Chapter 20

There is, I think, no city in the world where Pilate's question, "What is truth?" would be so hard to answer as in Rome. In addition to the ordinary difficulties which everywhere beset the path of the foreigner in search of knowledge, there are a number of obstacles peculiar and special to Rome alone.

The whole policy of the government is directed towards maintaining the country in a state of isolation, towards drawing, in fact, a moral _cordon sanitaire_ round the Papal dominions. Indeed, if one lived long in Rome, one would get to doubt the reality of anything. When I last came to Rome straight from Tuscany, seething in the turmoil of its new- bought liberties, I could hardly believe that only six months ago there had been war in Italy within two hundred miles from the Papal city, that the fate of Italy still hung trembling in the balance, and that the chief province of the country was still in open revolt against its rulers. There was no sign, no trace, scarce a symptom even of what had passed or was passing in the world without. We all seemed spellbound in a dull, dead, dreary circle. There were no advertisements in the streets, except of devotional works for the coming season of Lent; no pamphlets or books placed in the booksellers' windows, which by their titles even implied the existence of the war and the revolution; no prints for sale of the scenes of the campaign, or the popular heroes of the day. This was the normal state of Rome, such as I had seen it in former years. Later on, indeed, either the force of events, or a change in the counsels of the Vatican, induced the Papacy to drop the defensive passive attitude which constituted its real strength, and to adopt an active offensive policy, which served rather to show the greatness of the dreaded danger than to avert its occurrence. Still the increased animation, though perceptible enough to a Roman, appeared to a stranger but a step above absolute stagnation. I never could get over my astonishment at our utter ignorance of what went on around and amongst us. About the state of affairs in our two neighbouring countries, whether in free Tuscany or in despotic Naples, we were entirely in the dark. What little news we got was derived from chance reports of stray travellers, or from the French and English newspapers. The _Giornale di Roma_ gave us now and then a damnatory paragraph about the Tuscan Government, from which, out of a mass of vituperation, we could pick up an odd fact or so; but during the first four months of this year, throughout which period I perused the _Giornale_ pretty carefully, I do not remember to have seen a single allusion, good, bad or indifferent, to the kingdom of Naples. The Tuscan papers were naturally enough forbidden, as are almost all the journals of the free Italian states, and could only be obtained by private hands. The Neapolitan Gazette, the _Monitore del Regno delle Due Sicilie_, was never seen by any chance, though I cannot suppose its circulation was directly interdicted. The communication between Rome and Naples was, and is, scanty in the extreme. During the last ten years, about ten miles of the Pio-Centrale Railroad, the Neapolitan line, have been opened. At present beyond Albano the works are entirely at a stand-still, and there are still some thirty miles of line, between Rome and the frontier, of which hardly a sod has been turned. The Civita Vecchia line has only been completed in consequence of the pressure of the French authorities, and the Ancona-Florence line is still in _statu quo_. Three times a week there are diligences between Rome and Naples. The local steam-boats, which used to run along the coast from Porto d'Anzio to the Neapolitan capital have been given up, and in fact there is no ready means of transit, save by the foreign steamers, which touch at Civita Vecchia. Whether purposely or not, everything has been done to check free communication between the Papal and Neapolitan States, and in this respect the Government has been eminently successful. The two countries are totally distinct. A Neapolitan is a _forestiere_ in Rome, and _vice versa_. The _divide et impera_ has been the motto of all the petty Italian despots and of the Papacy in particular, and hitherto has proved successful. Even now, as far as I could see and learn, the desire for Italian unity does not penetrate very low down. It is the desire, I freely grant, of all the best and wisest Italians, but scarcely, I suspect, the wish of the Italian people. In truth, Italy at this moment is very much what Great Britain would be, if Scotland, Ireland, Wales and the States of the Saxon Heptarchy had remained to this day separate petty kingdoms, ruled by governments who fostered and developed every local and sectional jealousy. The broad fact, that for some weeks at Rome we were in utter ignorance whether there had been a revolution or not in the capital of the frontier kingdom, not thirty miles away, and should have been quite surprised if we had learnt anything about the matter, is a sufficient commentary on our state of isolation.

This artificial isolation too is increased by a sort of general apathy and almost universal ignorance, which are characteristic of all classes in Rome. How far this intellectual apathy is caused by, or causes, the material isolation of the city, would be a curious question to determine. The existence, however, of this fact, which none acquainted with Rome will question, constitutes one of the chief difficulties in ascertaining accurate information about facts. The most intelligent and the most liberal amongst the Romans (the two terms are there synonymous) never seem to know the value of positive facts, and even in matters susceptible of proof prefer general statements. Then, too, the absence of social meetings, or means of intercourse, is one of the most striking features about Roman society. There is no public life, no current literature, little even of free conversation. Of course, among the English and foreign residents there are plenty of parties and gaieties of every kind. At these parties you meet a few Anglicised Italians, who have picked up a little of our English language and a good deal of our English dress. The nobility of Rome who come into contact with the higher class of English travellers give a good number of formal receptions, but amongst the middle and professional classes there is very little society at all. The summer is the season for what society there is, but even then there is but little. There are no saloons in the Roman theatres, and the miserable refreshment-rooms, with their bars even more shabby and worse provided than our English ones, are, as you may suppose, not places of meeting. Even at the Opera there seemed to be little visiting in the boxes. With the exception of the strangers' rooms, there are no reading- rooms or clubs in Rome, if I may exclude from this category a miserable _Gabinetto di Lettura_, chiefly frequented by priests, and whose current _lettura_ consisted of the _Tablet_, the _Univers_, the _Armonia_, and the _Courier des Alpes_. The only real places of meeting, or focuses of news, are the cafes. At best, however, they are _triste_, uncomfortable places. There is no cafe in all Rome equal to a second-rate one in an ordinary French provincial town. There are few newspapers, little domino playing, and not much conversation. The spy system is carried to such an extent here, that even in private circles the speakers are on their guard as to what they say, and still more as to what they repeat. As an instance of this, I may mention a case that happened to me personally. On the morning before the demonstrations at the Porta Pia a Roman gentleman, with whom I was well acquainted, wished to give me information of the proposed meeting, of which, it happened, I was well aware; but though we were alone in a room together, the nearest approach on which my friend ventured to a direct information, which might be considered of a seditious character, was to tell me that I should find the Porta Pia road a pleasant walk on an afternoon.

In fact, paradoxical as the assertion may appear, you learn more about Rome from foreigners than from natives. Unfortunately, such information as you may acquire in this way is almost always of a suspicious character. Almost every one in Rome judges of what he sees or hears according, in German phrase, to some stand-point of his own, either political or artistic or theological, as the case may be. As to the foreign converts, it is only natural that, as in most cases they have sacrificed everything for the Papal faith, they should therefore look at everything from the Papal point of view. If, however, they abuse and despise the Romans on every occasion, it is some satisfaction to reflect that the Romans lose no opportunity of despising or abusing them in turn. English Liberals who see a good deal of Roman society, see it, I think, under too favourable circumstances, and also attach undue importance to the wonderful habit all Italians have of saying as their own opinion whatever they think will be pleasing to their listener. On the other hand, the persons who are best qualified to judge of Rome, the ordinary residents of long standing, who care little about Italy and less about the Pope, are, I fancy, unduly influenced by the advantages of their exceptional position. There are few places in the world where a stranger, especially an English stranger, is better off than in Rome. As a rule, he has perfect liberty to do and say and write what he likes, and almost inevitably he gets to think that a government which is so lenient a one for him cannot be a very bad one for its own subjects. The cause, however, of this exceptional lenity is not hard to discover. Much as we laugh at home about the _Civis Romanus_ doctrine, abroad it is a very powerful reality. Whether rightly or wrongly, foreign governments are afraid of meddling with English subjects, and act accordingly. Then, too, Englishmen as a body care very little about foreign politics, and are known to live almost entirely among themselves abroad, and seldom to interfere in the concerns of foreigners; and lastly, I am afraid that the moral influence of England, of which our papers are so fond of boasting, is very small indeed on the continent generally, and especially in Italy. All the articles the _Times_ ever wrote on Italian affairs did not produce half the effect of About's pamphlet or Cavour's speeches. I am convinced that the influence of English newspapers in Italy is most limited. The very scanty knowledge of the English language, and the utter want of comprehension of our English modes of thought and feeling, render an English journal even more uninteresting to the bulk of Italians than an Italian one is to an Englishman; and the Roman rulers are well aware of this important fact. Hard words break no bones, and the Vatican cares little for what English papers say of it, and looks upon the introduction of English Anti-Papal journals as part of the necessary price to be paid for the residence of the wealthy heretics who refuse to stop anywhere where they cannot have clubs and churches and papers of their own. The expulsion of M. Gallenga, the _Times_ correspondent, was in reality no exception to this policy. It was not as the correspondent of an English newspaper, but as an ex-Mazzinian revolutionist and the author of _Fra Dolcino_, that this gentleman was obnoxious to the Papal authorities. Though a naturalized English subject, he had not ceased to be an Italian, and his personal influence amongst Roman society might have been considerable, though the effect of his English correspondence, however able, would have been next to nothing.

From all these causes it is very hard to learn anything at Rome, and harder yet to learn anything with accuracy. It is only by a process of elimination you ever arrive at the truth. Out of a dozen stories and reports you have to take one, or rather part of one, and to reject the eleven and odd remaining. It has been my object, therefore, in the following descriptions of the scenes which marked the period of my residence in Rome, to give as much as possible of what I have known and seen myself, and as little of what I heard and learnt from others. What my narrative may lose in vividness, it will, I trust, gain in accuracy.