Giuseppe Garibaldi - Rule of the Monk; Or, Rome in the Nineteenth Century

Attilio, seeing delay would be ruinous, commanded Muzio to charge out with a third of the company, he himself would follow up with his own third, and Silvio was to hurl the rearmost section upon the troops.

Attilio briefly said, "It is the moment of deeds, not words. No matter how large the number opposed to us, we must carve a road through them with our daggers." He then directed Muzio to lead on a detachment of twenty men, with a swift rush, upon the enemy, promising to follow quickly.

Muzio, quickly forming his twenty men, wrapped his cloak around his left arm, and grasping his weapon firmly in his right, gave the word to charge out.

In a few moments the cavernous vault startled those outside by vomiting a torrent of furious men; and as the youths rushed upon the satellites of despotism, the Pope's soldiers heading the division had not even time to level their guns before they were wrenched from their grasp, and many received their death-blow.

The others, thoroughly demoralized at the cry of the second and third divisions bursting forth, took to flight, headlong and shameful. The Campo Vaccino and the streets of Rome hard by the Campidoglio were in a short time filled with the fugitives, still pursued by those whom they should have taken prisoners.

Helmets, swords, and guns lay scattered in all directions, and more were wounded by the weapons of their own friends in their flight, than by the daggers of their pursuers; in effect the rout was laughable and complete.

The brave champions of Roman liberty, satisfied with having so utterly discomfited the mercenaries of his Holiness, dispersed, and returned to their several homes.

Amongst the dead bodies discovered next morning near the baths was that of a mere youth, whose beard had scarcely begun to cover his face with down. He was lying on his back, and on his breast was the shameful word "traitor," pinned with a dagger. He had been recognized by the Three Hundred, and swiftly punished.

Poor Paolo, alas, had the misfortune – for misfortune it proved – to fall in love with the daughter of a priest, who, enacting the part of a Delilah, betrayed him to her father as soon as she had learned he was connected with a secret conspiracy. To save his life, the wretched youth consented to become a paid spy in the service of the priesthood, and it was thus he drew his pay.

The worth of one intrepid man, as Attilio showed, is inestimable; a single man of lion heart can put to flight a whole army.

On the other hand, how contagious is fear. I have seen whole armies seized by a terrible panic in open day at a cry of "Escape who can;" "Cavalry;" "The enemy," or even the sound of a few shots – an army that had fought, and would again fight, patiently and gallantly.

Fear is shameful and degrading, and I think the southern nations of Europe are more liable to it than the cooler and more serious peoples of the north; but never may I see an Italian army succumb to that sudden ague-fit which kills the man, even though he seems to save his life thereby!

As the hour of solemn vengeance had not yet struck, fright, and fright alone for the black-robed rulers of Rome was the result of the events we have detailed.

The priests were in mortal terror lest the thread by which the sword of popular wrath was suspended should be cut.

The hour, however, had not struck; the measure of the cup was not full; the God of justice delayed the day of his retribution.

Know you what the lust of priests is to torture? Do you know that by the priests Galileo was tortured? Galileo, the greatest of Italians! Who but priests could have committed him to the torture? Who but an archbishop could have condemned to death by starvation in a walled-up prison Ugolino and his four sons?

Where but in Rome have priests hated virtue and learning while they fostered ignorance and patronized vice? Woe to the man who, gifted by God above his fellows, has dared to exhibit his talent in Papal Italy. Has he not been immediately consigned to moral and physical tortures, until he admitted darkness was light?

Is it not surprising that in spite of the light of the nineteenth century, a people should be found willing to believe the blasphemous fables called the doctrines of the Church, and the priests permitted to hold or withhold salvation at their pleasure, and to exercise such power in such a continent, that rulers court their alliance as a means of enabling them the more effectually to keep, in subjection their miserable subjects?

In England, America, and Switzerland this torture has been abolished. There progress is not a mere word. In Rome the torture exists in all its power, though concealed. Light has yet to penetrate the secrets of those dens of infamy called cloisters, seminaries, convents, where beings, male and female, are immured as long as life lasts, and are bound by terrible vows to resign forever the ties of natural affection and sacred friendship.

Fearful are the punishments inflicted upon any hapless member suspected of being lax in his belief, or desirous of being released from his oaths. Redress for them is impossible in a country where despotism is absolute, and the liberty of the press chained.

Yes, in Rome, where sits the Vicar of God, the representative of Christ, the man of peace, the torture, I say, still exists as in the times of Saint Dominic and Torquemada. The cord and the pincers are in constant requisition in these present days of political convulsion.

Poor Dentato, the sergeant of dragoons who facilitated the escape of Manlio, soon experienced this. He had been unfortunately identified as engaged at the Quirinal Morning, noon, and night means too horrible to divulge were resorted to to compel him to give up the names of those concerned in the attack upon the prison. Failing to gain their point, he had been left by his tormentors a shapeless mass, imploring his persecutors to show mercy by putting him to death.

Unhappy man! the executioners falsely declared he had denounced his accomplices, and continued daily to make fresh arrests.

Yet the world still tolerates these fiends in human form, and kings moreover impose them upon our unhappy countries. God grant the people of Italy will before long have the will and the courage to break this hateful yoke from off their necks! God set us free, before we are weary of praying, from those who take His holy name in vain, and chase Christ himself out of the Temple to set their money-changing stalls therein!

Let us leave for a time these scenes of horror, and follow our fugitives on the road to Porto d'Anzo. Their hearts are sad, for they are leaving many dear to them behind in the city, and their road is one of danger, until it be the sea; but, as they breathe the pure air of the country, their spirits revive – that country once so populated and fertile, now so barren and deserted. Perhaps it would be difficult to find another spot on earth that presents so many objects of past grandeur and present misery as the Campagna. The ruins, scattered on all sides, give pleasure to the antiquary, and convince him of the prosperity and grandeur of its ancient inhabitants, while the sportsman finds beasts and birds enough to satisfy him; but the lover of mankind mourns, it is a graveyard of past glories, with the priests for sextons. The proprietors of these vast plains are few, and those few, priests, who are too much absorbed by the pleasures and vices of the city, to visit their properties, keeping, at the most, a few flocks of sheep or buffaloes.

Brigandage is inseparable from priestly government, which is easy to understand when we remember that it is supported by the aid of cowardly and brutal mercenaries. These, becoming robbers, murderers, and criminal offenders, flee to such places as this desert, where they find undisturbed refuge and shelter.