striking features. The pupils appeared to me perfectly happy. Most of them had entered at six or seven years of age, and cherished an enthusiastic affection for the nuns, or Ladies, as they are generally styled, who by their gentle and dignified deportment, their patient study of character, and the devotion of their whole faculties to the task, acquired over them an unlimited ascendancy. A girl in the SacrÉ Coeur never learned to reason;—what “La MÈre SupÉrieure” once said, was to her an article of faith,—infallible, unimpeachable. The opinions thus formed—and they designedly embraced every relation of society—were seldom or never shaken off.

In politics, as may be conceived, the SacrÉ Coeur is unmitigatedly Austrian. In 1848, while all Italy was applauding the prowess or lamenting the misfortunes of Charles Albert, the pupils at Loretto knew of no hero but Radetsky; and celebrated his triumph over Italian independence by a grand march for the pianoforte, composed expressly for them by their music-master, maestro di cappella to the Church of the Santa Casa.

The acquaintance possessed by these ladies with all that is passing in the outer world, down to the minutest details of inner life, is a well-known attribute of the order. Imparted to their Jesuit confessors, this knowledge has often become a powerful political engine. The means by which it is acquired is through the confidence and affection of their pupils. I once happened to be staying in the same house with a young lady who had recently left the convent. The Contessina used to write every day to the MÈre SupÉrieure long crossed letters, in a delicate French hand. “You carry on an active correspondence,” some one remarked. “Oh, yes!” was the unsuspecting reply; “the MÈre is so good! She tells us always to remember, when we leave her care, that whatever is of interest to us interests her; and to tell her of our occupations, our acquaintances; of those who come to the house, and what they speak about.”

I had also an opportunity of observing the mastery the Sacred Heart obtains over family ties and instincts. Another young girl of our acquaintance—indeed, she was one of our most intimate friends—was on the eve of entering the novitiate, when she heard that the cholera was raging at Trieste. The alarm was great in Ancona, where a belief in contagion prevailed; and it was generally anticipated that, through the constant communication going on between the Austrian garrison and that port, the epidemic would be speedily transmitted. The parents of the future novice were somewhat advanced in years, delicate in health, and apprehensive of the impending danger. She therefore wrote to the Superior, proposing to adjourn her entrance into the order till after the cholera had visited Ancona, in order to be at hand to nurse her parents if attacked. “My child,” was the reply, “leave your parents to higher care. This is clearly a temptation of the Evil One.” And accordingly she went.

Notwithstanding the favour it enjoys with the Government, some members of the vieille roche are hostile to the SacrÉ Coeur; not, as it may be supposed, on account of its political bias, but because its teaching—which comprehends a thorough knowledge of French and music, with some insight into the other usual elements of female education—is unnecessarily erudite. A strong party still exists in favour of the old-fashioned nunneries; of the system pursued in which the following is no exaggerated report:—

One day a pretty, bashful-looking contessina, just emancipated from her convent, came with her mother to pay a morning visit. While the latter was engaged with poor Lucy, on whom doing the honours to the elderly ladies always devolved, I endeavoured to overcome the daughter's timidity, and draw her into conversation. Not knowing what else to speak of, I began about her recent studies, and inquired if she knew French.

“No, signora,”[3] with downcast eyes, “they did not teach that in the convent.”

“Did you learn history or geography?”

“No, signora.”

“But you can embroider?”

“Si, signora—the nuns taught us that, and we worked a beautiful set of vestments for the priest who said Mass in our church.”

“And what did you learn besides?”

“To read and write, and the Catechism.”

“And have you read many pretty books?”

“No, signora; only the 'Lives of the Saints.'”

“Where was this convent?—was it near Loretto, or Jesi, or Macerata?”

“I do not know, signora.”

“You do not know!—was it very far off, then?”

“Not very, signora; it took four hours to go there from Ancona in a carriage. I remained ten years; I never went out all the time, and I returned home the same way that I went.”

During this dialogue her voice never changed in its monotonous intonation, with the unvarying “signora” at every sentence, which Italian convent girls are so remarkable for bestowing; when my uncle walked into the drawing-room with a young Oxonian, the son of a very old friend, who had unexpectedly arrived to take the steamer for Greece on an eastern tour.

We jumped up in delight and shook hands so heartily, that I fear the Contessa was quite scandalized; but for a few minutes we were too much taken up with our countryman to think of her. When calmness was restored, and she rose to take leave, I perceived, to my great amusement, that although the daughter's eyelids were drooping as before, she was busy, beneath their long lashes, in taking a survey of the handsome young stranger, although not the movement of a muscle in the smooth expressionless face was perceptible; neither did she evince any apparent consciousness of all that was going on, as, meekly following her mother, she curtseyed herself out of the room.

It is certainly extraordinary how, after this penitential discipline, the instant they are married, these demure little damsels acquire the full use of their visual organs, and bring all their latent fire into play. Indeed, the sudden transition from an awkward, silent, ill-dressed girl, such as I have described, into an elegant, self-possessed, talkative woman, is so wonderful as only to be credited by those who daily witness the metamorphosis effected in Italy by the dignity and enfranchisement of matrimony.

Persons desirous of a more extended scale of instruction for their daughters, and who are, at the same time, hostile to the SacrÉ Coeur, find themselves in great perplexity. The experiment has been tried by one or two families of sending them into Tuscany, where there are several institutions for female education, conducted on comparatively liberal principles; but the distance, the danger and expense of the journey, were all such serious drawbacks, that the example found few imitators. The manners of the country, and, it must be added, the incapacity of the mothers for the task, render it inexpedient to bring up girls at home; so that, after much talking and deliberation, nine fathers out of ten resign themselves to do as their fathers did before them, and deposit their daughters in the old convents, out of harm's way, for half a score of years at least.

It must be confessed, they have enough to occupy them as to the means of educating their sons, when they have the bad taste not to confide them to the Jesuits. Sometimes they send them to Pisa or Sienna in Tuscany, at which last there used to be a college of some eminence, conducted on moderate principles by the Padri Scolopj; but of late years abuses have crept in, and it has greatly degenerated. Others, again, engage an abbÉ or tutor, for the first few years, and then place them to complete their studies at the once celebrated university of Bologna.

But this institution, like everything else in the Roman States, has fallen into such decay, and its professors are under such restrictions, that at the conclusion of his academical career, unless a youth has more than average abilities, particularly if he belongs to the higher classes, the general range of his attainments may be rated as beneath mediocrity. Debarred by the prejudices of caste from entering any profession but that of the Church, conscious that he will never have a field on which to display his abilities, without stimulus to exertion or prospects for the future, the young noble seems to resign himself to the conviction that his safest course is to vegetate unthinking, unquestioning, unknowing, and unknown.

Even the desire for distinction in arms, or the excitement of merely holiday soldiering, parades, reviews, and a gay garrison life, so common to most young men, cannot stir the dull waters of his patrician existence; for there is no military career open to the pontifical subjects, with the exception of the Guardia Nobile at Rome, which is limited to a small number of the sons of the old nobility. The few miserable regiments which compose the Pope's army are so low in the scale of social estimation, that to say a man is only fit to become a Papalino soldier is almost the grossest insult that can be passed upon him.

The ranks, wholly composed of volunteers, there being no conscription, are recruited from the dregs of the population, spies, quondam thieves, and so forth. As for the officers, I know not whence they are procured, never having been acquainted with a family owning to the discredit of relationship with an individual thus engaged, although one or two, who had scapegraces of sons, whose existence it was desirable to ignore, were supposed to have sent them, by way of punishment, into the service.

The ignorance of some of these young nobles on most subjects of general information was perfectly startling. Many of them were quite unacquainted with the nature of tenets which had rent Europe asunder, with the geographical position of neighbouring countries, or with the best-known historical facts. Not having access to any easy literature, such as our magazines and miscellanies afford, owing to the extraordinary limitations imposed upon the press, they had been left without an inducement to read, or an opportunity of discovering their own deficiency.

One or two anecdotes, the first of which I heard my cousins relate, will prove there is no exaggeration in these remarks.

During the wild excitement of the early part of 1849, a youthful count, glowing with new-born patriotism, confided to them one day that he and all the GioventÙ—that is, Young Ancona—had determined upon turning Protestant, in order to get rid of the preti, and to conciliate England. Presently a shade of embarrassment came over his face, and he said, “Pardon me, but now I think of it, tell me, do the Protestants believe in God?”

On one occasion, I was present when some conversation took place before a youth fresh from Bologna, in which an allusion was made to Cleopatra and the asp. “How can I know anything about these matters?” he exclaimed; “I have never read the Bible!” Another time, I remember hearing my uncle gravely asked, in reference to a journey he was meditating, whether he meant to go by sea from Marseilles to Paris?

It was melancholy in the extreme to see the number of young men thus idling away their lives, filling the caffÈs and casino, and subsisting on a stipend that an English younger son would consider inadequate to purchase gloves for a London season. The plan pursued is, to give each son an apartment in the family residence, his dinner, and the allowance of from ten to twelve dollars a month, which is to provide for his dress, his breakfast, the theatre, and cigars.

How they contrived, with these limited means, to keep up the appearance they did is perfectly inexplicable. They even seemed able to gratify little harmless flights of fancy, such as coming out unexpectedly in singular suits of Brobdignagian checks or startling green cut-aways, which, with a pair of luxuriant whiskers, a hasty, determined walk, and a peculiar flourish of the stick, were supposed to constitute the faithful portraiture of an Englishman, than to resemble whom there could be no greater privilege, so great was the Anglomania that prevailed.

And now, I fancy, I hear the remark, “All this time you have been describing the manners of the Italian nobility. What are their gentry like—their middle classes?” Which inquiries shall be answered, as fully as circumstances admit, in my next chapter.