The Manzoni Family

by Natalia Ginzburg

  In 1819, changes took place among the government authorities which proved favourable to them, and this time their passports were granted; they began to prepare for their departure; Enrichetta had to supervise it all as serenely as possible, although now the big family was even bigger: in July 1819 Enrico was born. She was feeding him.

  ‘We propose to set out at the beginning of September, see something of Switzerland, and go on to Paris via Basle and Alsace,’ Manzoni wrote to Fauriel. ‘We are bringing you a Giulietta, in whom you will see all the seriousness that was in her portrait [they had sent a portrait of her to Madame de Condorcet], a Pietro who is an indomitable imp, a Cristina who does her best to imitate him, a Sofia who is beginning to look round to see if the world offers her some similar occupation, and an Enrico at the bosom of my Enrichetta. We’ll get by as best we can, but after seeing the English travelling with a veritable Noah’s Ark, one is not so frightened of journeys en grande famille. As you can imagine, we hope to be staying in rue de la Seine, or as close as possible, so we are relying on your kind friendship to find lodgings for us. . . Addio. Do you know what it means to me to be able to end a letter to you with “Arrivederci”? Addio, addio.’ Giulia: ‘Mio caro padrino, fondest love to my dear Sophie. I am relying utterly on you for all my caravan. Oh, God willing, we shall be reunited, dear friends, and I do so hope my poor son will regain his health; addio, addio, we will write again. ’

  They planned to pause on the way to rest at Chambéry, where Somis was now living. ‘My fancy feeds upon this promised delight,’ wrote Somis, ‘but also on the pain it will cost me to see you go. But I shall console myself with the thought that your stay will have been useful to you, and it will afford me further proof of the truth that we must not count on lasting pleasures in this life. I have found a coachman here who has three carriages; one will take six people inside and two outside; the two others are the usual size. I have good reports of the coachman.’ There were ten in their party as they set off: eight of them and two servants, Fanny and her husband Jean.

  They gave up the trip through Switzerland and arrived in Paris at the end of September. They put up at an hotel where they found a letter from Fauriel. He was ill, wretched, feverish. La Maisonnette was full of guests at that moment, but Madame de Condorcet was adding a few lines to invite them to come. ‘La Maisonnette is yours, as ever.’ The words were affectionate, but the signature abrupt: Condorcet. Giulia wrote a letter of acceptance and thanks; they would come in two days, they had sent their linen to be washed and were waiting for it to be returned. She explained they would need three rooms at La Maisonnette, one for Enrichetta and Alessandro, one for herself and Giulietta, and those must be connected; one for Fanny and the other children, and this one must have a fire so she could change the little baby; the man-servant could sleep anywhere. ‘Taking the liberty of a sister, ‘ she warned that she would need soup without meat on days of abstinence, and the same for Giulietta and the servants; then simply eggs and potatoes, ‘and, if possible, fish for me. ‘ She said they intended to pay for their daily keep; they could come to some agreement about this. ‘We are sisters, you are my dearest, my only friend, and we must act accordingly. After nine years I breathe again because I shall breathe with you. ‘ Finally she asked whether, if they could not leave all the luggage in safe-keeping at the hotel, it would be possible to fit it into some corner in the villa. ‘I look forward to a word in answer. . . Addio addio. ’

  They stayed at La Maisonnette for more than a month. Then they found an apartment in Paris, in Faubourg Saint-Germain. They bought furniture and fitted it up, and moved in in November. They were thinking of selling Brusuglio and the Milan house, and settling in France for good. Enrichetta did not want to and actually feared the idea. In any case, it was a confused notion. They gave Uncle Giulio Beccaria, Giulia’s half-brother, the job of going to Brusuglio to find out if it would be possible to sell the estate advantageously. Giulio Beccaria went, walked about examining the estate carefully, and was left ‘somewhat mortified’ to find it poor, ‘lacking in mulberries, vines and timber’. He asked for precise instructions. If the properties were not to be sold, they should make new plantations of mulberries. He contacted a certain Signor Poldi, who was a possible purchaser. But later he wrote: ‘Signor Poldi has decided against and no other purchaser has come forward. ‘ And he observed sagely: ‘The worst position of all is to hang fire between selling and not selling. . . The thought of selling postpones the question of repairs. . . The same applies to the house in Milan. ’

  Canon Tosi was still vexed that Manzoni had left Italy without finishing La morale cattolica, and that latterly he had thought of nothing but his tragedy, 77 conte di Carmagnola. Since Abbé Lamennais was living in Paris, he hoped Manzoni would seek his acquaintance, and also that of Bishop Grégoire. Years ago, Manzoni had translated part of one of Lamennais’ works, ‘Essay on indifference in the matter of faith’. Canon Tosi wrote to Lamennais about Manzoni. He sent him the first volume of La morale cattolica which had appeared in print. Abbé Lamennais, in a reply to the Canon, spoke flatteringly of La morale cattolica. ‘I am delighted that you found the work of my friend Manzoni well-written and interesting,’ the Canon wrote back, ‘I have frequently urged him to work on the second volume which is promised. . . he has recently written to say he is working on it seriously. . . My persuasion carried less weight than those friends who urged him to finish a tragedy which he had begun a long time ago; he finished it on the very last day before he left here, and it is being printed with a few corrections he has sent from Paris, after which I believe he promptly devoted himself to the more important and profitable work of the 2nd volume. . . What pleasure it would give me if you were to correspond with this author, whose gifts of heart are even more rare and precious than his gifts of mind! But I dare not yet give you his address, as, because of his vertigo which I think is rather worse than better after this journey to Paris with his family which I so deplored, because of the shyness which makes him shrink from new contacts, and also because of family circumstances, I must wait for him to resolve to seek you out. . .’

  Manzoni and Enrichetta called on Bishop Grégoire with a letter from Degola, shortly after they arrived in Paris, and received a kindly welcome; they returned a few times but did not find him at home, ‘and for the time being,’ Manzoni wrote to Canon Tosi, ‘we do not think it right to disturb him.’ Bishop Grégoire had been elected a depute and was extraordinarily busy. He was an extreme anti-monarchist: in the past he had thundered against the monarchy: ‘The tree of liberty can prosper only if it is watered by the blood of kings’, and ‘kings are in the moral order what monsters are in the natural order’, and again ‘the destruction of a fierce beast, the end of a plague, the death of a king, are sources of rejoicing to humanity’; and his nomination as a depute had a precise political significance, it was a slap in the face to the monarchy. It was strange to think of the gentle Enrichetta sitting in amiable conversation with a man who had written such bloody words, and just as strange for Manzoni who had a horror of blood, of political hatred and of violent, inflated language; moreover, how could Christian piety and such furious hate be reconciled in the person of the Bishop? Enrichetta and Alessandro must both have been baffled and disturbed by all this, but they must have said to themselves that these were strange, torn and bitter times in which they were living.

  As for Abbé Lamennais, Manzoni took care not to seek him out, and the two men never met, then or at any other time.

  Although he had admired the ‘Essay on Indifference’, Manzoni distrusted Lamennais, who seemed to him a sectarian, factious priest, and after reading a new book of his in Paris, his distrust turned to real aversion. This aversion was, moreover, shared by Abbé Degola, who wrote to Tosi describing Lamennais as ‘a fanatic’ and ’a Sulpician madman’. The parish of Saint-Sulpice was worldly and Jesuit, and was opposed to the Jansenist parish of Saint-Séverin. Bishop Grégoire had been full of praise for the parish of Saint-Séve
rin, when Enrichetta and Alessandro called on him.

  Manzoni’s health did not improve in Paris. The apartment in Faubourg Saint-Germain was noisy because the windows overlooked the market. The children were often ill, Enrichetta tired. Little Enrico was growing up delicate, late in cutting his teeth and generally slow. Manzoni led a rather solitary life in Paris. There had been an imperceptible cooling-off in relations between his mother and Sophie de Condorcet; Sophie could not recognize her former friend, idle, witty, light-hearted, in the Giulia who now appeared before her, an elderly lady completely absorbed in her grandchildren and her devotions. The friendship with Fauriel remained unbroken, but they did not often go to La Maisonnette, and when they did, they returned home before evening. Manzoni went for long walks about the city with his friend Ignazio Calderari; he always maintained that it suited him to take a lot of exercise, but felt unequal to going out alone; in the winter Calderari left. Now he was homesick for the garden at Brusuglio and the surrounding countryside, and the people he used to see in Italy: Ermes Visconti, Tommaso Grossi, friends with whom he had a different relationship from Fauriel, less passionate, more easy-going, familiar and joking. He wrote to Tommaso Grossi: ‘I can’t wait to be sitting in my study with Grossi at my side reading his new novella. . . how we will chat and improvise as we walk to the little bridge! It’s impossible to work here, I can’t put together a single verse. ‘ He sent cuttings to Uncle Giulio Beccaria, to give to the agent at Brusuglio for grafting; they had given up all idea of selling Brusuglio and the house in via del Morone; there had been no buyers, and any intention of staying in France for good had evaporated. ‘I am sorry your health is no better; but I hope preparations for your return will take you out of yourself, and your native air will prove beneficial/ Giulio Beccaria wrote to Manzoni. ‘One does not know how to treat nervous disorders; I still suffer from them, and don’t know what to do about it. Distraction and motion are the only things that seem to help. You apply too little of the first of these-remedies, and at times a bit too much of the second, for I have found by experience that it may help momentarily to tire oneself when one has an attack of convulsions, but afterwards it is harmful, like taking strong drinks when one has indigestion: it seems to give relief, but in fact it aggravates the trouble and the difficulty of overcoming it. I consider that the effect of the convulsions is to make the nerves oscillate in an irregular way, and that excessive activity increases this uncomfortable oscillation which must be dangerous for such a weakness. ‘ Uncle Giulio thought of everything, went to Brusuglio to talk to the agent, sent off parcels with copies of II conte di Carmagnola, and busied himself in an unpleasant law-suit which some relatives of Don Pietro, ‘le consorti Manzoni’, had brought against Alessandro concerning the inheritance.

  Il conte di Carmagnola was dedicated to rauriel, as a testimony to my cordial and reverent friendship’. It was printed by Ferrano of Milan, at the author’s expense. It met with approval and criticism in the papers, but did not have much success with the public. Fauriel wrote a French prose translation of it.

  They planned to return to Italy in May. ‘It is as if I were not in Paris at all, ‘ Giulia wrote to Canon Tosi. There was some truth in it, but she liked to emphasize to the canon what a strict life she was leading. ‘In the morning I leave for church with Alessandro, or on my own when he cannot come. . . otherwise, because of the winter weather, I am cooped up in these little rooms, but now Calderari has gone it will be better for me to go out a bit with Alessandro. Giulietta wants me to send you her love, she is still not well at all, she is a bit homesick for Milan and asks you to pray for her. ‘ Giulietta suffered from such severe headaches that they had to call a doctor and apply leeches to her legs. ‘Every day I see more clearly that my strength, my head, my knowledge, as well as the continual bustle around me make it quite impossible for me to establish a plan of education, ‘ Enrichetta wrote, also to the Canon. As the children were so often ill, the idea of sending the bigger children to school was put aside, and a governess was taken on, a certain Mademoiselle de Rancé, adopted daughter of an old friend of Giulia’s; she was always dressed in black although very young, she had a gentle but firm manner, and was extremely religious: for a week she had prayed to God that they would appoint her, although she had an excellent situation with a rich aristocratic family, but when she saw the Manzoni children she thought them so charming that she wanted to be called to educate them. Enrichetta thought she had been sent to them from Heaven, but she soon realised she was something of a fanatic: she belonged to the parish of Saint-Sulpice; she had enflamed political ideas of a ‘sul-pician’ character, that is to say, monarchical and reactionary, which she communicated to the children, and Enrichetta did not like this at all. ‘Besides,’ she wrote to Canon Tosi, ‘everyone in France is obsessed with politics, or so it seems to me, since even women are involved in politics in an extraordinary way; but I think this is bound to create difficulties in educating children. ‘ ‘I feel that a cool, balanced temperament is required with children’. She was preparing to dismiss Mademoiselle de Rancé. I am quite sick at heart when I think I may find myself once again in the old difficulties with the education of my children. . . My weak head and poor sight rule out any hope that I could take on the task myself. ’

  From Abbé Billiet, whom they had met at Chambéry the previous year, they had bad news of Councillor Somis: he had an eye disease, and was apparently going blind. He spent his days sitting in an armchair in his study, far from the fire and the light which hurt him; ‘plunged into a darkness, ‘ wrote Abbé Billiet, ‘which must inevitably turn the whole year for him into a long, weary night’; he had been forced into debt for treatment, and he was living in sadly straitened circumstances; he had a large family, five daughters to provide for, of whom the youngest was consumptive. Enrichetta was distressed by these painful details, the misfortunes of their friend caused her great anxiety; and the words ‘a long, weary night’ seemed directed at her, since she had eye trouble and was afraid of losing her sight in her turn. Shortly after they heard, again from Abbé Billiet, that Somis had moved from Chambéry to Turin, where he had received good treatment, and his condition was improving. But they felt they were surrounded by misfortunes; in those last months of their stay in France they met a young poet called Charles Loyson, and Alessandro, who was reluctant to see anyone at that time, became friendly with him, but Loyson was consumptive, with no hope of a cure. The friendship between him and Manzoni was brief; Loyson died in June, and for a few days the news of his death was kept from Manzoni who had been seriously ill for a month.

  On 10 May Manzoni fainted, then developed a high temperature. Enrichetta wrote about it either to Canon Tosi or to her friend Signora Parravicini, who often saw the Canon, and from the letters she received from them both in reply she felt they had understood neither her fears nor the gravity of his fever: the Canon continued to lament the delay in their departure. Enrichetta wrote again in a state of agitation: ‘Opening a letter in which I saw the handwriting of two people, each of whom has so much claim on my affection, respect and gratitude, I hoped, since my poor heart is in such great need at the moment. . . I hoped, I say, to find in it some words of consolation. . . I was disconcerted by this complete silence about a matter which could only be a great sadness to us. ‘ She was then moved to convey to the Canon thoughts which must surely have been weighing on her heart for some time. ‘The joy Alessandro anticipates in seeing his friends again knows no bounds, except in the idea which irritates him a little at times, that those friends feel they must call him to account, not for his actions, but actually for his intentions; he is often tempted to respond in the same way; I should certainly like to see him more humble and I try to persuade him. . . but he always answers: that if a man has nothing with which to reproach himself in his relations with other men, he can at least expect from them interest free from continual censure. ’ These words clearly refer to the Canon; he was the friend who had badgered Manzoni in the past, calling
him to account and censuring him, and especially tormenting and oppressing him with demands to write on religious matters. ‘Please have a little pity on me/ she wrote again to the Canon some time later, to excuse her own veiled but bitter resentment. ‘I’ve always had a poor head, but after my own troubles, and all the tribulations, great and small, which make up our lives here below, I have become. . . I dare not say a complete imbecile, in deference to the good Lord, but often I really don’t know where I am. ’

  As for Giulia, her letters to the Canon were full of piety as usual, but they too expressed resentment. The Canon kept writing that they must leave, but the return journey seemed to them fraught with risk. ‘Indeed the Lord knows how disappointed I am at this unexpected delay, ‘ Giulia wrote to the Canon. But after that fainting turn Alessandro had not recovered his health, and besides there was little Enrico ‘in travail with 4 teeth, with continual diarrhoea and feverishness’ and ‘our beloved Pietro not at all well after his father’s accident, which he witnessed. ‘ A letter from the Canon to Alessandro with various complaints and entreaties that they should set out had put him in a bad mood. ‘I must confess to you, and I beg you for the love of God not to take amiss what I am about to say, which is that your letter to Alessandro has upset him, ‘ Giulia replied to the Canon. ‘Anything that serves to remind him of objections made to his decisions or his point of view puts him in rather a bad mood, and I have not the right, and still less the power to influence in any way his view of things. This is right and proper because he is a man not a boy, and you know how sensitive he is about such things. ‘ Giulia had given the Canon the job of contacting a certain Giuseppino, who had been in service in their house in the past, and persuading him to come back; she “was hoping to find him at Brusuglio on their return On her side Giulia was to obtain some books and take them to the Canon ‘I have already obtained the books you commissioned me to find now I will look for the others ‘ About Abbé Lamennais whom the Canon so much hoped Alessandro would approach Giulia revealed her own perplexity ‘They say that the Abbé de Lamennais will soon bring out the second volume of his work but I must confess that I am not looking forward to it this author is at present involved in so many of those blessed political writings that really do not seem suited to his ministry and it is a pity that with his talent for writing on religion he should waste it criticizing governments and people I am simply telling you my opinions because we hardly ever talk about him ‘