4472. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 258–261.
Villa Alberti. Siena.
August, 21. [1859] [1]
Ever dearest Isa your letter is full of interest– I like what you wrote to Lytton—it is quiet & dignified: also, the review is very good. [2] And not paid for! I shd think it is precisely the ‘regular correspondent’ who has the least reason to be paid– The accidental article is like a visit of a mere acquaintance, on whom you are more particular in leaving your card than you would be on a next-door friend.
I get strength slowly, but over slowly, for my expectations– Still asses milk & quiet,—& such lovely air as we have—and time, & some patience will carry me over the gap, I dare say– But I have not been out yet, nor feel very fit for it– Open windows, & hope for Italy, and musing over the Foi des traites [3] as dear Miss Field recommends .. these help.
I am quite sorry that Mdme Peruzzi [4] should not harmonize the past & the present more. If any Italian assassinates the emperor it must certainly be a Venetian—yet you see, the poor Venetians tried to keep his fête the other day. [5] How affecting that is to me. No—tell Count Cottrell I am not “sensible” at all– I never was nor shall be. I cant blame Napoleon for the vices of England, Prussia, & other selfish & inhuman governments. Ah Isa—I go with Miss Field & your Venetian poet– [6] I cant speak of England. And the fine sentiments of the Lord Johns & Lord Pams, [7] meaning what we know .. that they would like to have a finger in the congress, & get a little praise for what others have given their blood & treasure to render possible, .. (for which they were reviled by the said noble lords three months ago—) rile me to the soul, Isa–
For Mazzini, I doubt his honesty– Does he believe his own “facts”, do you suppose? Fancy Cavour’s promising Tuscany to Prince Napoleon at Plombieres. [8] That was the Mazzinian ‘fact’ sent to me by Jessie. And because it “would’nt do,” the Emperor made the peace!—— She swears to that by Mazzinian book & bell. [9]
A league against France, he proposes—blames England’s neutrality in the late war. Therefore his desire was, we must infer, that England should have taken part against France & Italy in the late war– It is too monstrous–
Observe—that France should assist the nationalities he admits to be Napoleon’s policy in order to certain ends– How is there to be a league against France therefore, without, beginning by mulcting the nationalities of the help of France? It is too absurd.
Jessie told me that the Tuscan officers were all Austrian, or nearly all ..! and that the regulars had treated the volunteers most abominably– I confess to you that I hear with apprehension of her & others being in Bologna, [10] & of Mazzini himself being in Switzerland. [11]
If they will but hold off a little longer, Italy in the centre will be safe–
Napoleon’s work, as he desires to see it done, is being perfected by the wonderful resolution & calm of the people & their assemblies. I thought the reference to him & his recommendation in the address, full of dignity and feeling—and I am much mistaken if it did not satisfy him as entirely as it satisfied me & you– [12] He did not come to Italy to “dispossess the sovereigns” [13] .. no—but to give the power & choice of government to the Italian people.
Oh—I would agree at once with any hater of his, that if, after all, he interferes to impose the late dynasty by armed force, he is vile & a traitor–
But even after the peace of Villafranca (when anything almost can be,) this cannot be–
Or if it can, Isa, I shall go quietly out of the world,—leave off asses’ milk, disgusted by swine’s apples, & try if in the spiritual world, things taste better.
Agreeing to the return of the Dukes, is exactly like agreeing to the disarmament before the war. Cavour confessed to despairing– He said afterwards—“The emperor was right.” The emperor said .. “You will see—they must come to it”–—— “The emperor did it all” said Cavour in a glow—and I believe he was near resigning in that crisis.
Isa, how is Mr Trollope? Better I hope. I am going to write to her to thank her for the music she sent me—she must think me deaf in the ears & cold in the heart—but the faults were not those.
Mdme Brecker has not sent me very satisfactory books– I am anything just now but Paul de Kockish—& she sends me eight volumes of Paul de Kock [14] —& not much to make amends.
Always give our kindest regards to Dr Grisonowsky. If he’s “dead” [15] its everybody’s loss, especially those who value generous friends & generous thinkers. <***>
Publication: B-IB, pp. 231–234.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Year provided by EBB’s reference to “the peace of Villafranca,” which was signed on 11 July 1859.
2. Perhaps, EBB refers to a review of The Wanderer that appeared in The Saturday Review of 23 July 1859 (pp. 102–103). The reviewer mentioned RB twice: “Many [of the poems] show great study and very thorough appreciation of Tennyson and Browning. But in none is there any purely imitative trick, or any lack of originality. … We think our readers will recognize the truth of our assertion that Mr. Meredith [i.e., Lytton] is not a servile copyist, but a true scholar, of Robert Browning.” In conclusion, the reviewer hoped that “Mr. Meredith will not discontinue his singing.”
5. A fête imperiale, instituted by Napoleon III, was celebrated annually in France on 15 August, the birthday of Napoleon I. The current emperor found it useful to impress upon his subjects “that what unified France as a nation in the nineteenth century was the glorious memory of the First Empire” (Matthew Truesdell, Spectacular Politics: Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte and the Fête Impériale, 1849–1870, Oxford, 1997, p. 41). Because Venice remained under Austrian control, Venetians might have been expected to think that Napoleon III had betrayed them at Villafranca.
6. Francesco Dall’Ongaro (1808–73), writer and patriot, was born in Venetia. From 1836 to 1846 he edited in Trieste a republican journal, La Favilla (“The Spark”). He worked for the Italian cause during the revolutions of 1848–49, first with Garibaldi, then with Mazzini at Rome. At the fall of the Roman Republic, Dall’Ongaro fled the country, returning ten years later in support of Cavour. His political propaganda poems were in the tradition of Tuscan formal rounds (stornelli) that were sung by fieldworkers. The Brownings met Dall’Ongaro the next month (probably through Isa Blagden) when he called on them in Siena.
7. i.e., Lord Palmerston, British prime minister; Lord John Russell, foreign secretary.
8. Cavour and Napoleon III met secretly at Plombières on 20 and 21 July 1858 to conclude an alliance against Austria. In exchange for French military assistance in driving the Austrians out of Italy, Cavour agreed to the following terms: Savoy and Nice would be ceded to France; a marriage between Prince Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel’s daughter would be arranged; and Italy would be made into a confederation of four states, one of these, Naples, to be governed by Lucien Murat, a Bonaparte through marriage. Tuscany was to become part of a central Italian kingdom with Prince Napoleon named as a candidate for monarch (see Edgar Holt, Risorgimento: The Making of Italy, 1815–1870, 1970, pp. 205–206). Mazzini, whose access to inside information was a wonder to Cavour, probably knew the details of the Plombières agreement before “any European cabinet” (Denis Mack Smith, Mazzini, 1994, p. 124).
9. “By bell and book, book and bell (i.e. those used in the service of the mass): a frequent asseveration in the Middle Ages” (OED).
11. Mazzini had left England and reached Italy by early August 1859. He was in Florence at this time—though incognito (Mazzini, p. 133).
12. On 16 August 1859, after the Tuscan Assembly proposed that their country should join with Piedmont to become “part of a strong constitutional kingdom, under the sceptre of King Victor Emmanuel,” it recommended “the cause of Tuscany to the generous protection and high wisdom of the Emperor Napoleon III., the magnanimous defender of Italian independence” (Annals of British Legislation, ed. Leone Levi, 1861, 9, [7]). Earlier during the same session, the assembly had unanimously passed a resolution banning the House of Hapsburg-Lorraine from ruling again in Tuscany.
13. In The Prince, Machiavelli gives instruction on methods for deterring “foreign princes” from attempting to “dispossess a sovereign” (The Prince, trans. J. Scott Byerley, 1810, p. 12).
14. Charles-Paul de Kock (1793–1871) wrote novels depicting the middle and lower classes. EBB had described him to Mary Russell Mitford as “a coarse, animal writer” (see letter 2233). Among his recent novels were: Monsieur Chérami (5 vols., Brussels, 1858–59) and Paul et son chien (4 vols., Brussels, 1858–59).
15. Perhaps, EBB means socially “dead.” Gryzanowski lived until 1888.
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