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

"To arms!" was the cry re-echoed by the three hundred conspirators assembled in the chamber. Where their ancestors held councils how to subjugate other nations, these modern voices made the old walls ring again while they vowed their resolve to emancipate enslaved Rome or perish in the attempt.

Three hundred only! Yes, three hundred; but such was the muster-roll of the companions of Leonidas, and of the liberating family of Fabius. These, too, were equally willing to become liberators, or to accept martyrdom. For this they had high reason, because of what value is the life of a slave, when compared with the sublime conceptions, the imperious conscience, of a soul guided always by noble ideas?

God be with all such souls, and those also who despise the power of tyrannizing in turn over their fellow-beings. Of what value can be the life of a despot? His miserable remorse causes him to tremble at the movement of every leaf. No outward grandeur can atone for the mental sufferings he endures, and he finally becomes a sanguinary and brutal coward. May the God of love hereafter extend to them the mercy they have denied to their fellow-men, and pardon them for the rivers of innocent blood they have caused to flow!

But Attilio continued, "Happy indeed are we to whom Providence has reserved the redemption of Rome, the ancient mistress of the world, after so many centuries of oppression and priestly tyranny! I have never for a moment, my friends, ceased to confide in your patriotism, which you are proving by the admirable instructions bestowed upon the men committed to your charge in the different sections of the city. In the day of battle, which will soon arrive, you will respectively command your several companies, and to them we shall yet owe our freedom. The priests have changed the first of nations into one of the most abject and unhappy, and our beloved Italy has become the very lowest in the social scale. The lesson given by our Papal rulers has ever been one of servile humility, while they themselves expect emperors to stoop and kiss their feet. This is the method by which they exhibit to the world their own Christian humility; and though they have always preached to us self-denial and austerity of life, these hypocrites surround themselves with a profusion of luxury and voluptuousness. Gymnastic exercises, under proper instruction, are doubtless beneficial to the physical development of the body; but was it for this reason that the Romans are called upon to bow to, and kiss the hand of every priest they meet? to kneel also and go through a series of genuflections, so that it is really no thanks to them if the half of them are not hunch-necked or crook-backed from the absurd performances they have been made to execute for the behoof of these tonsured masters?

"The time for the great struggle approaches, and it is a sacred one! Not only do we aim at freeing our beloved Italy, but at freeing the entire world also from the incubus of the Papacy, which everywhere opposes education, protects ignorance, and is the nurse of vice!" The address of Attilio had hitherto been pronounced in profound darkness, but was here suddenly interrupted by a flash of lightning, which illumined the vast enciente of the Colosseum, as if it had 'suddenly been lighted by a thousand lamps. This was succeeded by a darkness even more profound than the first, when a terrific peal of thunder rolled over their heads and shook to its foundations the ancient structure, silencing for a brief space Attilio's voice. The conspirators were not men to tremble, each being prepared to confront death in whatever form it might appear; but, as a scream was heard issuing at this moment from the vestibule, they involuntarily clutched their daggers. Immediately after, a young girl, with dishevelled hair and clothes dripping with water, rushed into their midst. "Camilla!" exclaimed Silvio, a wild boar-hunter of the Campagna, who alone of those present recognized her. "Poor Camilla!" he cried; "to what a fate have the miscreants who rule over us reduced you!" At this instant one of the sentries on guard entered, reporting that they had been discovered by a young woman during the moment of illumination, and that she had fled with such speed no one had been able to capture her. They had not liked to fire upon a female, and all other means of staying her were useless. But, at the words of Silvio, the strange apparition had fixed her eyes upon him as the torches closed about them, and, after one long glance, had uttered a moan so piteous, and sunk down with such a sigh of woe, that all present were moved. We will relate, however, in the following chapter, the history of the unfortunate girl whose cries thus effectually checked our hero's eloquence.

Born a peasant, the unhappy Camilla had, like Italy, the fatal gift of beauty. Silvio, who was, by vocation, as we have already said, a wild-boar hunter, used often, in his expeditions to the Pontine Marshes, to rest at the house of the good Marcello, the father of Camilla, whose cottage was situated a short distance from Rome. The young pair became enamored of each other. Silvio demanded her in marriage, and her father, giving a willing consent, they were betrothed.

Perfectly happy and fair to look upon were this youthful pair, as they sat, hand in hand, under the shadows of the vine, watching the gorgeous sunsets of their native clime. This happiness, however, was not of long duration, for, during one of his hunting expeditions, Silvio caught the fever so common in the Pontine Marshes, and, as he continued to suffer for some months, the marriage was indefinitely postponed.

Meanwhile Camilla, who was too lovely and too innocent to dwell in safety near this most vicious of cities, had been marked as a victim by the emissaries of his Eminence, the Cardinal Procopio. It was her custom to carry fruit for sale to the Piazza Navona. On one occasion she was addressed by an old fruit-woman, previously instructed by Gianni, who plied her with every conceivable allurement and flattery, praised her fruit, and promised her the highest price for it at the palace of the cardinal, if she would take it thither. The rest of the story may be too easily imagined. In Rome this is an oft-told tale. To hide from her father and her lover the consequences of her fall, and to suit the convenience of the prelate, Camilla was persuaded to take up her residence in the palace Corsini, where, soon after its birth, her miserable infant was slaughtered by one of its father's murderous ruffians. This so preyed upon the unhappy mother, that she lost her reason, and was secretly immured in a mad-house. On the very night when she effected her escape this meeting was being held, and, after wandering from place to place, for many hours, without any fixed direction, she entered the Colosseum at the moment it was illumined by the lightning, as we have related. That flash disclosed the sentries at the archway, and she rushed towards them, obeying some instinct of safety, or at least perceiving that they were not clothed in the garb of a priest; but they, taking her for a spy, ran forward to make her prisoner. Thereupon, seemingly possessed of supernatural strength, she glided from their hands, and finally eluded their pursuit by running rapidly into the centre of the building, where she fell exhausted in the midst of the three hundred, at the foot of her outraged and ashamed lover.

"It is, indeed, time," said Attilio, when Silvio had related the maniac's story, to purge our city from this priestly ignominy; and drawing forth his dagger, brandished it above his head, as he exclaimed, "Accursed is the Roman who does not feel the degradation of his country, and who is not willing to bathe his sword in the blood of these monsters, who humiliate it, and turn its very soil into a sink."

" Accursed! accursed be they! " echoed back from the old walls, while the sound of dagger-blades tinkling together made an ominous music dedicated to the corrupt and licentious rulers of Rome.