In early December Vittoria came from Lodi. On the twelfth she was sent back. She would not see her mother again. Cousin Giacomo wrote to Uncle Giulio Beccaria: ‘This morning I saw Grossi. . . he confirmed that Enrichetta was not in danger for the moment, and may be said to have improved a little. In any case, we have taken the necessary steps, if the worst comes to the worst, and arrangements would be made by me and by Grossi for the family to come to you at Gessate at a time of their choice, and Grossi would be very willing to accompany them. But let us still cling to the hope that such a tragedy may not occur or at least not so suddenly. . .’
And the Marchesa Cristina wrote to Massimo:
‘Just a line, Massimo dear, with Christmas greetings to you, Giulia, Sandrina and all the Manzonis and friends. My dear, this is a very sad Christmas, but I offer my greetings in a Christian sense, that is, I pray for you all with the courage and resignation which makes profitable for the soul those afflictions that the Lord visits upon His children. You cannot imagine how grief-stricken I am at the griefs of a family with whom I feel at one as with my own. From the moment I heard that angel had taken the last rites, I have known no comfort, and my stomach is upset all the time. ’
Enrichetta died on Christmas Day, at eight in the evening. The funeral took place on the 27th at the neighbouring parish church of San Fedele. The body was taken to Brusuglio. Manzoni wrote the epitaph for her tomb. ‘To Enrichetta Manzoni, née Blondel, incomparable daughter-in-law, wife and mother; her mother-in-law, husband and children pray with bitter tears but in living faith that she may enter into the glory of Heaven.’
Then they all went to Uncle Giulio Beccaria’s at Gessate. On 31st December Grandmother Giulia wrote from there to Vittoria:
‘My darling Vittoria, God has taken from us the angelic creature He had given to us in His mercy — to you as mother, to me as the dearest daughter, to your father as an incomparable companion. Oh! Vittoria dear, the pain and desolation are indeed great, and we will feel the loss of that angel in every minute of every day.
‘What a life and what a death was hers! You had to leave her before she left us all: offer up to God your sacrifice, and hers in sending you back, which cost her very dear! She made a like sacrifice in not seeing her dear Matilde again, saying: “I have already sacrificed her to the Lord”.
‘I will not go into many details now, although they are sacred and precious; I will just tell you that for several days she was longing for Christmas Eve, and indeed on that day she received the Holy Eucharist and extreme unction for the second time. She spent the day until evening in a gentle agony, conscious and praying all the time. Our good Rector was with her all the time. The moment came. She was supported by Pietro and Massimo; everyone was praying; a faint sigh told the Rector she had passed to Heaven, and he announced it to us in these words: We are praying for her, now she is praying for us.
‘Then I saw the angel again: a heavenly smile had formed on her lips; everyone came to see her with love and veneration; she was taken to Brusuglio amid the tears and prayers of all. . .
‘Your poor, desolate father is resigned to the will of God, but submerged in the most profound, I might even say unimaginable grief; and us? . . . Oh, dear Vittorina, may the Lord help us! I say no more. We went to the Beccaria house, and now we have come here to Gessate. Excuse my bad writing: I am writing in the evening and I can’t see very well.
‘My Vittoria, dearest girl, if we would die like her, we must live like her. Oh Vittoria, remember that you are Enrichetta’s daughter! — This name says everything — everything that is good and holy on this earth. Vittoria, my little one, I can’t write any more. Your Papa presses you to his poor heart; everybody sends their love, including Uncle and “la zietta” . . . Oh Vittoria, remember the life your mother led! As long as I live, I shall always be your most loving Grandmother. ’
She wrote a long letter to her friend Euphrosine Planta. The Falquet-Plantas lived in Grenoble. They were old friends of the Manzonis. One of their sons, Henri, had spent a few days at Brusuglio that summer when Enrichetta had fallen ill.
‘Alas! my dearest Euphrosine, your tender heart spoke true when it presaged some misfortune, for the greatest possible has befallen us. Our angelic Enrichetta is no longer in this world of woe. Alas! I have very painful details to tell, but let me say a word about us, poor, unhappy creatures that we are. Our pain reached its peak, but in the end it has to lose some force to be bearable at all, but the deprivation, day by day, minute by minute, of one who was the soul, the counsel, the pillar of the whole family, one who was for 26 years our model and our joy, no! my friend, no, one cannot grow accustomed to such a loss. I have, so to speak, lost my daily bread, and as our grief is continuous, it is all the more scorching and hard to bear. If I say this, judge for yourself the state of my unhappy son; his lamentations (oh! they come from the very heart!) follow wave on wave, grief engenders grief, he lives on pain and resignation, resignation and pain, for her presence is everywhere with us. All our children have felt this irreparable loss, and feel it still. Each day they pay their tribute to her of veneration, love and grief. But let me speak of her, not us. A few days after your Henri left us, she felt worse than usual, but without taking to bed. Our two girls were staying with their sister at the lake and we were to go there too for the 24th (July) to celebrate Saint Cristina’s day, but Enrichetta was not well enough for that short journey. Alessandro and Pietro went on their own. They all came back together two days later and found Enrichetta in bed; gradually she began to suffer very bad pain in her intestines, so she was bled a great deal, and so two months passed, her illness fluctuating all the time, in the most alarming way. On top of all this a dreadful catarrhal cough, chest infection, and her sufferings endlessly renewed by endless remedies, but with such patience in face of every trial! Fortunately the season was clement, but winter was coming on and our house is no good at all for the winter.
‘To bring my story to a close, on the 23rd November we were able to take her to Milan. She did not suffer at all on the short journey; everything had been prepared to receive her. After a few quieter days in which she wanted to take the holy sacrament, she began to suffer greatly once more, and consultations were arranged, etc. . . . Our good doctor from the country moved in to be with her day and night. She was gripped by frequent convulsions, and her poor body was wasted away. She knew she was dying, but she did not want to talk about it to us: “Oh! they get too distressed!” She consoled herself by gazing at a little picture of the Holy Virgin, saying “She is my consolation. “ Not a word of complaint; her resignation was complete. She only asked her women: “Tell me, when is Christmas Eve?” Hearing her ask this, the women and I were anxious. Alas! it was on Christmas Eve that she asked for her confessor again. She wanted to take the holy sacrament again, since she had received it not many days before, he told her that if she were well enough, the parish priest would certainly bring it. Her poor husband, who for some time had talked to her of nothing but the bliss of her eternal life, kept saying to her: “I offer you to God and beg you of Him." Oh, God! what a time that was! At last came that Christmas night. About midnight a strong convulsion gripped her; at once we called our good priest, a young man but full of doctrine, virtue and deep spiritual feeling; he gave her the holy oil, and since she was calm and in her right mind, he brought her the holy sacrament. We were beside her bed, we asked her blessing, she held my head in her hands, saying: “Oh! my poor nonna!” She said to Alessandro: “I commend my little babe to you." But she did not want to see her, saying: “I have already sacrificed her to God. “ Not a complaint, no sign of weakness, but loving and grateful for any little service done to her. She was as if already absorbed into God, and consoled herself with a little picture of the Holy Virgin she held before her. The priest did not leave her, she did not want him to go, he was praying all the time. Her son Pietro and her son-in-law were supporting her. The whole of Christmas Day passed in this way; we wandered from one room to another, s
tifling our laments and sobs. Alessandro was in a desperate state, but always at prayer. At eight in the evening the children and I were in the other room, Alessandro prostrate at the end of his wife’s room, his head on the ground, seeing and hearing nothing, the priest was commending her soul, when d’Azeglio said: “Her pulse has stopped beating." The priest turned to seek Alessandro; he found him on the ground, knelt before him and said: “We were praying for her, now she is praying for us."
‘This was how we heard of her blessed passing, as she called it, but so deadly for us. I need say nothing of us, for you can imagine and feel for the state we were in. My sister-in-law had come from her country estate, where she had left my brother. She took us to her house that night, and in the morning we set off with her. Before leaving, we went back to my house to see our beloved once again. An angelic smile had taken the place of those lines of pain that such a cruel illness had imprinted on the face, now young and beautiful again. Oh! Euphrosine, I kissed her hands, but dared not touch her, My poor Giulia, who was ill in bed, got up to come with us; after a few miles she had to turn back; her husband, who also returned, rendered every possible office to that holy body; no one touched her except her women and Massimo who placed her in her last resting-place. People came to see her; they prayed for her; at last two days later she was taken to the church, and in the evening to our country estate. A grave had been prepared in the cemetery. The peasants came to meet her with lighted candles. They kept vigil all day and in the morning they wanted the local priest and several others to say the funeral service again there. Oh! can you forgive me all these details? my poor head is so confused. I don’t know how you can follow all this scrawl, but it is all so alive in my memory that my pen goes on and on, without my knowing what I’m writing. We stayed with my brother for about a fortnight; now we are at home to feel each day the loss of her who was our necessity.
‘Dear Euphrosine, I want to tell you that I share with all my heart in the loss of your good mother. Such a holy and precious death should console us, our faith tells us; but our hearts are flesh and always there to torment us. Do not worry about us; we have had no material worries at all. . . . Goodbye, my dearest friend; I feel I still have some bond upon this earth if you love me. ’
This was Enrichetta’s will, which she dictated a week before she died:
I, Enrichetta Blondel, wife of Alessandro Manzoni living in Milan, dispose of my belongings in the following way:
Regarding my dowry, I wish it to be divided into equal parts between all my children, both male and female; regarding my possessions outside my dowry, I leave half to my three sons Pietro, Enrico and Filippo, and the other half to be divided equally between all my children, both male and female; I wish my husband to hold everything in usufruct during his natural life.
I wish my above-mentioned three male heirs, and likewise my husband and usufructuary, to pay once only by way of legacy to my five daughters Giulietta married d’Azeglio, Cristina, Sofia, Vittorina, Matilde one thousand five hundred Milanese lire each.
This legacy to Giulietta, wife of the Marchese d’Azeglio, shall be paid once the will is proven, the other daughters may not demand it during the life of their Father unless in the case of their respective marriages.
The witnesses to the will were don Giulio Ratti, Provost of San Fedele, Tommaso Grossi and an accountant called Casti glioni.
‘Our friends have had the greatest misfortune that could happen to them’, Constanza Arconati wrote to Fauriel. He had not written to the Manzonis for a long time. He had not even sent a line when Giulietta got married. Costanza Arconati begged him to write. ‘My dear Fauriel, will you not write them a word? Your silence, justified or not, I do not know, at the time of Giulietta’s marriage, upset them so much that I can imagine what they must feel now. I beg you, do write. ’
Fauriel did not write. Manzoni wrote to him in February 1834, recommending to him Niccolò Tommaseo, who was going to Paris. For his part, Manzoni had not written to Fauriel for a long time. ‘A sacred duty forces me to break a silence which will not have surprised you. . . [the “sacred duty” was to introduce Tommaseo, who was so eager to meet him]: you know that at times there are words bitter to pronounce, even impossible to find, for the simple reason that they are in vain. . . Goodbye, dear, evermore dear friend; what remains of this poor family embraces you; one day I shall be able to communicate with you more fully. ’
Fauriel received Niccolò Tommaseo most cordially. They became quite good friends. He did not answer Manzoni’s letter, and never wrote to him any more. Neither did Manzoni write to him again.
In the summer of 1834 Mary Clarke was in Italy. She saw the Manzonis in Milan and and gave them news of Fauriel. She knew he was preparing for a journey to the South of France, but did not know when he was leaving.
Mary Clarke to Fauriel:
‘I am still filled with emotion after leaving the Manzonis so that I can think of nothing else. . . O Heavens! if you could come and spend a fortnight here during your trip, how much good you would do Manzoni; he loves you with all the love of which his noble heart is capable. How pleased I would be if I could persuade you to give him this pleasure! How he spoke of you! his friendship is not in the least diminished, nor the fascination he feels for you. Think how easy it would be when you are in the south of France; think how short life is; think of the happiness of having a friend like him; remember that for so many years you have thought of nothing but work and that this dries up the heart, and that it is not time wasted to spend time with one like him. . .’ Here the letter broke off, and besides, Mary Clarke did not know where to send it, because she did not know if Fauriel was still in Paris or if he had already left.
That summer, at Brusuglio, Giulietta took to her bed, never to rise again. As usual, Cousin Giacomo wrote to Uncle Giulio Beccaria:
‘The Manzonis did not leave Brusú yesterday because of Giulietta d’Azeglio, who has succumbed to a fever for which she had to be bled.’ ‘When I was going to see the Manzonis, I saw the cook Giuseppe on the way and, when I asked after Giulia, he told me that he was going to fetch her confessor, as she had wished to perform her devotions this morning. . . So, not to disturb her religious practices, I saw fit to delay my visit to Brusú. . . From what I heard, however, it seems things are not going at all well. ’
Giulietta died on the 20th September at Brusuglio. On her death certificate was written ‘tuberculosis of the abdomen’.
All the Manzonis went to Gessate, to Uncle Giulio Beccaria’s villa. Cousin Giacomo wrote to Uncle Giulio:
‘When I got to town yesterday evening, I went immediately to casa Manzoni, but heard they had all gone to you. I hope that, in spite of the distress of mind, they are all reasonably well. I beg you to express my condolences to them, and to d’Azeglio. I shall arrange in the coming weeks to come to Gessate to embrace them all. ’
The author of these laconic notes was the Cousin Giacomo with whom Giulietta had been in love.
Giulietta was buried at Brusuglio. Manzoni wrote the epitaph for her tomb:
‘To Giulia d’Azeglio, née Manzoni who died in the peace of the Lord / on the 20th day of September 1834; / her husband and her desolate relatives / commend her to His mercy / and to the prayers of the faithful. ’
Manzoni wrote to the Grand Duke of Tuscany in October 1834:
‘It has pleased the Lord to take from the world my eldest daughter, in the flower of youth, at the beginning of a very happy marriage and ardent motherhood. Mindful as I shall be as long as I live of the pity Your Highness deigned to show me for the cruel blow which struck me at the end of last year, it would seem to me almost ungrateful to remain silent about this other cruel blow, so soon after. ’
Mary Clarke to Fauriel, from Lille (about a month and a half had passed since her last letter, and passing through Basle, she had heard that Fauriel was at Marseilles):
‘I would have written without waiting for your letter, if I had known where to send, because I dearly wish
ed to speak to you about the Manzonis while my heart was so full of them, and while my impression was more happy than sad; now what I have to say can only give you pain. They have lost Giulietta, and during my stay she was so much better that they hoped to save her. It is all the more horrible in that, as far as I am persuaded from enquiries I made, it was her own folly that began to destroy her stomach, and a year or two ago she could have been saved if she had consulted the doctor who did me so much good; she did not die of any illness, but of a serious wasting and general, slow inflammation. The fact is that she had destroyed her digestion over a period of years, eating almost nothing, and then was not sufficiently well cared for, and all the fatigues of her confinement and nursing aggravated her weakness. . . If you could have the courage to write to Manzoni, I assure you it would do him good: just a few lines; this grief will be much less than the first, only it will reopen the wound; how I pity the poor grandmother! Signora Arconati wanted to suggest you go to Milan with her. . . She wanted you to join her at Gaesbeck. She would take you in her carriage, you would be very comfortable; I have nothing to say about this plan, because if you wanted to go, it would be quicker to go from where you are now; as for me, I should be happily resigned to see you later if Manzoni were to reap the benefit. The impression he made on me was like nothing I’ve ever known, at times I couldn’t look at him without tears coming to my eyes and I was obliged to go out of the room several times, his face seemed to me as Christ must have looked to his disciples, I wanted to kneel down before him. He has hardly aged at all, only his hair is all grey, he was almost cheerful the two days I was there, but it’s not insensitivity as Signora Arconati thinks, but his nature is so tender and so gentle that he cannot bear grief too long and seeks to elude it from time to time; grief is so ugly that it proves antipathetic to extreme beauty, but there are traces of tenderness and suffering in his face that bear witness to what he has been through; he shows supreme grace.
The Manzoni Family Page 17
