At length their fate was decided. Foresti's companion in prison was the son of a judge of Ferrara; and, one November midnight, their conversation was interrupted by the unexpected entrance of the jailer, who bade Foresti follow him. The hour and the manner of the official convinced both him and his comrade that his sacrifice was resolved upon; they embraced, and he left the cell to find himself strictly guarded by six soldiers. This nocturnal procession marched silently through the vast, lonely, and magnificent rooms of the Ducal Palace to the door which leads to the Bridge of Sighs: it was the old road to destruction,the mysterious process, made familiar by novelists and poets, by which the ancient and sinister republic made more fearful the vengeance of government. As the unfortunate youth passed through a labyrinth of gloomy corridors, he recognized the haunts of the ancient Inquisition; the atmosphere was clogged with damp; moisture dripped from the stones. A dungeon, lighted only by a lamp suspended from the vault, and narrow, humid, and unfurnished, except with a pile of straw and a rude table, proved the dreary goal of their heavy steps. Left to his own reflections, Foresti contemplated his prospects with deliberate anguish; that he had been found guilty was apparent; if the fact of his direct agency in initiating the oath of self-emancipation, the sacred compact of national self-assertion in the Austrian dominions, had transpired, he felt that his prominence as a judicial officer, and the firmness with which he had refused to explain the purposes or betray the associates of this memorable league, made him the most probable victim of extreme measures, should one be chosen from the Carbonari of Ferrara. At that period of his life he entertained the opinion that suicide was justifiable to avoid an ignominious death at the hands of arbitrary power. Believing his fate sealed, he gave a few moments of tender reminiscence to his dead mother and his living father and sisters, to the dreams of his youth, and the patriotic aspirations to which he was about to fall a sacrifice. The jailer returned, bringing a book and a bottle of wine, for which he had asked; a few tears were shed, a prayer for forgiveness breathed, and then he plunged a knife into his breast; the blade broke; he shattered the bottle at his side and swallowed the fragments, and then fell bleeding and exhausted on the straw. If left long alone, life would have ebbed away; but, probably in anticipation of such a catastrophe, the officer ere many hours revisited the cell to put chains upon the prisoner. Discovering his condition, a surgeon was called, remedies were applied, and two Austrian sentinels carried Foresti into the presence of the judge. It was scarcely dawn; the venerable and courteous, but inflexible representative of the Emperor expressed solicitude and sympathy; a secretary and physician, with the guard and their prisoner, confronted each other by the dim light of two candles. Irritated by the conventional politeness of this arbiter of his destiny at such a crisis, having vainly sought death, and bitterly conscious of the long outrages perpetrated under the name of justice, Foresti burst forth into stern invectives, and boldly declared his liberal sentiments, his allegiance to the principles for the sake of which he thus suffered, and his absolute enmity to the usurpers of his country's freedom. The Cavalier Mazzetti treated this overflow of emotion as the ebullition of a youthful mind, romantic and intrepid, but unreasonable; he professed the sincerest pity for so gifted and brave a youth, lamented his delusion, painted in emphatic words his want of gratitude and allegiance, treated his political creed and organization as chimerical, and wound up by informing Foresti that he was condemned to die on the public square of Venice, and that nothing would save him but a complete revelation of the true plan, arrangements, and members of the secret conclave to which he belonged. Threats and blandishments failed to move the prisoner; he was silent, accepted his doom, and was remanded with two allies,one of whom purchased a remission by treason to his vows. Such was the climax of two dreary years of imprisonment, aggravated by ingenious moral torture.
If the modern history of liberty is written by a comprehensive humanitarian, he will not look exclusively to the battle-field for picturesque and impressive tableaux; in that record most signally will it appear that "the angel of martyrdom is brother to the angel of victory"; and among the memorable scenes which an earnest chronicler will delineate with noble pathos, few can exceed in moral interest that which the Piazza of San Marco, at Venice, presented on Christmas Eve, 1821. There is not a spot in Europe, within the limits of a city, more distinctly remembered by the transatlantic traveller,the only spacious area of solid ground under the open sky, in that marvellous old city of the sea,the gay centre of a recreative population, where the costumes and physiognomies of the Orient and the West mingle in dramatic contrast,the nucleus of historical and romantic associations, singularly domesticated in two hemispheres by the household lore of Shakspeare and Otway, Byron and Rogers, Cooper and Ruskin. The ancient temple of St. Mark, the bronze horses of Lysippus, the arched galleries of the Palace, the waters of the Adriatic, the firmament above, and the stones beneath seem instinct with the fame of commercial grandeur, maritime triumphs, and diplomatic prowess; the cheerful arcades that shade the caffès remind us of the "harmless comedy of life" which Goldoni recorded; the flush of sunset on dome, balcony, and canal seems warm with the peerless tints which Titian here caught and transmitted; the crowd of pleasure-seekers recall the music, love, and chivalry, of which this was once the splendid centre; while the shadow of a dark façade whispers of the mysterious oligarchy, the anonymous accusers, the secret council, and the venerable Doge;a more remarkable union of gloom and gayety, of romance and reality, of the beautiful and the tragic, directly suggested by inevitable local associations, cannot be found in the whole range of European travel. Imagine this memorable square, on the afternoon of a great Christmas festival;fair faces at every window,the adjacent roofs crowded with spectators,an Austrian regiment drawn up around a scaffold,the Viceroy, brother of the Emperor, standing in the large balcony of the Palace,two cannon placed between the columns of San Marco and San Teodoro,every inch of the vast Piazza, without the circle of soldiery, occupied by eager spectators. Over this vast assemblage, amid the impending thoughts which the incidents of the hour and the memory of the Past inspired, reigned a profound silence; no laugh or jest, such as bespeaks a holiday, no heartless curiosity, such as accompanies a mere public show, no vulgar excitement was evident; on many faces dwelt an expression of awe and pity,on others an indignant frown,on all painful and sympathetic expectancy. Every class was represented, from the swarthy fishermen of the lagoons to the dark-eyed countess of the Palazzo,pale students, venerable citizens, the shopkeeper and the marquis, the priest and the advocate. It was not merely the fate of the few prisoners on the scaffold, deep as was the public sympathy, which occasioned this profound suspense; they represented the national cause, and in every city of the land there were scores of the bravest and the best equally involved in the patriotic sacrifice, and whose destiny had, for long and weary months, agonized their relations, friends, and countrymen. The anomalous tyranny under which the nation had collapsed was demonstrated not so much by the outward aspect as by the moral facts of that fatal day in the Piazza of San Marco. On the scaffold were a group of educated, courageous, honest Italians, guarded by Austrian soldiers and overlooked by the official representative of imperial despotism; their attitude was criminal, their acts sublime; ostensibly condemned, they were in reality glorified. Not a being in that vast multitude, except the official creatures of Austria, but gazed with respect, love, sorrow, pride, tenderness, and admiration upon her noble victims; it was the apparent triumph of physical force, and the actual realization of moral superiority: the silence of that multitude was the eloquent protest of humanity.
And this ominous silence was all at once broken by the clear, well-emphasized voice of a judicial officer, reading the sentence; it was listened to with such breathless attention, that, when the phrase, condemned to death, was uttered, a visible shudder vibrated, like an electric shock, through the dense mass of human beings, and upturned faces flushed or grew pallid in an instant; but scarcely were these simultaneous emotions recognized, when another phrase, life granted, called forth a cry as of one mighty voice. All were spared: but a sentence, to such as understood its meaning, of living death,carcere duro in Spielberg and the Castle of Lubiano,some for ten, others for fifteen, and the remainder for twenty years,was substituted.
This entire ceremony was characteristic of Austrian despotism, aware of the profound sympathy among the Italians for their patriot martyrs, of the widespread disaffection, of the necessity of exciting vague and terrible apprehension,and at the same time conscious that policy forbade arousing the fury of despair. The accused were thus kept more than two years alternating from hope to desperation, the people in ignorance of the issue, and then, when led out, as they supposed, to die, they served as a warning to those who dared imperial vengeance, while, by a sudden act of apparent clemency, the government at once rid itself of formidable opponents and assumed the character of merciful executors of law! It was rumored that the consideration of his youth saved the life of Foresti;he was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment.
From, the scaffold the prisoners were transferred to the Island of St. Michael. Their transit was more like an ovation than a disgrace. The better class of spectators embarked in gondolas and followed the cortége with shouts of encouragement and waving of handkerchiefs; "Courage, courage, brave patriots!" was their salutation; and when night fell upon the scene, there rose from the lagoons strains of instrumental and vocal melody, and improvised recitations breathing honor, compassion, and hope; so that in spite of bayonets and police, terrorism and espionage, the voice of their fettered country wafted to every captive the assurance that he had not striven and been faithful unto death in vain.
These scenes in Venice were reenacted, with unimportant modifications, within a few months, at Rome and Turin, at Modena, Parma, and Naples. The rolls of victims embraced the most highly endowed and heroic men of the day. Many of them, after years of incarceration, distinguished themselves in civil and literary life; some perished miserably in durance; and a few yet survive and enjoy social consideration or European fame. Among them were representatives of every rank, vocation, and section of the land,noblemen, professors, military officers, advocates, physicians, priests, men of wealth, of genius, and of character. Those known in America, either personally or by their writings, are Count Gonfalonieri of Milan, Silvio Pellico, Castilla, Borsieri, Maroncelli, and Foresti. The abortive revolutions of 1831 and 1848 sent other refugees to our shores, and canonized other saintly heroes in the Calendar of Freedom; but these were the original, and, as a body, the remarkable men, who, imbued with the intelligent and progressive Liberalism of the nineteenth century, practically established in Italy by Napoleon, bravely initiated the vital reaction invoked by humanity as well as patriotism, before which European despotism has never ceased to tremble, and which, however baffled, postponed, and misunderstood, by the law of God as well as the development of man, is absolutely destined to an ultimate triumph.
The show of justice and clemency was made at noonday with every circumstance of pomp and authority to give it popular effect; the trial and punishment were enacted in darkness and isolation. On a cold, still night of January came police commissioners to the island, whither the condemned patriots had been conveyed amid tears and benedictions, and chained them in couples like galley-slaves. By the light of torches they were placed in boats which glided noiselessly by sleeping Venice to Mestre, and there they were transferred to carriages, two prisoners and four guards to each vehicle, and in this manner, for four dreary weeks, borne through the winter days farther and farther from country and home,sleeping at night in town-jails, by-way fortresses, or, when neither were available, in the worst apartments of lonely inns. Who can adequately describe the wretchedness of that journey, the bitterness of soul, the prospective desolation, the tender regrets of those unhappy prisoners,torn from the embrace of kindred, the dignity and motive of a high career, the most beautiful of countries, and the most sacred of ties and duties, to bury their youth, with all its high dreams and noble fervor and consecrated gifts, in a distant dungeon? Even the strangers through whose domain they passed testified by looks, signs, respectful greetings, and, when possible, kind attentions, their sympathy and esteem; people of rank continued to approach them in disguise merely to indicate their humane recognition; the very commissioners sent to attest the execution of the sentence parted from their charge with tearful respect. Grief, privation, and fatigue, greatly aggravated by the shackles which bound them in pairs, had exhausted body and mind at the end of the journey. From the city of Brunn, the capital of Moravia, their wan looks sought the mountain prison above, where frowned the bastions of Spielberg, once a mediaeval castle, then a fortress, built by the Emperor Charles, and, just before the battle of Austerlitz, dismantled by Napoleon, and now the place of confinement for the most degraded criminals of Austria, nearly a thousand of whom there expiate their offences. Into this herd of malefactors were thrust gentlemen, scholars, citizens, for the crime of patriotism. To each was assigned a cell, twelve feet in length and eight in breadth, with a small iron-barred window, a plank with, a mattress and blanket, an iron chair secured to the wall, and an earthen jug for water. Arrayed in convict uniform, here the brave youths were immured. Sentinels were continually on guard in the corridors and court and around the bastions; the food was inadequate and often loathsome; an hour's walk in the yard daily, between two soldiers with loaded muskets, was the only respite from solitude and inaction; "Lives of the Saints" were the only books allowed; intercourse with the outward world was entirely cut off; surveillance was incessant; on Sunday they were guarded to the chapel, but kept apart; every quarter appeared a priest, who strove, by rigid examination, to elicit political secrets; the agents and officials maintained an unmitigated reserve; what transpired in the world, how it fared with their country and their loved ones, was unknown; existence so near to death itself, in passivity, "cold obstruction," alienation from all the interests, the hopes, and the very impressions of human life, it is impossible to imagine. Subsequently reforms were introduced, and the rigors of this system somewhat modified; but the era of Foresti's confinement at Spielberg was that which has become accursed in political history as the reign of Francesco Primo. He insisted to the last on chains, the badge of crime, and the severest régime possible to life. He had even visited Brunn, and been within hearing of his victims, and sent his physician to ascertain their condition; but refused any mitigation of sufferings, moral and physical, which involved sanity, health, and almost vitality.
The details of this experience are familiar through current European memoirs. Silvio Pellico has made the life of an Austrian prisoner-of-state, in its outward environment and inward struggles, as well known as that of the Arctic explorer or the English factory-operative. A confirmatory supplement to this dark chapter in the history of modern civilization has recently appeared from the pen of another of Foresti's fellow-martyrs, Pallavicino.2 But while they were undergoing the bitter ordeal, it was all but unknown in Europe and undreamed of in America; literature, that noble vantage-ground for oppressed humanity, has now broken the silence and proclaimed the truth. There was one solace ingeniously obtained by these buried members of the living human family,occasional indirect intercourse with each other: the telegraphs of eye and ear conveyed their mutual feelings. One after another succumbed, from the vital injuries of the régime; in one case the brain grew weak, in another the blood was impoverished or fevered; this one was prostrated by gangrene in wounds caused by chafing fetters, and that attenuated by insufficient nourishment: yet they contrived to make known to each other how it fared with them respectively. Pellico, through an indulgent guard, sent Foresti verses on his birthday; Maronchelli sounded on the wall the intimation of his continued existence after his leg was amputated; and when marshalled for a walk or convened on Sunday in the chapel, the devoted band had the melancholy satisfaction of beholding each other, though the different groups were not permitted to communicate. Andryane, a French officer, included in the original edict, though upon most inadequate evidence, describes, with keen interest, his first impressions when permitted to go to mass at Spielberg. His companion speculated on the identity of each of the captives. "That one, with dejected looks and hollow eyes, who seems so exhausted, and, though a tall man, is bent down into a dwarf, is Villa. Poor fellow! he has but a few months to live. As for the last one, with the stern looks and bushy black hair, he appears to bear his fate in such a manner as ought to make us resigned to our own." "That," whispered a fellow-prisoner, "is Foresti, who, like Ajax, doubtless mutters between his teeth, 'I will foil them yet, though even the gods oppose me!'"3