CHAPTER XXXIV. A VALUABLE ACQUISITION
The most earnest reformer most confess that immense progress has beenmade during the present century. We are not speaking of mechanical orphysical arts, in which the advance is really wonderful, but we arethinking solely of the political and moral achievements of the age.
The emancipation of the nations from the power of the priest is avast object not yet attained, but towards the accomplishment of which,nevertheless, our generation is making gigantic strides.
Above all, this progress seems marvellous and divinely impelled, whenone remembers that the gradual destruction of priestcraft is the work ofthe priesthood itself. What enduring consolidation would not the Papacyhave obtained, had Pius IX. continued the system of reform with which hecommenced his reign, and sincerely identified himself with the Italiannation! An overruling Providence, however, blinded the eyes of thewavering monk for the good of his unfortunate people, and left him totravel on the perverse and misguided road of his predecessors--that isto say, to trade away Roman honor and Christian spirit for the help ofthe foreigner, vilely selling the blood of his countrymen. The Italiannation, which might have been so well and long deceived, has now seenthese impostors, the priests, walking with cross in hand at the head ofthe foreign troops pitted against Italian patriots. The writer has withhis own eyes more than once witnessed priests leading the Austriansagainst the Liberals. To serve the Papacy they have excited andmaintained brigandage, devastating the southern provinces with horriblecrimes, and fomenting by every means in their power the dissolution ofnational unity, so happily but hardly constituted.
Another sign of human progress in our day is the closer tie establishingitself between the aristocracy and the people. There still exist someoligarchs everywhere, more or lest callous, more or less insolent, whoaffect the arrogance and authority of former times, when the outrageousand intolerable feudal pretensions were in full force. But they arefew in number, and the greater part of the nobility (noble not only bybirth, but in soul) associate with os, and mingle their aspirations withours.
To this last type belonged the brother of Irene, who undertook theunlucky military affair we related in the last chapter, with the ideaof rescuing his beloved sister from the brigands, into whose hands hebelieved she had fallen an unwilling victim. But when he learned thatthose he had fought against were Romans of noble and lofty spirit,and very far from the assassins he had pictured, he did not fail tocompliment the valor of his countrymen; and when he further learned thatQrazio, to whose generosity he owed his life, was the legal husband ofhis sister, and that she loved him so tenderly, his maimer and opinionchanged entirely.
These considerations had pleaded already in favor of Irene, who, uponseeing her brother, threw herself at his feet, clasping his knees in aflood of tears, which flowed the faster at the remembrance of her deadfather, whom he represented in face and voice.
The Prince, raising her gently, mingled his tears with hers, as heaffectionately embraced her. Orazio, touched to the depths of his soul,was also affected, and taking the Prince's sword by the point, handed itback to him, saying, "So noble a soldier ought not to be deprived, evenby accident, of his weapon." The Prince accepted it with gratitude, andshook the bronzed hand of this son of the forest amicably.
And Clelia! what had made her rush away from this charming scene? whathad she heard amid the noise of the conflict? She had recognized thevoice of her Attilio during the assault, and for her and him too thiswas a supreme moment. Yes, during the battle, when the shouts ofthe new-comers made the arches of the castle ring again, Cleliadistinguished her betrothed's voice. She threw down a gun which she wasloading, and rushed to a balcony, whence she could survey the scene ofaction. For one second, through the smoke, she obtained a view of theface engraven upon her heart, but that second was sufficient to makeher feel surpassingly happy. Attilio, indeed, it was, who, with Silvio,Muzio, and some other companions, had thus charged and scattered thePapal troops.
Silvio, it must be known, was well acquainted with the castle ofLucullus, where he had often been a guest, as well as the associateof Orazio in his hunting and fighting expeditions. Through him acommunication was kept up between the Liberals in the city and those inthe country. Before quitting Rome he had come to the determination oftaking the field, and placing himself under Orazio's flag, and, as wehave seen, he happily arrived with his associates just in time to givethe last blow to the Papal soldiers.
The gentle reader must himself imagine the joy in the castle caused bythe arrival of friends who could contribute so powerfully to the safetyof the proscribed--what interrogations! what embracings! what inquiriesafter parents, relatives, and friends! what new and happy hopes! whatsoft illusions, dreams of peace and rest!
"Oh, my own, my own!" whispered Clelia, when Attilio for the first timeimprinted a kiss upon her beautiful brow, "thou art mine and I am thine,in spite of the wicked priests, in spite of the world."
The smell of the gunpowder had perhaps turned her dear little head, sothat we may pass over the slight indiscretion of such confessions. Sheshould have been more coquettish, but she was a Roman girl, and her lovewas true. And is not true love sublime, heroic, such as these twohappy beings bore to one another? Is it not the life of the soul, theincentive of all that is noble, the civilizer of the human race?
The Liberals had a glorious acquisition in the person of Prince T------;he was entirely converted by the scenes he had witnessed and thewords which he heard; for, generous and brave by nature, he felt thehumiliation of his country, and desired to see her liberated from thebad government of the priest and the foreigner. Educated away from Rome,however, and moving in a different sphere from those patriots who heldin their hands the plot of the Revolution, he had remained in ignoranceof much that was passing, and had even accepted, at his father's desire,a post in the Pontifical army, which removed him farther than ever fromthe influence of our brave friends. But a film had now passed from hissight, and he saw at last with clearer vision the greatness of Italy'sfuture, and how surely Italy--now divided into so many parts, despisedand scorned by the world--should yet be re-united, and become one grandand noble nation, looked up to and respected as in the days of her pastglory, as the patriotic Italians of all periods have ever dreamed andprayed she should be.
The Prince was enchanted with his new quarters and with his newcompanions, and vowed to himself to live and die for the sacred cause ofhis country.
Rich, powerful, and generous, he became in future the strongestsupporter of the proscribed, and they had reason to congratulatethemselves for having put faith and hope in so noble a patriot, and onewhom they had thus doubly conquered.