4670. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 5–8.
[Rome]
Wednesday. [16 May 1860] [1]
Ever dearest Isa, Pen came back yesterday from the abbé, out of breath with news– (Abbé, observe, is employed in the house of General de Noué)– ‘French’, says Pen, [‘]‘going away directly!– Napoleon is grown very angry. Wont be teazed any more– The pope & Antonelli went down on their knees & begged him to pardon them, & not take the soldiers away—but he’s so offended he will do it. At any rate, on the first of August not one Frenchman will be in Rome.”
We find that translated out of the Penism, it comes nearly to that. French troops are ordered away in some irritation, & figuratively speaking the papal government humiliates itself so far as to pray for more time– Up to this moment the answer from France is not received, but it is believed among the French that they may be left, some of them, up to August, but not a day beyond– [2] Meanwhile some are actually gone, & others going– Our abbé goes at the end of May with certain battalions as far as Corsica– (No spy, Isa! He’s as innocent as Pen himself.) Madame de Goyon is gone for good, as one says– And, what strikes me as significative, the French ambassador goes on saturday, “on account of his health.” [3] The Roman & French governments are on the worst terms just now—& strange would it be if it were otherwise, when the coalition in France against the Empire has chosen this moment to act in Italy—when Lamoriciere & his friends support themselves on the pope’s shoulders to have a stroke at the emperor– The wonderful blindness of such people as do not see this, or profess not to see it, gives a measure of the infinite imbecility or the infinite falsity of men– Take your choice– The Daily News, for instance, positively reproaches the “elect of the people” for sending Lamoricière to Rome– [4] They might as well reproach him with the battle of Waterloo–
I feel however scarcely at leisure to see the common justice in this moment, so great is my anxiety about the Sicilians– (Our subscription wont be too late, Isa, however—there will be plenty to pay after that victory which must & will be)– [5] A forlorn hope was necessary under the circumstances– Attended with a good deal of risk of course, & to be protested against by all settled governments– If the “curved line” is necessary, what makes it necessary but the wickedness of the world? I have the greatest sympathy with Garibaldi in this movement– His feeling about Nice I entered into sympathetically with my heart, though not with my intellect– His venture in Sicily is a great piece of heroic consistency [6] —&, if he had’nt dared it, he would have been in my eyes, at least, a Garibaldi manqué– At the same time Cavour is just as right in protesting loudly against it– For the rest, I doubt no more than you do that sooner or later, the movement was wanted in order to carry out the Napoleon-Cavour programme. Also I should not be much surprised if, after all, it was not premature,—& that while Jove nodded at Paris [7] (behind a cloud) Cavour winked at Genoa during that embarcation– [8] See the view taken by the ‘Opinion Nationale’—said to express the intimate Imperial sentiment. [9] [9]
I have read About– [10] So has Robert– And each of us, having read once, read again– It is admirable– Clever, witty, incisive—& to be studied sedulously, (you can tell Mdme Peruzzi) by all “sane persons”. The inspiration of the ‘Foi des traîtés’ is in it– Not “official” of course,—but if the Napoleon breath is not in those nostrils .. why then indeed I am insane– Now mark, Isa, how this book has been received in England [11] —& then let us take account of the real grounds of the English apprehension about the emperor– The reactionary parties, with whom that movement originated at the first mooting of the Italian war, start back aghast at the development of the idea of nationality indicated by this book—& indicated previously by the Foi des Traités– As to really liberal men, if there are such in England, & if they really share in the said panic & aversion, all I can say is .. they are jockeyed–
Isa– The papal troops are said to have quitted Rome, carrying cannon with them, towards the Tuscan & Romagna frontier– [12] What does that mean? The Papalini say it means that Central-Italy troops have gathered there & intend to attack, which makes it necessary for them to defend– I suppose Central Italy says the same thing– It looks like preparation for conflict– Then there are rumours about Calabria– May God help us in this struggle–
I was wishing the French were gone, because then, part of the papal army must be kept back for Rome– The abbé however fancies that their going might be followed by the departure of the Pope to Malta or Spain, or his ejection— .. in which case, there would be a stronger feeling than now excited in Catholic Europe & a further complication– Not that our abbé’s opinion is worth quoting. Only he has picked up this crumb from some ecclesiastical table, I fancy. It would be better to protect & hold the Holy Father in that case, till the rest of his states were satisfactorily disposed of.
Do you make out my straggling sentences? and ruinous writing?
We keep – – –
Here came in Mr Page, & now I forget what I was going to say–
Poor Mr Parker! [13] Yet why say poor? He loved the Truth & the Love, & he goes where he may learn & love—without “these bonds”. [14] Still, I dont believe that he “knows everything” because he has gone out from the earth– Does Miss Cobbe? I hope she wont go away till we have seen her– [15]
Did I tell you Isa, that your adoring ‘Jones’ (in the language of gods ‘Uriel’) sent me through the post his poem of “Re-burial”, [16] —to “prove” that Jesus Christ was taken out of his grave & re-buried by his disciples—accounting for the resurrection–!! Neither poetry nor logic struck me much– I suppose it was courtesy that induced him to send me the poem—was it do you think?
Yours ever in truest love–
Ba–
Best love from Robert & Pen–
Publication: B-IB, pp. 346–349.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Dated by EBB’s reference to the death of Theodore Parker, which occurred at Florence on 10 May 1860. The first Wednesday after that date was the 16th.
3. EBB’s report is confirmed by an item in The Morning Chronicle of 19 May 1860: “The Duke de Gramont, the French Ambassador at Rome (states the Nord) has undoubtedly obtained leave of absence, and is expected to reach Paris by the 22d. The Ambassador leaves his post solely on account of his health, and is going to drink the waters at Vichy. During his temporary absence from Rome, the affairs of the embassy will be conducted by the Marquis de Cadore, the first secretary” (p. 3).
4. The Daily News of 1 May 1860 noted that ultramontanist pressure may have led Napoleon III to permit “General Lamoricière to take service with the Pope” (p. 5).
5. A receipt dated 6 July 1860 for a contribution of 50 francescone from the Brownings to the Garibaldi Fund (i.e., the Million Rifles Fund) sold as part of lot 137 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, L98). The receipt may be an acknowledgement of the “subscription” EBB mentions here.
6. Garibaldi and his army of volunteers, “The Thousand,” had landed at Marsala on Sicily’s western tip on 11 May 1860. Four days later, joined by increasing numbers of Sicilians, they defeated Neapolitan forces at the battle of Calatafimi. By the end of the month, Garibaldi had taken Palermo and claimed the island for Victor Emmanuel.
7. When the gods and goddesses took sides in the war of the Greeks against Troy, Zeus felt divided over whom to support. He tried to give the impression of being neutral, though he favoured the Trojans. EBB is punning on “Paris”: as Zeus hid his approval of Paris’s abduction of Helen, so Napoleon III hides his approval of Garibaldi’s expedition.
8. “One of the hotly debated points about the sailing of the Thousand is that of Cavour’s attitude to it. Officially he was against it, but it is sometimes suggested that this was only a façade. According to this view he secretly connived at Garibaldi’s venture and should be given some of the credit for it. … This theory, which is put forward in many studies of the Risorgimento, is not borne out by the facts. There was no alliance, either open or secret, between Cavour and Garibaldi. … Cavour’s personal correspondence shows that, in all the circumstances, he felt that the government’s only course was to stand back and await events” (Edgar Holt, Risorgimento: The Making of Italy, 1815–1870, 1970, p. 235).
9. The Morning Chronicle of 11 May 1860 carried the following item: “Both the Siècle and the Opinion Nationale [of 10 May] support Garibaldi’s expedition, affirming it to be in perfect accordance with the political tenets which have led to the emancipation of so great a portion of Italy, and insisting that it is called for by the objectionable manner in which Sicily is governed” (p. 5). The Daily News later reported: “The Opinion Nationale of Paris, evidently with the connivance of the French government, announces the opening in France of a subscription for Garibaldi” (17 May 1860, p. 5).
10. Edmond About’s La Nouvelle carte d’Europe (1860).
11. For example, the Paris correspondent for The Times filed a report on 28 April that contained sarcastic remarks on La Nouvelle carte d’Europe: “M. About takes a bird’s-eye view of the present territorial arrangements in Europe, and changes them after a ridiculous fashion. The first act of this writer of romances is to suppress the Turkish Empire … and to replace it by a petty sovereignty, to be governed by a scion of one of the European dynasties. All take a share of the remainder except France, which M. About excludes from the partition, as she never annexes any of her neighbours’ territory, unless it be forced on her” (30 April 1860, p. 5). See also letter 4669, note 4.
12. Odo Russell recorded on 15 May: “Intelligence reached the Papal Government yesterday that parties of filibusters were collecting … on the Tuscan frontier. … Lamoricière, who returned from Ancona two days ago at once despatched ten companies (about 1,200 men) and a small battery by rail to Civita Vecchia, with orders to march to Cornetto and Toscanella” (The Roman Question, ed. Noel Blakiston, 1962, pp. 104–105). En route to Sicily, Garibaldi had landed 60 of his men on the Tuscan coast at Talamone on 7 May. They were joined by volunteers from Tuscany and, under the command of Callimaco Zambianchi, began making their way for the border of the Papal States. On 19 May they encountered and had the better of a detachment of papal cavalry in the town of Grotto di Castro near lake Bolsena. In spite of this success, the guerrillas subsequently recrossed the border into Tuscany where they were captured by Piedmontese soldiers (see The Roman Question, p. 106, and C.T. McIntire, England Against the Papacy, 1858–1861, Cambridge, 1983, pp. 194–195).
13. Theodore Parker (1810–60) died in Florence on 10 May.
14. Acts 26:29
15. Frances Power Cobbe (1822–1904) had been staying with Isa Blagden at Villa Brichieri since February.
16. The Re-Burial, or The Grave in Galilee (1860) was published anonymously by Thomas Jones (1819–94), as was Uriel, and Other Poems (1857). In the preface to his Poems (1891), published under the pseudonym of T.J. Powys, Jones wrote of the praise and encouragement he had received from various authors: “There is a temptation to mention a letter from Charlotte Brontë, as interesting and characteristic as Mr. Landor’s, and to much the same effect in its favourable criticism, and that Mrs. Browning expressed her opinion in terms which to cite would naturally argue fatuous vanity and a total want of ‘sense of proportion’” (p. iii).
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