François de Chateaubriand
Mémoires d’outre-tombe
Book XL
Translated by A. S. Kline © 2005 All Rights Reserved.
This work may be freely reproduced, stored, and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose.
Contents
Book XL: Chapter 3: The arrival of Madame la Duchesse de Berry
Book XL: Chapter 5: Padua – Tombs – Zanze’s manuscript
Book XL: Chapter 6: Unexpected news – The Governor of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia
There was an immense gulf between this reverie and the reality to which I returned on presenting myself at the Princesse de Bauffremont’s hotel; I was forced to leap from 1806, the memories of which had just occupied me, to 1833, where in fact I found myself to be: Marco Polo descended on Venice from China, after just such an absence of twenty-seven years.
Madame de Bauffremont bore in her face and her manners the unmistakable mark of a Montmorency: she might well, like that Charlotte, mother of the Great Condé and the Duchesse de Longueville, have been Henri IV’s lover. The Princess told me that Madame la Duchesse de Berry had written a letter to me from Pisa which I had not received: Her Royal Highness had arrived in Ferrara where she expected me.
It cost me something to abandon my retreat; I needed a week or so more for my sightseeing; above all I regretted not seeing the end of the Zanze adventure, but my time belonged to Henri V’s mother, and whenever I travel something always occurs that sends me off track.
I left my luggage at the Hôtel de l’Europe on departure, counting on returning with Madame.
I found my calash again at Fusina: they retrieved it from an old shed, like a jewel from the Royal wardrobe. I left the shore that may take its name from the King of the Ocean’s trident: Fuscina.
Returning to Padua, I told the coachman: ‘The
The
‘Che fai, che pensi? che pur dietro guardi
Nel tempo, che tornar non pote amai,
Anima sconsalata?’
Disconsolate spirit, what do you think, or do?
Why do you look behind, at days
that cannot come again?’
All
this country, to a distance of sixty miles around, is the native soil of
writers and poets: Livy, Virgil, Catullus,
Ariosto, Guarini,
the Strozzi, the three Bentivoglios, Bembo, Bartoli,
Boiardo, Pindemonte, Varano, Monti,
and a crowd of other famous men, were engendered by this land of the Muses. Even
Tasso was of Bergamese origin. I
have not met the most recent of these poets except for one of the two
Pindemontes. I did not know Cesarotti or
Monti, I would have been happy to have met Pellico
and Manzoni, the dying rays of Italian
glory. The
I continued my journey by night through Rovigo; a blanket of fog covered the earth. I only saw the River Po at the Lagoscuro crossing. The carriage stopped; the coachman summoned the ferry with his trumpet. The silence was complete; except for the barking of a dog on the opposite bank of the river, and the distant cascade of a triple echo responding to his call; a foretaste of Tasso’s Elysian empire which we were about to enter.
A splashing sound in the water, through the fog and the shadows, announced the ferry; it slid along the rope tied between anchored boats. Between four and five in the morning of the 18th I arrived in Ferrara: I stopped at the Three Crowns; Madame was expected there.
Wednesday the 18th.
Her
Royal Highness not having arrived, I visited the
The
cathedral is deceptive: you see a front and two sides incrusted with
bas-reliefs of sacred and profane subjects. On this exterior there is further
ornamentation, more usually placed inside Gothic buildings, such as rudentures, Arabic sculptured corbels, soffits with aureoles, and galleries of
little columns with ogives, and trefoils, built into the thickness of the
walls. You enter, and you stand amazed on finding a different church with
hemispherical vaults and massive pillars. Something like this disparity exists
in
I was quite embarrassed by this aspect of the cathedral: it seemed to have been turned inside-out like a robe: a bourgeois woman of the age of Louis XV disguised as a twelfth century lady of the manor.
If there is one life that must make us despair of happiness where men of genius are concerned, it is that of Tasso. The lovely sky his eyes saw when first they opened to the light of day was a deceptive sky.
‘My troubles,’ he says, ‘began with my life. Cruel fortune snatched me from my mother’s arms. I remember her kisses mingled with tears, her prayers that the winds carried away. I could no longer press my face against hers. With tottering steps like Ascanius or the young Camilla, I followed my proscribed father’s wanderings. I grew up in poverty and exile.’
Torquato Tasso lost Bernardo Tasso at Ostiglia. Torquato eclipsed Bernardo as a poet; he gave him immortality as a father.
Emerging
from obscurity with the publication of Rinaldo, Tasso was summoned to
Tasso
read the stanzas of his Gerusalemme
to Alfonso’s two sisters, Lucrezia
and Leonora, as he composed them. He was sent to Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, who was established at the
court of France: he pawned his clothes and furniture to make the journey, while
the Cardinal, whom he honoured by his presence, made the sumptuous gift of a
hundred Barbary steeds with their superbly dressed Arab riders, to Charles IX. Despatched at first to
the stables, Tasso was then presented to the poet-king, a friend of Ronsard. In a letter which we have, he judges the
French harshly. He composed a few lines of his Gerusalemme in an Abbey in
Tasso
returned to
This
modesty, though unknown in our age, did not forestall jealousy. Torquato watched
the celebrations given by
‘What has a greater right to cross the centuries mysteriously than the secret of a noble love, confided to the secrecy of a sublime poem? ...’
‘How delightful it is’ (Goethe again interprets Leonora’s feelings), ‘how delightful it is to see oneself reflected in this man’s fine genius, to have him beside one in the splendours of this life, to advance with him swiftly towards the future! Time cannot hurt you now, Leonora: living in the land of poetry, you will be forever young, forever happy, as the years carry you along in their course.’
The singer of Erminia conjures Leonora (again in the German poet’s lines) to let him stay in one of her most solitary villas: ‘Suffer me,’ he tells her, ‘to be your slave. How I shall nurse your trees! With what care, in autumn, will I cover the tender saplings of your lemon grove! I will raise beautiful beds of flowers beneath the glass.’
The tale of Tasso’s love was lost, Goethe recreated it.
The sorrows of the Muses
and religious scruples began to disturb Tasso’s reason. He was made to endure a
short period of detention. He escaped half-naked, wandered in the mountains,
borrowed a shepherd’s rags and, disguised as one, arrived at his sister Cornelia’s house. His sister’s
embrace, and the attractions of his native region, eased his sufferings for a
while: ‘I wished,’ he says, ‘to retire to
Received coldly by Duke
Alfonso, he withdrew once more; he entered the little courts of
Surprised by a storm
near
Then the poet wrote to one of his friends: ‘Beneath the weight of misfortune, I have renounced all thoughts of glory; I will call myself happy if I can only assuage the thirst that devours me…The idea of captivity without end and indignation at the mistreatment I endure adds to my despair. The state of my beard, my hair, and my clothes makes me an object of disgust even to myself.’
The prisoner begged mercy of all including his pitiless persecutor; from his lyre he drew tones that ought to have made the walls with which his misery was surrounded fall.
‘Piango il morir: non piango il morir solo.
Ma il modo……
Mi saria di conforto aver la tomba,
Ch’altre mole innalzar credea co’ carmi.
I weep at death: not only at death I weep.
But its manner......
It will comfort me to possess the tomb
Of one who thought to raise other monuments in verse.’
Lord Byron has composed a poem on The Lament of Tasso; but he cannot avoid substituting himself for the hero in the scene throughout; in as much as his genius lacks tenderness, his lament is merely an imprecation.
Tasso addressed this plea to the Council of Ancients at
‘Torquato Tasso, not
only Bergamese by origin, but by affection, though having lost his father’s
inheritance, and his mother’s dowry…yet (after many years serfdom and the
weariness of long years) never having, in all his miseries, lost the faith he
has in that city (Bergamo) dares to ask her for assistance. Let her beseech the
Duke of Ferrara, once my protector and benefactor, to return me to my own
place, my relatives and myself. The unfortunate Tasso thus begs your lordships
(the magistrates of
They refused Tasso ink, pen, and paper. He had sung the magnanimous Alfonso, and the magnanimous Alfonso plunged into the depths of a madhouse the one who had shed an imperishable light over his brow. In a sonnet full of grace, the prisoner begs a cat to lend him the glow of her eyes to replace the light he has been deprived of: an inoffensive conceit that proves the poet’s docility and deep distress. ‘As on the ocean that the storm infests and darkens….the weary helmsman lifts his night-bound head towards the stars that gleam about the pole, so I, dear cat, in my wretched trouble. Your eyes seem twin stars that shine before me…O cat, lamp of my wakefulness, beloved cat! Since God keeps you from hurt, since Heaven feeds you on milk and meat, give me your light to write my verses: fatemi luce a scriver queste carmi.’
At night Tasso thought he heard strange noises, the chiming of funeral bells; spectres tormented him. ‘I can stand no more,’ he cried, ‘I succumb!’ Attacked by a grave illness, he thought he saw the Virgin descending miraculously to save him.
‘Egro io languiva, e d’alto sonno avvinto….
Giacea con guancia di pallor dipinta,
Quando di luce incoronata…………
Maria, pronta scendesti al mio dolore.
Ill, I languished conquered by deep sleep....
I lay there, pallor spreading o’er my cheeks,
When, crowned with light……………….
Mary, you flew swiftly to tend my sorrow.’
Montaigne visited Tasso reduced to
this sad misfortune, and gave witness of his compassion. At the same period, Camoëns ended his life in a hospice in
So Eridanus’ voice rang out beside the Tagus; so, across the seas, two famous sufferers of like genius and like destiny celebrated each other from one hospice to the other, to the shame of the human race.
How many kings, great or
foolish, drowned now in oblivion, believing themselves, at the end of the
sixteenth century, persons worthy of remembrance were ignorant even of the
names of Tasso and Camoëns! In 1754, one read, for the first time, ‘the name of Washington, in the tale of an obscure
battle in the forest, between a crowd of Frenchmen, Englishmen and savages:
where is the clerk at
Envy hastened to spread
its poison through the open wound. The Accademia
della Crusca declared: ‘that Jerusalem
Delivered was a cold and leaden compilation, in an obscure and uneven
style, full of ridiculous lines, barbarous words, failing to compensate by any
kind of beauty for its innumerable faults.’ Fanaticism in support of the works
of Ariosto dictated the charge. But cries
of popular approval stifled the academic curses: it was no longer possible for
Duke Alfonso to prolong the captivity of a man who was guilty only of poetry.
The Pope demanded the deliverance of the glory of
Emerging from prison, Tasso was no happier. Leonora was dead. He trailed his sorrows from city to city.
At Loretto, almost dead
of hunger, he was on the point, as one of his biographers says, ‘of begging
with the hand that had built Armida’s
palace.’ At
He preferred a cell in
the monastery of Montoliveto to more sumptuous residences. On a journey he made
to
From
The poet softens the Biblical scene, and in the tender creations of his lyre woman is simply man’s first dream. The disappointment of having to leave incomplete a pious work, which he considered his hymn of expiation, made the dying Tasso determine to condemn his profane poetry to extinction.
Regarded as lower than a
thief by his society, the poet received the offer of an escort to accompany him
to
Attacked by an illness
which he sensed would cure all others, he retired to the monastery of Sant’Onofrio, on
All treatment was in vain. On the seventh morning of fever the Pope’s doctor declared that the illness gave little reason to hope. Tasso embraced him and thanked him for announcing such good news. Then he gazed heavenwards and, in a heartfelt manner, gave thanks to the God of Mercy.
His weakness increasing, he wished to receive the Eucharist in the monastery church: he dragged himself there leaning on the monks and returned borne in their arms. When he was once more lying on his bed, the Prior interrogated him regarding his last wishes.
‘I had little care for worldly goods during my life; I own still less in dying. I have no testament to make.’
‘– In what place do you wish your grave to be?’
‘– In your church, if you will deign to so honour my remains.’
‘– Do you wish to dictate your own epitaph?’
Now, turning towards his confessor: ‘Father, write this “I render my soul to God who gave it to me and my body to the earth from which it came.” I bequeath to this monastery the sacred image of my Redeemer.’
He took a crucifix in his hands which he had received from the Pope and pressed it to his lips.
Seven days were yet to
pass. The afflicted Christian having solicited the favour of holy oil, Cardinal
Cinzio arrived bearing the Sovereign
Pontiff’s benediction. The dying man displayed great joy. ‘Here, he cried, ‘is
the crown that I came to
Virgil asked Augustus to throw the Aeneid into the flames; Tasso begged Cinzio to burn the Gerusalemme. Then he asked to be alone with the crucifix.
The Cardinal had not reached the door when his tears, forcibly repressed, flooded forth: the bell sounded the final agony, and the monks, chanting the prayer for the dying, wept and lamented in the cloister. At this sound, Tasso said to the charitable recluses (he seemed to see them moving round him like shades): ‘My friends, you think I am leaving you; I merely go before you.’
From then onwards he
spoke only with his confessor and some learned fathers. Near his last breath,
these words came from his mouth, the fruit of his life’s experience: ‘If there
were no Death, there would be nothing more wretched in this world than
The remainder of the sentence could scarcely be heard, as if pronounced by a traveller in the distance.
The author of the Henriade died in the Hôtel de Villette, on the banks of the
All that is said of
Tasso’s posthumous triumph seems suspect to me. His evil fortune was still more
obstinate than is supposed. He did not die at the moment designated for his
triumph: he survived that projected triumph by twenty-four hours. He was not
wrong about his destiny; he was never crowned, not even after his death; his
body was not displayed on the Capitol clothed as a senator in the midst of the
crowd and the nation’s tears; he was buried, as he had requested, in the
Cardinal Cinzio formed the plan of erecting a mausoleum
to the singer of the Holy Sepulchre; an abortive plan. Cardinal Bevilacqua wrote a pompous epitaph
destined for the cornice of another future mausoleum, and the thing rested
there. Two centuries later Napoleon’s brother occupied himself with a monument
at
At last, in our own day,
a great funeral monument was begun in memory of the Italian Homer, once a poverty-stricken wanderer like
the Greek poet: has the work been completed? Personally, I prefer the little
stone in the chapel, of which I have spoken in the Itinerary, to any marble
tumulus: ‘I found (in
The Italian commission
charged with looking after funeral monuments asked me to take up a collection
in
The God who smiles at my
dreams hurling me from the Janiculum
along with the Senators of ancient
What exists of the House
of Este today? Who thinks now of Obizzo, Niccolò, or Ercole? What name remains:
that of Leonora. What do visitors seek in
Tasso won a memorable
victory there: he rendered Ariosto forgotten; the visitor ignores the bones of
the poet of
‘Tasso wandering from town to town,
And overcome by trouble, one fine day,
Beside a springing laurel bush sat down
That spread its greening boughs around
The tomb of Virgil, every way…etc.’
I hastened to bear my
homage to that son of the Muses, so truly consoled by his brothers: a rich Ambassador,
I had subscribed to his mausoleum in
On the walls, outside the cell, and all around the wicket, you can read the names of the worshippers of the god: the statue of Memnon, trembling with harmonies at the touch of dawn, was covered with comments by witnesses of its marvels. I did not scribble my ex-voto there; I hid among the crowd, whose secret prayers would be, because of their very humility, more agreeable to Heaven.
The buildings which
contain Tasso’s prison now belong to a hospital open to all sufferers; they are
under the protection of the saints: Sancto
Torquato sacrum: sacred to Torquato Tasso. At some distance from the holy
cell is a dilapidated courtyard; in the midst of this courtyard, the concierge
cultivates a flower bed surrounded by a hedge of mallows; the fence, of a
pleasant green, supports large and beautiful flowers. I gathered one of its
violet-coloured roses that seemed to me as if it was growing at the foot of
Having gone out on the morning of the 18th, on returning to the Three Crowns I found the street blocked by a crowd; the neighbours gaping from the windows. A guard of a hundred Austrian and Papal soldiers surrounded the inn. The officers of the garrison, the city magistrates, generals, and the pro-legate were waiting for MADAME, of whom a courier in French livery had announced the arrival. The rooms and staircases were decorated with flowers. There was never a finer reception for an exile.
At the appearance of the carriages, the drum beat a tattoo, the regimental band struck up, and the soldiers presented arms. MADAME, caught up in the crowd, had difficulty descending from her calash which had stopped at the door of the hostelry; I hurried up; she recognized me in the midst of the throng. From among the assembled authorities and the beggars who threw themselves towards her, she held out her hand, saying: ‘Mon fils est votre roi! My son is your king! Help me to pass, then.’ I did not find her altered much, only a little thinner; she had something of the air of a knowing child.
I led the way; she gave her arm to Monsieur de Lucchesi; Madame de Podenas followed. We mounted the stairs and entered the apartments between two rows of grenadiers, to the clash of arms, the sound of fanfares, and the vivats of the spectators. I was taken for a major domo, and people applied to me to be presented to Henri V’s mother. My name was linked to hers in the minds of the crowd.
It seems that Madame had
been received, from
I thought little of the messages,
but I was struck vividly by the contrast: in
I was forced to accept my improvised role of First Gentleman of the Chamber. The Princess was extremely amusing: she wore a dress of greyish net, tight at the waist; on her head, a kind of little widow’s bonnet or child’s cap, like that of a schoolgirl doing penance. She buzzed here and there like a cockchafer, and flew about dizzily, with a confident air, amongst the curious, just as she had flitted about the woods of the Vendée. She looked at no one and recognized no one; I was obliged to pull disrespectfully at her her robe, or block the way, saying: ‘Madame, this is the Austrian Commandant, the officer in white; Madame, this is the Commander of the Papal forces, the officer in blue. Madame, this is the pro-legate, the tall young priest in black.’ She stopped, said a few words in Italian or French, not correctly exactly, but in a lively, open, and pleasant way, such that the disagreeable seemed agreeable: her allure was unlike any other. I felt almost embarrassed, and yet I felt no anxiety about the effect produced by the little escapee from fire and prison.
A comical confusion ensued.
There is something I must say in all modesty; the vain clamour surrounding my
life increases the more my life’s true silence deepens. I cannot stop at an inn
these days, in
Now, my admirers rushed
to the Three Crowns hotel, with the crowd attracted by Madame le Duchesse de
Suddenly the Princess vanished: she went off on foot, with Count Lucchesi, to see Tasso’s cell; she knew all about prisons. Mother of the exiled orphan, of the child heir of Saint Louis, Marie-Caroline emerging from the fortress of Blaye only to seek a poet’s dungeon in Renée of France’s city, is something unique in the history of fate and human glory. The venerable exiles of Prague might have passed through Ferrara a hundred times without such an idea entering their heads; but Madame de Berry is a Neapolitan, she is a compatriot of Tasso who said: Ho desiderio di Napoli, come l’anime ben disposte, del paradise: I long for Naples, as untroubled souls long for Paradise.’
When I was in opposition and disgrace; and the decrees were being concocted clandestinely at the Palace, and still remained hidden in joyous hearts: the Duchesse de Berry, one day, saw an engraving representing the poet of the Gerusalemme at the bars of his cell: ‘I hope,’ she said, ‘we shall soon see Chateaubriand thus.’ Words spoken in prosperity, to be no more taken account of, than some plan conceived while drunk. I should have joined MADAME in Tasso’s very cell, having endured a police gaol for her. What elevation of feeling in the noble Princess, what a mark of esteem she showed me in addressing herself to me in the hour of her misfortune regarding the project she had conceived! If her initial request valued my talents too highly, her confidence was less at fault in regard to my character.
Monsieur de Saint-Priest, Madame de Saint-Priest and Monsieur Sala arrived. The latter had been an officer in the Royal Guard, and he had replaced Monsieur Delloye, a Major in the same Guard, in the business of publishing my works. Two hours after Madame’s arrival, I met Mademoiselle Lebeschu, my compatriot; she hastened to tell me of the hopes that they wished to place in me. Mademoiselle Lebeschu figured in the Carlo Alberto trial.
Returning from her poetic visit, the Duchess de Berry had me summoned: she was waiting for me with Monsieur le Comte Lucchesi and Madame de Podenas.
Count Lucchesi-Palli is tall and dark: MADAME calls him a Tancred towards women. His manner towards his wife, the princess, is a masterpiece of propriety, neither humble nor arrogant, a respectful mixture of a husband’s authority and a subject’s submission.
Madame immediately
talked of her affairs; she thanked me for arriving at her invitation; she told
me she would go to
This declaration, which
I had not expected, dismayed me: to return to
If I were to go to Prague with Madame and she obtained what she desired, the honour of the victory would no longer belong wholly to Henri V’s mother, and that would not be right; if Charles X insisted on refusing a certificate of majority, in my presence (as I was persuaded he would), I would lose all credit. It thus seemed to me better to keep me in reserve, in case Madame failed in her negotiations.
Her Royal Highness
argued against my reasons: she maintained she could have no effect in
Monsieur and Madame de Saint-Priest entered in the midst of this discussion and insisted that the Princess was right. I persisted in my refusal. Dinner was announced.
MADAME was in high spirits. She told me, in the most amusing manner, of her quarrels at Blaye with General Bugeaud. Bugeaud attacked her politics and grew angry; Madame was angrier than he: they screamed at each other like two eagles, and she drove him from the room. Her Royal Highness suppressed certain details which she might make me party to if I were to accompany her. She would not let Bugeaud alone; she mistreated him in every way: ‘You know, I asked for you on four occasions?’ she told me. ‘Bugeaud passed my requests to D’Argout. D’Argout replied that Bugeaud was a fool, that he should have refused you entrance out of hand; he has good sense (de bon goût), that Monsieur D’Argout.’ MADAME stressed the rhyming words, in her Italian accent.
However, the rumour of my refusal having spread, the faithful became anxious. After dinner Mademoiselle Lebeschu came to lecture me in my room; Monsieur de Saint-Priest, a man of wit and reason, first sent Monsieur Sala to me, then replaced him and exhorted me in turn. ‘Monsieur de La Ferronays has been despatched to the Hradschin, in order to smooth out any initial difficulties. Monsieur de Montbel has arrived; he was charged with going to Rome and bringing back the marriage contract, written in due and proper form, which was in the hands of Cardinal Zurla.’
Supposing,’ continued Monsieur de Saint-Priest, ‘that Charles X refuses to sign a deed of majority, would it not be a good thing for MADAME to obtain a statement from her son? What form should such a declaration take?’ – ‘A brief note,’ I replied, ‘in which Henri should protest against Philippe’s usurpation.’
Monsieur de Saint-Priest carried my words to MADAME. My resistance continued to pre-occupy those around the Princess. Madame de Saint-Priest, with her elevation of feeling, seemed the most active in her regrets. Madame de Podenas never lost her habit of smiling serenely in order to display her excellent teeth: her calm in the midst of our agitation was more sensible.
We bore a strong
resemblance to a troop of strolling players, French actors, performing, in
As for me, I say with Candide: ‘Gentlemen, why are all of you kings? I confess I am not and nor is Martin.’
It
was eleven at night; I hoped I had acquitted myself and obtained Madame’s leave of absence. I was a long way out
in my reckoning! Madame did not give up her aims so easily; she had not
questioned me about the state of
‘– You can accompany us to the Austrian border,’ Monsieur de Saint-Priest replied; ‘Madame will take you in her carriage; the frontier once crossed you can travel in your own calash, and arrive a day and a half before us.’
I
hurried to the Princess’ apartment; I repeated my objections: Henri V’s mother
said: ‘Do not desert me.’ Those words ended the contest; I yielded; Madame
seemed full of joy. Poor woman! She wept so! How could I resist courage,
adversity, and fallen greatness, when reduced to sheltering beneath my protection! Another Princess, Madame la Dauphine, also thanked me for my
unfruitful service:
Madame
left in the early morning, on the 19th, for
On Friday, the 20th of September, I spent part of the morning writing to my friends about my change of destination. The members of Madame’s entourage arrived in succession.
Having nothing to do, I
went out with a guide. We visited the churches of Santa Giustina and Sant’Antonio di Padua. The former, the work of Jerome of
Sant’Antonio di
A signora in a green dress, with a straw hat covered by veil, was praying before the chapel of the saint, a servant in livery was also at prayer behind her: I assumed she was asking relief for some moral or physical distress; I was not wrong; I saw her again in the street: a woman of forty, pale, thin, walking stiffly, and with an air of suffering, I had thought her in love or afflicted with an infirmity. She emerged from the church with hope: in the space of time during which she had offered her fervent prayer to Heaven, had she forgotten her grief, could she be truly cured?
Il Santo is full of tombs; that of Bembo is famous. In the cloister one finds the tomb of young D’Orbesan, dead in 1595.
‘Gallus eram, Patavi morior, spes una parentum!
A Frenchman I was, I died in
D’Orbesan’s French epitaph ends with a line that a great poet might wish they had written.
‘Car il n’est si beau jour qui n’amène sa nuit.
For there is no day so beautiful it lacks its night.’
Charles-Guy Patin is buried in the cathedral: his father’s skill could not save him: the same who had treated a young gentleman aged seven, who was bled thirteen times and was cured in fifteen days, as if by a miracle.
The ancients excelled in composing funeral inscriptions: ‘here lies Epictetus,’ said his stone, ‘slave, forger, poor as Irus, and yet the favourite of the gods.’
Among
the moderns, Camoëns composed the
most magnificent epitaph, that of John
III of
My
Paduan guide was a chatterer, very different from Antonio in
Of
Livy, no trace; I would gladly, like the
inhabitant of
When
I returned to the Golden Star, Hyacinthe
was back from
Hyacinthe
begged her to send me the unfinished refutation: she hesitated then gave him
the manuscript: she was pale and tired from her work. The old gaoler’s wife
kept trying to sell him her daughter’s embroidery and mosaic work. If ever I
return to
Here is the translation of Zanze’s commentary:
‘The Venetian is amazed that anyone has had the audacity to pen two novelistic scenes about her created from and filled with impious lies. She strongly objects to an author who can use another person to advance his career, and who makes sport of an honest young girl who is educated and religious, esteemed, loved and highly thought of by everyone.
How can Silvio say that at the age of thirteen (which was my age when he says he knew me); how can he say that I visited his rooms daily when I swear to having gone there very rarely, and always accompanied by my father, mother or brother? How can he say that I confessed my love to him, I who was still at school, I who scarcely knowing anything knew neither love, nor the world; consecrated solely, as I was, to the duties of religion, and those of an obedient daughter, always occupied with my work, my only pleasure?
I swear that I have never spoken to him (Pellico) of love or anything else; and if I saw him occasionally, I regarded him with the eye of pity, because my heart is full of compassion for my fellow-creatures. Also I detested the place where my father worked solely through ill-luck: he once occupied a better place, but having been a fine soldier, having served the republic and then his sovereign, he was placed in that employment against his will and that of his family.
It is quite wrong (falsissimo) that I ever held the aforementioned Silvio’s hand, either as if it were my father’s, or my brother’s; firstly because, though very young and lacking experience, I had received enough of an education to know my duty.
How can he say I embraced him, I who did not even embrace my brother: such were the scruples lodged in my heart by the education I received in the convents where my father always sent me!
Truly, I seem better known to him (Pellico) than he could have been to me, since I spent my days in the company of my brothers in a room neighbouring his; was that not the room where my elder brothers worked and studied, and a place where I was allowed to stay with them? How can he say that I spoke to him about family matters, that I unburdened my heart to him regarding my mother’s severity and my father’s kindness? Far from having any reason to complain of her, she was ever my friend.
How can he say that he shouted at me for bringing him execrable coffee? I know no one who can say they have had the audacity to shout at me, they having all valued me as the soul of kindness.
I am a thousand times astonished that a man of intellect and talent has dared to vaunt such things unjustly where an honest young woman is concerned, in a way which might lose her the esteem all profess towards her, and even the love and respect of her husband, and destroy her peace and tranquillity in the arms of her family and those of her daughter.
I find myself angry beyond measure with the author for having exhibited me in a public work in this way, and for taking the liberty of quoting my name at every opportunity.
And yet he has been careful to write the name Tremerello instead of that of Mandricardo, the name of the person who carried messages for him. And the latter I could have told him more about, because I knew how faithless he was and self-interested. He would have sacrificed anyone for food and drink; he was disloyal to all those who through their misfortune were in poverty, and who were unable to grease his palm as he wished. He treated those unfortunates worse than beasts; but when I saw him, I reproached him and told me father about him, my heart being unable to endure such treatment of my fellow-creatures. He (Mandricardo) was only kind to those who gave him buona mancia (fat rewards) and gave him plenty to eat; may Heaven forgive him! But he will have to render account for his evil actions towards his fellow-creatures, and for the hatred he showed me because I remonstrated with him. For as unworthy an object as that, Silvio shows concern, while for me, who do not merit being so exhibited, he has shown not the least regard.
But I know where to turn for true justice; I do not agree to being, I do not wish to be, named in public, whether for good or evil.
I am happy in the arms of a husband who loves me so, and who is true and virtuously cherished in return, well knowing the integrity not only of my conduct but also of my feelings. And I will be, despite the man who sees fit to exploit me in the interests of his writings, which are unfounded and full of untruths…!
Silvio will forgive my fury, but he should have expected it, once I clearly knew his conduct in regard to me.
This is the recompense for all my family has done, treating him (Pellico) with the humanity that every creature condemned to like disgrace deserves, and without regard to the orders given concerning him.
And yet I swear that all he has said about me is false. Perhaps Silvio may have been badly informed about me, but he cannot truthfully repeat such false things, solely to have a better story on which to found his book.
I would say more; but my domestic tasks will not allow me to waste any more time. I can only thank Signor Silvio for his book, and for having created in my breast, innocent of fault, continual anxiety and perhaps endless unhappiness.’
This
literal translation is far from rendering the feminine verve, foreign grace,
and lively naivety of the text; the dialect Zanze uses exhales an earthy
perfume impossible to transfuse into another language. This apologia with its incorrect phrasing, nebulous,
and incomplete, like the obscure edges of a group of figures by Albani, this manuscript, with its
defective or Venetian handwriting, is a monument to Greek womanhood, but that
of the age in which bishops of Thessaly
sang the love of Theagenes and Chariclea. I prefer the little gaoler’s
two pages to all the dialogues of the great Isotta
who nevertheless pleaded for Eve against Adam, as Zanze pleaded on her own
behalf against Pellico. Furthermore, my lovely Provencal compatriots of former days
are recalled by this daughter of
Which of Pellico or Zanze is right? What is the essence of the argument? It is about a simple exchange of confidences, a questionable embrace, which, ultimately perhaps was never meant for him who received it. The married woman chooses not to recognize herself in the delightful girl whom the prisoner depicts; but she contests the matter with so much charm that she proves it by denying it. The portrait of Zanze in the plaintiff’s memoir is so like, that one rediscovers it in the defendant: the same feelings of religiosity, humanity, the same reserve, the same tone of intimacy, the same gentle and tender lack of method.
Zanze is full of force when she affirms, with passionate candour, that she would not have dared embrace her own brother, far less Monsieur Pellico. Zanze’s filial piety is extremely touching, when she transforms Brollo into a former Republican soldier, reduced to the level of a gaoler per sola combazione: solely by ill-fortune.
Zanze is quite admirable in that phrase: Pellico had concealed the name of a disreputable man, and yet had no fear in revealing that of an innocent creature full of compassion for the wretched prisoners.
Zanze is not seduced by the idea of being immortalized in an immortal work; that idea never even enters her mind: she is simply astonished at the man’s indiscretion; that man, as the offended girl believed, sacrificed a girl’s reputation for the sake of his work, without concern for the trouble he might cause, only seeking to tell a tale for the benefit of his fame. A palpable fear overcomes Zante; might the prisoner’s revelations inspire her husband’s jealousy?
The paragraph that ends the apologia is moving and eloquent:
‘I can only thank Signor Silvio for his book, and for having created in my breast, innocent of fault, continual anxiety and perhaps endless unhappiness: una continua inquietudine e forse una perpetua infelicità.’
Over these last lines written in a tired hand, tears have been visibly shed.
I, a stranger to trial proceedings, wish to omit nothing. I therefore maintain that the Zanze of Mie Prigioni is Zanze according to the Muses, and that the Zanze of the apologia is the true Zanze according to history. I ignore the defect of height that I seemed to remember in the daughter of a former soldier of the Republic; I was wrong: the Angelica of Silvio’s prison is formed like the stem of a reed, like the shoot of a palm-tree. I declare to her that no one in my Memoirs pleases me so much, not even excluding my sylph. Between Pellico and Zanze herself, with the aid of the manuscript deposited with me, it will be a great wonder if the Veneziana does not go down to posterity! Yes, Zanze, you will take your place among the female shades born about the poet, when he dreams to the sound of his lyre. Those delicate shades are orphans of a vanished harmony and a reverie that has ended, still living between earth and heaven, inhabiting both regions at once. ‘The beauty of paradise would not be complete if you were not there to grace it’ sings a troubadour to his mistress absent in death.
History has just arrived
to strangle romance. I had barely finished reading Zanze’s defence, at The Golden Star, when Monsieur Saint-Priest entered my room
saying: ‘Here is news.’ A letter from Her Royal Highness informed us that the
Governor of the
At that instant an aide-de-camp of the Governor knocked at my door and asked if it would suit me to receive the General. In response I went to His Excellency’s apartment, as he was staying like me at The Golden Star.
The Governor was an excellent fellow.
‘Know, Monsieur le
Vicomte,’ he said, ‘that my orders concerning Madame la Duchesse de Berry were
dated the 28th of August: her Royal Highness tells me she has passports of a
later date and a letter from the Emperor. Behold, on the 17th of this month I
receive a despatch in the middle of the night: a despatch, dated the 15th, from
I was touched by the
candour of the noble officer. Comparing the date of the 15th of September with
my departure from
I took care not to show
my private thoughts. Persecution had altered my feelings on the subject of the
trip to
‘Monsieur le Gouverneur, you are proposing what is difficult for me. You know Madame la Duchesse de Berry; she is not the woman to be led where one wishes; if she has made up her mind nothing will change it. Who knows? Perhaps it suits her to be arrested by the Emperor of Austria, her uncle, since she has previously been thrown in a dungeon by Louis-Philippe another uncle! Legitimate kings and illegitimate kings act in the same way. Louis-Philippe dethroned Henri IV’s descendant, while Francis II will prevent a mother being reunited with her son; Prince von Metternich will replace General Bugeaud in his role wonderfully well.’
The Governor was beside
himself: ‘Oh! Vicomte, how right you are! Such propaganda everywhere! Youth
will no longer listen to us! No more in
‘– Sir,’ I said, ‘I will bend all my efforts to persuading Madame to grant you a few days grace; have the goodness to grant me a passport: that kindness alone may prevent Her Royal Highness from pursuing her initial resolution.’
‘– I will take it upon
myself,’ the Governor told me, having been reassured,’ to allow Madame to pass
through Venice to reach Trieste; if she dawdles a little on the way, she will
reach the latter city along with the orders you go to seek, and we will be
saved. The representative in
In insisting on the
passport, I reproached myself silently for no doubt taking advantage of the
Governor’s utter lack of guile, since he might well be more culpable in letting
me enter
The
Duchesse de Berry returned from Cataio at nine in the evening: she seemed very
animated; as for me, the more at peace I had been, the more I wished for
combat: if people attacked us, we must defend ourselves. I proposed, half in
jest, to Her Royal Highness, that I would take her to
We
deferred this extreme measure; we fell back on more reasonable ones: the weight
of the whole affair fell on my shoulders. I would leave alone with a letter
fromMADAME: I would demand the certificate of majority;
following the grandparents’ reply, I would send a courier to Her Royal Highness
who would await my dispatch in
‘
My dear father-in-law in a moment as crucial to Henri’s future as this one, allow me to address you in complete confidence. I am not relying solely on my own ideas regarding so important a subject; in this grave matter, I have chosen, on the contrary, to consult those who have shown me most loyalty and devotion. Monsieur de Chateaubriand is naturally to be found at their head.
He
has confirmed what I already thought, that in
Monsieur
de Chateaubriand will explain his ideas on the question of the decree to the
King; he says with reason, it seems to me, that it should simply certify
Henri’s majority and not be a manifesto: I think you will approve his manner of
viewing the matter. Finally, my dear father-in-law, I leave it to him to obtain
your attention and bring about a decision on this vital point. I am occupied
with much more, I assure you, than what concerns me, and the interests of my Henri, which are those of
Monsieur
de Montbel handed me your letter on his arrival: I read
it with a lively sense of gratitude; to see you again, to embrace my children,
will always be my dearest wish. Monsieur de Montbel will have written to you
saying that I have done all you asked; I hope you will be satisfied with my
eagerness to please you and display my respect and tenderness towards you. I
have now only one desire, to be in
P.S.
Note addressed to: ‘HIS MAJESTY
HENRI V, MY VERY DEAR SON,
‘
I
was on the brink of arriving in
I am sending Monsieur de Chateaubriand in my place to handle your affairs and mine. Trust, my dear friend, in what he says to you on my behalf and have faith in my most tender affection. In embracing you and your sister, I am
Your affectionate mother and friend,
CAROLINE.’
Monsieur
de Montbel reached
‘
Monsieur le Gouverneur,
Her Royal Highness,
Madame la Duchesse de Berry wishes to conform, for the moment, to the orders which you have communicated. Her
intention is to travel to
Accept, I beg you, my most sincere thanks, and the assurance of my deepest regard, with which I am.
Monsieur le Gouverneur,
Your very humble and obedient servant,
CHATEAUBRIAND.’
The representative, on reading this letter, was quite content. Once MADAME had left the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia he and the Governor were no longer responsible for her; the actions and intentions of the Duchesse de Berry at Trieste only concerned the authorities of Istria or Frioul; it was for each to rid themselves of the problem: there is a certain game where one hastens to pass a piece of burning paper to one’s neighbour.
At ten, I took leave of
the Princess: she gave the fate of herself and her son into my hands. She made
me a king of
At eleven, I climbed
into my carriage: it was a wet night. It felt as though I was returning to
End of Book XL