Mrs. G. Gretton

Political condition of Ancona—Arrogance of the Austrian General—Strictness of the martial law—A man shot on the denunciation of his wife—Application of the stick—Republican excesses—Proneness to assassination—Infernal Association in 1849.

Except passingly I have not yet touched upon the political condition of Ancona. This town, ever since June, 1849, had been occupied by a large Austrian force, holding it in the Pope's name, and ostensibly for the maintenance of his authority.

Never was a garrison more overbearing, or less popular. Even the most uncompromising among the Codini,—attached by their own interests as well as hereditary sympathies to the absolute party,—even they were sometimes startled by the measures pursued, and could not conceal their disapprobation. Although aware that they stood indebted to the Austrians for the maintenance of things in their accustomed train, they seemed, notwithstanding, to fret under their yoke; and held back from any intercourse beyond what absolute necessity demanded. As for the population in general, they kept determinedly aloof; its long continuance had evidently not reconciled them to military rule, and the line of separation continued unbroken. The caffÈ the officers frequented was still deserted by the natives, and any house, even of foreign residents, where Austrians were received, was sedulously avoided.

Thus repulsed alike by friend and foe, the feelings of the Austrians were naturally not of the most amicable description; but they were particularly bitter against the supporters of the Government, who, owing all to them, were so backward in displaying their adherence; and whenever brought into contact with the municipality, or other authorities, the General lost no opportunity of manifesting his profound disgust.

In all their dealings with this stern old potentate, the papal agents reminded me of Frankenstein and his monster; they cowered before the presence it had been their desire and effort to call forth, and the consciousness of the servile timidity with which he was regarded, served to render him doubly imperious and exacting. One day, having encountered some delay in complying with his demand for a large and immediate supply of fuel for his troops, he sent for two members of the town-council, and swore that if within two hours' time the wood was not forthcoming, he would have the whole municipio shot without mercy.

To hear this affront dolorously recounted by some of the worshipful corporation, accompanied by the pantomime and varied intonations with which an Italian dramatizes any recital, was inexpressibly amusing to those who, like us, had no personal interest in the question; while others again were not displeased at the humiliation inflicted on the Pope's functionaries by his trusty allies. But this was not the first instance of vehemence shown by General * * *. Some months previous, he had subjected one of the leading nobles to the indignity of being marched through the streets, surrounded by soldiers, on the charge of having forcibly opposed an officer's being quartered in his house. The real state of the case was simply that, on returning home from a journey, the principe found installed in his own private apartments a stranger, whose peremptory refusal to exchange them for another suite of rooms in the same palazzo caused high words to ensue, which ended in the young proprietor's summary arrest, and the uncontrollable indignation of the General. Twenty-four hours were given the prisoner to choose between immediate execution or a formal apology to the officer—unpleasant alternatives both, but of which it is needless to say the latter was accepted.

An incident of a darker nature occurred soon after, which cast a gloom over every heart, and made one remember that more than mere threats and passing alarms are connected with martial law and its inexorable rigour. The prohibition against possessing or secreting any species of weapon, necessarily issued by the Austrians on first entering the country, was still in activity, and the penalty for transgressing it was death. It entered into the heart of a reckless, abandoned woman, the wife of a poor, honest, elderly artisan, to have recourse to this enactment to rid herself of her husband, and make way for a younger and more attractive suitor. Unknown to him, she had in her possession a sword belonging to his son by a former marriage, a youth who had served in the Guardia Civica, but was then absent from Ancona; and one day, after some angry words had passed between them, she thrust the weapon into a mattress, hurried to the main guard, and denounced her husband as having concealed arms in his house. A party of soldiers at once repaired to the spot, a search was instituted, the fatal sword soon discovered, and the miserable man, franticly protesting his innocence, was carried off to confinement. His known good conduct, his harmless demeanour, availed him nothing; and the next morning, the terror-stricken captive, almost senseless, and so strongly convulsed that he was obliged to be propped up to receive the soldiers' fire, was shot in the courtyard of the prison—the accusation of his guilty wife having been considered sufficient to convict him. I have heard that the woman went mad from remorse; but this sounds too like the retributive winding-up of a tragedy to be implicitly believed. Such, however, was currently reported to be the close of a tale of horror, which, frightful as it appears, has had but too many counterparts wherever the Austrians have held sway.

Almost more terrible than death to the keen sensibility of the south was the infliction of the stick, applied for minor infractions of martial law. A blow to an Italian is the deepest degradation. He is taught to regard it as such from his earliest childhood. The school-boys are never flogged or caned; even home discipline never goes beyond a mild schiaffo, i. e. a slap on the face. For a man, a gentleman, to be subjected to corporal punishment, was an outrage never to be forgotten. Two young men of good family underwent this cruel indignity in Ancona. A few ounces of powder and shot, and a broken bayonet, were found in their lodgings. The latter belonged to a musket which its owner, who was in the Guardia Civica, gave up at the general disarmament; as it was broken, he had inadvertently kept it back, little dreaming of the consequences. The other culprit protested he fancied the ammunition was innocuous so long as he had no fire-arms. But these reasons availed nothing. They were conveyed under a guard to the citadel, and there underwent their sentence. Out of very shame, their friends kept what had occurred as secret as possible, and I believe they left the country. But the anguish, the bitterness, the hatred which this incident aroused, are indescribable.

Still one must be just. Insolent, tyrannical as are the Austrians, crushing everything beneath the iron heel of military despotism, it would be gross partisanship to pass over in silence the anarchy and bloodshed which preceded their occupation of Ancona, on which they founded the justification of their severities.

The people of the Marche have always been noted for their propensity for assassination—an imputation which, far from denying, I have often heard the lower orders excuse, with the remark that, since there was no other way in the Papal States for the poor to obtain redress, it became a necessity to take the law into their own hands.

Before the accession of Pius IX. these acts of vendetta (their perpetrators would have scouted their being termed murders) were astonishingly frequent, while, through the indolence or connivance of the police, they commonly escaped detection. During the first golden period of the new pontificate, however, in the universal concord which prevailed, the stiletto seemed rusting in its sheath; but ere long, amid the disturbances and ferment brought upon Italy by the spread of democracy, these evil tendencies revived in Ancona with tenfold vigour.

Political animosity was now brought into play, and suffered to give a colour to the most lawless excesses. A band of twenty or thirty of the lowest dregs of the populace formed a league for the extirpation of the enemies of freedom. Self-styled the Infernal Association, they met every night to decree what lives were to be offered up to the public good, and then became themselves the executioners of the doom they had pronounced. It was in January, 1849, that the existence of this self-instituted tribunal was first whispered about the town, and that three or four assassinations every week attested its reality; from which time its members went on increasing in audacity and thirst for blood till the month of April, when the strong remonstrances of the foreign consuls compelled the Government to employ adequate means for its suppression.

It is the greatest blot on the reputation of Mazzini, who, as chief Triumvir, held power during that eventful winter which succeeded the Pope's flight to Gaeta, that he did not instantly use prompt and vigorous measures for the punishment of these wretches. He did not, as was asserted by the Austrians, organize the Infernal Association—it was already in being when the Roman Republic was proclaimed, and the materials of which it was formed had their origin in long-gone-by years of corruption, national debasement, and misrule. But he suffered it to exist, fancying that by striking terror into the supporters of the Papacy, the Republic would be strengthened; a most miserable adaptation of the miserable maxim that means are justified by the end.

A word in disapprobation of the existing authorities, or of regret for the Pope, was laid hold of by the assassins as a pretext for their awards. At last, emboldened alike by their immunity from all judicial control, and the palsy of fear which had fallen upon the inhabitants, they ceased to wait for the shades of night to perpetrate their crimes, and stabbed or shot at their victims in broad daylight. These men were all well known by sight and by name (one amongst them, by the by, was of English parentage, but had been educated by the Jesuits at Loretto), and used to stand in groups on the Piazza, laying down the law on all the political intelligence of the day, and causing the passers-by to tremble at their frown. The relations of those they had murdered were forbidden to wear mourning; and a gentleman who, a few days after the assassination of his brother, appeared abroad with a crape-band round his hat, was threatened with a similar fate unless it was instantly removed.

A diary kept by one of my cousins, a girl of fifteen, during this time, is really a curious document, being full of entries like the following:—“18th March. We are now in the midst of anxiety and confusion; one or two assassinations occur every night. 30th.—Sad news has come! The Piedmontese have been defeated at Novara by the Austrians. This so enraged the assassins that they went about seizing all the papers which had brought the intelligence; and murdered the Marchese Nembrini at the Casino because he ventured to expostulate with them. Four other people were stabbed last night. 3rd April.—Seven people stabbed, three of whom died immediately; their bodies remained out in a pouring rain all night.”

And so on: but not to multiply horrors, and yet give a really faithful portraiture of this extraordinary state of things, I will simply transcribe verbatim a conversation I held one evening with a lively young Roman, whom family affairs occasionally brought to Ancona. It was at a somewhat ponderous accademia, or concert, held at one of the most precise and old-fashioned houses, where the women sat immovably round the room, and the men crowded helplessly together in the centre, that he contrived to get behind my chair, and startled me by saying,—

“Do you know we are in the company of five assassinati?”

“Assassinati!” I repeated, in astonishment.

“Oh, you do not understand,” he rejoined, laughing. “I did not mean assassinated outright; but merely those whose lives have been attempted. Look at that shrivelled yellow man, with a face like a vulture, and an eye like a stone, the Marchese.

“Well, his share came before our political movement, About ten years ago, towards dusk, he was standing in the street, on the very threshold of his house—next door to where your uncle lives—when he was stabbed; the assassin ran away. It was believed to have been an act of private vengeance; and being pretty well deserved, nobody troubled himself much about it. A similar motive, also, is supposed to have been the cause of my good friend, Count F——, being waylaid, as he was returning from the theatre, about a twelvemonth after, and very severely wounded—in fact, he was at first given over. Then there is that tall, white-haired man, the Cavaliere V——. Well, he was both stabbed and shot at, poor diavolo, during the Reign of Terror here, as he was taking a walk about three in the afternoon. The wounds he received were very serious; and in addition, the shock to his system was so great, that brain-fever came on. He was known to be a Codino—that was his only crime; but the hatred of the rossi[4] against him ran so high, that during his illness they used to come and shout, 'Death to V——! Death to V——!' under the very windows of his sick-room; and threatened the doctors who attended him with their vengeance if he recovered. Poor creature, his hair became blanched as you see it now from terror!”

The gay manner with which he commenced his narration had now quite subsided, and he looked distressed at witnessing the mingled horror and incredulity my face depicted.

“You scarcely can believe all this,” he said; “and then, if you are once penetrated with its truth, you will never be able to understand how any of us can yet hope for improvement in a people that so miserably abused their first dawn of freedom. All you English reason in this way now. But I must finish the account of the personages on our canvas. There stands the young Marchese D——; he was greeted with two bullets whizzing past his ears about the same period, as he was returning from a stroll in the public gardens—their Pincian Hill, their Villa Borghese here!” he added, contemptuously. “Ah, then, to make up the fifth; there is that little talkative man, who is conversing with the cavaliere whose misfortunes I have already narrated. He was stabbed, or shot at, or something of the sort, in our late troubles; and, per Bacco! it is a pity they did not make an end of him, for retrograde as he was before, he has become thoroughly Austrian since!”

At this moment, my companion fancied he could detect some scrutinizing glances cast upon him, and carelessly changing the low, earnest tone in which he had been speaking, to one of sportive badinage, said something very trifling and ludicrous, which, for a few moments, apparently gave a completely new current to our conversation. Then, as soon as he thought himself no longer observed, he resumed, “I am not half cautious enough, even with only these poor Rococos[5] to deal with, deaf and purblind as most of them are. Yet, one never can tell who is listening; and the very walls have ears, I think, sometimes. Amongst Codini, I endeavour never to mention the word politics and all its concomitant delights.”

I told him we had noticed this reserve in others besides himself; and that it was only at my uncle's house that one ever heard anything like the true expression of their feelings.

“Yes,” he said; “it is a compliment we pay you. We can trust strangers—not ourselves! What a miserable people we are! In this late revolution of ours, what opportunities have been lost—what errors committed—what fatuity and treachery displayed! How difficult will it be for future historians to unravel the tangled web of all the events of those memorable three years—from the accession of Pio Nono in '46, to the sieges of Bologna and Ancona, the capitulation of Rome, and the re-establishment of Papal authority. For instance, take as a detached episode the scenes enacted in this good city of Ancona, and you will tell me that a people who could commit such crimes on the one hand, or suffer them to be committed on the other, deserve no better fate than their present servitude. Basta! You have doubtless heard your cousins speak often enough on this subject?”

“Sufficiently so to make me wonder how they lived through such horrible anxiety.”

“Oh, they grew used to it, poor things!” he rejoined; “and they tried to keep up their courage for their father's sake, whose affairs did not admit of his leaving, and they would not go away without him. I remember being at the house one evening, when we heard screams in the street; we all ran to the window, and there was the servant of the Count ——, wringing his hands, and calling for help, over the prostrate body of his master, whose yells of agony mingled with the attendant's cries. Another time, one of them, walking with your uncle in broad daylight, saw a poor Irish friar shot dead at a few paces' distance. Ask them, too, if they remember that Easter Sunday, when, a little after dusk, they were startled by the report of fire-arms; and on sending to investigate the cause, their emissary returned, pale with horror, to say that he had stumbled over two dead bodies yet warm, lying before the Exchange, in the principal street of the town.”

“And all this time the local authorities never interfered?”

“Interfered! They were utterly powerless. Whether the assassins had a secret understanding with the Governor, or Preside, a certain Mattioli, a creature of Mazzini's, has never been ascertained. All I can vouch for is, that people repairing to him to implore justice on the murderers of their relations, found those murderers familiarly surrounding him in his audience chamber. The utmost lengths of severity he went to was one day to harangue his friends from the balcony of the Palazzo del Governo, and say, Figliuoli, state buoni; and another time to publish a manifesto, in which he deplored that 'the streets of Ancona were too often stained with the blood of citizens,' and begged them to 'place bounds to their patriotic ardour.'”

“But he put them down at last with a strong hand?”

“Not he! The order came from Rome; that respected demagogue had nothing to do with it. Towards the end of April, two envoys arrived from the Triumvirate, aroused at last to the magnitude of the evil, with private instructions to the preside to put an end to this overflowing patriotism in the most summary manner possible. The greatest caution was observed; the officers of the Guardia Civica, on whom the most reliance could be placed, were summoned and sworn to secrecy; then instructed as to what had been decided on. In the dead of the night, the tocsin sounded, the drums beat the gÉnÉrale, and different detachments of the civica marching to the haunts of the assassins, captured some twenty-five of them before they were well awake. Oh, there was such joy all over the town the next morning.”

“I can well imagine that,” said I; “but not how a population of thirty thousand people endured this bondage for three months without an effort at deliverance.”

“As for that,” he said, “I think, signorina, there are more wonderful examples in history of submission than even this affords. What is all I have been telling you to France under Robespierre?”

“And the siege—when did that begin?” I inquired.

“The siege,” he said—“let me see. It was in May—on the 24th of May—that the Austrians came in sight of the town, and summoned it to surrender. It was a mad idea that of holding out against them; still, I am glad it was attempted, and kept up, too, for twenty-eight days. Your cousins were safe, and away at that time, or I think even their English courage would have been sorely tried. And how the shells used to come hissing through the air, and then fall crashing down, as if the very skies were riven!... In due succession came the capitulation, and the entrance of the enemy, and the fall of Rome: and now behold us! Austrians here; French there; a despised and vindictive Government; a sullen people; an exhausted treasury; and foreign troops. We are in a bad way, signorina,” he continued, as he rose to take his departure; “and were it not for Piedmont and the RÈ galantuomo, it would be useless to think of better times. A constitution, such as we see in that noble State, is the just medium between the ravings of the Mazzinians and the drivellings of the Codini. As long as we remain in the hands of the Pope, we shall never be more than a nation of buffoons, opera-dancers, singers, fiddlers, priests, and slaves!”