Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843/Part 3/Letter 14
LETTER XIV.
The Carbonari.
Of late years there has been a spirit in Italy tending towards improvement; this, perhaps, is less outwardly developed in Florence than elsewhere, yet here also it exists. Politically and materially considered, Tuscany is looked upon as the best governed and happiest Italian state, but in some respects this very circumstance has kept back its inhabitants. The foreign power that rules Lombardy exciting undisguised hatred, and the misrule of the Popes being beyond all question quite intolerable—the people of those states are in avowed opposition to government, while in Tuscany there is little to complain of, beyond the torpedo influence of a system of things that undeviatingly tends towards the deterioration.
The reign of Leopold I. was the golden age of Florence. He was grandduke at a time when a good sovereign was the dearest wish of a people, and the notion of governing themselves was not looked upon even as desirable. The French came next, and the tendency of their government was always to destroy the nationality of any people subdued by them. But this had a certain good effect in Italy. The curse of that country is its divisions,—while the other nations of Europe, in the middle ages, became divided into feudal tenures, and possessed by nobles, who, unable to maintain their independence, at last became mere courtiers of an absolute monarch,—Italy was divided into municipal republics, or small states,—the mutual rivalry and quarrels of which were the fatal causes that France and Spain disputed alternately, making Italy their field of battle, and Italian met Italian in opposing fight; and Pisa was willing to abase Florence; and Bologna gloried in the misfortunes of Ferrara:—the union of the whole of northern Italy under the French was the first circumstance that checked a spirit so inimical to all prosperity,—all improvement.
When the French were driven from Italy the peninsula became politically Austrian. The Austrian cabinet directed all the councils, and guided every act of the various states. If Ferdinand contrived to maintain a more beneficent internal government, it was only because the Tuscans shewed no inclination to join in the revolutionary movement. But while Austria substantially ruled the whole, it was well aware of the benefit to be derived from disunion, and it stirred up the spirit of discord by a curious contrivance;—a tub was thrown to the whale;—the government ordered the institute of Milan to occupy itself in the reform of the National Dictionary, and hence arose a fierce battle between the Della Crusca Academy and the authors of the “Proposta” on the score of language. Did the Italians speak Tuscan, or Italian? such was the mighty question that engrossed the learned of Italy; it was never started among two or three men without exciting the most violent party feeling, and for many years it set Tuscan against Lombard. Monti, by no means a pure political character, is accused of undertaking this war to please the Austrians, with his eyes open to the end in view. His son-in-law, Perticari, who shewed himself very earnest in the discussion, was too much honoured and loved, his memory is too entirely reverenced, for him to be open to the same accusation. For seven years the battle raged, exciting a virulence of party and municipal feeling, quite inexplicable out of Italy. It ended at last, as the question of big-endians and small-endians terminated in Liliput, by every one breaking his egg at whichever end he pleased;—the Lombards came to the conclusion that the Tuscans might like their language best if they chose—and they must choose, for it is not only the purest and the most idiomatic, but it is the only language at once spoken and written, except, indeed, the Roman; but that is very inferior in strength and vivacity.
Other influences were at work in Italy to turn the Italians from such puerile contests. The sect of the Carbonari had spread throughout the peninsula, and the hope of throwing off a foreign yoke and achieving more liberal institutions animated every Italian heart.
Colletta, in speaking of the Carbonari, considers this sect to be derived from the Freemasons of Germany—transported into their country by the Neapolitan exiles of 1799, on their return. I have heard Italians well versed in the secrets of Carbonarism deny this. They say that the deeply religious and mystic spirit of the sect at its commencement, proves its Neapolitan origin, and that it was founded by men, Neapolitans themselves, who knew how to adapt their doctrines and their rites to the temperament of a people, at once superstitious and lovers of the marvellous.
The hopes of political liberty which all nations entertained when the armies of the allies quailed before those of republican France, found an echo in Naples; while Ferdinand and his queen, who before the French Revolution had shown an inclination to imitate Joseph and Leopold of Austria, in reforming the laws of their kingdom, taking sudden fright, indulged in such acts of arbitrary power as incited rather than repressed the desire for change. Many Neapolitans, therefore, welcomed the French with enthusiasm, and rejoiced in the flight of their sovereign. The liberators, as they delighted to call themselves, soon, however, showed the cloven foot, and appeared in their true light, of invaders and spoilers. The hearts of all real lovers of their country were alienated from them; and if Ferdinand, on his return, during Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt, when the French were driven from Italy, had shewn himself moderate and forgiving, he had acquired the affection of all his subjects. But both he and his queen seemed to be driven mad by hatred and terror of the new doctrine of a people’s right to be well governed. Executions—the most barbarous imprisonments—persecutions that, blinded by fury, rather attacked a friend than forgave an enemy, followed their restoration. All the constitutionalists or republicans fled—some to France, Germany, or Switzerland, some to the wild and pathless mountains of the Abruzzi and the Calabrias.
When the French returned, the situation of the exiles was not mended; and many among them continued to dwell in unknown and savage retreats, among the inaccessible mountains and solitary valleys of those regions. They lived without any bond to unite them together, yet not so isolated but that they frequently met, and communicated to each other their hopes and projects. More than the Bourbon who had persecuted them, they hated the usurpation of the stranger. The most earnest desire of their hearts was to drive the French from their country, while some among them, looking beyond that time, revolved the means of strengthening their party, so that a republic might be instituted; or, at any rate, if Ferdinand returned, that he should be forced to concede just and free institutions to his people.
Among the refugees of Calabria, who were not to be subdued by persecution and adversity, was a young man of high courage, strong understanding, and gifted with wonderful powers of persuasion. Capo Bianco had first appeared as the bold leader of the militia of his native place (in Calabria), and had won the love, respect, and blind obedience of his followers. He possessed all the qualities belonging to the head and founder of a sect. I am told that he was handsome in person, and courteous in manners, but of a stern and inflexible disposition; severe towards delinquents, gentle and kind to the inoffensive, and to his friends. He added enthusiasm to these qualities, or he would never have erected himself into the founder of a sect. He abhorred the name of king—not because he had been persecuted by his sovereign, but because the power of royalty was detestable in his eyes—so that not one among his followers ever dared name before him Napoleon or Ferdinand; Austrian or French. He would consent only to republican institutions for his country; he desired the same government to prevail all over Italy, and argued warmly in favour of Italian union and independence. Such was Capo Bianco, as he is represented by the friends who survived him: he was the founder of the most celebrated sect of modern times, and died on the scaffold, a martyr to the cause he advocated.
Capo Bianco had taken shelter in a spot, to which he gave the strength of a rocky fortress, among the most rugged fastnesses of the hither Calabria; he there defied the power of his enemies. Nor did he remain shut up: he frequently called together and appeared among his faithful adherents; and, communicating his bold projects, and warming them by his persuasive eloquence, he induced them to believe that the hour was come when they might unite with the population of their country, to throw off the detested yoke of the French usurpation.
The Carbonari, who have survived a time now almost forgotten, relate how, in the silence of a dark night, Capo Bianco assembled his most attached friends near a poor hut, situated in the depth of a thick forest, and there laid the first stone of the edifice of his sect. He explained its principles and its spirit, and caused them to swear a fearful secrecy on the cross. From this focus the new association spread, guarded by tremendous oaths, and by menaces of a dreadful vengeance to be taken upon traitors; by all the precaution, resolution and terror, that its originator could devise. He gave his adherents the name of Carbonari, because the society was founded in a district principally inhabited by charcoal burners; and men who followed that trade were among the first, appertaining to the lower classes, who were initiated into the secrets of the sect. They, descending from the mountains for the purposes of traffic, carried with them and propagated, wherever they went, the tenets of their founder.
Capo Bianco understood the disposition of his countrymen, and gave a religious and mystic colouring to his society. Striking rites were established; the initiation was terrible; the lessons taught often apparently abstruse; the end was single—to overturn monarchy in all its forms, and erect republics on the ruin of thrones. To attain this among a people pious to superstition, it was necessary to mingle mystic tenets with political opinions; in short, to erect and disseminate a political religion; and thus, not long ago, Carbonarism was professed, and found proselytes among the mountains of Corsica and Sardinia. The laws of the Carbonari were, they declared, founded on the equality of the gospel, and on the traditions of Freemasonry. The initiated swore to take terrible vengeance for the Lamb, sacrificed by the Wolves. The religion of Christ was the lamb; kings were typified in the wolves. They said that Jesus, who was the Word of God, had been the first who proclaimed upon earth the abolition of ancient servitude, and taught brotherhood and equality among men. He was therefore crucified by the wolves of his age, and died an illustrious victim of tyranny. The Carbonari swore to vindicate the death of Christ, and to exterminate the race of wolves, that is of kings, who inherited the guilt and infamy of the assassins of the Son of God. To strike the vulgar eye, fearful representations were made in their ceremonies, apt to excite the imaginations of a southern people of a highly religious temperament, and the proselytes pronounced tremendous oaths upon the cross and the dagger. The initiation was accompanied by various circumstances calculated to test the moral and physical courage of the novices; and the slightest sign of shrinking, caused them to be irrevocably rejected.
The Carbonari had, like the Freemasons, distinctive grades in their society; they recognised each other by mysterious signs, and called themselves by a secret name—that of “Buoni Cugini,” or good cousins. They took an oath to succour, at their need, every other Carbonaro, and to defend the honour of their women. They swore, if ever they themselves became traitors, to consent that their bodies should be torn to pieces, burnt, and the ashes cast to the winds; that their name should be cursed, and become a warning to all the Carbonari scattered over the face of the earth.
Carbonarism took deep root and spread rapidly. At one time, Murat was induced to look upon it as a means for civilising the wild Calabrians, and to regard it with favour. But the sect hated the French too much for this to continue. Ferdinand, meanwhile, in his retreat at Naples, spared no endeavour to disturb the government of the invader, and, if possible, to drive him from the kingdom. Banditti were enrolled; a crusade preached by the churchmen among the ignorant peasantry; and a civil war ensued, at the horrors of which the heart sickens. He heard of the growing power of the Carbonari, and had recourse to them.
Already, indeed, led by Capo Bianco, the Carbonari had assembled in arms in the neighbourhood of Catanzaro; they scoured the country, attacked the towns, drove out the partisans of the French, and, raising a cry that the reign of Joachim had come to an end, they hoisted the tri-coloured flag of the sect, and set up wherever they could republican institutions. Become strong in the places of which they had possessed themselves, they sent letters and emissaries to every vendita, inciting the sectaries to raise the standard of liberty and come to their aid. Capo Bianco was the soul of all, and inflamed their zeal by his eloquence. “My Italian brothers,” he cried, “you are the slaves of the French. You have changed masters, but not your state. Your new rulers,—prouder, more insolent, and more rapacious than those of old,—give you no repose, and you lavish without advantage your possessions, your own and your children’s lives! Will you remain slaves—the scorn and mock of the stranger, who heaps wrongs upon you—the victims of the insolence and rapine of a lawless soldiery?” It were long to recount all the arguments of the chief. He concluded by telling them that if they joined his forces, they would command victory, and Italy, liberated, would acquire greater splendour and power than she had ever before enjoyed. “The destiny of our unfortunate country,” he concluded, “is in your hands; and posterity will either bless or curse you for your deeds.”
While this was going on at one place, Ferdinand had given it in charge to Prince Moliterno, who was at the head of the royal forces in Calabria, to treat with other leaders of the sect, and invite them to espouse his cause. The Prince had ever professed republican principles; and even then, while heading an army in the name of Ferdinand, liberty and the union and independence of Italy were the watchwords he adopted. He endeavoured to persuade the chiefs of the sect that, by using their influence to drive out Murat, they would acquire such power as would force Ferdinand on his restoration to give his people a constitution, as, indeed, he had passed his royal word to do. Many of the Carbonari, although at that time the society was the mark of persecution of the French Government, shrunk from alliance with a sovereign, whom they knew to be in his heart a despot; while others among them gave ear to his promises, and joined the royalists. Both parties, royalists and Carbonari, while they thought it necessary to unite to drive out the French, fostered the secret hope that the victory once gained over the stranger, they could easily get rid of their confederate. Capo Bianco, however, never yielded, nor gave ear to the emissaries of the King. “You mistake,” he said to those of his partisans who took the other course; “and whether the royalists are victorious or defeated, you sharpen the sword that will destroy you; and build the scaffold on which I and my partisans will inevitably perish.”
Calabria was convulsed by these various parties; every portion of it was in arms; and its rivers ran red with blood. Then, as is usually the case in countries which are the prey of civil war, the evil was increased by the crimes of ferocious and lawless men, who collected in bands and ravaged the country, intent only on booty, and ever ready to destroy. For two years Calabria could be said to belong neither to the French, nor to Ferdinand, nor to the Carbonari: each had the upper hand by turns, and were, therefore, unable to clear the country of the brigands that infested it. This state of things could not continue, and the French Government resolved by extraordinary and terrible measures to root out the banditti, and to include the widespread and powerful sect of the Carbonari in the destruction. The atrocious and sanguinary methods by which General Manhes succeeded in extirpating the brigands is matter of history. Colletta recounts it in his usual graphic and vigorous manner. In his pages[1] you will find related also how Capo Bianco was deceived, betrayed, and executed, to the shame of the French General, Iannelli, who laid the snare by which he was entrapped. He died with heroic firmness; intrepid and calm, he willingly gave his life for the country and cause which he devotedly loved. Colletta, though no friend to the Carbonari, and accused of being a partisan of the French, yet reprobates the conduct of Murat towards the sect. “The violence and severity exercised towards the brigands,” he says, “ought not to have been turned against the Carbonari, for the bandits were guilty of crimes—the sect demanded laws; the brigands were the refuse of society—the Carbonari were honourable and honest men. Carbonarism degenerated afterwards—but was then innocent; it had been invited and approved by Government, and its rites and tenets were civilised and beneficent. Many friends of Joachim begged him to disarm Carbonarism by mild and judicious measures; but anger, which was powerful in him, prevailed, and kept him firm in his evil counsels.”
During and after the fall of Murat and the return of the Bourbon dynasty, Carbonarism, which had never been destroyed, spread; and while the restored king assumed at once despotic power, the sect, finding every promise of freedom for Italy broken, were the more zealous to acquire partisans, and to labour for the union and independence of their unfortunate country.
Do not think that I advocate any secret society: the principle is bad. The crown of every virtuous act and feeling is, not to fear the light of day. But it must be remembered with what fearful odds the Italians have to contend; they have not only openly against them the whole fabric of their various governments, backed by an overpowering foreign army; but a secret society is spread throughout the country, the friend of existing institutions;—the confessional is an engine of mighty power, diffused through every portion of every city, the most populous; entering every hut, the most retired; acting on the fears of the timid and the credulity of the superstitious; pandering to the bad passions of the wicked and awakening the scruples of the pious. Every priest bids his penitents confess, not only their participation in any act or thought inimical to the church or to the government—not only to denounce father, husband, or child, who might trust to them the secret of their lives—but to reveal every little circumstance that may tend to discover the lovers of liberty. Can it be wondered that men who wished to regenerate their country in the face of so penetrating, so almost omnipotent a power, should cloak themselves in impenetrable secrecy, and strive to check the influence by counter-terrors,—equally awful?
Fearful deeds were the result of the laws of the society; the individuals that composed it, knowing themselves to be supported by numerous companions, and sheltered from detection by the secrecy that veiled their name, lost their moral sense. The act, commanded by a power to which they had sworn obedience, ceased to be a crime, and assassination was no longer looked on as a murder, but as an execution; numbers of Carbonari, suspected or really guilty of treason to their oaths, were assassinated all over Italy, especially during the latter days of the society; and volumes might be filled with the history of these tragedies. If any man to whom the lot fell to execute the sentence of the rest, shrunk from his task, he was considered a traitor, and condemned to death.[2] Such was Carbonarism, at the time when it shook kings on their thrones, and made the sovereigns of Italy tremble. Calabria and the Abruzzi swarmed with sectarians; the society was rapidly propagated throughout the kingdom of Naples, whence it spread to Romagna, Piedmont, and Lombardy; Vendite[3] were even established in fair and tranquil Tuscany. Every Vendita was a permanent conspiracy,—every Carbonaro an enemy to the reigning authority;—yet even sovereigns were their accomplices, since they had made use of the society to overthrow the dominion of the French in Italy.
The early Carbonari were men who were actuated by deep-rooted love of their country, and detestation of the vice, ignorance, and slavery into which Italy had fallen; they entertained the belief that means terrible and unflinching could alone regenerate a people sunk in superstition and slavery. The triumph of the Carbonari was the proclamation of the constitutional government at Naples. But even then the sect was no longer the same. It had transgressed against the great and permanent moral laws by which society ought to be governed; it had been guilty of crimes—now it sunk into feebleness. Its results fell miserably short of its proud promise; for its work had been undertaken by men who were not sufficiently prepared,—who did not look to the future;—who were often swayed by violent and capricious passions, and whose principles were rooted in scepticism. The pure patriotism of its originators became tainted by the personal ambition of their followers. At the very height of its success it was ignominiously vanquished. Unable, from whatever cause, to resist the Austrian invasion of Naples, in 1820—21, the constitution they had erected was overthrown, despotism reestablished, and the chiefs of the Carbonari either fled, or died on the scaffold;—the name became the mark for persecution.
Still the spirit of the sect is not conquered; all the outbreaks in the Peninsula may be traced to its influence; and the different governments of Italy have vainly had recourse to every means for its extermination. They were unsparing in bribes to traitors; they suborned spies; they sowed dissension in its councils, and became possessed of all its secrets. On this account, not long ago, the society was reformed, and became merged in other secret associations, among which that named La Giovane Italia, is principal. The heads of this sect are, for the most part, exiled beyond the Alps; but, even in banishment, they maintain their influence, and machinate risings: above all, they sedulously keep awake the spirit of national union. These new societies can never be as powerful as the Carbonari were—they are but a shadow of that mighty influence; but, if they have less power, they have committed no crimes; and work by spreading knowledge and civilisation, instead of striking terror.
It is to be regretted, that the patriots of Italy have recourse to darkness and secrecy to carry on the regeneration of their country: for falsehood is the offspring of mystery, and integrity is destroyed by a system that hides itself from the light of day. The Italians must do away with oaths that cannot bind the traitor; and the dagger, which makes a murderer of him whose intent is virtuous. They must sacrifice the formula of union, and be content with disseminating its spirit. Could they teach inflexible truth, could they inspire military courage, did veneration for just and equal laws spring from their lessons, Italy were nearer the goal it pants to attain.
Meanwhile a certain good has arisen from a sect which, however founded in love for their country, has been polluted by many crimes. Carbonarism cannot be denied the praise of having co-operated to destroy the anti-social municipal prejudices, and the narrow spirit of local attachment, which was long a serious obstacle to the union of a country, divided as Italy is into many states, and subject to the stranger. The Carbonari first taught the Italians to consider themselves as forming a nation. It is to be hoped they will never forget the lesson. When the Roman considers himself, in his heart, the countryman of the Milanese—when the Tuscan looks upon Naples as also his country—then the power of the Austrian will receive a blow, which it has hitherto warded off, from which it will never recover.
- ↑ Colletta, Storia del Reame di Napoli, dal 1735, sino al 1825. Libro vii. cap. 53.
- ↑ A young aspirant was asked, during the progress of his initiation, whether, if commanded by the society, he would put his own father to death. He answered, “Yes.” He was taken to a room where, by some contrivance it seemed to him that he saw his father sitting at a table shading his eyes with his hand. A dagger was given him: “Your father is a traitor to the sect,” he was told, “strike!” The weapon fell from the youth’s hand; in an instant he was blindfolded—hurried away—set free in some distant spot—rejected from the sect, as incapable of that devotion to the cause which was demanded of its members.
- ↑ The spots where the Carbonari assembled were called Vendite—or Places for Sale—in accordance with the fiction of their being sellers of charcoal. Thus, as we should write over a shop “Charcoal sold here;” in Italian, the phrase is, “Vendita di Carbone.” Where there was one Vendita, there could be no other within four miles;—if another was established within these limits, a schism ensued, and every endeavour was made to put it down.