4833. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 332–335.
126– Via Felice. Rome.
Wednesday– [20 February 1861] [1]
Ever dearest Isa,
On this large sheet I shall deal with you in small,—for I am busy today, yet must write a word. Dear, I have the three journals (to the 16th) & shall get the 17th presently, I dare say—but you had better trust no pamphlet to the same conveyance, because we are on sufferance, you see, & must not push an advantage– [2]
Political events walk so fast that one scarcely has breath to speak of them– [3] I am assured of its being an arranged fact, that the Italian troops will occupy Rome almost immediately,—& that the Pope puts on a certain gaiety about it, as if it were good to know one’s fate. The “provider” for the French troops has received orders to prepare “twenty thousand rations instantly”—no explanation given. About Gaeta, it is all to be at an end. The ‘Santo Padre’ did however receive the king of Naples into his arms with a burst of tears, [4] —& not a word was articulated on either side for weeping. That might have been expected: it sounds more natural than the cheerful resignation. The poor King solemnized his arrival here by setting his bed on fire [5] —so that he was forced to go to the “Pope’s bed”– I dont mean to say that literally they slept together,—though misery is said to make strange bedfellows. But there’s something symbolical in the fact.
The diplomatical revelations are considered (.. by the Italians, observe ..) to tell strongly in favor of Napoleon’s noble intentions & wonderful sagacity– Pantaleone, who is not only at the head of the liberal party here but organized it in Umbria & the Marches & is in correspondence with the Turin cabinet, is highly contented– Mdme P– tells me that she triumphs over him, because she has always faithfully believed in the Emperor, while he was very sceptical at one time– No wonder,—when he was constantly kept damp by the play of his English pompier [6] friends. It is considered that Napoleon’s one desire has been to keep off a coalition in Europe against Italy– Even that feeling out about the will of England with regard to keeping off Garibaldi from the mainland, [7] was simply with a view to avoid dangers patent to us all– No one was more alarmed than Cavour himself on that occasion. Things went fast.
As to Lord John .. his whole tone is vilely ungenerous. From the beginning, he only followed the lead of France in saying “Non-intervention,” risking nothing, & meaning nothing but the mere word. Then, up to the last, he held back Piedmont from every undertaking—protesting against Garibaldi being supported, [8] & against the Papal states being invaded .. till the success was complete in both cases. With regard to Venetia, I consider it infamous that he should have promised Austria, only last September, to do his best to prevent France from helping Piedmont in this “unjustifiable war”, adding comfortingly that “Austria would be found strong enough to put down Italy, of herself”– [9] Observe too how he “did his best” through Lord Cowley! “If Piedmont loses Lombardy, England wont mind it—& though France must, perhaps, .. yet France is enjoined to threaten to give up Italy bodily to Pope & Cæsar by way of penalty on the king—to say nothing of war-expences paid to Austria–” Is this friendship, I do ask? When a man gives only kind words to a friend, they should be purely kind, & not mixed up with instructions to a bystander how to thrash him. Let Italy take Venetia, succeed really, & the “unjustifiable war” will be a “glorious war” [10] .. justified by Vat[t]el [11] —(the war of 1859 was pronounced an “unjustifiable war” at that time, by this very Lord John) .. and we shall have a new flourish of trumpets as to the wonderful help & sympathy throughout the question, of Her Britannic Majesty’s government– It makes me sick. John Lemoine [12] speaks like a gentleman, (see the Debats) generously & delicately on the attitude assumed by the English minister,—keeping his temper, as I could not– The Russell prescription offers one grain of friendship for Italy, and nineteen of jealousy against France–
Dearest Isa mine, Robert talked for half a day about your distrust of him, in respect to criticism– He thinks you very hard on him––he thinks himself gentle to a weakness—& I agree that his elect novels (such as could be said) are more numerous than you say– For instance all Balzac’s!? Blythedale Romance [13] &c &c &c—? But in the main, I agree with you that he’s a tiger. Never mind. He wont have the heart to “gurd at thou” [14] —and you must let him be “ungenerous” enough to read you. I long for ‘Agnes’—long, long!–
<As to G, I am not clever at riddles, & really “give him up” .. what a pity—for he’s a man I do like & sympathize with—& I believe him to be very poor.> [15] As to America, its the last place for a dreamer—& not the best, I should think, for a doctor. <***>
Publication: B-IB, pp. 413–415.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Dated by EBB’s reference to Francis II (see note 4 below) and to having received journals from Isa up “to the 16th.”
2. The Brownings were receiving La Nazione by way of General de Nouë; see the first paragraph in letter 4828.
3. On 18 February the first Italian parliament met at Turin.
4. Two days after the fall of Gaeta (13 February 1861), Maria Sophia and Francis II were welcomed into Rome by Pius IX (see The Roman Journals of Ferdinand Gregorovius 1852–1874, ed. Friedrich Althaus, trans. Mrs. Gustavus W. Hamilton, 1907, p. 124). They were given accommodations in the Quirinale, which had been the official papal residence until 1850, when the Pope moved across the Tiber into the Vatican, where he felt safer.
5. According to Gregorovius, the bed curtains caught fire while it was being made in preparation for the King’s arrival (see Gregorovius, p. 124).
6. “Pompous.”
7. In a dispatch dated 26 July 1860 to Lord Cowley, British ambassador to France, Lord John Russell summarized a communication he had received from the French foreign minister concerning Garibaldi’s imminent campaign on the Neapolitan mainland: “Would France and England … suffer a country with which they maintained the usual relations to be invaded by an army composed of revolutionary elements and of foreigners; and would they allow outrage to interfere with the constitutional experiment to which the King Francis II had so loyally submitted?” (Further Correspondence Relating to the Affairs of Italy, Part VII, 1861, p. 40).
8. Before Garibaldi crossed the strait of Messina, Lord John Russell instructed the British minister in Turin to “urge on the Sardinian Government the obligation they are under to discountenance expeditions directed to the overthrow of the Neapolitan Throne” (Dispatch dated 25 July 1860, Further Correspondence, p. 37).
9. Here and below, EBB refers to a dispatch from Lord John Russell to Lord Cowley, dated 7 September 1860, which contained the following remarks: “Let us suppose … that Naples has fallen to Garibaldi, and that Umbria and the Marches have … renounced the temporal authority of the Pope; let us suppose, further, that the King of Sardinia is determined upon breaking his word pledged to the Treaty of Zurich, and that he resolves to make a war of aggression upon Venetia. Her Majesty’s Government would hold such a war to be utterly unjustifiable. They would then leave the King of Sardinia to reap the fruit of his bad faith and of his folly. They would not dispute with Austria the results of that war, should those results embrace the re-conquest of Lombardy. … In our opinion the French Government should inform Austria whether a temporary occupation of Lombardy … would, in the opinion of France, give France a casus belli against Austria. On the other hand, it should be clearly explained to Sardinia that the restoration of the Pope at Bologna and of the Grand Duke at Florence, together with the requisition by Austria of a large indemnity for the expenses of the war, would not bring on the active interposition of France” (Further Correspondence, p. 54).
10. Othello, III, 3, 354.
11. Emer de Vattel (1714–67), a Swiss jurist and diplomat, was the author of Le Droit des Gens, ou Principes de la loi naturelle appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des souverains (Leide, 1758). A dispatch from Lord John Russell on 27 October 1860, containing a reiteration of his non-interventionist policy, quoted Vattel’s defense of the Prince of Orange’s support for the overthrow of James II in 1688 (see Spencer Walpole, The Life of Lord John Russell, 1889, II, 325–327).
12. EBB is referring to a piece in the Journal des Débats of 12 February 1861 by John Émile Lemoine, who wrote that in the face of the hostile attitudes of Austria, Russia, Prussia, and even France, toward Italian independence, Lord John Russell had offered “the moral support of England” (p. 1).
13. The Blithedale Romance (Boston, 1852) by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
14. Cf. II Henry IV, I, 2, 6.
15. The passage in angle brackets has been crossed out by someone other than EBB. “G,” in this cancelled passage, and “dreamer” and “doctor” below all refer to Gryzanowski.
___________________
