"Fearing every n.o.ble instinct, hostile to every grand idea, devoted to the material interests of an oligarchy of princes spoiled by a senseless education, of ministers who had sold their consciences, of speculators who subjected and sacrificed everything to gold, the only aim of such a government was to sow division everywhere. What wonder if everywhere in Italy, as in Germany, it reaps harvests of hate and ignominy. Yes, of hate! To this the Austrian has condemned us, to know hate and its deep sorrows. But we are absolved in the sight of G.o.d, and by the insults which have been heaped upon us for so many years, the unwearied efforts to debase us, the destruction of our villages, the cold-blooded slaughter of our aged people, our priests, our women, our children. And you,--you shall be the first to absolve us, you, virtuous among the Germans, who certainly have shared our indignation when a venal and lying press accused us of being enemies to your great and generous nation, and we could not answer, and were constrained to devour in silence the shame of an accusation which wounded us to the heart.
"We honor you, Germans! we pant to give you glorious evidence of this.
And, as a prelude to the friendly relations we hope to form with your governments, we seek to alleviate as much as possible the pains of captivity to some officers and soldiers belonging to various states of the Germanic Confederation, who fought in the Austrian army. These we wish to send back to you, and are occupied by seeking the means to effect this purpose. We honor you so much, that we believe you capable of preferring to the bonds of race and language the sacred t.i.tles of misfortune and of right.
"Ah! answer to our appeal, valiant, wise, and generous Germans! Clasp the hand, which we offer you with the heart of a brother and friend; hasten to disavow every appearance of complicity with a government which the ma.s.sacres of Galicia and Lombardy have blotted from the list of civilized and Christian governments. It would be a beautiful thing for you to give this example, which will be new in history and worthy of these miraculous times,--the example of a strong and generous people casting aside other sympathies, other interests, to answer the invitation of a regenerate people, to cheer it in its new career, obedient to the great principles of justice, of humanity, of civil and Christian brotherhood."
"THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF MILAN TO THE NATIONS SUBJECT TO THE RULE OF THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA.
"From your lands have come three armies which have brought war into ours; your speech is spoken by those hostile bands who come to us with fire and sword; nevertheless we come to you as to brothers.
"The war which calls for our resistance is not your war; you are not our enemies: you are only instruments in the hand of our foe, and this foe, brothers, is common to us all.
"Before G.o.d, before men, solemnly we declare it,--our only enemy is the government of Austria.
"And that government which for so many years has labored to cancel, in the races it has subdued, every vestige of nationality, which takes no heed of their wants or prayers, bent only on serving miserable interests and more miserable pride, fomenting always antipathies conformably with the ancient maxim of tyrants, _Divide and govern_,--this government has const.i.tuted itself the adversary of every generous thought, the ally and patron of all ign.o.ble causes, the government declared by the whole civilized world paymaster of the executioners of Galicia.
"This government, after having pertinaciously resisted the legal expression of moderate desires,--after having defied with ludicrous hauteur the opinion of Europe, has found itself in its metropolis too weak to resist an insurrection of students, and has yielded,--has yielded, making an a.s.signment on time, and throwing to you, brothers, as an alms-gift to the importunate beggar, the promise of inst.i.tutions which, in these days, are held essential conditions of life for a civilized nation.
"But you have not confided in this promise; for the youth of Vienna, which feels the inspiring breath of this miraculous time, is impelled on the path of progress; and therefore the Austrian government, uncertain of itself and of your dispositions, took its old part of standing still to wait for events, in the hope of turning them to its own profit.
"In the midst of this it received the news of our glorious revolution, and it thought to have found in this the best way to escape from its embarra.s.sment. First it concealed that news; then made it known piecemeal, and disfigured by hypocrisy and hatred. We were a handful of rebels thirsting for German blood. We make a war of stilettos, we wish the destruction of all Germany. But for us answers the admiration of all Italy, of all Europe, even the evidence of your own people whom we are constrained to hold prisoners or hostages, who will unanimously avow that we have shown heroic courage in the fight, heroic moderation in victory.
"Yes! we have risen as one man against the Austrian government, to become again a nation, to make common cause with our Italian brothers, and the arms which we have a.s.sumed for so great an object we shall not lay down till we have attained it. a.s.sailed by a brutal executor of brutal orders, we have combated in a just war; betrayed, a price set on our heads, wounded in the most vital parts, we have not transgressed the bounds of legitimate defence. The murders, the depredations of the hostile band, irritated against us by most wicked arts, have excited our horror, but never a reprisal. The soldier, his arms once laid down, was for us only an unfortunate.
"But behold how the Austrian government provokes you against us, and bids you come against us as a crusade! A crusade! The parody would be ludicrous if it were not so cruel. A crusade against a people which, in the name of Christ, under a banner blessed by the Vicar of Christ, and revered by all the nations, fights to secure its indefeasible rights.
"Oh! if you form against us this crusade,--we have already shown the world what a people can do to reconquer its liberty, its independence,--we will show, also, what it can do to preserve them. If, almost unarmed, we have put to flight an army inured to war,--surely, brothers, that army wanted faith in the cause for which it fought,--can we fear that our courage will grow faint after our triumph, and when aided by all our brothers of Italy? Let the Austrian government send against us its threatened battalions, they will find in our b.r.e.a.s.t.s a barrier more insuperable than the Alps. Everything will be a weapon to us; from every villa, from every field, from every hedge, will issue defenders of the national cause; women and children will fight like men; men will centuple their strength, their courage; and we will all perish amid the ruins of our city, before receiving foreign rule into this land which at last we call ours.
"But this must not be. You, our brothers, must not permit it to be; your honor, your interests, do not permit it. Will you fight in a cause which you must feel to be absurd and wicked? You sink to the condition of hirelings, and do you not believe that the Austrian government, should it conquer us and Italy, would turn against you the arms you had furnished for the conquest? Do you not believe it would act as after the struggle with Napoleon? And are you not terrified by the idea of finding yourself in conflict with all civilized Europe, and constrained to receive, to feast as your ally, the Autocrat of Russia, that perpetual terror to the improvement and independence of Europe? It is not possible for the house of Lorraine to forget its traditions; it is not possible that it should resign itself to live tranquil in the atmosphere of Liberty. You can only constrain it by sustaining yourself, with the Germanic and Slavonian nationalities, and with this Italy, which longs only to see the nations harmonize with that resolve which she has finally taken, that she may never more be torn in pieces.
"Think of us, brothers. This is for you and for us a question of life and of death; it is a question on which depends, perhaps, the peace of Europe.
"For ourselves, we have already weighed the chances of the struggle, and subordinated them all to this final resolution, that we will be free and independent, with our brothers of Italy.
"We hope that our words will induce you to calm counsels; if not, you will find us on the field of battle generous and loyal enemies, as now we profess ourselves your generous and loyal brothers.
(Signed,)
"CASATI, _President_, DURINI, STRIGELLI, BERETTA, GRAPPI, TURRONI, REZZONICO, CARb.o.n.e.rA, BORROMEO, P. LITTA, GIULINI, GUERRIERI, PORRO, MORRONI, AB. ANELLI, CORRENTI, _Sec.-Gen._"
These are the names of men whose hearts glow with that generous ardor, the n.o.ble product of difficult times. Into their hearts flows wisdom from on high,--thoughts great, magnanimous, brotherly. They may not all remain true to this high vocation, but, at any rate, they will have lived a period of true life. I knew some of these men when in Lombardy; of old aristocratic families, with all the refinement of inheritance and education, they are thoroughly pervaded by principles of a genuine democracy of brotherhood and justice. In the flower of their age, they have before them a long career of the n.o.blest usefulness, if this era follows up its present promise, and they are faithful to their present creed, and ready to improve and extend it.
Every day produces these remarkable doc.u.ments. So many years as we have been suffocated and poisoned by the atmosphere of falsehood in official papers, how refreshing is the tone of n.o.ble sentiment in Lamartine! What a real wisdom and pure dignity in the letter of Beranger! _He_ was always absolutely true,--an oasis in the pestilential desert of Humbug; but the present time allowed him a fine occasion.
The Poles have also made n.o.ble manifestations. Their great poet, Adam Mickiewicz, has been here to enroll the Italian Poles, publish the declaration of faith in which they hope to re-enter and re-establish their country, and receive the Pope"s benediction on their banner. In their declaration of faith are found these three articles:--
"Every one of the nation a citizen,--every citizen equal in rights and before authorities.
"To the Jew, our elder brother, respect, brotherhood, aid on the way to his eternal and terrestrial good, entire equality in political and civil rights.
"To the companion of life, woman, citizenship, entire equality of rights."
This last expression of just thought the Poles ought to initiate, for what other nation has had such truly heroic women? Women indeed,--not children, servants, or playthings.
Mickiewicz, with the squadron that accompanied him from Rome, was received with the greatest enthusiasm at Florence. Deputations from the clubs and journals went to his hotel and escorted him to the Piazza del Gran Duca, where, amid an immense concourse of people, some good speeches were made. A Florentine, with a generous forgetfulness of national vanity, addressed him as the Dante of Poland, who, more fortunate than the great bard and seer of Italy, was likely to return to his country to reap the harvest of the seed he had sown.
"O Dante of Poland! who, like our Alighieri, hast received from Heaven sovereign genius, divine song, but from earth sufferings and exile,--more happy than our Alighieri, thou hast reacquired a country; already thou art meditating on the sacred harp the patriotic hymn of restoration and of victory. The pilgrims of Poland have become the warriors of their nation. Long live Poland, and the brotherhood of nations!"
When this address was finished, the great poet appeared on the balcony to answer. The people received him with a tumult of applause, followed by a profound silence, as they anxiously awaited his voice. Those who are acquainted with the powerful eloquence, the magnetism, of Mickiewicz as an orator, will not be surprised at the effect produced by this speech, though delivered in a foreign language. It is the force of truth, the great vitality of his presence, that loads his words with such electric power. He spoke as follows:--
"People of Tuscany! Friends! Brothers! We receive your shouts of sympathy in the name of Poland; not for us, but for our country. Our country, though distant, claims from you this sympathy by its long martyrdom. The glory of Poland, its only glory, truly Christian, is to have suffered more than all the nations. In other countries the goodness, the generosity of heart, of some sovereigns protected the people; as yours has enjoyed the dawn of the era now coming, under the protection of your excellent prince. [Viva Leopold II.!] But conquered Poland, slave and victim, of sovereigns who were her sworn enemies and executioners,--Poland, abandoned by the governments and the nations, lay in agony on her solitary Golgotha. She was believed slain, dead, burred. "We have slain her," shouted the despots; "she is dead!"
[No, no! long live Poland!] "The dead cannot rise again," replied the diplomatists; "we may now be tranquil." [A universal shudder of feeling in the crowd.] There came a moment in which the world doubted of the mercy and justice of the Omnipotent. There was a moment in which the nations thought that the earth might be for ever abandoned by G.o.d, and condemned to the rule of the demon, its ancient lord. The nations forgot that Jesus Christ came down from heaven to give liberty and peace to the earth. The nations had forgotten all this. But G.o.d is just. The voice of Pius IX. roused Italy. [Long live Pius IX.!] The people of Paris have driven out the great traitor against the cause of the nations. [Bravo! Viva the people of Paris!] Very soon will be heard the voice of Poland. Poland will rise again! [Yes, yes!
Poland will rise again!] Poland will call to life all the Slavonic races,--the Croats, the Dalmatians, the Bohemians, the Moravians, the Illyrians. These will form the bulwark against the tyrant of the North. [Great applause.] They will close for ever the way against the barbarians of the North,--destroyers of liberty and of civilization.
Poland is called to do more yet: Poland, as crucified nation, is risen again, and called to serve her sister nations. The will of G.o.d is, that Christianity should become in Poland, and through Poland elsewhere, no more a dead letter of the law, but the living law of states and civil a.s.sociations;--[Great applause;]--that Christianity should be manifested by acts, the sacrifices of generosity and liberality. This Christianity is not new to you, Florentines; your ancient republic knew and has acted upon it: it is time that the same spirit should make to itself a larger sphere. The will of G.o.d is that the nations should act towards one another as neighbors,--as brothers.
[A tumult of applause.] And you, Tuscans, have to-day done an act of Christian brotherhood. Receiving thus foreign, unknown pilgrims, who go to defy the greatest powers of the earth, you have in us saluted only what is in us of spiritual and immortal,--our faith and our patriotism. [Applause.] We thank you; and we will now go into the church to thank G.o.d."
"All the people then followed the Poles to the church of Santa Croce, where was sung the _Benedictus Dominus_, and amid the memorials of the greatness of Italy collected in that temple was forged more strongly the chain of sympathy and of union between two nations, sisters in misfortune and in glory."
This speech and its reception, literally translated from the journal of the day, show how pleasant it is on great occasions to be brought in contact with this people, so full of natural eloquence and of lively sensibility to what is great and beautiful.
It is a glorious time too for the exiles who return, and reap even a momentary fruit of their long sorrows. Mazzini has been able to return from his seventeen years" exile, during which there was no hour, night or day, that the thought of Italy was banished from his heart,--no possible effort that he did not make to achieve the emanc.i.p.ation of his people, and with it the progress of mankind. He returns, like Wordsworth"s great man, "to see what he foresaw." He will see his predictions accomplishing yet for a long time, for Mazzini has a mind far in advance of his times in general, and his nation in particular,--a mind that will be best revered and understood when the "ill.u.s.trious Gioberti" shall be remembered as a pompous verbose charlatan, with just talent enough to catch the echo from the advancing wave of his day, but without any true sight of the wants of man at this epoch. And yet Mazzini sees not all: he aims at political emanc.i.p.ation; but he sees not, perhaps would deny, the bearing of some events, which even now begin to work their way. Of this, more anon; but not to-day, nor in the small print of the Tribune. Suffice it to say, I allude to that of which the cry of Communism, the systems of Fourier, &c., are but forerunners. Mazzini sees much already,--at Milan, where he is, he has probably this day received the intelligence of the accomplishment of his foresight, implied in his letter to the Pope, which angered Italy by what was thought its tone of irreverence and doubt, some six months since.
To-day is the 7th of May, for I had thrown aside this letter, begun the 19th of April, from a sense that there was something coming that would supersede what was then to say. This something has appeared in a form that will cause deep sadness to good hearts everywhere. Good and loving hearts, that long for a human form which they can revere, will be unprepared and for a time must suffer much from the final dereliction of Pius IX. to the cause of freedom, progress, and of the war. He was a fair image, and men went nigh to idolize it; this they can do no more, though they may be able to find excuse for his feebleness, love his good heart no less than before, and draw instruction from the causes that have produced his failure, more valuable than his success would have been.
Pius IX., no one can doubt who has looked on him, has a good and pure heart; but it needed also, not only a strong, but a great mind,
"To _comprehend his trust_, and to the same Keep faithful, with a singleness of aim."
A highly esteemed friend in the United States wrote to express distaste to some observations in a letter of mine to the Tribune on first seeing the Pontiff a year ago, observing, "To say that he had not the expression of great intellect was _uncalled for_" Alas!
far from it; it was an observation that rose inevitably on knowing something of the task before Pius IX., and the hopes he had excited.
The problem he had to solve was one of such difficulty, that only one of those minds, the rare product of ages for the redemption of mankind, could be equal to its solution. The question that inevitably rose on seeing him was, "Is he such a one?" The answer was immediately negative. But at the same time, he had such an aspect of true benevolence and piety, that a hope arose that Heaven would act through him, and impel him to measures wise beyond his knowledge.
This hope was confirmed by the calmness he showed at the time of the conspiracy of July, and the occupation of Ferrara by the Austrians.
Tales were told of simple wisdom, of instinct, which he obeyed in opposition to the counsels of all his Cardinals. Everything went on well for a time.
But tokens of indubitable weakness were shown by the Pope in early acts of the winter, in the removal of a censor at the suggestion of others, in his speech, to the Consistory, in his answer to the first address of the Council. In these he declared that, when there was conflict between the priest and the man, he always meant to be the priest; and that he preferred the wisdom of the past to that of the future.
Still, times went on bending his predeterminations to the call of the moment. He _acted_ wiselier than he intended; as, for instance, three weeks after declaring he would not give a const.i.tution to his people, he gave it,--a sop to Cerberus, indeed,--a poor vamped-up thing that will by and by have to give place to something more legitimate, but which served its purpose at the time as declaration of rights for the people. When the news of the revolution of Vienna arrived, the Pope himself cried _Viva Pio Nono!_ and this ebullition of truth in one so humble, though opposed to his formal declarations, was received by his people with that immediate a.s.sent which truth commands.
The revolution of Lombardy followed. The troops of the line were sent thither; the volunteers rushed to accompany them. In the streets of Rome was read the proclamation of Charles Albert, in which he styles himself the servant of Italy and of Pius IX. The priests preached the war, and justly, as a crusade; the Pope blessed their banners. n.o.body dreamed, or had cause to dream, that these movements had not his full sympathy; and his name was in every form invoked as the chosen instrument of G.o.d to inspire Italy to throw off the oppressive yoke of the foreigner, and recover her rights in the civilized world.
At the same time, however, the Pope was seen to act with great blindness in the affair of the Jesuits. The other states of Italy drove them out by main force, resolved not to have in the midst of the war a foe and spy in the camp. Rome wished to do the same, but the Pope rose in their defence. He talked as if they were a.s.sailed as a _religious_ body, when he could not fail, like everybody else, to be aware that they were dreaded and hated solely as agents of despotism.
He demanded that they should be a.s.sailed only by legal means, when none such were available. The end was in half-measures, always the worst possible. He would not entirely yield, and the people would not at all. The Order was ostensibly dissolved; but great part of the Jesuits really remain here in disguise, a constant source of irritation and mischief, which, if still greater difficulties had not arisen, would of itself have created enough. Meanwhile, in the earnestness of the clergy about the pretended loss of the head of St.
Andrew, in the ceremonies of the holy week, which at this juncture excited no real interest, was much matter for thought to the calm observer as to the restlessness of the new wine, the old bottles being heard to crack on every side, and hour by hour.
Thus affairs went on from day to day,--the Pope kissing the foot of the brazen Jupiter and blessing palms of straw at St. Peter"s; the _Circolo Romano_ erecting itself into a kind of Jacobin Club, dictating programmes for an Italian Diet-General, and choosing committees to provide for the expenses of the war; the Civic Guard arresting people who tried to make mobs as if famishing, and, being searched, were found well provided both with arms and money; the ministry at their wits" end, with their trunks packed up ready to be off at a moment"s warning,--when the report, it is not yet known whether true or false, that one of the Roman Civic Guard, a well-known artist engaged in the war of Lombardy, had been taken and hung by the Austrians as a brigand, roused the people to a sense of the position of their friends, and they went to the Pope to demand that he should take a decisive stand, and declare war against the Austrians.
The Pope summoned, a consistory; the people waited anxiously, for expressions of his were reported, as if the troops ought not to have thought of leaving the frontier, while every man, woman, and child in Rome knew, and every letter and bulletin declared, that all their thought was to render active aid to the cause of Italian independence.