The Manzoni Family

by Natalia Ginzburg

  Enrichetta and Alessandro were married in Milan in February 1808 in a Calvinist church. He would have needed a dispensation for a Catholic wedding, since she was of a different faith despite her baptism. But he was in a hurry and neglected to ask for the dispensation. He wrote to Fauriel that the priests had refused to celebrate his marriage because of the difference of religion. This delighted all the Blondel family. Giulia did not attend the ceremony because she was indisposed. There was no wedding breakfast. A Swiss pastor blessed the couple in the house in Marino Street which had once belonged to the Imbonatis. Immediately after Manzoni hurried to his mother’s bedside. The marriage was bitterly criticized in the town, for it was generally thought scandalous that a nobleman, related to ‘monsignores’, should marry a Protestant.

  ‘I have spent two months between pain and pleasure,’ Manzoni wrote to Fauriel in the spring. ‘My mother has had a terrible sore throat, which has recurred three times; however, she now seems free of it. Meanwhile, I have got married, which speeded my mother’s recovery, as it has filled, indeed flooded her heart with happiness. We are all three as happy as can be; this angel was created just for us; she shares all my tastes, and I don’t think there is one important matter on which her opinions differ from mine.’

  But Giulia, albeit happy, was in a black mood; she was excessively irritated that the town should speak ill of them. In a corner of her estate at Brusuglio she had already had a tempietto built the year before and had arranged for Carlo Imbonati’s body to be brought there from France, and this too had been considered scandalous. She could not wait to leave ce vilain Italie; she longed for Paris and her friends who understood her. She often went to Brusuglio to linger at the little tomb; also to supervise the work begun a year before; on the estate there was a farm which was to be transformed into a spacious, comfortable house in which they would enjoy living. But all this failed to soothe her.

  So it was decided to return to Paris. The three of them set off in the summer, and took a house on the boulevard des Italiens.

  Enrichetta was taken to La Maisonnette, and presented to Madame de Condorcet and Fauriel. But she was bored at La Maisonnette; Alessandro and Fauriel went off to talk literature and philosophy; Giulia and Sophie de Condorcet chatted together about people in Paris whom she did not know. She did not like Sophie de Condorcet; she dared not converse with Fauriel as she feared she was too ignorant; she felt awkward, out of her element, lost. She was homesick for Italy and her family. Giulia, on the other hand, was cheerful again in Paris.

  In December 1808, in the house on the boulevard des Italiens, Enrichetta and Alessandro’s first daughter was born. She was officially registered by Fauriel and a friend. She was called Giulia Claudia. Her grandmother expressed a wish that she should be baptised, and Enrichetta made no objection. It was decided to baptise her at Meulan, where a priest friend of Fauriel would make no difficulties about the non-Catholic marriage of the parents. In her first month the baby girl became seriously ill. Manzoni wrote to Fauriel: ‘Poor Giulietta has had German measles and thrush at the same time — two deadly illnesses at the age of twenty days; it’s all over now, but what a harsh entrance into the best of all possible worlds. ‘ Meanwhile he was finishing a short poem called ‘Urania’, and thinking of another to be called ‘La vaccina’.

  Giulietta was not baptised until the summer, at Meulan as had been decided; and Enrichetta was sad because she felt they were separating her from her daughter, since she herself had grown up in another faith. The christening was organized by Madame de Condorcet whom she knew to be an unbeliever; and Fauriel was an unbeliever and he had been chosen to act as godfather to the baby girl; and he, an unbeliever, recited the Credo and Abrenuntio. For Enrichetta any religious event was a very serious matter.

  In Paris the Manzonis frequented a group of people Enrichetta liked, some Piedmontese patriots who had been friends of Imbonati. They led a strict life and seemed imbued with great moral severity. Enrichetta felt happy in their company, much more than at La Maisonnette. One evening there was a discussion of the Catholic faith. Count Somis de Chavrie was there, a Turinese, Councillor at the Court of Appeal. ‘I believe in it,’ he said simply. Enrichetta was struck by these forceful words. She went up to him and asked him to suggest an expert in the Catholic faith who might talk to her and offer her some illumination. Somis recommended Abbé Degola.

  Abbé Degola was a Jansenist priest from Genoa, then about fifty. In 1801 in Paris he had taken part in the Second Council, and there he had become a friend of Bishop Grégoire, whom he helped to compile the Annals of Religion. Between 1804 and 1805 he travelled with Grégoire, visiting England, Holland, Germany and Prussia; at Hamburg he heard that Liguria had been annexed to the Empire by Napoleon, and he sent a protest against this action. At Genoa, with his friend Father Assarotti he founded an institute for deaf-mutes. Degola, according to his friend Achille Mauri who wrote his biography, was ‘well-proportioned with a gentle, benevolent countenance, and clear, bright eyes’. Nevertheless, in his portraits his face does not convey great gentleness or benevolence. Achille Mauri also says of him: ‘All things combined to adorn him with rare gifts: philosophy, letters and religion inclined him to virtue. A heart ever open to indulgence, sincerely amiable manners, a pleasing discourse remote from any rusticity won the love and respect of people of every order. . . He set religion above all other thoughts, and it made him humble, mild and patient. . . When he became a priest, all his actions revealed his conviction that the priesthood is an honourable bondage, imposing on all who undertake it a constant and diligent concern for the needs, passions and sufferings of all.’ It was said that he was without ambition. But he was ambitious to convert souls to the Catholic faith. From his travels with Bishop Grégoire there remain five notebooks in which he wrote down his impressions: he made dry judgements on the people he met, collected together thoughts and utterances he heard, listed facts and details, keeping a keen eye on everything around him.

  Erfurt. There are regular and Benedictine canonesses. At the Fort there were four canonesses, one a Benedictine who seemed to me something of a coquette; she allowed the Commandant Dall’ Alba to stroke her hand. I spoke Latin to an old Augustinian. . . In Leipzig there is a great loosening of moral standards. Divorce is common. But still more so in Halle; you have only to pay for it. . . Among the Lutherans it is said that Luther was a horse and Melanchthon the bridle to restrain him. . . In Wittenberg 31st July: we were at the Temple of the Court and University, where they never observe communion or baptism. We saw, among other things, two hollows in which the bodies of Luther and Melanchthon had rotted, and behind them their portraits. Luther in a sort of cassock and yellow boots, Melanchthon (to whom I said Anathema Melanctoni) a black robe with fur at the edge like a Professor of Greek. There is a table with two inscriptions in bronze; the first which I traced contemptuously with my foot was as follows [the inscription followed]. I went up into the pulpit and from there I said: Anathema Lutero, and repeated it in the hollow, where I had already said: Maledictus qui posuit carnem. . . Berlin. Conversation with Ancillon, Calvinist minister; he agreed that religion there is declining rapidly as regards worship and faith. Tolerance, he said, was the Jin mot to neutralize religious opinions and lead to universal indifference. — He agreed that the demands of the reformers en voulant emporter la broderie, ils ont déchiré la robe. As for literature, he said they were accustoming the young to légèreté, and making them voltiger.

  At Strasbourg Degola parted from Grégoire and prepared to turn homeward. The next day, still at Strasbourg, he met a boy, one Teofilo Geymúller, whose mother had been converted to Catholicism. She wanted her two young sons to be converted too.

  I spoke of conversion to Teofilo, who said at once, speaking of Calvinism: J’y ti ens, oui, et je ne changerai pas. I exhorted him to seek instruction, I spoke to him openly and affectionately: I talked about his mother’s conversion and excellent conduct, I gave him the note which I had copied. The next day, at
seven in the evening, he began to tell me he felt moved to do as his mother had done. I encouraged him.

  The day after that, at Buchten (Switzerland), he and Teofilo attended a Catholic wedding.

  The parish priest, to whom I spoke, but who did not say much to me, held by the breviary; he told me there were five thousand inhabitants there, all Catholics, he said the prayers in Latin: I did not hear the act of consent; I thought he asked it very quietly. I blessed the couple, the priest sprinkled holy water on the congregation. On the way out Teofilo said to me: A present faut que je conserve cette bénédiction pour toujours.

  When he got back to Genoa in 1805, Abbé Degola stayed there. He had the two sons of Signora Geymúller with him. Teofilo was converted in 1806; Luca, the younger son, two years later. Their mother was living in Paris. Enrichetta met her, and from her too heard of Abbé Degola; she asked to meet him if he should come to France.

  Alessandro and Enrichetta had come to a joint decision to regularize their marriage in the eyes of the Church. After the baby’s christening, this seemed right and proper to both of them. The Catholic wedding ceremony took place in the private chapel of a friend of theirs, Count Marescalchi, on 15 February 1810.

  Enrichetta had seen Abbé Degola for the first time in the autumn of 1809; he had come to Paris because he had been invited to Port-Royal. In the spring of 1810 her discussions with the Abbé began. Manzoni chose to be present, though remaining silent.

  When she got home after every discussion, Enrichetta, at Degola’s request, was to write a brief summary of the chief points discussed; this is what Signora Geymúller had been required to do; then Degola read and corrected the summaries. Signora Geymuller’s summaries, with Degola’s corrections, have been preserved, but Enrichetta’s have been lost. At Man-zoni’s death his son Enrico found among his papers a few summaries in Manzoni’s own hand; so he too wrote summaries, without being required to do so, when he attended these discussions. We have Enrico’s word for this, but the summaries later disappeared, and nobody knows what happened to them.

  On 2 April 1810 the wedding of Napoleon and Marie-Louise of Austria was celebrated in Paris. There were great crowds in the streets, among them Alessandro and Enrichetta. Suddenly mortars were fired. People panicked and began to run to and fro in confusion, and in this panic there were dead and wounded. Alessandro lost sight of Enrichetta. He seems then to have experienced a malaise, a giddiness, and he feared he was going to faint; he went into the church of San Rocco. He found Enrichetta shortly after. They say that there, in the church, he prayed a real prayer to God for the first time in his life, asking Him to let him find his wife again safe and sound. ‘Entering the church of San Rocco one day, he prayed feverishly and rose from his knees a believer,’ says Abbé Zanella, who was a friend of his. ‘It was the grace of God, my son, the grace of God,’ Manzoni replied much later to his stepson Stefano, who asked him when he had found faith, and where, and how. He would never add to these words. A tablet has been placed in the Church of San Rocco which states that Manzoni’s conversion happened at that place and that moment.

  The malaise and vertigo which led him to seek refuge in the church were a real crise de nerfs, the first in his life. From then he realised he was liable to convulsions, or afraid of experiencing attacks. And this fear caused him palpitations and vertigo. In fact, his grandfather, Cesare Beccaria, had been convulsionary, and his uncle Giulio Beccaria, son of Cesare. Abbé Degola was also subject to convulsions, and this probably created mutual understanding between Manzoni and Degola.

  ’He rose from his knees a believer. He was in a frantic state when he knelt to pray: he had felt he was fainting or dying; his prayer had been ‘feverish’; feverishly he had begged God to restore Enrichetta to him, and also to restore to him a less hateful image of himself, for in the confusion of his malaise he had looked at himself with disgust; his faults had seemed very great: he had been cynical, fatuous, indifferent to his neighbour, and cruel; this is how he saw himself at that moment, and he had never believed in God. From then, he suffered frequent crises of acute anguish; he kept remembering that moment; he was oppressed by remorse, and felt that his faith was never sufficiently strong, limpid or sure.

  The three of them became Catholics: Enrichetta, Alessandro, Giulia. They were strongly united but profoundly different, and each arrived at the Catholic faith in a different way. Enrichetta had to break the bonds that bound her to her family and childhood, as it were with blood and toil. Alessandro bore within him that burden of secret remorse, doubts and travail. Giulia rushed forward, stumbling and breathless, like someone afraid of missing an appointment; but she moved forward with a light tread, for she was always ready for any change or turn and faced the future eagerly, whatever new form it might take; she too bore a sense of remorse and guilt, but it never completely darkened her path. They were at one in deciding to go back and settle in Italy; all three wanted to change their life and breathe new air. Giulia remembered Ce vilain Italie with affection; Enrichetta had never liked Paris, and now Alessandro hated it.

  On 22 May, in the Church of Saint-Séverin in Paris, Abbé Degola received Enrichetta’s abjuration and her profession of faith in the Catholic Church. It was a solemn ceremony, attended by Somis, the President of the Court of Appeal Agier, Signora Geymúller with her two sons, lofty prelates and magistrates, and many ladies. One of Enrichetta’s uncles who lived in Paris got to know of it, and immediately informed the Blondel family in Milan, who knew nothing of it.

  ‘I, Enrichetta Luisa Manzoni, née Blondel, called by the grace of Almighty God to return to the bosom of the Church, recognize the errors of the Calvinist sect in which I had the misfortune to be brought up, sincerely abominate them, and henceforth wish, with the help of divine mercy, to live in the bosom of the Catholic Church, which is the pillar of truth. I firmly believe all the teachings of the Catholic Church, and wish to abjure the Calvinist heresy; of my own free will resolved upon this act for no other reason than to work for the glory of God and to provide for my eternal salvation, I pray the Church to accept for her ministry my abjuration, and to welcome me into her bosom in the name of Jesus Christ and of His charity.’

  For some time Enrichetta’s parents had been inviting Enrichetta, Alessandro and Giulia to be their guests on their arrival in Milan, and they were eager to meet the baby girl they had never seen. The news of the abjuration took them by surprise and roused them to a tremendous anger, especially the mother. Until then relations had been perfect between the two families, but they were spoiled at that moment and never fully recovered. Mariton, the mother, thought Giulia was to blame for Enrichetta’s abjuration and cordially detested her.

  The Manzonis left Paris at the beginning of June. When they got to Lyons, Giulia fell ill, and the baby too. Enrichetta was pregnant, or thought she was; she was suffering from stomach upsets that seemed to her to indicate pregnancy. Manzoni had to have a tooth out. They spent several days at Lyons, where the echoes of the Blondel anger reached them. They were sad days. As they were leaving Paris a letter had come from Fauriel, who was going back to Meulan without calling to say goodbye. ‘Today I am leaving this Paris where soon you will be seen no more, my dear friends, — he wrote — I could not come to see you last night, and I feel I was right to spare myself such a sad moment. . . We will meet again one day. I need this hope, and flatter myself it will be realized. . . Farewell, I press you all to my heart. Kiss little Giulietta for me a thousand times/ He had the greatest respect for other people’s ideas; this triple conversion and Enrichetta’s abjuration disturbed him, but he never mentioned it. From Lyons Manzoni answered: ‘Dear friend, after knowing and esteeming you, why can I not remain with you longer? . . . Indeed, you are the only link binding me to Paris for which otherwise I feel no affection. . . We all send our love, including Giulia, who will certainly have learned to call you caro padrino (dear godfather) when you come to Italy. . . Remember that I am never completely happy away from you. ’

  In Tu
rin, at the Albergo della Moneta, Enrichetta met her brother Carlo who spoke harshly to her. She wrote to her father. ‘It is with a heart full of pain and fear that I venture to send you this letter, dear Father! . . . Oh, if only I could hope you do not judge your daughter too severely! I need this hope if I am not to give way completely to the bitter pain I feel at the threats and the suffering of the mother I have always adored. . . Dear God! I can not bear the idea of being banished from the presence of parents who have always been precious to me; and what I have done does not seem to me to merit such severity! . . . Why is my dear mother so angry with me? What I have done, I did for my salvation; can she harbour resentment against a daughter who has acted for her eternal happiness? . . . My dear parents, dearest Father and Mother, may God bless you, this is my constant prayer. And I beg Him to grant me courage and resignation, for I see I shall have great need of both, oh God!’

  Somis wrote to Abbé Degola: ‘Yesterday at one in the afternoon I had the consolation of seeing that beloved family of whom I can not speak, especially to you, without strong emotion. Poor creatures! they had to stay two weeks at Lyons, all more or less ill, and you can imagine in what discomfort. But God reserves His greatest tests for his elect. Yesterday Signora Enrichetta received two letters from Milan which caused consternation in her tender, affectionate heart. The news of her abjuration has aroused tumult, fire and frenzy in her mother. Our virtuous Catholic suffers unspeakable torment at this clash between her holy and irrevocable resolution and her natural filial sentiments. Help her with your fervent prayers and wise counsel. . .’