Part 2

Finally he decided to quit Turin and break his fetters. When he was only a short distance on the road to Rome his resolution failed and he returned. Again he resolved to leave the city for a year. The year lasted eight days. He was thoroughly ashamed, disliked being seen in Turin, but could not keep away. He felt finally that he must take one last stand or lose all self-respect and control forever. He had his hair cut so short that he dared not appear in society, and shut himself into his house to read. He could not keep his thoughts on the books, and tried composition. He wrote a sonnet, and sent it to a friend, and received a reply highly praising it. Then he remembered that a year before as he sat watching by the sick bed of the woman who had so charmed him he had lightly outlined a tragedy on the life of Cleopatra, taking his subject from tapestries that hung in the room. He threw himself into the work of writing that tragedy now, and found that interest in it drove all other thoughts away. He wrote rapidly, continually, only stopping when he was completely tired. When those times came, still frightened with the possibility of leaving the house, he had himself tied into a chair. He only allowed himself freedom when he knew he had won self-control. By that time he had finished his tragedy in blank verse called "Cleopatra," and a short farce called "The Poets," the latter ridiculing the former. He sent them to a theater in Turin, where they were produced on June 16, 1775, and met with success. The author did not value either play highly himself, and sought to have them withdrawn. He wrote later, comparing these works with those of his contemporaries, "The sole difference which existed between their pieces and mine was that the former were productions of learned incapacity, whereas mine was the premature offspring of ignorance, which promised one day to become something."

His battle against what he considered a highly unworthy infatuation had restored Alfieri's self-respect and health, and out of this curious struggle sprang his first real and lasting ambition. "A devouring fire took possession of my soul," he says, "I thirsted one day to become a deserving candidate for theatrical fame." The date of that first performance marked a turning point, not only for Alfieri, but for his country's literature. It was, said the Italian critic, Paravia, "a day and a year of eternal memory not only for the Turinese, but for all Italians; because it was, so to speak, the dawn of the magnificent day which, thanks to Alfieri, was to rise upon Italian tragedy."

The restless energy which had driven Alfieri across the various European countries now concentrated in an all-pervading determination to become a tragic poet. He launched into that effort with the same unbounded ardor with which he had so frequently before launched into love. He was twenty-seven years of age when he seriously set himself to work to acquire command of Italian so that he might think in the language of his native land rather than in that of France. He described his resources as "a resolute, obstinate, and ungovernable character, susceptible of the warmest affections, among which, by an odd kind of a combination, predominated the most ardent love, and hatred approaching to madness against every species of tyranny; an imperfect and vague recollection of several French tragedies which I had seen represented several years before, but which I had then neither read nor studied; a total ignorance of dramatic rules, and an incapability of expressing myself with elegance and precision in my own language."

To accomplish his purpose Alfieri now began at the very beginning and took up the study of Italian grammar, and thence made a first-hand acquaintance with all the best of the early Italian writers. He would not allow himself any longer to read French, and tried to break himself of the habit of thinking in that tongue. He moved from town into a small country village in order that nothing might distract him. There he re-wrote for the third time his tragedy of "Cleopatra," and practised turning into Italian verses the outlines of two tragedies which he had recently written in French. He pored over Tasso, Ariosto, Petrarch, and Dante until he felt that he at last really caught the full spirit of each author's style, then he tried writing poetry of his own.

His ignorance of Latin continually vexed him, and now he employed a teacher to begin over those lessons he had so thoroughly disliked at school. It was very hard work at first, but he would learn what he now considered essential to his purpose, and after three months' study of Horace he found that he could read Latin. He took up the other classics and translated some of them into modern Italian for practice in their varied styles.

Turin was too near France to satisfy his new passion for only the purest Italian and so he went to Pisa, and thence to Florence. In the latter city he found that his ideas were at last shaping themselves in the rich and clear Italian he was seeking, he wrote verses which critical friends pronounced at last worthy of the name of poetry, and planned several poetic tragedies. He had worked hard and felt that he needed a little rest. For this purpose he returned to Turin and had the pleasure of entertaining his old friend the Abbot of Caluso there. He, as well as other friends, urged Alfieri to make literature his field. He decided that it was best for him to live in Tuscany, and as he hated to have to ask royal permission each year to allow him to remain away from Piedmont--as was the custom with the nobility--he gave his estates at Asti to his sister, and contented himself with half his former income. Then he moved to Florence, which, except for intervals spent at Rome and Naples, was for a considerable time to be his home.

On his way to Florence Alfieri was obliged to stop at Sarzana, where he chanced upon a copy of Livy, and was so impressed with the story of Virginia and Icilius that he immediately planned a tragedy on the subject. Soon after he reached Pisa, but there he did not dare stay, fearful that he might be involved in a marriage with a young girl whom he had met there before and with whom he says that he had almost fallen in love. He himself contrasts his feelings at that time with those he had entertained when he had first thought of marriage. "Eight years afterwards, my travels through Europe, the love of glory, a passion for study, the necessity for preserving my freedom, in order to speak and write the truth without restraint--all these reasons powerfully warned me that under a despotic government it is sufficiently difficult even to live single, and that no one who reflects deeply will either become a husband or a father; thus I crossed the Arno and arrived at Siena."

In Siena he met a company of strongly intellectual people, and from one of these, a friend who became a close confidant, he gained the idea of writing a tragedy founded upon the conspiracy of the Pazzi. Here he also wrote the first two books of an essay upon Tyranny, which was printed several years later. Thoroughly absorbed in his literary work Alfieri moved to Florence at the beginning of the winter, and took up his residence there.

At that time there were living in Florence, under the titles of Count and Countess of Albany, Charles Edward, "the Young Pretender" to the English throne, and his wife. The latter, who had been Louisa, Princess of Stolbergh, had been married when nineteen to the Stuart prince, who was considerably her elder. Charles Edward had an unsavory reputation and knew more drunk than sober moments. As a result the young Countess, who was very beautiful and extremely fond of the fine arts and of society, was the object of much romantic pity. When Alfieri came to Florence he found the entire city at the feet of the Countess. Every one condemned the Count's quarrelsome, tyrannical, libertine nature, every one praised the Countess's sweet and sunny disposition. Friends offered to introduce Alfieri to the star of Florence, but he declined on the ground that he always shunned women who were the most beautiful and most admired. He could not avoid, however, seeing her in the park and at the theater, and the first sight of her was destined never to be effaced. Thus he writes of her: "The first impression she made on me was infinitely agreeable. Large black eyes full of fire and gentleness, joined to a fair complexion and flaxen hair, gave to her beauty a brilliancy difficult to withstand. Twenty-five years of age, possessing a taste for letters and the fine arts, an amiable character, an immense fortune, and placed in domestic circumstances of a very painful nature, how was it possible to escape where so many reasons existed for loving?"

De Stendhal gives an account of their first meeting, which if inaccurate (it does not appear in Alfieri's memoirs) is at least characteristic of the man. According to this story Alfieri was presented to the Countess in one of the galleries of Florence, and noticed at the time that the lady was much interested in a portrait on the walls of Charles XII. She told the poet that she admired the costume exceedingly. Two days later Alfieri appeared in Florence dressed exactly like the portrait of the Swedish King, and so presented himself before the Countess. The act was quite in keeping with the poet's nature.

Alfieri made a determined effort to fight against the passion he had cause to fear, and made a hurried journey to Rome. He could not stay there, and returned to Florence, stopping at Siena to see his friend Gandellini, to whom he spoke of the Countess, and who did not counsel him against giving way to the fascination.

On his return to Florence he acknowledged that he was deeply in love. This love, however, he felt ennobled him, and instead of causing him to give up his work, continually inspired him to new literary heights. He wrote, "I soon perceived that the object of my present attachment, far from impeding my progress in the pursuit of useful knowledge, or deranging my studies, like the frivolous woman with whom I was formerly enamoured, urged me on by her example to everything dignified and praiseworthy. Having once learned to know and appreciate so rare and valuable a friend, I yielded myself up entirely to her influence." From the commencement of this new affection, the best and most lasting of his life, date the finest works of his genius.

There had been long delays in settling Alfieri's estate in Piedmont, and arranging that he might live in Tuscany, but the presence of the Countess urged him imperatively to remain in Florence. When the business arrangements were finally at an end he found it would be necessary for him to curtail his former expensive style of living. This he did, giving up his horses, all his servants, except a valet and cook, and most of his personal luxuries. Books were the only expense he indulged in, he acquired gradually a very large and choice library. He took a small house, and devoted himself to his dramas, seeing as much as he could in leisure moments of the beautiful Countess. During these three quiet years he wrote his tragedies "Virginia," "Agemennone," "Don Garzia," "Maria Stuarda," and "Oreste," a poem on the death of Duke Alexander, killed by Lorenzino de' Medici, had rewritten his drama of "Filippo," and partly prepared the tragedies "Timoleone," "Ottavia," and "Rosmunda." All of these works are built on the classic Grecian model, and flame with hatred of tyranny, and burn with civic virtue. In that they show their kinship to the author's times. De Sanctis, always a brilliant critic, says: "The situations that Alfieri has chosen in his tragedies have a visible relation to the social state, to the fears, and to the hopes of his own time. It is always resistance to oppression, of man against man, of people against tyrant.... In the classicism of Alfieri there is no positive side. It is an ideal Rome and Greece, outside of time and space, floating in the vague ... which his contemporaries filled up with their own life."

At about the end of the dramatist's third year of residence in Florence, the ill-treatment of the Countess of Albany by her husband caused her friends, and chief among them Alfieri, to plan for her release from such servitude. To this end they secured her entrance first into a convent at Florence, and then, with the consent of the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the Count's own brother the Cardinal of York, her removal to Rome. So afraid were her friends lest the Count should effect a rescue that they surrounded her carriage with a body of horsemen as she left Florence, and Alfieri rode on the coach box until she was well on her road.

While the Countess had been in Florence, Alfieri had worked assiduously there; now that she was gone he found composition impossible, and after a very short interval went to Naples, planning to wait there until he should learn what the Countess would do. It was not long before it became apparent that the courts of Europe had taken up the wife's cause against her husband. The Pope gave her a pension and approved of her taking apartments in the house of her brother-in-law. The court of France gave her the pension which the Count had previously indignantly declined as being insufficient for his position. Alfieri learned at last that the Countess was living in entire independence of her husband, and after a further stay of a month in Naples in order to avoid possible scandal he moved to Rome, and took up his residence there.

With this new settled existence he began to write again, and produced at this time "Saul," his fourteenth tragedy, and one of his finest works. He took infinite pains with all his dramas, planned them again and again, wrote version after version, and then selected the forms he preferred after careful judgment, polished them line by line and word by word until he was satisfied. He wished to try the effect of his characters upon an audience, and had himself acted, together with some of his friends, his play of "Antigone." He found he had not mistaken his ability as a dramatist. At about the same time he published part of his works, sending four dramas to the printer. Their publication excited immediate and flattering attention. His life in Rome was the most delightful he had yet known. His house was a pleasant villa near the Baths of Diocletian. Here he wrote and studied in the morning. Later in the day he went for long rides through the neighboring country, and the evenings he spent with the woman who had become his chief inspiration.

In time, however, the poet's visits to the Countess became the subject of unfavorable comment, and the Cardinal, her brother-in-law, brought the matter to the attention of the Papal Court. Realizing the delicacy of the situation, Alfieri reluctantly decided that he must quit Rome, and in May, 1783, he set out again as a wanderer, his ambition lost, his life offering him no further interests.

As in early youth he now took to rapid traveling for solace, carrying on at the same time a continual correspondence with the Countess. He wrote a few sonnets, but found that his mind was too unsettled to allow him to engage in any more lengthy labors. He went to France, and then to England, and in each country visited scenes which the impetuosity of his youth had neglected. Horses again made their appeal to him in London, and he bought fourteen, "as many horses as he had written tragedies," he states. With these horses he soon returned to Turin, and made a short visit to his mother, whom he had not seen for a long time. When he left her he went to Piacenza, and here he heard that the Countess had at last been released from the restraint under which she had lived at Rome, and that as her health was delicate she had gone to Baden. He was in two minds as to his course, the thought of possible calumny to her bade him refrain from going to Baden at once, and he tried to content himself in Siena with his old friend Gandellini. The continual interchange of letters gradually wore away his resolution, and at last the time came when he could keep from her no longer. August 4, 1784, he set out to join her and within a fortnight felt his old joy return. Immediately his thoughts grew fertile, he began to write again as he had not done since he had quitted her in Rome. There was no question but that her presence acted as a continual inspiration to his genius.

To this period of new happiness belonged the dramas of "Agide," "Sofonisba," and "Mirra." The plot of the latter came to him as he was reading the speech of Mirra to her nurse in the "Metamorphoses" of Ovid, and was written in the first heat of his emotion at the woman's words. He was somewhat in doubt as to the success of a play written on such a subject, but it was hailed as a triumph at its first presentation some years later, and made a remarkable impression on Byron and on Madame de Staël, and was considered by most critics as Ristori's finest impersonation.

After two months the Countess had to return to Italy, and Alfieri's gloom at the separation was further increased by the news of the death of his friend Gandellini. He went to Siena, but found that city lonely without his friend, and passed the winter in Pisa. He did a great amount of reading, repolished his later dramas, and prepared new volumes of them for the press. When winter ended he spent another two months of summer with the Countess at Colmar, and then again they separated. This time he resolved to work unremittingly, and did so until his health failed and he had to rest. At about the same time the Countess decided to leave Italy permanently, and at length Alfieri, towards the close of 1786, joined her and went with her to Paris. He writes in his memoirs of this journey into France, "This country which had always proved extremely disagreeable to me, as much on account of my own character, as the manners of the people, now appeared a perfect elysium." There are many glimpses to be had of this new life in the French capital. Montanari recounts how the Marquis Pindemonte, himself a dramatist, used each evening to take an omelette soufflé in the Countess's room, while Alfieri sat in the chimney corner sipping his chocolate. Under such peaceful auspices the poet spent many months in a critical preparation of all his works for new publication.

In February, 1788, word reached the Countess that her husband had died in Rome, and it would appear that she was soon afterwards married to Alfieri, although in the will of the latter she is referred to as the Countess of Albany and not as his wife. His memoirs do not once speak of her as his wife, but from the date of her husband's death their life together was uninterrupted. It is now generally assumed that they were privately married about this time.

For three years the two lived quietly in Paris, spending their summers and autumns at a new home Alfieri had acquired in Alsace. During these years he printed two editions of his works, supervised their sales, and wrote his remarkably entertaining memoirs, which were finished up to May, 1790. The end of the three years found Paris on the brink of the great Revolution.

Alfieri saw the black clouds gathering on the French horizon, but stayed on in the desire to complete the printing of his works. He was in turn amazed, alarmed, and disgusted at the succeeding events in the establishment of a republic. The principles proclaimed by these so-called destroyers of tyrants were not the principles of his own freedom-loving heart, nor those of any of his heroic characters. He writes, "My heart was torn asunder on beholding the holy and sublime cause of liberty betrayed by self-called philosophers,--so much did I revolt at witnessing their ignorance, their folly, and their crimes; at beholding the military power, and the insolence and licentiousness of the civilians stupidly made the basis of what they termed political liberty, that I henceforth desired nothing more ardently than to leave a country which, like a lunatic hospital, contained only fools or incurables."

Circumstances, however, conspired to keep them in Paris, the Countess was dependent upon France for two-thirds of her income, Alfieri was finishing the printing of his dramas. The hour came when Alfieri determined that further delay would be more than foolhardy, and so, on August 18, 1792, having obtained passports with great difficulty, he drove with the Countess to the city barrier. A dramatic scene followed. The National Guards found the passports correct, and would have let the travelers pass, but at the same moment a crowd of drunken revelers broke from a neighboring cabaret, and attracted by the well-laden carriage, proceeded to stop its passage, while they debated whether they should stone it or set it on fire. The Guards remonstrated, but the revelers complained bitterly that people of wealth should leave the city. Alfieri lost all prudence, and jumping from his carriage, seized the passports from the man who held them and, as he himself tells the incident, "Full of disgust and rage, and not knowing at the moment, or in my passion despising the immense peril that attended us, I thrice shook my passport in my hand and shouted at the top of my voice, 'Look! Listen! Alfieri is my name; Italian and not French; tall, lean, pale, red hair; I am he; look at me; I have my passport, and I have had it legitimately from those who could give it; we wish to pass, and by Heaven, we _will_ pass!'"

The crowd was surprised, and before they had recovered Alfieri and the Countess had driven past the barriers and were safely on their way. They had left Paris none too soon. Two days later the same authorities that had granted the passports confiscated the horses, furniture, and books that Alfieri had left behind in Paris and declared both the Countess and Alfieri refugee aristocrats. The fact that they were both foreigners appeared to be of no importance. It was well that they had gone. The Countess was too illustrious a personage to have escaped for long the fury of the fast-gathering mob, and had she been lost Alfieri would have shared her fate.

Florence thenceforth became the home of the Countess and of Alfieri. He wrote desultorily, commenting upon what he had seen in France, but for the most part devoted himself to a study of the classics. In 1795, when he was forty-six years of age, he started to learn Greek, and was so fired with the desire that in a short time he had added an intimate knowledge of Homer, Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides to that he already had of the Latin authors. He was so much interested in the "Alcestis" of Euripides that he wrote an original drama based on the same theme. He was described at this time as of a tall and commanding figure, with a face of intelligence, and the look of one born to command, rather than obey. His forehead was broad and lofty; his red hair fell in thick masses around it.

The restless youth had changed to a methodical, studious man, he arranged his day by rule, and followed that rule exactly. Only one event disturbed him, and that was the occupation of Florence by French troops. He had distrusted the French while he lived among them, now when they came to hold Florence in subjection his hatred of tyranny bade him despise them. He refused to receive the call of the French general who, having read his works, was anxious to meet him. On the correspondence which passed between them in reference to this matter Alfieri wrote, "Dialogue between a lion in a cage, and his crocodile guardian."