Lionello. A sequel to the Jew of Verona

Front matter

I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. #

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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Preface

bodies with a frightful pestilence, should poison our minds with its pernicious doctrines and examples ! Such a consummation we may deem unlikely : nevertheless, if we wish to profit by the warnings of history, we will shun all communication with knaves and hypocrites and assassins, rebels not only against society and lawfully-constituted governments, but against God and His commandments ;

“ilia propago,

We will resist manfully and religiously the tendencies of a material age which clouds the mind and hardens the heart against all that is noblest in our nature and worthiest of our aspirations; which, making gods of perishable goods, and a heaven of the earth on which we sojourn, alienates us from our Creator and debars us from our permanent dwelling. We will, above all, secure to the young generation due instruction and discipline at home, sound and religious education in schools, under competent and trustworthy teachers ; throw around it timely and adequate defences against the sophistry, extravagances, and

PREFACE.

vices of the world, against the snares and wickedness of secret societies. The memoirs of Lionello illustrate these points, and furnish the thoughtful reader with useful and admirable lessons. We commend the work to parents especially, and guardians.

CONTENTS,

PAGE

Chap. I. — The Suicide 9 II. — Lionello 16

III. — Childhood 20

IY. — Servants 25

Y. — The Preceptor 38

YI. — Studies 56

YII. — The University 64

YIII. — The Police Prison 85

IX. — The Hospital of St. Servolo 101

X. — The Vendite and the Secret Propagandist of

Carbonarism 117

XI.— The Oath 187

XII. — The Last Grades 148

XIII. — The Practices of Carbonarism 160

XI Y.— The Sepulchre of Galla Placidia 165

XV. — Ariel and Horalice 182

XYI. — The Return of the Carbonaro 198

Contents

PAGE

Chap. XVII. — The Great St. Bernard 204

XVIII.— Masonry 223

Chapter II. Lionello

After this shocking event, which cast a gloom over their souls, the friends of Bartolo advised him, in order to divert her mind, to make an excursion with Alisa to the charming groves of Chablais. They added that, as the heat of June was becoming oppressive, the party could enjoy the refreshing shades of the country about Evian, whose hill-sides were wooded with frequent clumps of walnut, chestnut, and oak trees. Bartolo joyfully embraced the suggestion. Necessary preparations were accordingly made to spend a few days at a villa. Lando was commissioned to hire a bark, and early the following day they hoisted a sail and dipped their oars in the waters of the lake. A light breeze swelled the canvas and seconded the efforts of the rowers. The lake seemed to rise from its slumbers and welcome the morning zephyrs which disported over the limpid waves, and the twinkling stars which gleamed upon it paled before Venus in all her loveliness, — bright harbinger of the god of day. Swallows, emerging from their nests in the hospitable houses which dot the verdant banks of the lake, dart over its bosom in joyous crowds, and salute, with twittering acclaim, the rising sun. Sometimes they soar into the upper air, sometimes they skim the surface of the water with rapid wing, like a stone which ricochets from a vigorous arm.

Our excursionists watched their gambols with delight. Alisa, seated near the stern of the vessel, gazed silently

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on the beauty of the heavens, pictured with varied dyes on the tremulous waters. As they glided by an inlet, a melodious lark shot like an arrow into the sky, fluttered for a while over their heads, and thrilled the air with a capricious song, — rests, passages, quavers, and refrains. Alisa was enchanted with his warblings and his frolics, as he plunged like a stone to the lake, and then cleaved the sky to recommence his carols with ecstatic voice.

“I see,” she murmured to herself, “how easily we can unite with labor hymns of praise to the glory of God and acts of thanksgiving for the love and mercy which he evinces toward his creatures. This lark traverses the sky, he goes and comes, he mounts and descends, with unwearied voice and a ceaseless canticle. And we, — we, made by the hand of God, endowed with intelligence, and stamped with his image, pass entire days without a word of praise or thought of gratitude ! All creatures strive, with rival zeal, to do him honor, — the dawn which is brightening the horizon, this sparkling lake, this air so pure and balmy, that tinted and serene sky, the birds pouring sweet notes on the morning air, yon fields of golden grain undulating beneath the zephyr’s breath, the mellow fruits, the earth arrayed in her rarest charms. And thy heart, Alisa, thy heart is cold ! I coast along these shores, once marked with the footprints of St. Francis de Sales, when, through numberless toils and perils, he journeyed in quest of heretics to reclaim them to catholic faith and the love of God. 0 Lord and Saviour ! deign to separate me from self, for too often have I strayed from thee, the sovereign good ! I feel that my heart is no longer at

peace ; I feel that poor Aser oh, yes ! he is with

2*

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thee; he reposes in the midst of thy pure light, and bids me suppress these vain repinings.”

Even amid the tranquil beauties of nature Alisa was troubled by painful emotions; but she found alleviation of her sorrows, in the nobleness of her heart and the purity of her affection. She had recourse to prayer : and in that prayer she experienced consolations to which young persons of her sex addicted to novel-reading will ever be entire strangers.

As fancies flitted in succession through her mind, Alisa endeavored to banish her gloomy thoughts by fixing her attention on the beauties of the landscape, the bright vistas from the shores of the lake, the lofty summits of the mountains which bounded the horizon, the hills crowned with forest-trees, the gray turrets of time-worn castles, the noble palaces surmounting the acclivities-, the rich and yellow harvests waving in the sunlight. She saw fishermen on the rocks and the j utting land, casting their long lines into the lake and sweeping the shore with their nets to catch minnows and shrimps and roaches ; she saw others, again, fixing their weirs, dipping their nets, hauling their seines for the finny tribe. Perfectly delighted with these views, our party reached the villa which Bartolo had rented. It stood on a hillock surrounded on two sides by a smiling valley, through which flowed a fresh-water stream shaded with alders, poplars, and weeping-willows. Prom the northern declivity on which it stood, the inmates descended, by steps bordered with tufted edges of myrtle, savins, and tamarisk, into a beautiful meadow, where a thousand native flowers admired their charms in the limpid rivulet. In the midst of the lawn towered a venerable linden; and under its broad

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and shady branches stood two benches, face to face, entwined with fragrant jessamines. To this retired spot Bartolo and his friends were wont to repair after dinner; and there, under the dense foliage on the margin of the streamlet, they listened, amid the warblings of birds, to Mimo, who read the autograph memoirs of Lionello, written for the instruction of Italian youths.

They satisfactorily prove that noble birth, excellence of character, an ingenuous soul, the fairest endowments of the understanding and the most amiable qualities of the heart, cannot resist the pernicious influence of a mischievous system of education and the perverse habits of early life. Here was a young man lured from his studies, the arms of his parents, the delights and duties of a chaste and virtuous love, to cast himself into the arms of base and vicious men. His memoirs will serve as a dreadful lesson to parents and to children, — a salutary lesson for the inexperienced who cross the threshold of social life at an epoch distracted by so many revolutionary ideas.

The victim of profound melancholy, Lionello (as we learn from these writings) was nevertheless a man of lively and amiable disposition. Transported in imagination beyond the present, he often reverted to his youth, and clung to its reminiscences with a feverish delight, fearful to break the illusion and renew the consciousness of a crushing reality. It will be well for the reader to keep this characteristic in view, that he may not be startled, in the course of this narrative, to find a man mingling, with the horrors of dejection and remorse, serene thoughts and delightful memories. Ah ! it is no uncommon yearning of the wretched to

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temper their present misery by the recollection of halcyon days. Writers of fiction who invariably surround their heroes with tragic events misinterpret or misrepresent the human heart.

Chapter III. Childhood

I was born of one of the noblest families of Italy, the very year that the Emperor Napoleon married, at Paris, Marie Louise, daughter of Francis I., Emperor of Austria. My parents lived in great state. No one rivalled them in splendid equipages, brilliant f£tes, and sumptuous entertainments. Their saloons were adorned with corresponding magnificence ; their balls and soirdes, in the city during the winter, in the country during the summer, were superb. The display at the latter season, was on a grander scale. The castle occupied a very handsome site, about three miles from the city ; and broad, excellent roads made the demesne very accessible to our friends who thronged around us in May and October. A spacious and elegant mansion, well- cultivated gardens, a shady park stocked with roes, harts, and fallow-deer, aviaries containing native and exotic birds, dairies abounding in the milk of Swiss cows, ponds supplied with fish, avenues laid out with taste and neatly kept, thick greenswards trimmed and enclosed, with edges regularly clipped, — these, and other attractions, invited the friends of the family to visit our enchanting abode, and spend, in divers diversions, balls,

CHILDHOOD.

and banquets, the loveliest days of spring and autumn.

My father had there hospitably entertained Napoleon as he passed on his way to the Italian war. The emperor invited him to his marriage, treated him with marked distinction, and decorated him with the noble insignia of the Legion of Honor. From this period my father maintained intimate relations with the marshals of the empire, and at Milan frequented the court of the Viceroy of Italy. After the conflagration of Moscow and the severe reverses at the passage of the Beresina and at Leipsic, after successive levies of conscripts which mowed down the youth of Italy, lists were opened for volunteers, under the name of “Italian Cohorts.” These new recruits were distinguished from the other soldiers by the galloons which they wore on their arms and breasts. The friends and adherents of the emperor rivalled each other in extraordinary efforts to furnish these last succors. My father completely equipped and paid ten men, — six foot-soldiers and four horsemen. It would be difficult to compute the outlay for this force, exclusive of the cost of sixteen horses which he yielded for the service of the artillery, and which were sent into Germany, with the horses of other Italian noblemen.

Notwithstanding his relations to the court and his intercourse with the great officers of the crown and the generals of the empire, — most of them sprung from the heart of the revolution and the bosom of secret societies,— my father never belonged to a masonic lodge. Napoleon observed an exquisite simplicity of manner in his communication with the French and the Italian noblesse. He affected no arrogant airs and aristocratic lordliness. He was content with a retinue and neces-

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sary adornments. Noblemen, grouped around him, were like the pictures of Baphael, Titian, and Correggio, which are suspended from gilded panels in costly palaces, or like the long train of a court-lady’s amaranthine robe. My mother, descended from a patrician family of Venice, a stanch asserter of the grandeur of the doges and procurators of St. Mark, expressed stateliness in every word and movement ; but she possessed the art of qualifying, with feminine ease and grace and delicacy, a queenly carriage of nobility and high-toned propriety. Nevertheless, she was modest, pious, generous, — ever receiving with unaffected kindness the parish-priest or good ecclesiastic who came to expose to her the wants of an honest family, or poor girl, or infirm widow. At the ball and evening party, she outshone the ladies of her circle by the magnificence of her receptions. My father and mother educated me in this system of vain and ridiculous pageantry, and held me aloof from the inferior nobility and simple citizens. Had I been born ten years earlier, it might perhaps have been fortunate for me to escape the mischievous consequences of a training in the lyceums of Napoleon. The spirit which presided over these institutions was not always unexceptionable; the choice of students and masters was not, at times, determined by an examination sufficiently rigorous. But in 1820, Italy possessed excellent schools and colleges, in which science and letters were taught with all the advantages which result from the constant emulation, struggle, and contact of scholars distinguished by different talents, characters, habits, manners, and tastes.

In this respect the noble families of France, England, Spain,. Belgium, and Germany have more sense than

CHILDHOOD.

ours ; for it is a sad spectacle to see the Italian noblesse addicted to indolence and frivolities, or enslaved by perfidious conspirators who plunge them into the abyss of disorder and treasonable associations. I appeal to Italy to confirm the truth of my assertion. Where was the man among them, in 1847 and in 1848, to promote the welfare of the people? Pusillanimity, fears, fallacies, weak or malicious complicity with the conspirators, — this is the part which they played !

The nobles deplore the condition of Italy, subject to the resistless power of the people, who hold its destinies in their hands ; who agitate, overthrow, — trample the country under their feet. Whose fault is it? — the people’s? No! they are more to be pitied than condemned. The fault lies with the Italian patricians, who, in the gloom of their old palaces, educate their sons like women, in idleness, effeminacy, foppery, and pride. Let them, if they wish to place their children on a level with the people, rear, fashion, and instruct them in the public arena of talent, science, and virtue. I will say, with Pandolph, “that a system of public education teaches youth in an admirable manner the proprieties of social life; surrounds them with examples to avert their hearts from vice ; places immediately under their eyes the rewards of honor, uprightness, glory united with justice and virtue; enables them to appreciate the delights of merited eulogy, of the esteem and distinction which recompense noble actions. Influenced by these considerations, the young are fired with emulation, and march on bravely in the path of duty which leads to renown and immortality.” Of what avail is an ardent and generous temper, if you educate your child in petticoats, under the care of a

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private tutor, — a family teacher? His spirit will languish and decay in utter inability to aspire to grand and noble thoughts.

During the long peace of the past century, whilst faith was still alive and vigorous in the heart of Italy, authority held sacred in the eyes of men, and the nobility surrounded by the profound veneration, love, and gratitude of the inferior orders, domestic education, remote from the public gaze, might be defended on the ground that it was necessary, to maintain the reverence due to rank and birth. But, in the present condition of society, this system is no longer applicable. The nobles must signalize their merit, to win the esteem, respect, and confidence of the people. Whether they wish it or not, they are obliged, in a thousand circumstances, to come in contact with the public. They are controlled by lawyers and physicians. A home-bred man is like a house-sparrow which ventures for the first time to fly in the garden. The attempt is so uncertain, distressing, and hazardous, that it is glad to light on the first roof it meets ; and whilst, out of breath, it strives to ply its wings again, the cat pounces upon it, plucks, and pitilessly devours its prey.

Here is my history. I am quite sure that few young men will proceed so far as my self-will has carried me. Nevertheless, I design these memoirs of my wanderings and misfortunes as a beacon to point out the dangerous shoals which menace other imprudent youths like myself with a deplorable shipwreck. Oh, dear Josephine! why did I not listen to you ? — why did I not follow your advice whilst I still had time to repair my first faults? Who now will rescue me from this abyss ? — what means shall I employ to calm this remorse which agitates my soul?

THE SERVANTS.

Chapter IV. The Servants

When I left the nursery, my mother gave me in charge to the aunt of her waiting-maid. She was a Friulian, an excellent creature. Hers was a complexion of the lily and the rose, — the Friulians have the healthiest blood in their veins, — a cheerfulness frank and loud, a heart open and generous, a tongue of unrestrained volubility, especially after she had taken half a glass of spirits. At such moments, if she had nobody else to talk to, she poured out upon me, in rich Venetian, apostrophes like these: “Oh, you sweet one! you precious! my heart’s pet! you pretty creature! you darling, you! give me a kiss!” Then, seizing my cheeks and squeezing them between her hands, she pressed her lips to my pouting mouth with a smack so loud that the old housekeeper exclaimed, “ Gracious me ! what kisses ! Why, you make as much noise as Landro, the coachman, with his sneezings. But these Venetians” —

“And pray, Mistress Bridget, what have you to say against the Venetians? Let me tell you,” — here she put me on a table covered with linen, and almost buried me in a mountain of sheets, — “let me tell you, the Venetians have tongues of gold, hearts of queens : they are types of fidelity. They have eyes, and don’t see ; ears, and don’t hear; tongues, and don't speak.”

“ Oh, as for that last,” said the old woman, with a

smile and a dry cough, “as for the tongue”

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“ Yes, maam. Now, just listen. When I was in the family of his excellency, one of the Council of Ten, madam’s grandfather, that old big-wig that made all Venice tremble : — : ah ! he was a man, you know, — if you only could have seen him in his wrapper, as I’ve seen him often, sticking his hands in his sleeves : what a sight ! He called me and told me to hand the box of Cyprus powder to Menego, his valet.

“ ‘ Teresa,’ said he, ‘you will inform her ladyship’ —

“‘Yes, my lord.'

“ ‘ You will inform her ladyship, my wife, that we will have at dinner, to-day, his excellency Signor Grandenigo, his excellency Signor Morosin, and his excellency Signor Loredan.’

“ ‘ Has your lordship any more commands ?'

- “I was then only a slip of a girl, but as spry as a mouse ; and whilst Menego was busy in shaking over the old gentleman’s wig the Cyprus powder, like flakes of snow, (dear me, mistress Bridget, what creatures men are !) I went to inform the old lady, and then went back to my duties ; and, pshew ! I didn’t tell a word about the dinner to anybody but Zanetto, the waiter ; Baptista, and Togno, and Alvise, the cooks ; Procola, the butler ; Luzietta, our young lady’s waiting-maid — oh ! wasn’t she beautiful ! Ah ! let me tell you ; she was the mother of her ladyship, the countess. Bless me, mistress Bridget, what a figure she made ! she had her hair dressed almost a foot high. I’m not joking, you know ; for I measured it myself. And, dear me, Luzietta — she was a famous waiting-maid too. She was my niece, — yes ; but that’s neither here nor there. She knew what she was about : she was so handy. Some-

THE SERVANTS.

times she fixed the lady countess’s hair in the fashion Maria Amelia, sometimes in the fashion Maria Luigia; and that is more difficult than the Sevign^ curls. But to come back to our old master and the dinner : I didn’t breathe a word about it. I just gave a hint to Miss Rosanna, who had charge of the table-linen, in order that she might bring out his excellency’s Flemish cloths and napkins, marked with his arms. He had tablecloths for twelve courses, for twenty-four, for thirty-six, and all of one piece. Then I spoke of it to Ninetta; and then”

“And then, and then, and then,” cried the old housekeeper, with a husky voice, “you went blabbing it about the whole house.”

Poor Margarita discovered that she had been too communicative, and merited the reply of Bridget. She took me off the pile of linen, which I had more or less deranged and rumpled, and carried me away in her arms, talking and chattering with everybody she met in the corridors and apartments of the women. Thus tattle is our first school, and, if it serves no other purpose, it loosens our tongues. We have reason to thank Providence for the result ; for, if we were not reared by women, we would run great risk of being dumb all our lives. In the morning, when Margarita had washed me, put on a clean bib, and nicely combed my hair, she' took me to my mother, who, in her morning gown, was getting her hair dressed by Bettina.

“Oh, Hello, come, give mamma a kiss. My treasure! my little darling ! Margarita, did you make him say his prayers ?”

“ Oh, yes, your ladyship : how could I forget that ? As for us Venetians, we are too good Christians, my

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lady, to neglect our duty. I don’t wish to boast, but you know, your ladyship, that it is our custom never to go out of the house without saying a Pater and an Ave; and then we go straight to mass at the church of our Lady of Safety. My poor good mother, when we were going to Frari, heard three masses every day.”

“Very right, Margarita.”

“ I make Nello say all the prayers I learned from my mother: the Angele Lei; the Lord , I thank you ; the Pequie; and then the Sacred Wounds , in Friulian. Oh, your ladyship, Nello puts them all together so nicely, you know, in Friulian and Venetian.”

During this conversation, I was busy teasing the lapdog, Thisbe, rummaging the toilet-table, and tossing about pomatum, tooth-brushes, sponges, ivory combs, nail-files, and the caskets in which my mother put her jewels every night.

“ Nello, take care I Nello, don’t go there ! Nello, don’t touch that ! Why do you pinch poor little Thisbe? Come here, Thisbe: jump up on my lap. Margarita, take away the child.”

Margarita took me into the garden. There I chased the butterflies, dipped my hands in the trench-rills made to water the lawns, amused myself by throwing dry leaves on the surface to see them float along, often waded about up to my knees, whilst Margarita was prating with the gardener or collecting a bouquet of roses for the madonna of the wardrobe. From the garden I passed to the stables ; and there a groom in a smock-frock lifted me up and put me on Sultan, or on Cossack , or on Zenohia, my mother’s white mare. Then I played with the horse’s mane, kicked its sides, told it

THE SERVANTS.

to get along. Sometimes Margarita carried me to tlie kitchen, and let me put my fingers into the pies and sauces. By the time I had finished my rambling among the dishes and sauce-pans, my face and hands were in a sorry plight. Margarita everywhere found subjects for gossiping. She had a fund of tales, news, tattle, rumors, backbiting, and endless chit-chat; and when, thanks to me, she had pried into every thing, from the top of the house to the bottom, she went to the women's apartments, and there, especially during meals, opened her budget of news.

Early in the evening the servants used to take a walk. When I was quite small, they carried me in their arms ; when I was five or six years old, I trudged along by their side. Sometimes I was dressed in the Greek fashion, with a handsome purple jacket; sometimes as a little Mameluke, in braided clothes, yellow Turkish slippers, a red calbak, and a cimiter by my side ; sometimes in the Scotch highland garb, coat and bonnet of red and green plaid, with legs bare to the knees. In 1814, I figured as a voltigeur or dragoon, with a casque of tiger-skin ; in 1825, 1 was a Hungarian, Hulan, or Sclavonian hussar. On holidays, Margarita dressed in her green kirtle and plaited gown looked very well, in spite of her fifty odd years. She was quite conscious of this fact, and, consequently, on these occasions she moved along with a statelier pace, and forbade the footman to follow her but at the respectful distance of a couple of yards. I must not forget to add that she was often accompanied by one of the underw r ardrobe maids, or the porter's daughter ; and, as she was outside of the city, she entered the village inn, played a game of cards, admitted Gaetano to her pre-

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sence, and graciously drank with him a small glass of liquor.

When I had grown older, she passed me over to Bettina, her niece, who, in her capacity of my mother’s waiting-woman, dressed my sister Josephine, occasionally, as a peasant- girl, and took her out to walk. We played together in the meadows. Bettina had important secrets to commurdcate to Carluccio, my father’s page, who, dressed in an English tight-bodied coat, a livery-hat, long horseman’s boots, and white Grenoble gloves, waited upon us, and carried under his arm my sister’s shawl and a gauze hoop-net to catch butterflies. Little attention is paid to children ; and yet the children of the rich are more liable to be corrupted than others, who are reared with a jealous and watchful solicitude under the immediate eyes of their parents, whilst the children of the nobility spend their childhood and part of their youth amid the dulness and frivolities of male and female servants. High-born ladies are very culpable in disencumbering themselves of all trouble and responsibility, because their female attendants have been recommended by some worthy marchioness, or duchess, or dignified clergyman, or canon,, or even confessor. Servants are all alike. When they enter the family, they are good and artless ; but they are soon spoiled by the atmosphere of our palaces. Were they naturally the best people in the world, and remarkably modest, they would soon show their ignorance and narrowmindedi prejudices, superstition, silliness, and tattling disposition. And yet these are the first instructors of our young nobles. I recollect that when I was little more than two feet high, I was told to kiss my hand to elderly females. I was imperious in my will and absolute in my commands. At the age of six or seven years, I knew the extent of my father's possessions, and the amount of his revenues. I was able to number his estates, palaces, villas. I knew, too, every thing about the lives and deaths of my ancestors, and their wonderful deeds, as well as of my grandparents, uncles, aunts, and all my kindred to the third generation. I was no stranger to all the frolics of my father, from his childhood to the period of his marriage.

When I flew into a passion, the aged domestic Oliva never failed to say, “Just like the count! positively his excellency over again! When he was ten years old, nobody could manage him except Don Ermenigildo. How often did he come to us in search of him, and say to me, in confidence; ‘Oliva, I am utterly at a loss what to do with this troublesome youngster.' And I replied ; ‘ Be patient, Don Ermenigildo : he won't be always a youngster. One of these days he is to be sole heir : he will be our master. You know well that he will succeed to two immense patrimonies, — that of Marquis Caesar, which is worth more than a hundred thousand sequins. Whew ! a mere trifle ! And then the palace on the square, and the castle, and the whole village, in which the ancient lords had the right of coining money and the jura sanguis* In a word, they were princes. And then the inheritance of Bali Mercantonio. Ah, Bali is the right measure ! Cheer up, Don Ermenigildo.’ Well, he took things quietly, and now he’s got a fat pension, a nice benefice worth one hundred and fifty crowns, board and lodging; whilst I, unlucky woman, here pshaw !”

* The feudal right of barons, in the Middle Ages, of pronouncing sentence of death in their own courts,— jura sanguinis.

And then she turned to me, and, lpssing my hand, said, with tears in her eyes ; “ Master Lionello, you will one day have all that; but may God preserve his excellency, the most illustrious count, your father, for a thousand years longer! I meant, by what I said, Do you see that portrait ? — that’s the Marquis Csesar’s : and that in the red dress, with a cross on the breast, — that’s Bali Mercantonio’s.”