‘Nice work!’ said the bearded man.
‘Who was it?’
‘Don’t ask.’
‘The victim though?’
‘Pellegrino Rossi.’
Suddenly now there was so much movement that Beppino could see nothing. Several men shouldered past him and out of a door leading to the via dei Leutari. Then, for a moment, there was space around the fallen politician. There was blood on the ground.
‘Shove forward,’ said the bearded man. ‘Cover their retreat.’
‘What happened?’
‘He was stabbed in the carotid artery. That’s fatal.’
Allocution by Pius IX.
Gaeta, 20 April 1849
Alas, Rome has become a forest of howling beasts, overflowing with men from every nation who are either apostates, heretics or teachers of communism or socialism, driven by the most terrible hatred of Catholic truth, and seeking … by might and main to … disseminate pestiferous errors of every sort.
Dispatch to Paris newspaper, The
Dawn of Freedom, from its Rome
correspondent:
My readers should know that Rome is not the ‘forest of howling beasts’ described by Pope Pius from his haven in Gaeta whither he fled four months ago.
While accounts of his flight differ, all agree that it was effected in the coach of the Bavarian Ambassador with the help of our own, who had had a private audience with him just before. Indeed it was under cover of this that Pius slipped into his disguise and out of the Quirinal, while His Excellency kept reading aloud, so that listeners might think the two still in conversation. By the time the deception was discovered, Pius was being conveyed across the border to the Kingdom of Naples. France is thus partly to blame if Rome, abandoned by its prince, has had to govern itself. Indeed the city’s representatives have since made a number of bids to be reconciled with him, but all have been haughtily repulsed. This is the background to their decision to proclaim a Republic and to his denunciation of them as ‘howling beasts’. My readers should remember it when listening to the rumours current in our sacristies. They should know too that Rome is functioning under its new leaders. Life goes on. Cafés are full. Your correspondent sits in one as he writes. Though the servant class is suffering because many employers have left, the general populace is in good heart. There is not a howling beast in sight.
Gaeta
‘Have you seen this impudence?’ Father Grassi showed Amandi the piece of low journalism designed to win French support for the so-called Roman Republic.
They had met by chance. The Jesuit was here to report to his General about their scattered fellows. He looked bedraggled and sick and Amandi found it hard to argue with him. Indeed, it was no time to argue with anyone, for ranks, very naturally, had closed.
What had happened after poor Rossi’s murder was that dragoons and Carabineers had fraternised with the mob which then marched up the Quirinal Hill to ask Mastai to appoint a ministry of their choice. On his refusal, they attacked his Swiss Guard. Shots were fired and when his secretary, Monsignor Palma, put his head out the window, it was blown off.
Under protest Pius then granted the ministry and, a week later, fled to this small port in the Kingdom of Naples whose monarch – nicknamed ‘Bomba’ when he got mercenaries to bombard his own people – was such an unsavoury host that it was assumed Mastai would move on. The Catholic Powers vied in offering hospitality but he, perhaps because of the invidiousness of choosing between them, ended by staying where he was. An exiled court was then set up as prelates rushed to join him, either because he needed their services or because they feared to become targets for the turbulence in Rome.
Monsignor Amandi had had no such fear and, when great cardinals were disguising themselves as – seeing no irony! – shepherds and sneaking from the city, had gone quietly about his business as he would still be doing if Pius had not summoned him.
Conciliatingly, he told Grassi of his regret at having been unable to save the wretched Nardoni on whose account they had last met. The Jesuit shrugged.
‘I didn’t have the influence you supposed …’
‘Oh, bishop, given that which has happened since …’
‘Yes.’
They were in a cramped, stale-smelling room filled with Grassi’s baggage. Space and privacy were scarce in Gaeta, so Amandi had let himself be inveigled here to talk. The Jesuits were still wary – Pius disliked their General – yet their modesty was charged with paradox. They, after all, had been proven right. General Roothan’s flight had prefigured the Pope’s. He was a John the Baptist who would have made straight the paths – would do so even now if he but knew which path Mastai planned to take. Amandi guessed that Grassi thought he knew. He didn’t – and doubted mat Pius did. He suspected him of waiting for a sign.
‘Don’t advise me,’ had been Mastai’s first words to Amandi when they met. ‘I’m getting Liberal advice from Rosmini and the opposite from Antonelli and what I need from you is to know the mind of God. Tell me about the children of La Salette.’ The wisdom issuing from the mouths of babes was what he craved and, if Amandi did not quite provide it, he did confine their conversations to things spiritual, with the result that the two were never closer.
‘Rosmini …’ The name could have been choking Grassi for whom priests who advised compromise with the Roman Republic were quite simply traitors. Rosmini, an advocate of reform, who had first come here as Piedmont’s official representative, did advise this and had seemed at times to have Pius’s ear. It was repeatedly rumoured that he was to be the next Cardinal Secretary – but then this was rumoured of Amandi too. Both had been promised red hats. Meanwhile, Cardinal Antonelli, who already had one, held the office pro tem.
Grassi put a hand over his eyes and when he removed it, Amandi saw that the whites were yellow and the skin around them raw. He was waiting. For what? Abruptly, despite himself, Amandi was seized by hilarity. Here was another one who hoped for a sign! Rosmini too had come to him for enlightenment. I should, thought the bishop, set up as a seer!
From the diary of Raffaello
Lambruschini:
It was in Gaeta that Amandi became a cardinal and that it got about that he would soon be Cardinal Secretary of State. Accordingly, he was courted and consulted, for vital decisions were being made and he, as an ex-diplomat, understood the wider web of interests and was acquainted with many who now converged on the exiled court, where emissaries were packed as tight as herrings and matters of high import discussed in cubicles and back rooms.
Four days after the Pope’s flight, France had dispatched 3,500 men in three steam frigates, allegedly to ensure His Holiness’ safety, but, in reality, to prevent Austria doing so first. Piedmont too was opposed to Austrian troops being invited into the state: a prospect so alarming to Liberals that several warned against it with an intemperance which harmed not only their cause but the hopes of their candidate, Father Rosmini, whose advice, though he had affected to be enraptured by it, Mastai never actually took. Baffled, Rosmini turned for guidance to Amandi. What, he asked, should he think or do? Although he himself had not sought this, His Holiness had plainly said that he wanted to make him a cardinal and maybe Cardinal Secretary and so, having been lent 10,000 scudi for this purpose by Pius himself, he had bought robes, two carriages, four horses and an appropriate amount of plate. Now, quite suddenly, Mastai was grown evasive. It looked as though Rosmini was not to be a cardinal at all and people had begun to criticise his extravagance. Bewildered, he assured Amandi that the carriages had not been expensive. They had belonged to dead cardinals. He was being maligned. As for his advice – which was to negotiate with the more moderate men in Rome – it had been a dead letter since January, when the Pope broke with those now trying to govern that city and fulminated an excommunication against all who collaborated with them. Rosmini was mystified. Had Pius gone completely over to the reactionaries? Did anyone know?
Amandi felt unable to enlighten Rosmini, a man so fallen
from favour that his books were now being examined for heresy by the Congregation of the Index. This information was confidential and Rosmini, if told, could not be trusted to conceal his source.
‘Don’t fret,’ said Mastai when asked to be candid with Rosmini. ‘He’s a dear fellow! Una carissima persona! Unworldly. Maybe even a saint. But I am obliged to yield a little to the other side. Let’s talk of something more uplifting.’
Bologna, 1849
Things were thorny for priests under a government disowned by the Pope. Cardinal Oppizzoni proceeded like a man picking his way through a blackberry bush.
When the dissidents in Rome convoked a Constituent Assembly and called for state elections, a papal Monitorio declared all who cast their votes excommunicate.
‘That’s Bomba’s doing!’ opined the Pope’s old supporters, then, refusing to believe Pius had written the discreditable Monitorio, burned all copies they could lay their hands on and broke up the type in printers’ shops.
‘Even if he wrote it, we’re not bound by it. The Pope-in-Gaeta is not the Pope-in-Rome,’ declared self-appointed tribunes, including the troublesome Father Bassi who was back in town dressed, said Oppizzoni, ‘like a buffoon!’ He was referring to the chaplain’s army uniform. The tricolour cross on Bassi’s chest especially scandalised the cardinal, who forbade him to say mass anywhere in the diocese unless he presented himself in proper attire. It was hard to discipline him further for, since being wounded at the front, he was idolized by the troops. Police reports that he had been seen drinking with officers at the Caffè dei Servi and the Leon d’Oro were tamely confided to the file which the Curia was keeping like a rod in pickle.
One of the chaplain’s more provoking habits was that of conscripting God and Pius to his cause. ‘Holy Father,’ he begged in an Open Letter, ‘by the love I bear you, I conjure you not to heed those now around you. Instead, give us our nation and our independence. Return to Rome, oh Saviour of Italy! Do not linger in the cage of Gaeta …’ Copies of this were on sale for fifteen baiocchi apiece. Proceeds to go to the poor.
‘He’s right!’ Rangone spoke fearlessly, being off to Imola, where the jealous monsignore had been obliged to sing small. Priests no longer dared antagonise the laity, and quarrels over mistresses were taboo. ‘Why should we be excommunicated?’ he demanded. ‘If we vote, we exercise our rights as citizens. We don’t touch the Pope’s spiritual power at all.’
‘So now you’re a theologian?’
‘Why should I have to be?’
‘Why should any of us?’ asked a customer of the Caffè degli Studenti where this conversation took place. ‘Theology’s what led to the Army being left in the lurch. If the Pope can’t make war, he should give up his crown. Why should we be unable to defend ourselves just because he happens to be our prince?’
‘Priests,’ said another, ‘may be eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake. The rest of us would like to keep our balls.’
Talk like this was copiously reported to the Curia and worried the cardinal.
‘That wretched Gazzetta di Bologna has stirred everyone up. It printed the Monitorio which I certainly never gave out. I hid all my copies.’
‘They got it from the Tuscan papers,’ said Monsignor Giuseppe Passaponti, his Vicar General. ‘And now our parish priests are in need of Your Eminence’s paternal advice. They keep asking what to tell their flocks.’
‘Don’t answer.’
With respect, Eminence, the twenty thousand men in this diocese who cast their votes need to know whether or not they’re excommunicated. Many are priests. Some are parish priests.’
‘There’s worse!’ A frail old cleric rustled like parchment in a breeze. ‘News of Your Eminence’s failure to publish the Monitorio has appeared in a Roman handbill. I have it here. It prays that Your Eminence’s patriotism may enlighten the Pope.’
‘Let me see!’ The cardinal snatched the handbill. ‘Where are my glasses? Here,’ he told Nicola, ‘you read it! Oh God,’ he prayed or swore, ‘what did we ever do to You to be so afflicted?’
Nicola read that Oppizzoni had been advised by theologians not to publish the excommunication which would thus remain a dead letter. The cardinal cracked his knuckles. The Vicar General seemed to suffer a spasm. Imaginary theologians were giving their nihil obstat to the revolution.
‘We must,’ said Passaponti, ‘issue a denial.’
The stricken cardinal waved a limp flipper-like hand. ‘Very well.’ Christ-the-fish! thought Nicola sympathetically, remembering the symbol in the Roman catacombs.
‘There’s more!’ The old curial priest probed with a scandalised finger. ‘Foreign newspapers are saying that Your Eminence and Your Eminence’s household voted for the Constitution.’
‘Deny it.’
‘And what about the twenty thousand penitents?’
The cardinal was exhausted. ‘What are other dioceses doing?’
‘Other dioceses have had smashed windows, arson, physical assaults and priests pelted with rotten vegetables.’
The cardinal’s eyelids descended. ‘Mmm!’ he murmured to his private darkness and was, apparently, vouchsafed enlightenment, for the lizardy skin flicked up. ‘I have it! We’ll do what the handbill says! We’ll solicit the advice of theologians. It will gain us time. Perhaps we might indicate that a merciful interpretation might be … No?’ A steely flicker from Monsignor Passaponti’s glasses reminded Oppizzoni that he stood convicted of laxity by Liberal handbills.
After that, news had come from Rome that a republic had been declared, the Pope dethroned and that the new government was to be a democracy.
‘Mad!’ was the opinion in all but the most advanced circles. Liberalism was the very most that could be hoped for. Democracy was a frill. It was a red rag to papal bulls and could only divide patriots. The hotheads were weaving a noose for everybody’s neck. However, they had the troops so, for now, it was necessary to celebrate. Cannons sounded. Bells were rung, houses illuminated and a masked ball – tickets one scudo – held to raise money to help the Venetians who were still holding out against Austria.
Out in the square, papal coats of arms, torn from the fronts of public buildings, were being burned. Monsignor Passaponti, looking out of the window of Nicola’s office – he had come by with some papers – remarked that what we now had in the city’s heart were Satan’s own insignia. Flames! He sniffed fastidiously and flicked away some ash which had floated in.
Street lighting had been promised, the price of salt reduced and the milling tax abolished. On the other hand, the Catholic Powers were said to be making ready to come and restore the Pope.
*
One radiant Sunday, Rangone came to say goodbye and Nicola and he took a last walk in the hills. Below them, Bologna was as neat as a cake within its ruff of walls.
‘Have you been seeing Maria?’
No, said Rangone. Her brother had become awkward. ‘I did what you asked, though. I gave her money. She claimed to be pregnant, so I would have had to anyway. To avoid a scandal. But as sure as guns neither you nor I was the first. I swear that girl’s passage could accommodate my fist. She was probably corrupted by her brother or father. It’s quite common.’
Nicola started to rage at him, then apologised. He too, after all, had hoped to be rid of Maria and knew his anger for a disguised spurt of shame. What right had he to have idealised her, then been disappointed? Now, again, his mind was filling with her name. Maybe that was what had confused him from the start? Maria! Tower of Ivory! City of Gold! Help us! But it was she who needed help.
Next day he went to the cathedral and spoke to the assistant sweeper of his job, his rheumatism and the price of tobacco, before slipping in a casual query: how was his daughter these days? The one who used to work for Donna Anna? Married perhaps? He spoke lightly, but the sweeper’s face became as red as steak. Knots tightened in his neck and his body was suddenly clumsy with pain. It was kind of the signore to ask, he managed to mutter. Then he burst out:
daughters! Blood ties! What were they but millstones to drown a man! The noises wheezing up his throat were perhaps attempts to deal with some natural obstruction.
Maria’s friend, Gianna, was no longer at the tobacco shop. She had married a greengrocer and Nicola found her selling lettuces and looking swollen and pink. She greeted him with good humour. Yes, she was expecting a child and, to be sure, happy. Her husband was good to her. Here he was, tying up bundles of pot herbs. She described Nicola as a customer from her days at the tobacconist’s. There were congratulations and the husband said nobody could say he was slow at the job! Then, after some whispering, she asked Nicola into the back room and gave him a glass of barley-water.
Maria, she said, had had to leave. She’d gone to Rome. To San Rocco. ‘It’s where women go, you know, in her condition.’
He knew. All Rome did. San Rocco was the lying-in hospital for secret pregnancies. Women there were allowed to keep their faces veiled, and it was said that to no one, not even to a husband or father, would the authorities divulge their names.
The babies were usually put on the revolving wheel at the door of the Santo Spirito Hospital. Tata, his wet-nurse, had sometimes taken babies from there, though she preferred not to as the money was bad and sometimes not paid at all.
‘When was she due?’ he asked.
Gianna thought May.
*
Nicola’s confessor, having voted in the elections, was being sent to do penance in a monastery.
‘I’m not complaining,’ he said. ‘Just letting you know why you won’t see me for a while. Do you want to step out of this box and have a coffee with me? Let’s talk for once like normal men.’
Nicola wanted to talk about Maria, but the confessor said they could do that in a café if they kept their voices down. On the way, he remarked that a number of priests, aghast at events in Rome and Gaeta, were thinking of leaving the Church. His name was Father Tasso and, seen in the open, he was in his early thirties. All bone. Intent and intense with a high forehead and receding hair.
The Judas Cloth Page 26
