Part 13

In the following night (of Friday, 22nd) an immense number of bombs were thrown; they fell chiefly in the Piazza di Venezia, Piazza Sant’ Apostoli, and Via del Gesù. I do not think much harm was done, and the people took it coolly enough. I found a crowd assembled about 9 P.M. in the north-east corner of the Piazza Colonna, watching these pretty fireworks, ‘ecco un altro!’ One first saw the ‘lightning’ over the Post-office; then came the missive itself, describing its tranquil parabola; then the distant report of the mortar; and finally the near explosion, which occasionally took place in the air. This went on all night. But it has not been repeated in the same degree. The Consuls have remonstrated with Oudinot, but he, I believe, pleads ‘orders.’ The operations meantime, till yesterday, were unimportant, _e.g._ four cannon were got up on the breach, but the Roman batteries say that they upset them. On Sunday night, however, the 26th, there was another general attack, and under cover of this the French got their guns planted on the breach, and were playing with these all yesterday upon _our_ batteries of S. Pietro in Montorio, which I fear will not be long tenable.

This morning I hear nothing I can rely on, and considering the bombs, I forbore to visit my look out of the Ara Celi. As for the feelings of the people, I can of course say little. I fancy the middle-class Romans think it rather useless work, but they don’t feel strongly enough on the matter to make them take steps against a government which I believe has won their respect alike by its moderation and its energy; perhaps, too, they are afraid of the troops, under which term however do not understand foreigners, unless you choose to give that name to the levies of the Papal States in general. Visiting the Monte Cavallo hospital the other day, where there are I think 200 men, three Poles and one Frenchman were especially pointed out to me, that I might say some words of French to them. All the others I saw were Italians, from Bologna, Ferrara, Ravenna, Perugia, and so forth. There was one Swiss. Most of them had received their wounds on the 3rd. Nice fellows they seemed, young, and mostly cheerful, spite of their hurts. One had lost an arm and a leg; another had a ball in his hip, yet to be extracted; ‘and the like.’ On the whole I incline to think they will fight it out to the last, but chi lo sa?

We have a General Archioni, a Milanese noble, a fine brave fellow, in the lodgings here, with his secretary and capo del stato maggiore, and a soldier or two. He was posted at the Villa Ludovisi, and thither two days ago we all went--fourteen, ‘Mama’ and four daughters, and niece, and their escort, a gay party of pleasure.

Festa di San Pietro: Friday, 29.

I have been this morning to the Colosseum, whence you see the position very well and securely. The French batteries are too strong for the Romans, I think; they respond but feebly. The Secretary of the General here detected two nights ago some people making signals; he took some ‘civicas’ and went and arrested them; there were three monks and two ‘civicas’ in open communication with the French, while it was still daylight. A good deal of this telegraphing goes on, they tell me.

The ‘panic’ of the 21st seems to have been a good deal felt as a disgrace; these last few days they have been fighting very bravely, I take it. The ‘Moniteur’ this morning states the number of _foreigners_ in the Roman service to be 1,650; 800 Lombards, 300 Tuscans, 250 Poles and French, and 300 miscellaneous in Garibaldi’s corps. The national guard is 14,000 strong; the army, I suppose, 20,000. A bomb, I am thankful to say, has left its mark on the façade of the Gesù. I wish it had stirred up old Ignatius. Farewell.

A. H. C. Le Citoyen malgré lui.

_To M. Arnold, Esq._

Rome: June 23, 1849.

I advertise you that I hope to be in the Geneva country in August, reposing in the bosom of nature from the fatigues of art and the turmoil of war!!! _Quid Romæ faciam?_ What’s politics to he, or he to politics? But it is impossible to get out, and if one did, Freeborn, Vice-consul, who however is a _Caccone_, says the French avan-posti shoot at one.

July 3.

Well, we are taken; the battery immediately to the left (as you go out) of St. Pancrazio was carried by assault, on the night of the 29th or morning of the 30th, while we in this corner got bombarded by way of feint. The Roman line in several cases has behaved ill, and certainly gave way here rather early; afterwards, however, under Garibaldi’s command, it seems to have fought well, at least two regiments, who are now off with him and his free corps to the Abruzzi.

On Saturday morning (30th June) the Assembly resolved to give in; Mazzini & Co. resigned; and a deputation went off to Oudinot. Sunday was perfectly tranquil; yesterday evening Garibaldi withdrew his troops from the Trastevere, and went off by the S. Giovanni. To-day they say the French will enter. Altogether, I incline to think the Roman population _has_ shown a good deal of ‘apathy’; they did not care about the bombs much, but they did not care to fight _very_ hard either. The Lombards are fine fellows, and the Bolognese too; the only pity there were not more of them. If you put the whole lot of them together, Poles, Lombards, Tuscans, French, they would not exceed 3,000. On the whole, the French were not _very_ barbarous, but if we had not yielded, I believe they meant to bombard us really; and as it was, their shells might have done irreparable harm.

At noon to-day the Assembly proclaims the Constitution! which it had just completed.

_To F. T. Palgrave, Esq._

Rome: July 4, 1849.

If you should happen to read in the ‘Constitutionnel’ that ‘_on Tuesday, July 3, our army entered Rome amidst the acclamations of the people_,’ perhaps you will not be the worse for a commentary on the text.

On Monday evening Garibaldi, with all the free corps except some Lombards under Medici, and with a good many Roman troops in addition, set off for the Abruzzi. On Tuesday at noon the Assembly proclaimed the _Constitution_ on the Campidoglio. I went there and heard it. There were present perhaps 800 or 900 people. This done, I presume the deputies dispersed, the labours of the Constituent being clearly completed. The French had already begun their entry, and occupied the Ponte Sisto, and, I believe, the Trinità dei Monti. About half-past four I went out, and presently saw a detachment coming up from the Palazzo Borghese to the Condotti. I stood in the Corso with some thirty of the people, and saw them pass. Fine working soldiers indeed, dogged and business-like; but they looked a little awkward, while the people screamed and hooted, and cried, ‘Viva la Reppublica Romana!’ When they had got past some young simpleton sent a tin pail after them; four or five faced round with bayonets presented, while my young friend cut away up the Corso double quick. They went on. At this moment some Roman bourgeois, as I fancy, but perhaps a foreigner, said something either to express his sense of the folly of it, or his sympathy with the invaders. He was surrounded, and I saw him buffeted a good deal, and there was a sword lifted up, but I think not bare; I was told he got off. But a priest who walked and talked publicly in the Piazza Colonna with a Frenchman was undoubtedly killed I know his friends, and saw one of them last night. Poor man! he was quite a liberal ecclesiastic, they tell me, but certainly not a prudent one.

To return to my own experience. After this the column passed back by another street into the Corso, and dispersed the crowd with the bayonet point; they then went on and occupied, I take it, the Post-office, which I afterwards found full of them. About six o’clock I walked out again, and found the Monte Cavallo, the Palazzo Barberini, and other places occupied. I thus missed the entry of Oudinot and his staff. I got back only just to see the final dragoons; but an English acquaintance informed me that in passing by the Café Nuovo, where an Italian tricolor hung from the window, Oudinot plucked at it, and bid it be removed. The French proceeded to do this, but the Romans intervened; Cernuschi, the barricade commissioner, took it down, kissed it, and, as I myself saw, carried it in triumph amidst cheers to the Piazza Colonna. I did not follow, but on my bolder friend’s authority I can state that here the French moved up with their bayonets and took it from Cernuschi, stripping him moreover of his tricolor scarf. One hears reports of as many as eight Romans being killed for fraternising with the Gaul, and of some of the French themselves having been assassinated. My friend told me two shots were fired from a café in the Corso when the troops passed that way at half-past four. This morning I have been to the field of battle and looked at the trenches. I condescended to speak with two Frenchmen, consoling myself by an occasional attempt at sarcasm. They said the Romans did nothing at all when the batteries were assaulted; but the artillery had been well directed. You see lots of villas, six or seven at least, in ruins. S. Pietro in Montorio is in a sad state; balls have come in and knocked great holes, and the east end is nearly in ruins, but the paintings are most, if not all, quite safe--those of Sebastian del Piombo certainly; and Bramante’s chapel is wholly untouched. My French officer said the troops were about 25,000. Almost all are in the city. The Roman forces are to withdraw immediately into cantonments assigned by Oudinot, and guaranteed against the Austrians. The national guard will be disarmed, and then all will be considered safe. On the whole, the French soldiers seemed to me to show excellent temper. At the same time, some faces I have seen are far more brutal than the worst Garibaldian; and we have hitherto seen nothing so unpleasing in the female kind as the vivandière. The Gaul is certainly the stronger animal, but assuredly the greater beast.

The American banker tells me he was told that in the morning the French were cheered. I rather doubt it; but I believe the bourgeoisie in part are very glad it is over. Naturally, for there was to have been a regular bombardment; so said my French friend. They had got a large supply ready, just come from France. The priest is not dead, and perhaps will survive; but another, I hear, was hewed in pieces for shouting ‘Viva Pio Nono,’ ‘Abasso la Reppublica,’ &c. Oudinot’s proclamation is expected every moment. They say it will declare a stage of siege; name a military governor and commander of the garrison; dissolve the national guard and the Assembly, and so forth.

_To the same._

Rome: July 6, 1849.

Medium of all desirable communication with my brethren at home! you shall receive one more despatch. I think of going off to Albano, or some of these places, which now one supposes will be attainable. Tivoli, they say, is dubious. Garibaldi went off that way, and the French have sent a detachment after him, with orders, one is told, to give no quarter.

It is a sight to make one gnash one’s very wisdom teeth to go about the fallen Jerusalem and behold the abomination of desolation standing where it ought not; not that the French misbehave, so far as I see, individually. They appear to me to display considerable temper. Still one is told that they carried off a lot of lemons, &c., the first night without paying for them. One soldier, they say, was stabbed by a Trasteverine woman at the Ponte Sisto for insulting her. Any way, one sees how ‘riling’ it is to be conquered.

I am greatly rejoiced meantime that they have been obliged to proclaim the state of siege. They make much of the adhesion of the army. I don’t exactly know how far it has been given. Two regiments went off with Garibaldi and one heard divers stories. However, with the alternative of dissolution and beggary, it is no marvel that the Roman line, not a popular body, should consent to give its service to any de-facto government.

Last night, for the first time, ‘by order,’ we were all driven in at half-past nine. I found a bayonet point within a few inches of me as I came along the Corso, while the battalion was clearing it.

Has the ‘Times’ correspondent told the funny way in which they have shown their spite, by daubing out all the French sign-boards?

The natives do not universally quit the cafés when the French come in; at the Bon Goût in the Piazza di Spagna they appear to be treated with polite indifference; in the Café Nuovo, such unmistakable disgust was evinced that, considering also its size and importance, for you know it is a whole palace, and _the_ great place of resort, they have seen fit to shut it up and fill it with soldiers. Elsewhere the enemies feed together, but with a pale very distinctly marked between them.

Mazzini was still here yesterday. Galetti, president of the Assembly, and commander of the Carbineers, was taken under American protection (as I hear); otherwise he would have been arrested; but the political arrests have been limited to some half-dozen agitators. Ciceruacchio got off with an American passport. You know the Assembly sat on the day after the French entrée; Mazzini was present. They passed some three or four decrees, and put them up in the streets. Oudinot’s proclamation dissolving the old government came out an hour or two after.

I told you that Garibaldi lost his negro on the 3rd. ‘Il Moro,’ as they called him, was the son of a rich negro merchant at Monte Video, who, though married and father of a family, yet, for the love of the Italian captain, came over to fight by his side, which they say he never quitted. I have seen each separately, but not together. There is a Mrs. Garibaldi; she went out with him to the Abruzzi. I hope the French won’t cut them to pieces, but vice versâ.

July 7.

Last night I had the pleasure of abandoning a café on the entrance of the French. The Italians expect you to do so. It was quite composedly done; no bravado or hurry.

Mazzini, on the 30th, after the capture of the bastion, proposed to the Assembly that it, with the army, should quit Rome, carry off the artillery, and occupy some stronghold. But the Assembly at first would not; and after, when it would, could not. The course actually taken was repugnant to Mazzini’s views, who was anxious to save Rome from destruction, but at the same time to hold out somewhere and somehow to the last.

The Chigi chapel, in Sta. Maria del Popolo, is a remarkable case. Raphael’s Jonah is untouched, but the statue next it has been chipped in two places by a ball. Nothing else is hurt.

_To the same._

Rome: July 13, 1849.

We are all in admiration here of M. de Corcelles’ statement, that during the twenty-six days that elapsed of the siege, not one bomb had been thrown into the city. I dare say a large proportion of what were thrown were grenades, but that there were bombs, in the strictest sense, is undoubted. A military friend whom I can trust has seen _one_, and I think I myself have. Moreover, the grenades were large. And I presume M. de Corcelles will prefer saying plainly that he was misinformed, to the alternative of professing not to have meant to deny grenades. On the night of the 22nd, 150 missives of the bomb or the grenade species are said to have been thrown into the town; 130 were counted by an acquaintance of mine, a Roman; at the rate they were being plied while I was looking on myself, I cannot doubt some figure like this must be correct.

On the night of the 29th, a French officer told an English gentleman the detachment in the Borghese grounds was ordered to fire 120 shots into the Piazza di Spagna quarter, as a feint; they had no particular aim, but seeing a light in a high window, they took it for their mark, and--_hinc illæ lachrymæ_--hence those balls and bombs, or, I beg pardon, grenades perhaps, which frightened us out of our propriety into the primo piano.

Mazzini, through the negotiation of Mr. Cass, the American Chargé d’affaires, received a passport in his own name from the French, and went off viâ Civita Vecchia, with a bearer of despatches from the same Mr. Cass, I think, on Tuesday last, the 10th. He would go into Switzerland. This is quite positive.

On Monday I was at Albano. The French, seventy horse, came in that afternoon at four. The Spaniards meantime had just the previous night occupied Genzano, three miles off. One hears that the French have turned them out of it.

Two newspapers appear in Rome besides the official gazette, called the ‘Giornale di Roma’; one of these, the ‘Costituzionale,’ belongs to the _prete_ interest; the other, ‘La Speranza dell’ Epoca,’ to Mamiani and coterie. They are under a military censure, but liberally exercised; a new appointment was freely commented on _in malam partem_ yesterday by this latter print.

The Principessa di Belgiojoso is still here, looking after her feriti at the Monte Cavallo, who, as I think by Mr. Cass’s intercession, are allowed to remain there; at first, orders were given that they should be removed within a week. Garibaldi is said to have effected a junction at Terni with Forbes, an Englishman holding rank here of colonel, I think, and commanding a small detachment.

Add to the list of fortunate escapes, that a ball struck the façade of the Palazzo Sciarra on the terzo piano. On the secondo in front is the gallery, whose ample windows give light to the famous Modestia e Vanità of Leonardo da Vinci, the Violin Player of Raphael, Titian’s Bella Donna, and others, most of which, however, have been put into the passage for safety.

Freeborn, the Consul, has got _one_ bomb in his bank. Do _you_ know the difference between the two things, bomb and grenade? bomb has two handles, and grenade is a hollow ball with a hole in it; that is all I know. Grenades, they say, burst in the air; otherwise they are as big as bombs, and by no means innocent things.

July 14.

Giving the French and the ‘Times’ credit for some degree of truth-telling, the simple truth would appear to be, that we have been grenaded, not bombarded. It is possible that the cannon and _mortars_ were pointed merely to the breach, and that the bombs and balls that came in were merely bad shots. But the _obus_ (singular or plural) must certainly have been pointed against the very heart of the city, the Pantheon and Capitol; and a discharge of 150 or more grenades in a single night is, if not a bombardment, still---- My authority about Mazzini’s movements is[13] Miss Fuller, an American, who was in immediate communication with Mazzini and Mr. Cass, and who was a party to the negotiation. She is now gone to Rieti.

_To the same._

Geneva: August 7.

I shall go and see Mont Blanc, among other duties (for I am finishing my education before coming to town), and move homeward by the Rhine. I saw the French enter Rome, and then went to Naples, which I greatly enjoyed. Thence direct by Genoa and Turin to this place, and from here by Interlaken home. I am full of admiration of Mazzini. But, on the whole, ‘Farewell, politics, utterly! What can I do?’ Study is much more to the purpose.

This is a dull sky-and-water atmosphere, after the blue sweaters of the south; and the English locust of course prevails in it.

_To T. Arnold, Esq._

University Hall, London: October 29, 1849.

Well, here I am, and with Palgrave, who is breakfasting with me in my hall, where we all--_i.e._ myself and my eleven undergraduates (that should be thirty, and I hope will be some day)--breakfast and dine daily. Here, I take it, I shall remain for some little time; though even as you talk of coming over here, so I, believing that I shall be kicked out for mine heresies’ sake, and doubtful of success in literary doings, have sometimes looked at my feet and considered the antipodes, reflecting however much on the natural conservatising character of our years after thirty. As I say, I have no confidence in my tenure. For intolerance, O Tom, is not confined to the cloisters of Oxford, or the pews of the Establishment, but comes up, like the tender herb, _partout_, and is indeed in a manner indigenous in the heart of the family man of the middle classes.

Do we not work best by digging deepest? by avoiding polemics, and searching to display the real thing? If only one could do the latter!--Emerson is an example, and also Carlyle, and in his kind M.A. Yet [Greek: ἕκαστος ἔχει τὸ ἑαυτου χάρισμα] and οὐ πάντες χωροῦσι τοῦτον τὸν λὸγον. Let B----s delight to bark and bite, if indeed God has made them so.

Interrupted by my one pupil--for you observe that undergraduates all attend the University College professors, and I only keep a hall, as an M. A. of old times did in the days of professors at Oxford--and out of the eleven only have one pupil--I now resume to say farewell.

_To J. C. Shairp, Esq._

University Hall: October 31, 1849.

You and Walrond may read this,[14] but don’t show it to others; nor, therefore, name it, as if you do, they’ll importune. You are nice discreet creatures, I know.

I wish you would come and see me on your way to Oxford. London, generally speaking, is lonely--for evil at any rate and partly for good. A loneliness relieved by evening parties is not delightful, but I get on well enough in general, looking forward always to the Long. If I do not get a pupil for the Continent, I shall come up to Scotland.

You do not perhaps enjoy at Rugby a fine yellow fog this morning. We do.

_To F. T. Palgrave, Esq._

[On receiving a present of Goethe’s works.]

University Hall, London: November 18, 1849.

Thanks many, specially perhaps for the note. I had a great mind to say to you, ‘As soon as you give me the Goethe, we will cut.’ Let us suppose that done, and look forward _tout-de-suite_ to a recommencement--‘Cut and come again’ being the true motto for all proper intercourse. I think the best way of looking at a present is as a thing to be much more valuable some time hereafter than just now; it is more properly a future than a present. Cast thy Goethe upon the waters; give with thy left hand, and let not thy right hand of fellowship ask what thy left doeth.

And so on, whereof enough.

_To ----_

It is a good deal forgotten that we came into this world to do, not kindness to others, but our own duty, to live soberly, righteously, and godly, not benevolently, philanthropically, and tenderheartedly. To earn his own bread honestly--in the strictest sense of the word _honestly_--to do plain straightforward work or business well and thoroughly, not with mere eye-service for the market, is really quite a sufficient task for the ordinary mortal.

_To T. Arnold, Esq._

University Hall, London: January 3, 1850.

Here I am, just about to recommence the crambe repetita of pædagogy after a brief fortnight’s holiday. Of what use is pædagogy? Some, I suppose; and as much probably as any other occupation one is in the way of getting harnessed to. Cast, therefore, thy syntax on the waters. But in the meantime [Greek: εἴσελθε εὶς τὸ ταμιεῖόν σου, καὶ κλείοας την θύραν σου, κ.τ.λ.]

There is a great blessing, I sometimes think, in being set down amongst uncongenial people, for me at least who am over-provocable. Consider the coal upon the fireplace, how it came to blaze thus: was it not concealed and compressed for long world-ages, never expecting to see the light again, far less that in its own self there was light, heat, and joyfulness, having no sort of imagination that it should be transmuted into, or shall we say, wooed, wedded and incorporated with the subtle atmosphere itself? Consider, I say, the long preparation of this strange marriage of coal and oxygen air, and say, if you can, moreover, when was there most real worthiness of existence, in the grimy or the blazy period, in the imprisonment or deliverance of the gases, the incarnation or apotheosis, the suppression or expression, &c. &c. &c.?

Sunday, January 27.