Recollections of the last four Popes and of Rome in their times

Preface

This work hardly requires any preface beyond the introductory matter contained in the first chapters ; a few words, therefore, will be here sufficient.

Every reader will expect this volume to present a view of the subject treated, different from what is presented by other writers. Tourists, politicians, lecturers, and newspaper writers, have given estimates of persons and events here mentioned, often contradictory to what they may appear in these pages. All that one can do in such a case is to require an impartial balance of evidence. Can those writers or speakers say that they have been present, or have witnessed what they describe, or that they have taken pains to test and verify the hearsay evidence which they have accepted ? At any rate, here is a writer's character pledged to the sincerity of his views, and to the correctness of his statements. If inaccuracy in any detail have crept in, where

4 PREFACE.

the narrative extends over so long a period, this cannot affect views which result from the continued observation of far more occurrences than could be specifically described.

This is not a history, nor a series of biographies, nor a journal, nor what are called memoirs. It is so much of a great moving picture as caught one person's eye, and remained fixed upon his memory: that portion of it which came nearest to him, touched him most closely, interested most deeply his feelings. The description of all this he has endeavored to give with fidelity, by recalling, as vividly as possible, the impressions which it produced at the time it passed before him, piece by piece. And let this sincere account of one witness have its place among the materials of a future historian, who may perhaps be searching for those, "by preference, which proceed not from anonymous sources, or secondary evidences, but from such as write what they have seen with their eyes, heard with their ears, and touched with their hands, and who, at the risk of unpopularity, fear not to subscribe their depositions.

It may be said that a darker and shadier side must exist in every picture : there must have been many crimes within and without the walls of Home, as well as of Troy, which are not even mentioned here ; there must have been men of wicked life as well as men adorned by Christian virtues, who are not alluded to ; much vice, corruption, misery, moral and physical, which

PREFACE. 5

form no part of our description. True ; there no doubt was, and no doubt is yet, plenty of all this. But there is no want of persons to seize upon it, and give it to the public in the most glowing, or most loathsome coloring. Provided they really describe what they have seen, it matters not ; let the historian blend and combine the various and contrasting elements of truthtelling witnesses. But to the author, such narratives would have been impossible. He does not retain in his memory histories of startling wickedness, nor pictures of peculiar degradation. He has seen much of the people, of the poorest from city and country, in the hospitals, where for years he has been happy in attending to their spiritual wants ; and he could tell about them just as many edifying anecdotes as tales of crime or woe. And as to wicked persons, it certainly was the providence of his early life not to be thrown into the society of the bad. He can add with sincerity that later he has not sought it. His familiars and friends have been naturally those who had been trained in the same school as himself ; and among the acquaintances of his foreign life, he hardly remembers one whose conduct or principles he knew or believed to be immoral. Had he found them so, he hopes the acquaintance would soon have been terminated.

His looks were, therefore, towards the virtuous ; their images stamped themselves habitually upon his mind's eye ; and the succession of these, forms the pleasing 1*

6 PREFACE.

recollections of many years. Of others he cannot speak ; and to do so would be, even if he could, uncongenial to him. Let the work then be taken for what it is, the recollections of four truly good and virtuous men, and of such scenes as they naturally moved in, and of such persons as they instinctively loved and honored.

London, March, 1858.

Contents

Dart \\t $ml

PIUS THE SEVENTH.

CHAPTER I. pa«

CHAPTER I. His Election . . . « • -191

CHAPTER n.

Character and Policy of Leo the Twelfth . . 207

CHAPTER HI.

Continuation ...... 222

CHAPTER IV.

The Jubilee 243

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER V.

PAGE

The Pope and the English College

.261

CHAPTER VI.

. 278

CHAPTER VH.

The English Cardinalate . . . .290

CHAPTER VIH.

Close of Leo's Pontificate . . . .307 fart % fjjirfc

PIUS THE EIGHTH.

CHAPTER I.

His Election and previous History . . .319

CHAPTER H.

Personal Character . . . . .331

CHAPTER HI.

French and English Cardinals . . . .338

CHAPTER IV.

The principal Events of the Pontificate . . .350

10 CONTEXTS.

GREGORY THE SIXTEENTH.

CHAPTER I.

His Consecration

Chapter I. The Author's First Arrival In Rome

It was on the 18th of December, 1818, that the writer of this volume arrived in Rome in company with five other youths, sent to colonize the English College in that city, after it had been desolate and uninhabited during almost the period of a generation.

It was long before a single steamer had appeared in the Mediterranean, or even plied between the French and English coasts. The land journey across France, over the Alps, and down Italy, was then a formidable undertaking, and required appliances, personal and material, scarcely compatible with the purposes of their journey. A voyage by sea from Liverpool to Leghorn was therefore considered the 2 (13> simplest method of conveying a party of ten persons from England to Italy.

It is not the purpose of this work to describe the adventures and perils, at which many might smile, of "the middle passage" and subsequent travel. It will be sufficient to say that the embarkation took place on the 2d of October, and the arrival late in December ; that, of this period, a fortnight was spent in beating up from Savona to Genoa, another week in running from Genoa to Livorno ; that a man fell overboard and was drowned off Cape St. Vincent ; that a dog went raving mad on board, from want of fresh water, and luckily, after clearing the decks, jumped or slipped into the sea ; that the vessel was once, at least, on fire ; and that all thj passengers were nearly lost in a sudden squall in Ramsay Bay, into which they had been driven by stress of weather, and where they of course landed : and the reader, who may now make the whole journey in four days, will indulgently understand how pleasing must have been to those early travellers' ears the usual indication, by voice and outstretched whip, embodied in the well-known exclamation of every vetturino, "Ecco Roma."

To one " lasso maris et viarum," like Horace, these words brought the first promise of approaching rest, the only assurance, after months of homelessness, that the bourn was reached, the harbor attained, where, at least for years to come, he would calmly devote himself to duties once more welcomed. A few miles only of weary hills — every one of which, from its summit, gave a more swelling and majestic outline to what so far constituted " Roma," that is, the great cupola, not of the church, but of the city, its only discernible part, cutting, like a huge peak, into the clear winter sky — and the long journey is ended, and ended by the full realization of well-cherished hopes.

To some, at least, of the first six who that day entered it, while the remainder followed more leisurely, Eome had been no new thought. Before any idea had been entertained of restoring the English College there, its history, its topography, its antiquities, had formed the bond of a little college society devoted to this queen of cities, while the dream of its longings had been the hope of one day seeing what could then only be known through hearsay tourists and fabulous plans. ' How faint must the hope have been of its fulfilment, when it involved a voyage thrice the length of one to America at present, and with its additional land journey, about as long as a circular sail, in a clipper, to New Zealand !

It has been written above, " maris et viarum ; " for the land ways were about as tedious and as perilous as the broad ocean path. For " there be land-sharks," or at least there were then, as dangerous as sea-sharks. At the little wretched hotel at Pontedero, the vetturino warned us, unfoundedly we really believe, to lock our doors; and as we communicated by pantomime more than by words as yet, he drew his hand across his thyroid gland with a most amiable expression of countenance. However, at Florence we were of course assured that the roads were most unsafe ; and two evidences of this met our eyes, though they carried with them some antidote of comfort. At that moment the dense woods which skirted the road near Bolsena were being cut down to a considerable distance on either side, by order of the government, so as to destroy the cover of human wolves, and give the traveller a chance of preparing for his defence, should they come so far beyond their favorite retreat ; for the bandit is naturally a prowler. But further, from time to time we passed tall posts on the wayside, not bearing along either the festooned garlands of the vine, or the strained harp-wires of the electric telegraph, both symbols of peace and harmony, but supporting ghastly trophies of justice avenged on the spot where crime had been committed, the limbs, still fresh, of executed outlaws.

Long-standing desires, then, were about to be satisfied at last ; and some degree of recent apprehension was going to be allayed, and welcome rest after long travel was promised ; when, at the end of the road which looks straight onwards from the Milvian Bridge, we could see the open gate of Rome.

That noble entrance was by no means then what it is now. On the outside, the gates of the Borghese villa did not stand near; but the visitor had to walk a long way under the wall of the city, overhanging his path, till a narrow gate led him into a long, close alley, the first of the villa. But within the Flaminian Gate, the obelisk indeed was there, as were the two twin churches beyond, closing, by their porticoes and domes, the wedges of houses between the three great divergent streets ; but that was all. The sculptured terraces of Monte Pincio had as yet no existence ; this was a green hill, scored by unshaded roads and chance-tracked paths to its more shapely summit. On the opposite side a long, low barrack-b'uilding..*fiM^cavalry formed a slovenly boundary to the amjj^s:quare, in which as yet had not risen the lofty an^ferssive edifices, hotels though they be, which now close its farther end. Still it was one of the grandest approaches to any modem city, and one that did not altogether deceive you. The slow pace of a veftura along the Corso gave an opportunity of admiring the magnificent palaces that flank it on both sides, till a turn to the rjight brings you into the square, of which the column of Antoninus forms the centre, and then a twist to the left places you before a row of pillars which likewise bears his imperial name,, but in addition a more modern one, unpleasant to travellers' ears — that of Custom House. Even this most distasteful department of civilized government contrives in Rome to get lodged in a classical monument of ancient taste.

From this point, after its disagreeable ceremonial had been completed, all reckoning was lost. A long, 2* narrow street, and the Pantheon burst full into view ; then a labyrinth of tortuous ways, through which a glimpse of a church or palace-front might be caught occasionally askew; then the small square opened on the eye, which, were it ten times larger, would be oppressed by the majestic, overwhelming mass of the Farnese palace, as completely Michelangelesque in brick as the Moses is in marble, when another turn and a few yards of distance placed us at the door of the "venerable English College." Had a dream, after all, bewildered one's mind, or at least closed the eager journey, and more especially its last hours, during which the tension of anxious expectation had wrought up the mind to a thousand fancies? No description had preceded actual sight. No traveller, since the beginning of the century, or even from an earlier period, had visited it or mentioned it It had been sealed up as a tomb for a generation ; and not one of those who were descending from the unwield}7 vehicle at its door had collected, from the few lingering patriarchs, once its inmates, who yet survived at home, any recollections by which a picture of the place might have been prepared in the imagination. Having come so far, somewhat in the spirit of sacrifice, in some expectation of having to " rough it," as pioneers for less venturesome followers, it seemed incredible that we should have fallen upon such pleasant places as the seat of future life and occupation.

Wide and lofty vaulted corridors ; a noble staircase leading to vast and airy halls succeeding one another ; a spacious garden, glowing with the lemon and orange, and presenting to one's first approach a perspective in fresco by Pozzi, one engraved by him in his celebrated work on perspective ; a library airy, cheerful, and large, whose shelves, however, exhibited a specimen of what antiquarians call " opus tumultuarium," in the pileclup, disorganized volumes, from folio to duodecimo, that crammed them ; a refectory wainscoted in polished walnut, and above that, painted, by the same hand, with St. George and the Dragon, ready to drop on to the floor from the groined ceiling ; still better, a chapel, unfurnished indeed, but illuminated from floor to roof with the saints of England, and celestial glories, leading to the altar that had to become the very hearthstone of new domestic attachments, and the centre of many yet untasted joys ; — such were the first features of our future abode, as, alone and undirected, we wandered through the solemn building, and made it, after years of silence, reecho to the sound of English voices, and give back the bounding tread of those who had returned to claim their own. And such, indeed, it might well look to them when, after months of being u cribbed, cabined, and confined " in a small vessel, and jammed in a still more tightly packed vettura, they found in the upper corridors, wide and airy as those below, just the right number of rooms for their party, clean and speckless, with every article of furniture, simple and collegiate though it was, yet spic-and-span new, and manifestly prepared for their expected arrival.

One felt at once at home ; it was nobody else's house ; it was English ground, a part of fatherland, a restored inheritance. And though, indeed, all was neat and trim, dazzling in its whiteness, relieved here and there by tinted architectural members, one could not but feel that we had been transported to the scene of better men and greater things than were likely to arise in the new era that day opened. Just within the great entrance door, a small one to the right led into the old church of the. Holy Trinity, which wanted but its roof to restore it to use. There it stood, nave and aisles, separated by pillars connected by arches, all in their places, with the lofty walls above them. The altars had been, indeed, removed; but we could trace their forms, and the painted walls marked the frames of the altar-pieces, especially of the noble painting by Durante Alberti, still preserved in the house, representing the Patron-Mystery, and St. Thomas of Canterbury, and St. Edward the Martyr. This vision of the past lasted but a few years ; for the walls were pronounced unsafe, and the old church was demolished, and the unsightly shell of a thoroughly modern church was substituted for the old basilica, under the direction of Yaladier, a good architect, but one who knew nothing of the feelings which should have guided his mind and pencil in such a work.

It was something, however, to see, that first day?

9 THE SEVENTH. 21

the spot revisited, where many an English pilgrim, gentle or simple, had knelt, leaning on his trusty staff cut in Needwood or the New Forest, where many a noble student ■ from Bologna or Padua had prayed in forma pauperis, as he was lodged and fed, when, before returning home, he came to visit the tomb of the Apostles ; and still more, where many and many a student, like those now gathered there, had sobbed his farewell to the happy spring days, and the quiet home of youth, before starting on his weary journey to the perils of evil days in his native land. Around lay scattered memorials of the past. One splendid monument, erected to Sir Thomas Dereham at the bottom of the church, was entirely walled up and roofed over, and so invisible. But shattered and defaced lay the richly efhgied tombs of an Archbishop of York, and a Prior of Worcester, and of many other English worthies ; while sadder wreckage of the recent storm was piled on one side, — the skulls and bones of, perhaps, Cardinal Allen, F. Persons, and others, whose coffins had been dragged up from the vaults below, and converted into munitions of war.

And if there was required a living link between the present and the past, between the young generation that stood at the door and the old one that had passed into the ciypt of the venerable church, there it was, in the person of the more than octogenarian porter Vincenzo, who stood,

22 THE LAST FOUR POi

all salutation from the wagging appendage to his gray head to the large silver buckles on his shoes, mumblinsr toothless welcomes in a vet almost unknown tongue, but full of humble joy and almost patriarchal affection, on seeing the haunts of his own youth repeopled.

Chapter II. The First Audience

This second chapter, it may be imagined; ought to open with an apology for the first. For, what interest can the reader be supposed to take in its personal details ? or what bearing can it have on the subject of this work? The first portion of this question it might be presumptuous to answer ; the second is entitled to a reply. A writer who is not going to compile from others, but to give his own impressions, recollections, or opinions, who is not composing a history from other people's materials, but seeking to contribute his own share, however slight, to the stock of future collectors, is bound to establish some claim to the credit of his readers/ If he cannot advance any on the grounds of past diligence or present skill, of careful observation or graphic power, he must at least endeavor to gain that right, which casual circumstances and fortuitous position may confer upon him, to belief and attention.

Now, for any one born within the precincts of the present century to venture on giving his personal observations or recollections of nearly forty years ago, in a distant country, to assert that he had oppor-

24 THE LAST FOUR POi

trinities, from so remote a period clown to the present time, of not merely hearing, but of seeing, what can illustrate the character of successive sovereigns on one throne, — still more, to begin his notes by stating that, within a few days of his arrival at its seat, he was familiarly in the presence of its occupant, — gives reason enough for a cautious reader to ask, How came this to pass, and what can justify belief in such an improbability?

It is the answer to this inquiry that has been attempted in the first chapter. Not in the garb of a courtier, bred in the palace-halls, not by the privilege of dignity or station, but in the simple habit of a collegian, and through the claim of filial rights upon a common father, was an early approach secured, to the feet of the good and holy Pius VII

It certainly makes one feel old when one counts one's life by five pontificates ; but this is surely compensated, to a Catholic mind, by the reflection, that each venerated possessor of that exalted dignity has shed his blessing upon one portion or other of its existence, from the buoyant and hopeful time of early youth, to heavier and sadder hours. This unbroken continuance of a kindness which amounts to a grace, requires a peculiarity of position that has no claim to merit, and therefore may be freely mentioned. The pages which follow will require this freedom, already commenced in the foregoing chapter ; if so, let this one apology suffice for the volume: Nor will it appear unnatural, that a relation so established, between condescending goodness on one side and reverent affection on the other, — a relation which the reader may call chance, and the writer Providence, — should be found and felt by the favored party to have exercised an influence on his pursuits, his thoughts, and the whole direction of his life.

The event to which the first chapter relates — the Establishment of the suppressed English College, in Rome — was the work, almost spontaneous, of Pius, and his great minister Cardinal Consalvi. It may be not uninteresting to return to this subject hereafter. For the present thus much may suffice. Although a rector, and one fully qualified for his office, had been in possession of the house for a year, the arrival of a colony of students was the real opening of the establishment. On the day alluded to, the excellent superior, the Eev. Eobert Gradwell, on returning home, found the first instalment of this important body really installed in his house, to the extent of having converted to present use the preparations for his own frugal and solitary meal.

The event was of sufficient magnitude to be communicated to the secretary of state; and the answer was, that as man}' of the party as could be provided with the old and hallowed costume of the English College, should be presented to the Holy Father within a few days. Among the more fortunate ones, owing to a favorable accident, was the present writer.

The feelings of any one permitted to approach that most venerable man had necessarily a color and vividness beyond those inspired by his dignity and office. His history had been mixed up with that of the world, and its very anecdotes were fresh in memory. To the young especially, who remembered him only in a position so different from his natural one, as a captive and a persecuted Pontiff, who had almost learnt to disjoin the idea of the supreme rule of the Church from all the pomp and even power of worldly state, and to associate it with prisons and bonds, as in the early ages, there was the halo of the confessor round the tiara of Pius, that eclipsed all gold and jewels. His portrait had been familiar to us, but it was that not of a High Priest, clad in "the vesture of holiness," but of an aged man bending over the crucifix in search of its consolations, and speaking those words which had been made sacred by his constant utterance — " May the holy and adorable will of God be ever done ! " Then had come the news of his wonderful triumphs, his humble victory, scarcely less astonishing than that of arms. He had been rescued from his durance not by the power of man, not by the armies that had almost hemmed in his prison, but by that higher will, that keeps in its own hands the hearts of kings, and turns them at pleasure. The same stern command which had torn him from his palace and borne him away, had set him free, or rather ordered his restoration. To this, indeed, had succeeded another danger and temporary retreat ; so that the final settlement of the Holy Pontiff in his clominions, and their restoration in their integrity,* had only occurred three years before, and bore the character of recent events. As yet indeed one might almost have said, that the triumphal arches and garlands of his joyful entry into Rome had scarcely faded, and that the echoes of the welcome cries that greeted him still lingered among the seven hills. For the people all spoke of them as things of yesterday,

It was not therefore to be tt presented to the Pope," as the current phrase runs, that awaited us, at least in its ordinary sense. To every Catholic, and to a young ecclesiastic of course in particular, this must be an event in life : and the ceremony combines a double feeling, elsewhere impossible, composed of the reverence paid to a sovereign and the homage due to the supreme Head of our religion. From the monarch we accept with gratification a condescending word, from the Pope that word we receive as a blessing. When to the natural emotions thus inspired by the union in one person of the double rank of sovereignty and supremacy, we add the more individual sentiment which the personal character of Pope Pius VII. excited in our minds, it will be easily conceived, that our hearts beat with more than usual speed, and not without some little flurry, as we ascended the great staircase of the Quirinal palace on Christmas-eve, the day appointed for audience. This is

* By the Treaty of Vienna, June 9th, 1815.

a different entrance from the one now generally used. After passing through the magnificent Sala Regia, you proceed through a series of galleries adorned with fine old tapestry, and other works of art, though furnished with the greatest simplicity. The last of these was the antechamber to the room occupied by the Pope. After a short delay, we were summoned to enter this ; a room so small that it scarcely allowed space for the usual genuflections at the door, and in the middle of the apartment. But instead of receiving us, as was customary, seated, the mild and amiable Pontiff had risen to welcome us, and meet us as we approached. He did not allow it to be a mere presentation, or a visit of ceremony. It was a fatherly reception, and in the truest sense our inauguration into the duties that awaited us. It will be best, however, to give the particulars of this first interview with the occupant of St. Peter's Chair in the words of a memorandum entered, probably that day, in the Rector's journal.

u Dec. 24. Took six of the students to the Pope. The other four could not be clothed. The Holy Father received them standing, shook hands with each and welcomed them to Rome. He praised the English clergy for their good and peaceful conduct, and their fidelity to the Holy See. He exhorted the youths to learning and piety, and said, ' I hope you will do honor both to Rome and to your own country.' "

Such is the writer's first personal recollection of a Pope, and that Pope the illustrious Pius VII. Whatever we had read of the gentleness, condescension, and sweetness of his speech, his manner, and his expression, was fully justified, realized,' and made personal. It was not from what we had heard, but from what we had seen and experienced, that we must needs now revere and love him. The friendly and almost national grasp of the hand, after clue homage had been willingly paid, between the Head of the Catholic Church, venerable by his very age, and a youth who had nothing even to promise; the first exhortation on entering a course of ecclesiastical study — its very inaugural discourse, from him whom he believed to be the fountain of spiritual wisdom on earth; — these surely formed a double tie, not to be broken, but rather strengthened by every subsequent experience. yf ^ I know not how a dignitary of any other religion, though holding no royal power and majesty, would receive a body of youths about to devote themselves to the service of his creed; nor whether he would think it worth while to admit them at all to an interview. But to Rome there flock, from every region of earth, aspirants to the ecclesiastical state, — in boyhood, and well nigh in childhood, speaking as many languages as are attributed to the Apostles on the clay of Pentecost ; and yet, perhaps, hardly one fails to come into personal contact with him, towards whom from infancy he has looked up as the most exalted person in the 3* world. Soon after his first arrival he receives an early blessing on his future career, accompanied often with a few kind words, unfailingly with a benign look. That brief moment is an epoch in life, perhaps a starting-point for success. For the general attachment that united him with millions to the Head of his Church, there is established a personal bond, an individual connection. It is no longer awe and distant reverence, but an affection as distinct in character as that to one intimately related. And this relation is strengthened in the youthful mind at every succeeding year of his course. He knows that every professor whose lectures he hears has been directly and immediately appointed, after careful selection, by the Pope himself; that everv class-book which he reads has received the same supreme sanction ; he feels himself almost under the direct tuition of the Holy See : however pure and sparkling the rills at which others may drink, he puts his lips to the very rock, which a divine wand has struck, and he sucks in its waters as they gush forth living.