Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 63, No. 391, May, 1848

Let us turn now from the glittering illuminated streets.

What is that unusual light, streaming dimly, and in blurred rays, across the damp night air, from the windows of the chapel of St Hyacinthe, attached to the church of the Assumption in the Rue St Honoré? In such a place, at such an hour, it has something ghastly and unearthly in its nature. And hark! from within there comes a noise of hoarse murmuring, which swells sometimes suddenly into discordant shouts, that are almost groans. The impression conveyed by both sight and sound is little like any that Paris, even on its murkiest nights, and under its most dismal veil, ever bestowed on you before. The unwary wanderer in Paris streets by night, in search of romance, may have had visions of theft, assassination, misery, crime, before his eyes, in the dark silent thoroughfares, but always visions of a most positive earthly nature; now he cannot help fancying himself transported into some old town of mystic Germany, with some fantastic, mysterious, unearthly, Hoffmannish deed going on near him. Are the headless dead, among the victims of a prior revolution, risen from their bloody vaults, to beckon unto their ghastly crew new victims of another? or are demons rejoicing in that once sanctified building, that the reign of men's most evil passions should have begun again in that disturbed and fermenting city? Such is the first impression the dim scene conveys. Do you ever remember such in other days? Let us follow those dark forms that are gliding across the court of the church, and mounting the steps of the illumined chapel. We enter; and the scene, although neither ghastly nor demoniac, is scarcely less strange than if spectres and demons had animated the interior. Faintly lighted by a few dripping candles is the long dismantled chapel; and damp, dreary, funereal-looking, is the whole scene. A dim crowd, in this "darkness visible," is fermenting, thronging, struggling, and pushing in the aisle. At the further end, in that vaulted semicircle where once stood the altar of the Lord, rises a complicated scaffolding behung with black cloth. With your imagination already excited, you may fancy the dark construction a death-scaffold for the execution of a criminal – it is only the death-scaffold of the social state of France. We are in the midst of a republican club. On the highest platform, occupying the space where was the altar, sit president and secretaries of the society – the new divinities of the consecrated building. Yes! the new divinities; for they arrogate to themselves the same right against which they declaimed as blasphemy in kings – the "right divine." You will not listen long before they tell you so; besides, their first maxim is, "La voix du peuple est la voix de Dieu." On the lower platform before them stand the orators. Hark to the doctrines that they promulgate for the subversion of all existing order in the country, amidst shouts and screams, and cries of violent opposition sometimes, but generally of applause. See! the haggard, lanky-haired republican youths, who have shouted out all their fury, give way to a quiet, respectable-looking old man, whose gray hairs glimmer faintly in the candle-light. A feeling of greater calm comes over you: you imagine, after all this "sound and fury, signifying nothing," his old head will pacify the hot, maddened blood of frantic boys. What does he say? – "Yes, the republic is one and indivisible – it is more than indivisible – it is God!" You shrink back disgusted. Can the rhapsody of republican fanaticism go further? Are these Christian men? or are they really evil unearthly beings in a human form? The confused scene around you is almost enough to make you think so. But real enough is the eternal clatter of the president's hammer on his table. He rolls his eyes furiously; he browbeats every orator who may not be of his own individual opinion, and dares to be "moderate" when he is "exalté;" and when your head aches – your heart has ached long ago – with the furious noise of the president's hammer, which you expect every moment to smash the table to pieces, you edge your way out of the dark fermenting crowd, and hurry forth, glad to breathe the purer air of heaven.

Ferment there is ever enough now in the streets of Paris by night: it ceases not. There are throngs pouring in and out of all the various thousand-and-one republican clubs of Paris, like wasps about their nest; but it is in the dim night air, and not in the bright sunlight of day – in dirty coats and smocks, and not with bright wings and variegated bodies. The wasp, too, stings only when he is attacked – the republican wasps seek to attack that they may sting. The al fresco clubs also crowd the Boulevards, in the chance medley confusion of all men and all principles. But see! there is here again, in the Rue du Faubourg du Roule, a confusion of a still more complicated nature – the swarming in and out of the small district school-house is even more virulent than is usual. It is another night-scene, such as the old habitué of Paris never witnessed, certainly. What is occurring? Let us crowd in with the others. What a scene of frantic confusion! A crowd springing upon benches, howling, screeching, yelling. At the further end of the low room is a ruined gallery, in which stands, surrounded by his friends, a man dressed in a red scarf, with the red cap of liberty on his head: he has a pike in his hand, and he vainly endeavours to make himself heard by the excited crowd. For some time you will be unable to comprehend the nature of the scene: at last you discover that an ultra republican, of the most inflamed ideas, wants to establish a Jacobin club. A "Jacobin club!" There is terror in the very word, and in all the fearful recollections it conveys. But here the good sense of the artisans and small tradespeople of the district is against so appalling a reminiscence of a fatal time. "Down with the bonnet rouge!" they cry. "Down with the red scarf! No Jacobins! no Jacobins! their day is gone. No terror!" Thank God! there is some good sense still among the people. "Down with the president – away with him!" they cry. He doffs at last his blood-red Phrygian cap – they are not content: he doffs his blood-red scarf – they are not content: he lays aside his red cravat – they are not content: the pike – all – his very principles, probably, if they would have them. But no. They make a rush at last up into the "tribune;" they drive the would-be Jacobin and his friends down. In vain a small minority declares them all "aristocrats – paid agents of legitimacy" – I know not what republican names of reproach. The honest workmen thrust the party forth from their district school-house. They escort these objects of their contempt with ironical politeness to a side-door, bearing the candles they have seized from the tribune in their hands. The door is closed over the Jacobin party – a shout of triumph resounds. But in the street, before the school, is long a noisy throng. The good moon, although now and then obscured by passing clouds, shines kindly on it. She seems to smile more kindly upon those who have done a good deed, although a deed of suppressed violence, than on most of the distracted throngs she illumines in her course over the disturbed city. Good moon! would we could accept thy augury, and hope for holy calm! The scenes thou shinest upon cannot continue thus, 'tis true. A change must come – a change for the better or the worse. Heaven grant that our foreboding prove not true – that, when thou comest forth in thy fulness again, another month, thou mayest smile on better order, on calmer groups!

Before we part company, old habitué of Paris, we must cast a glance at all the public buildings we pass. On all – public offices, columns, fountains, monuments, churches, dismantled palaces – on all alike floats the republican banner – on all are painted in broad characters the words, "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!" "Fraternité!" Vain word, when each man grows day by day more and more bitterly his neighbour's enemy. "Egalité!" Vain word again, and vain word ever, spite of the efforts of the rulers of France to bring down to one level all the intelligence, the talent, the feelings, and passions of human nature, that Providence, in its holy wisdom, has made so different and so unequal. "Liberté!" Vainest word of all! In the present state of things, there is constraint in every scheme, tyranny in every tendency, despotism in every doctrine.

But enough. We will not begin to discuss and speculate upon the destinies of France. All this sketch would strive to do, is to convey an idea, however vague, of the present outward state of Republican Paris.

THE SPANIARD IN SICILY

5The insatiable spider, who, after securing in her gossamer meshes ample store of flies for the day's consumption, again repairs, with unwarrantable greed, to the outer circles of the delicate network, in quest of fresh and superfluous victims, must not wonder if, on return to the heart of the citadel, she finds a rival Arachne busy in the larder, and either is expelled from her own cobweb, or suffers seriously in ejecting the intruder. At risk of offending his admiring biographer by so base a parallel, we compare Charles of Anjou to the greedy spider, and think him justly punished for his rash cupidity by the evils it entailed. This French count, who, although a king's brother, had no chance of a crown save through aggressive conquest, found himself, whilst still in the vigour of life, and as the result of papal favour, great good fortune, and of his own martial energy, sovereign of an extensive and flourishing realm. King of Southern Italy, Protector of the North, Count of Provence, Vicar of Tuscany, Senator of Rome, all-powerful with the Pope – whose word had then such weight that his friendship was worth an army, whilst from his malison men shrunk as from the dreaded and inextinguishable fire of Greece – Charles of Anjou was still unsatisfied. The royal spider had cast his web afar; it embraced wide possessions, with whose enjoyment he might well have been content, whose administration claimed his undivided attention. But on their verge an object glittered from which he could not avert his eyes, whose acquisition engrossed his every thought. "'Twas the clime of the East, 'twas the land of the sun," the gorgeous and romantic region so attractive to European conquerors. Doubtless, crusading zeal had some share in his oriental cravings; but ambition was his chief motor. He was willing enough to wrest Palestine from the infidel, but his plan of campaign led first to Constantinople. His notion was to seek at St Sophia's mosque the key of Christ's sepulchre.

Whilst thus looking abroad and meditating distant conquest, Charles treated too lightly the projects of a prince, less celebrated, but younger and more crafty than himself, who silently watched the progress of events, and skilfully devised how best he might derive advantage from them. Pedro of Arragon, who had married Mainfroy's daughter, Constance, cherished pretensions to the crown of the Sicilies; and, ever since the year 1279, he had been intriguing with the chiefs of the Ghibellines, with a view to an invasion of Charles's dominions. He spoke publicly of Sicily as the inheritance of his children, and did not dissimulate his animosity to its actual ruler. Whilst Charles prepared a fleet for his Eastern expedition, Don Pedro assembled another in the harbour of Portofangos, and kept it in constant readiness to sail, but none knew whither. Its destination was suspected, however, by some; and the Pope, who entertained no doubt concerning it, demanded to know Pedro's intentions, whilst Philip III. of France, at the request of his uncle, Charles of Anjou, sent ambassadors to the Arragonese monarch to make a similar inquiry. The answer given is variously stated by the archives and chronicles of the time, as evasive, prevaricatory, and even as a direct falsehood. It left no doubt upon Charles's mind that mischief was meant him by the Spaniard. "I told you," he wrote to Philip, "that the Arragonese was a contemptible wretch." Unfortunately, he carried his contempt of his wily foe rather too far; he would not believe that so small a potentate, "un si petit prince," would dare attack him in Italy, but took for a strategem the avowal of his intentions that appears to have escaped Pedro, and thought his views were directed in reality to Provence, whither he accordingly despatched his eldest son. Meanwhile, Don Pedro lingered in port, in hopes of an insurrection in Sicily, which John of Procida and others of his Sicilian adherents were fomenting by every means in their power, until his position became positively untenable, so pressed was he with questions by different European powers, and even by his own great vassals. One of these, a rico hombre, by name the Count of Pallars, having publicly asked him, in the name of the Arragonese nobility, the object of his voyage, and whither it would lead, Don Pedro replied: "Count, learn that if my left hand knew what my right was about to do, I would instantly cut it off." And still he clung to the Catalan coast, always on the eve of departure, but never lifting an anchor, until the tidings, so long and ardently desired, at last reached his car. They were unaccompanied, however, by the popular summons and proffered sceptre he had sanguinely and confidently anticipated. But we are outstripping events, and must revert to the eloquent opening of M. de St Priest's fourth volume.

"The name of Sicily is illustrious in history. If the reputation of a people had for sole foundation and measure the number of inhabitants, the extent of its territory, the duration of its influence, the Sicilians, impoverished by continual revolutions, decimated by sucessive tyrannies, more isolated from the general progress by their internal organisation, than from the mainland by their geographical position, would hold, perhaps, in the annals of the world, no more room than their island occupies on the map of Europe. But they need not fear oblivion: they have known glory, – and what glory touches, though but transitorily, for ever retains the mark. For individuals as for nations, it suffices that their lot be cast in those rare and splendid epochs whose contact ennobles every thing, which illuminate all things by their brilliancy, and stamp themselves indelibly upon the memory of the remotest generations. Happy who then lives, for he shall never die! Vast kingdoms, boundless regions, peopled by numerous races, powerful by material force, but intellectually vulgar, then yield in dignity and grandeur to the least nook of land, to some petty peninsula or remote island. Such was Greece, such also was Sicily, her rival, her competitor, and the asylum of her illustrious exiles.

"In the middle ages there was no vestige of the ancient Trinacria – of that land of art and learning, the home of every branch of human knowledge – of that politic and warlike power which yielded to Rome and Carthage only when she had made them dearly pay a long-disputed victory – of that Sicily, in short, which Plato taught and Timoleon governed – which Archimedes defended and Theocritus sang. Formerly the whole island was covered with cities. In the thirteenth century, most of these had disappeared. Agrigentum could boast but the ruins of its colossus and temples. Syracuse still retained some shadow of past greatness: she was not yet reduced, as now, to the quarries whence she sprung; she had not yet become less than a ruin; but her splendour was extinct. Catania, overthrown by earthquakes, found it difficult again to rise. Nevertheless other Sicilian towns preserved their importance, and Christendom could not boast cities handsomer and more populous – more abounding in wealth and embellished by monuments – than commercial Messina and kingly Palermo."

These two cities were at the time referred to the abode of luxury and pleasure. Messina, at once the market and the arsenal of the island, "portus et porta Siciliæ," as Charles of Anjou called it, was the principal posting-house upon the road from Europe to Asia, and was enriched by the constant passage of pilgrims and crusaders. Sumptuary laws were deemed necessary to repress the extravagance of a population whose women wore raiment of silk, then more precious than silver and gold, with tiaras upon their heads, encrusted with pearls and diamonds and other precious stones. Asia and Europe were there united; Catholics and Mussulmans lived side by side in peace and amity. In the streets, the Arab's burnous and the turban of the Moor moved side by side with priestly robe and cowl of monk. The pleasures there in vogue were no longer the simple and innocent ones vaunted by Virgil and Theocritus. It was a hotbed of debauchery, frequented by pirates, gamblers, and courtesans – a mart of commerce, whither traders of all nations repaired. Palermo, on the other hand, was the residence of kings. The Normans established there the seat of their power, inhabiting it constantly; and although the wandering life of Frederick of Swabia denied him a fixed abode, he loved Palermo the Happy, and dwelt there whenever able. Very different were the predilections of Charles of Anjou. He disliked Sicily as much as he loved Naples. By an effect, perhaps, of that love of contrast often found implanted in the human breast, his stern and sombre gaze took pleasure in the bright and joyous scenery of his continental dominions, which it could not derive from the more sad and serious beauties of the opposite island. Moreover, he held the Sicilians disaffected to his rule, and his hand was heavy upon them. Heavier still, doubtless, were those of his delegates and officers, who presumed upon his known dislike, and upon his preoccupation with schemes of foreign aggrandisement, to exceed the measure of oppression he prescribed and authorised. A very different course should have been adopted with a nation already abundantly prepared to detest their French masters. The antagonism of character was alone sufficient cause for mutual aversion. There was no point of sympathy between conquerors and conquered – nothing that could lead to friendly amalgamation. On the one hand, reserve, dissimulation, silence; on the other, an indiscreet frankness, vivacity, and noise. On both sides, a strong attachment to their native country, and conviction of its superiority over all others – a strong partiality for its language, usages, and customs – a sincere contempt for all differing from them. M. de St Priest, who strives earnestly, but not very successfully, to vindicate the memory of his countrymen of the thirteenth century, is still too veracious a historian not to admit that they treated with shameful insolence and rudeness a people whom the kindest treatment would with difficulty have induced to look kindly upon their conquerors. He is painfully anxious to make out a good case for those he calls his "brothers," (very old brothers by this time,) but succeeds so little to his satisfaction, that he is fain to throw himself on the mercy of his readers, by asking the rather illogical question, whether the crime of a few individuals is to be imputed to a nation, or even to a part of a nation? Then he enumerates some of the grievances which brought on the massacre known as the Vespers. "It is certain," he says, "that Charles of Anjou, not by himself, but by military chiefs, to whom he abandoned himself without reserve, abused of the means necessary to retain in subjection a people hostile to his cause, and whom that very excess of oppression might drive to shake off an iron yoke. He abused of the feudal prerogative which gave him right of controlling the marriages of the vassals of the crown, by compelling rich heiresses to marry his Provençal adherents, or by retaining in forced celibacy noble damsels whose inheritance the royal exchequer coveted." This is pretty well for a beginning, and enough to stir the bile of a more patient race than the Sicilians, even in an age when such acts of feudal tyranny were less startling and odious than they now would seem. But this is merely the first item. Charles also abused of an old law that existed both in Sicily and Spain, and which has been but recently abolished in the latter country. The law of the mesta gave the sheep of the royal domain right of range of all the pastures in the country, no matter who the proprietors. With this vexatious privilege Charles combined exorbitant monopolies. He compelled the rich landholders to take on lease his horses, flocks, cattle, bees, and fruit-trees, and to account to him for them every year at a fixed rate, even when disease decimated the animals, and the sirocco had withered and uprooted the trees and plants. And nothing was less rare, M. de St Priest acknowledges, than the personal ill-treatment of those who delayed to pay the impost, often twice levied upon the same persons, under pretence of chastising their unwillingness. Imprisonment, confiscation, and the bastinado, punished their indigence. The nefarious tricks played with the currency completed the measure of misery poured out upon the unhappy Sicilians. Like Alphonso X. of Castile, and most of the potentates of the period, Charles coined pieces of money with much alloy, which he named, after himself, Carlini d'oro, and exchanged them by force against the augustales, an imperial coinage of the purest gold. The public voice was loud against such tyranny and abuse, but it reached not the arrogant ears of the Beaumonts, the Morhiers, and other haughty Frenchmen who successively governed Sicily. The Bishop of Patti and brother John of Messina, complained to the Pope in presence of Charles himself. The king heard them in silence, but, after the pontifical audience, he had his accusers seized. Brother John was thrown into a dungeon, and the bishop only escaped prison by flight.

Besides the heavy griefs above stated, other grounds of complaint, more or less valid, were alleged against Charles I. Amongst these, he was accused of persecuting highwaymen and banditti with overmuch rigour. The nations of southern Europe have ever had a sneaking tenderness for the knights of the road. He was also reproached with the abolition of certain dues, unjustly exacted in the ports of Patti, Cefalu, and Catania, by the bishops of those towns. M. de St Priest brands the Sicilians as barbarians for thus quarrelling with their own advantage. But it is a fair query how far Charles made the diminution of episcopal exactions a pretext for the increase of royal ones, and whether the draconic system adopted for the repression of evil-doers, may not have been occasionally availed of for the oppression of the innocent. Then the Sicilian nobles, lovers of pomp, show, and external distinctions, grumbled at the absence of a court; and this was in fact so weighty a grievance, that its removal might perhaps have saved Sicily for Charles, or at any rate have retarded the revolt, and given him time to prosecute his designs on the East. Palermo might have been conciliated by sending the Prince of Salerno to live there. A gay court, and the substitution of the heir to the throne for obscure and detested governors, would have made all the difference. Charles did not think of this, and moreover he had no great affection for his eldest son, "a prince of monkish piety, timid and feeble, although brave; a dull and pale copy of his uncle Louis IX., and whose faults and virtues were not altogether of a nature to obtain his father's sympathy. When speaking of the Prince of Salerno, the King of Naples sometimes called him 'That Priest!'" The strongest motive of discontent, however, the most real, and which placed the nobility and higher classes amongst the foremost of the disaffected, was the bestowal of all public offices upon foreigners. At the beginning of his reign Charles had left to Neapolitans and Sicilians all fiscal and judicial posts, lucrative to the holders and productive to him; the strangers who accompanied him, ignorant of the country, would not have known how to squeeze it properly, as did Gezzolino della Marra, Alaimo de Lentini, Francesco Loffredo, and other natives. In these he reposed confidence, and, even after the defeat of Conradin, he still left Sicilians in the places of Maestri razionali, Segreti, Guidizieri, &c. But about 1278, we find Italian names disappearing from the list, and replaced almost entirely by those of Provençals and Frenchmen. At that date there seems to have been a clean sweep made of the aborigines. Such a measure was sure to cause prodigious dissatisfaction and hatred to the government. Those who depended on their places were reduced to beggary, and those who had private fortunes regretted a state of things which swelled these, besides giving them influence and power.