Rule of the Monk; Or, Rome in the Nineteenth Century. Garibaldi Giuseppe
of his Holiness, dispersed, and returned to their several homes.
Amongst the dead bodies discovered next morning near the baths was that of a mere youth, whose beard had scarcely begun to cover his face with down. He was lying on his back, and on his breast was the shameful word "traitor," pinned with a dagger. He had been recognized by the Three Hundred, and swiftly punished.
Poor Paolo, alas, had the misfortune – for misfortune it proved – to fall in love with the daughter of a priest, who, enacting the part of a Delilah, betrayed him to her father as soon as she had learned he was connected with a secret conspiracy. To save his life, the wretched youth consented to become a paid spy in the service of the priesthood, and it was thus he drew his pay.
The worth of one intrepid man, as Attilio showed, is inestimable; a single man of lion heart can put to flight a whole army.
On the other hand, how contagious is fear. I have seen whole armies seized by a terrible panic in open day at a cry of "Escape who can;" "Cavalry;" "The enemy," or even the sound of a few shots – an army that had fought, and would again fight, patiently and gallantly.
Fear is shameful and degrading, and I think the southern nations of Europe are more liable to it than the cooler and more serious peoples of the north; but never may I see an Italian army succumb to that sudden ague-fit which kills the man, even though he seems to save his life thereby!
CHAPTER XXI. THE TORTURE
As the hour of solemn vengeance had not yet struck, fright, and fright alone for the black-robed rulers of Rome was the result of the events we have detailed.
The priests were in mortal terror lest the thread by which the sword of popular wrath was suspended should be cut.
The hour, however, had not struck; the measure of the cup was not full; the God of justice delayed the day of his retribution.
Know you what the lust of priests is to torture? Do you know that by the priests Galileo was tortured? Galileo, the greatest of Italians! Who but priests could have committed him to the torture? Who but an archbishop could have condemned to death by starvation in a walled-up prison Ugolino and his four sons?
Where but in Rome have priests hated virtue and learning while they fostered ignorance and patronized vice? Woe to the man who, gifted by God above his fellows, has dared to exhibit his talent in Papal Italy. Has he not been immediately consigned to moral and physical tortures, until he admitted darkness was light?
Is it not surprising that in spite of the light of the nineteenth century, a people should be found willing to believe the blasphemous fables called the doctrines of the Church, and the priests permitted to hold or withhold salvation at their pleasure, and to exercise such power in such a continent, that rulers court their alliance as a means of enabling them the more effectually to keep, in subjection their miserable subjects?
In England, America, and Switzerland this torture has been abolished. There progress is not a mere word. In Rome the torture exists in all its power, though concealed. Light has yet to penetrate the secrets of those dens of infamy called cloisters, seminaries, convents, where beings, male and female, are immured as long as life lasts, and are bound by terrible vows to resign forever the ties of natural affection and sacred friendship.
Fearful are the punishments inflicted upon any hapless member suspected of being lax in his belief, or desirous of being released from his oaths. Redress for them is impossible in a country where despotism is absolute, and the liberty of the press chained.
Yes, in Rome, where sits the Vicar of God, the representative of Christ, the man of peace, the torture, I say, still exists as in the times of Saint Dominic and Torquemada. The cord and the pincers are in constant requisition in these present days of political convulsion.
Poor Dentato, the sergeant of dragoons who facilitated the escape of Manlio, soon experienced this. He had been unfortunately identified as engaged at the Quirinal Morning, noon, and night means too horrible to divulge were resorted to to compel him to give up the names of those concerned in the attack upon the prison. Failing to gain their point, he had been left by his tormentors a shapeless mass, imploring his persecutors to show mercy by putting him to death.
Unhappy man! the executioners falsely declared he had denounced his accomplices, and continued daily to make fresh arrests.
Yet the world still tolerates these fiends in human form, and kings moreover impose them upon our unhappy countries. God grant the people of Italy will before long have the will and the courage to break this hateful yoke from off their necks! God set us free, before we are weary of praying, from those who take His holy name in vain, and chase Christ himself out of the Temple to set their money-changing stalls therein!
CHAPTER XXII. THE BRIGANDS
Let us leave for a time these scenes of horror, and follow our fugitives on the road to Porto d'Anzo. Their hearts are sad, for they are leaving many dear to them behind in the city, and their road is one of danger, until it be the sea; but, as they breathe the pure air of the country, their spirits revive – that country once so populated and fertile, now so barren and deserted. Perhaps it would be difficult to find another spot on earth that presents so many objects of past grandeur and present misery as the Campagna. The ruins, scattered on all sides, give pleasure to the antiquary, and convince him of the prosperity and grandeur of its ancient inhabitants, while the sportsman finds beasts and birds enough to satisfy him; but the lover of mankind mourns, it is a graveyard of past glories, with the priests for sextons. The proprietors of these vast plains are few, and those few, priests, who are too much absorbed by the pleasures and vices of the city, to visit their properties, keeping, at the most, a few flocks of sheep or buffaloes.
Brigandage is inseparable from priestly government, which is easy to understand when we remember that it is supported by the aid of cowardly and brutal mercenaries. These, becoming robbers, murderers, and criminal offenders, flee to such places as this desert, where they find undisturbed refuge and shelter.
Statistics prove that in Rome murders are of more frequent occurrence in proportion to the population than in any other city. And how, indeed, can it be otherwise, when we consider the corrupt education instilled by the priests?
The outlaws are styled brigands, and to these may be added troops of runaway hirelings of the priests, who have committed such dreadful ravages during the last few years. We have a sympathy for the wild spirits who seem to live by plunder, but who retire to the plains, and pass a rambling life, without being guilty of theft or murder, in order to escape the humiliations to which the citizen is daily subjected.
The tenacity and courage shown by these in their encounters with the police and national guards, are worthy of a better cause, and prove that such men, if led by a lawful ruler, and inspired with a love for their country, would form an army that would resist triumphantly any foreign invader.
All "brigands" are, indeed, not assassins.
Orazio, a valorous Roman, though a brigand, was respected and admired by all in Trastevere, particularly by the Roman women, who never fail to recognize and appreciate personal bravery.
He was reputed to be descended from the famous Horatius Cocles, who alone defended a bridge against the army of Porsenna, and, like him, curiously enough, had lost an eye. Orazio had served the Roman Republic with honor. While yet a beardless youth he was one of the first who, on the glorious 30th of April, charged and put to flight the foreign invaders. In Palestrina he received an honorable wound in the forehead, and at Velletri, after unhorsing a Neapolitan officer with his arquebuss, deprived him of his arms, and carried him in triumph to Rome. Well would it have been for Julia and her friends had men of this type alone haunted the lonely plain! But when they were not far distant from the coast, a sudden shot, which brought the coachman down from his seat, informed our fugitives that they were about to be attacked by brigands, and were already in range of their muskets. Manlio instantly seized the reins and whipped the hones, but four of the band, armed to the teeth, rushed immediately at the horses' heads. "Do not stir, or you are a dead man," shouted one of the robbers, who appeared to be the leader. Manlio, convinced that resistance was useless, wisely remained immovable. In no very gallant tone, the ladies were bidden to descend, but, at the sight of so much beauty, the