Part 20 (1/2)
I have two short letters written to the same friend and dated 1869 and 1871, not of general interest, but the latter concluding with the characteristic sentence:
”Il meglio sarebbe che si aprisse la via cercata per lunghi anni da noi; e s'aprira; ma siamo corrotti e privi di coraggio morale.
”Persisto nondimeno e persister finche vivo.”
”The best would be, that the road should open which we have sought for many years, and open it will; but we are corrupt and devoid of moral courage. I persist nevertheless, and shall persist as long as I live.”
The epistles he received he sometimes showed me as curiosities. Some came from his admirers, other from his detractors, either frequently total strangers to him. There were letters couched in terms of most eccentric adulation, others that unceremoniously relegated him to the regions of perdition. One merely requested him to go to the antipodes, in order that he might be well out of the way of regenerated Italy.
Another, less urbane, addressed him as ”Uomo aborrito!” (”abhorred man”), and continued in a similar strain of abuse. Mazzini took it all pleasantly; the lion's tail was once for all proof against any amount of pulling.
The patriotic dreams of Mazzini were gradually to be realised, in a measure, at least; for although his ideal--a Republic in place of a Monarchy--seemed hopeless of attainment, the hated foreigner was expelled, or had retired from Italian soil, and a united people joined hands from the Alps to the Adriatic.
He had returned to his native land, and there, active and uncompromising to the last, he died at Pisa, on March 10, 1872, in the Casa Rosselli. A private letter in the possession of Mr. Stansfeld gives some particulars of his last hours. He was perfectly tranquil, and free from suffering, but sank into a gradual stupor. During the day, at times, his hands moved mechanically, as if he were holding and smoking a cigar. Madame Rosselli asked him why he did that; but his mind was wandering, he did not understand her, and answered an imaginary question. He roused himself, and looking straight at her, he said, with great animation and intenseness, ”Believe in G.o.d? Yes, indeed I do believe in G.o.d.” These were his last words of consciousness.
A friend of his, writing a few days after the fatal 10th of March, tells how the mystery which surrounded him all his life continued to envelop him to the moment when death broke the seals of secrecy. Then, for the first time, the good people of Pisa learnt that the mild and retiring Mr. Francis Braun, who had long lived within their walls, was no other than the redoubtable Mazzini. He had come to their city in the February of the preceding year, and had remained till August, returning from Switzerland with the first frosts of November. The authorities doubtless knew perfectly well who the supposed Englishman was, who spent all his days in study and all his evenings in the company of the self-same small family circle. But they were to let him alone. It was not for the first time that they wisely ignored his presence. The chief difficulty of the Italian Government had been, not to find him and seize him, but to find and not to molest him. On one occasion the Neapolitan police put the Government into much perturbation by telegraphing that it was ”impossible to avoid arresting Mazzini.”
On another occasion--it was in 1857--the house of the Marchese Pareto, where Mazzini was staying, was surrounded by the police, and a large military force in attendance made a portentous show. The Quaestor, an old schoolfellow of Mazzini, formally demands admittance in the King's name, when the door is opened by Mazzini himself, disguised as a servant. The Quaestor asks to speak to the Marquis, and is forthwith introduced by the obsequious flunkey. Did the Quaestor recognise his old friend? Our informant believes he did. He tells us that diligent search was made throughout the house; that nothing was found but a stove full of ashes, the remains of papers just burnt; that the Marquis was carried off by the police in his carriage, to make certain depositions, which meant nothing; and that the servant was left behind.
In like manner Mazzini was suffered to remain undisturbed in Pisa.
Dangerous though some timorous officials deemed him to be, the Government knew full well that he would be far more dangerous as a captive than as a free man.
To the citizens of Pisa his _incognito_ was so complete, that even the doctor who attended him in his last illness did not know his patient.
On the Wednesday before his death he wrote an article for the _Unita Italiana_ on Renan's book, ”La Reforme Intellectuelle et Morale de la France.” He talked rarely about politics even to his intimate friends.
Occasionally he would, however, break out into anathemas against the ”International”; his eyes would then flash fire, and he would use strong language against Ledru Rollin, Quinet, ”e tutti quanti,” who, he would say, ”might have saved France, but who, by mere inaction, had abandoned her to the most pernicious of impossible delusions.”
The news that his remains had been embalmed by Professor Zorini and placed in a metal coffin, into which a gla.s.s had been inserted, with a view to exhibiting them on the anniversary of his death, raised an indignant protest from some of his nearest friends in England. They wrote warmly denouncing what they declared would most have wounded and outraged him. ”His whole life,” says Madame Venturi, in a letter to an Italian friend, ”was one long protest against materialism, and they make of his sacred corpse a lasting statue of materialism, and of his monument an altar to the idolatry of matter. Write to the people and tell them that he expressed a wish to lie by the side of his mother.”
The truth concerning the matter which led to so warm a protest, is this: Mazzini was only partially embalmed, and lay in state in a small room on the ground floor of the Casa Rosselli. A tricolour flag covered his breast, and a laurel wreath crowned his head. A plaster cast and a photograph had been taken by Alinari. On the birthday of the King of Italy and of his son the remains of their potent adversary were carried on a simple car to the railway station outside the Porta Nuova. The pall-bearers were six of his nearest friends, besides a student and a working-man; deputations from neighbouring cities, and crowds of sympathisers, formed a procession and lined the streets. Conspicuous on the coffin was a wreath with the inscription, ”The Americans to Mazzini”; it had been placed there by the consular representatives of the United States. On its arrival in Genoa, the remains lay in state again, but for one day only. Then better counsels, more in harmony with the patriot's wishes, prevailed, and his body was placed in the sepulchre, where no human eye has seen it since. His burial-place was selected next to that of his mother, and now her tomb is enclosed with his.
It was after his death only that the great agitator's life-work began to be fully recognised by his countrymen. A reaction set in in his favour; the Parliament of Rome pa.s.sed a resolution expressing the grief of the nation at the death of ”The Apostle of Italian Unity”; public meetings were held, and many were the marks of respect paid to him throughout Italy.
This seemed to me an opportune moment to add my small tribute to his memory, so I called on the Marquis d'Azeglio, then Italian amba.s.sador to England, and offered to present my portrait of Mazzini to the Italian nation, that it might be placed in one of their public galleries. But I was to be disappointed, for the marquis bowed me out, very politely, I must say, but fully giving me to understand that it was one thing to tolerate the demonstrations in favour of Mazzini, and another to do honour to him and his portrait. The picture has since gone through one or two similar experiences. What will become of it eventually I do not know, but I am happy to have it with me still.
On the second of November, some ten years ago, I happened to be in Genoa. It was the day of ”Tutti Morti” (All Souls' Day), the great holiday, tearful and cheerful, on which all good Catholics make their pilgrimage to the cemeteries where rest their departed friends. A steady stream of visitors was flowing towards the ”Cimetero di Staglieno.” I joined it, and was soon wandering through arcades filled with marble tributes to the memory of the dead, some of the sculptors' work being very beautiful. Then, across the Campo Santo--the consecrated field--all bedecked with flowers and garlands, I came to where the path winds upwards to the graves and monuments that dot the hills above. There stands Mazzini's tomb, a mausoleum worthy of the man, severe and solemn.
Two short, thick-set columns mark the entrance and carry a ma.s.sive stone, on which is inscribed in plain large characters the name ”Giuseppe Mazzini.” That day the monument and the surroundings seemed doubly impressive, for a guard of honour had been placed to hold watch by the great liberator's tomb. It was here, then, that the exile and the outlaw had at last found rest in the land he loved so well--in Genoa, the city of his birth.
I sought out a place from which I could make a water-colour sketch, and, as I sat painting, my thoughts reverted with reverence and with love to the master and to the friend.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER IX
ROSSINI
I well remember my first introduction to Madame Rossini in April 1854. I was sitting with the Maestro in his study one morning whilst he was finis.h.i.+ng his toilet; his valet had selected one of two brown wigs, and adjusted it on his ill.u.s.trious master's head, leaving the other, placed on a little stand, to ornament the mantelpiece. Next he brought him a silver bowl full of milk and one or two of those cunningly-twisted rolls or crescents, the very thought of which conveys to the appet.i.te's memory a whiff of dainty Paris.
Rossini liked to be informed of the latest news, meaning the up-to-date incidents in Paris society, and to be told what the wicked world was saying, and what _bons-mots_ the clever ones had made; so we young fellows were expected to drop in occasionally at an early hour in the morning and keep him posted up. His comments on our news were always much more _spirituels_ than the best of _bons-mots_ we could impart, and frequently a good deal more spicy than our versions of Parisian doings.