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Books: Lothair

B >> Benjamin Disraeli >> Lothair






CHAPTER 53


During the week that elapsed after the arrival of Theodora at the camp,
many recruits, and considerable supplies of military stores, reached the
valley. Theodora really acted as secretary to the general, and her
labors were not light. Though Lothair was frequently in her presence,
they were, never, or rarely, alone, and, when they conversed together,
her talk was of details. The scouts, too, had brought information,
which might have been expected, that their rendezvous was no longer a
secret at Rome. The garrison of the neighboring town of Viterbo had,
therefore, been increased, and there was even the commencement of an
intrenched camp in the vicinity of that place, to be garrisoned by a
detachment of the legion of Antibes and other good troops, so that any
junction between the general and Garibaldi, if contemplated, should not
be easily effected.

In the mean time, the life of the camp was busy. The daily drill and
exercise of two thousand men was not a slight affair, and the constant
changes in orders which the arrival of bodies of recruits occasioned,
rendered this primary duty more difficult; the office of quartermaster
required the utmost resource and temper; the commissariat, which, from
the nature of the country, could depend little upon forage, demanded
extreme husbandry and forbearance. But, perhaps, no labors were more
severe than those of the armorers, the clink of whose instruments
resounded unceasingly in the valley. And yet such is the magic of
method, when directed by a master-mind, that the whole went on with the
regularity and precision of machinery. More than two thousand armed
men, all of whom had been accustomed to an irregular, some to a lawless,
life, were as docile as children; animated, in general, by what they
deemed a sacred cause, and led by a chief whom they universally alike
adored and feared.

Among these wild warriors, Theodora, delicate and fragile, but with a
mien of majesty, moved, like the spirit of some other world, and was
viewed by them with admiration not unmixed with awe. Veterans round the
camp-fire, had told to the new recruits her deeds of prowess and
devotion; how triumphantly she had charged at Voltorno, and how
heroically she had borne their standard when they were betrayed at fatal
Aspromonte.

The sun had sunk behind the, mountains, but was still high in the
western heaven, when a mounted lancer was observed descending a distant
pass into the valley. The general and his staff had not long commenced
their principal meal of the day, of which the disappearance of the sun
behind the peak was the accustomed signal. This permitted them, without
inconvenience, to take their simple repast in the open, but still warm,
air. Theodora was seated between the general and her husband, and her
eye was the first that caught the figure of the distant but descending
stranger.

"What is that?" she asked.

The general, immediately using his telescope, after a moment's
examination, said: "A lancer of the royal guard."

All eyes were now fixed upon the movements of the horseman. He had
descended the winding steep, and now was tracking the craggy path which
led into the plain. As he reached the precinct of the camp, he was
challenged, but not detained. Nearer and nearer he approached, and it
was evident, from his uniform, that the conjecture of his character by
the general was correct.

"A deserter from the guard," whispered Colonel Campian, to Lothair.

The horseman wag conducted by an officer to the presence of the
commander. When that presence was reached, the lancer, still silent,
slowly lowered his tall weapon, and offered the general the dispatch
which was fastened to the head of his spear.

Every eye was on the countenance of their chief as he perused the
missive, but that countenance was always inscrutable. It was observed,
however, that he read the paper twice. Looking up, the general said, to
the officer: "See that the bearer is well quartered. -- This is for
you," he added in a low voice to Theodora, and he gave her an enclosure;
"read it quietly, and then come into my tent."

Theodora read the letter, and quietly; though, without the preparatory
hint, it might have been difficult to have concealed her emotion. Then,
after a short pause, she rose, and the general, requesting his
companions not to disturb themselves, joined her, and they proceeded in
silence to his tent.

"He is arrested," said the general when they had entered it, "and taken
to Alessandria, where he is a close prisoner. 'Tis a blow, but I am
more grieved than surprised."

This was the arrest of Garibaldi at Sinigaglia by the Italian
government, which had been communicated at Hexham House to Monsignore
Berwick by his evening visitor.

"How will it affect operations in the field?" inquired Theodora.

"According to this dispatch, in no degree. Our original plan is to be
pursued, and acted upon the moment we are ready. That should be in a
fortnight, or perhaps three weeks. Menotti is to take the command on
the southern frontier. Well, it may prevent jealousies. I think I
shall send Sarano there to reconnoitre; he is well both with Nicotera
and Ghirelli, and may keep things straight."

"But there are other affairs besides operations in the field," said
Theodora, "and scarcely less critical. Read this," and she gave him the
enclosure, which ran in these words:

"The general will tell thee what has happened. Have no fear for that.
All will go right. It will not alter our plans a bunch of grapes. Be
perfectly easy about this country. No Italian soldier will ever cross
the frontier except to combat the French. Write that on thy heart. Are
other things as well? Other places? My advices are bad. All the
prelates are on their knees to him -- with blessings on their lips and
curses in their pockets. Archbishop of Paris is as bad as any. Berwick
is at Biarritz -- an inexhaustible intriguer; the only priest I fear. I
hear from one who never misled me that the Polhes brigade has orders to
be in readiness. The Mary-Anne societies are not strong enough for the
situation -- too local; he listens to them, but he has given no pledge.
We must go deeper. 'Tis an affair of 'Madre Natura.' Thou must see
Colonna."

"Colonna is at Rome," said the general, "and cannot be spared. He is
acting president of the National Committee, and has enough upon his
hands."

"I must see him," said Theodora.

"I had hoped I had heard the last of the 'Madre Natura,'" said the
general with an air of discontent.

"And the Neapolitans hope they have heard the last of the eruptions of
their mountain," said Theodora; "but the necessities of things are
sterner stuff than the hopes of men."

"Its last effort appalled and outraged Europe," said the general.

"Its last effort forced the French into Italy, and has freed the country
from the Alps to the Adriatic," rejoined Theodora.

"If the great man had only been as quiet as we have been," said the
general, lighting a cigar, "we might have been in Rome by this time."

"If the great man had been quiet, we should not have had a volunteer in
our valley," said Theodora. "My faith in him is implicit; he has been
right in every thing, and has never failed except when he has been
betrayed. I see no hope for Rome except in his convictions and energy.
I do not wish to die, and feel I have devoted my life only to secure the
triumph of Savoyards who have sold their own country, and of priests
whose impostures have degraded mine."

"Ah! those priests!" exclaimed the general. "I really do not much care
for any thing else. They say the Savoyard is not a bad comrade, and at
any rate he can charge like a soldier. But those priests? I fluttered
them once! Why did I spare any? Why did I not burn down St. Peter's?
I proposed it, but Mirandola, with his history and his love of art and
all that old furniture, would reserve it for a temple of the true God
and for the glory of Europe! Fine results we have accomplished! And
now we are here, hardly knowing where we are, and, as it appears, hardly
knowing what to do."

"Not so, dear general," said Theodora. "Where we are is the threshold
of Rome, and if we are wise we shall soon cross it. This arrest of our
great friend is a misfortune, but not an irredeemable one. I thoroughly
credit what he says about the Italian troops. Rest assured he knows
what he is talking about; they will never cross the frontier against us.
The danger is from another land. But there will be no peril if we are
prompt and firm. Clear your mind of all these dark feelings about the
'Madre Natura.' All that we require is that the most powerful and the
most secret association in Europe should ratify what the local societies
of France have already intimated. It will be enough. Send for Colonna,
and leave the rest to me."



CHAPTER 54


The "Madre Natura" is the oldest, the most powerful, and the most
occult, of the secret societies of Italy. Its mythic origin reaches the
era of paganism, and it is not impossible that it may have been founded
by some of the despoiled professors of the ancient faith. As time
advanced, the brotherhood assumed many outward forms, according to the
varying spirit of the age: sometimes they were freemasons, sometimes
they were soldiers, sometimes artists, sometimes men of letters. But
whether their external representation were a lodge, a commandery, a
studio, or an academy, their inward purpose was ever the same; and that
was to cherish the memory, and, if possible, to secure the restoration
of the Roman Republic, and to expel from the Aryan settlement of Romulus
the creeds and sovereignty of what they styled the Semitic invasion.

The "Madre Natura" have a tradition that one of the most celebrated of
the popes was admitted to their fraternity as Cardinal del Medici, and
that when he ascended the throne, mainly through their labors, he was
called upon to cooperate in the fulfilment of the great idea. An
individual who, in his youth, has been the member of a secret society,
and subsequently ascends a throne, may find himself in an embarrassing
position. This, however, according to the tradition, which there is
some documentary ground to accredit, was not the perplexing lot of his
holiness Pope Leo X. His tastes and convictions were in entire unison
with his early engagements, and it is believed that he took an early and
no unwilling opportunity of submitting to the conclave a proposition to
consider whether it were not both expedient and practicable to return to
the ancient faith, for which their temples had been originally erected.

The chief tenet of the society of "Madre Natura" is denoted by its name.
They could conceive nothing more benignant and more beautiful, more
provident and more powerful, more essentially divine, than that system
of creative order to which they owed their being, and in which it was
their privilege to exist. But they differed from other schools of
philosophy that have held this faith, in this singular particular: they
recognize the inability of the Latin race to pursue the worship of
Nature in an abstract spirit, and they desired to revive those exquisite
personifications of the abounding qualities of the mighty mother which
the Aryan genius had bequeathed to the admiration of man. Parthenope
was again to rule at Naples instead of Januarius, and starveling saints
and winking madonnas were to restore their usurped altars to the god of
the silver bow and the radiant daughter of the foaming wave.

Although the society of "Madre Natura" themselves accepted the
allegorical interpretation which the Neo-Platonists had placed upon the
pagan creeds during the first ages of Christianity, they could not
suppose that the populace could ever comprehend an exposition so
refined, not to say so fanciful. They guarded, therefore, against the
corruptions and abuses of the religion of Nature by the entire abolition
of the priestly order, and in the principle that every man should be his
own priest they believed they had found the necessary security.

As it was evident that the arrest of Garibaldi could not be kept secret,
the general thought it most prudent to be himself the herald of its
occurrence, which he announced to the troops in a manner as little
discouraging as he could devise. It was difficult to extenuate the
consequences of so great a blow, but they were assured that it was not a
catastrophe, and would not in the slightest degree affect the execution
of the plans previously resolved on. Two or three days later some
increase of confidence was occasioned by the authentic intelligence that
Garibaldi had been removed from his stern imprisonment at Alessandria,
and conveyed to his island-home, Caprera, though still a prisoner.

About this time, the general said to Lothair: "My secretary has
occasion to go on an expedition. I shall send a small detachment of
cavalry with her, and you will be at its head. She has requested that
her husband should have this office, but that is impossible; I cannot
spare my best officer. It is your first command, and, though I hope it
will involve no great difficulty, there is no command that does not
require courage and discretion. The distance is not very great, and so
long as you are in the mountains you will probably be safe; but in
leaving this range and gaining the southern Apennines, which is your
point of arrival, you will have to cross the open country. I do not
hear the Papalini are in force there; I believe they have concentrated
themselves at Rome, and about Viterbo. If you meet any scouts and
reconnoitring parties, you will be able to give a good account of them,
and probably they will be as little anxious to encounter you as you to
meet them. But we must be prepared for every thing, and you may be
threatened by the enemy in force; in that case you will cross the
Italian frontier, in the immediate neighborhood of which you will keep
during the passage of the open country, and surrender yourselves and
your arms to the authorities. They will not be very severe; but, at
whatever cost and whatever may be the odds, Theodora must never be a
prisoner to the Papalini. You will depart to-morrow at dawn."

There is nothing so animating, so invigorating alike to the body and
soul, so truly delicious, as travelling among mountains in the early
hours of day. The freshness of Nature falls upon a responsive frame,
and the nobility of the scene discards the petty thoughts that pester
ordinary life. So felt Captain Muriel, as with every military
precaution he conducted his little troop and his precious charge among
the winding passes of the Apennines; at first dim in the matin twilight,
then soft with incipient day, then coruscating with golden flashes.
Sometimes they descended from the austere heights into the sylvan
intricacies of chestnut-forests, amid the rush of waters and the
fragrant stir of ancient trees; and, then again ascending to lofty
summits, ranges of interminable hills, gray or green, expanded before
them, with ever and anon a glimpse of plains, and sometimes the splendor
and the odor of the sea.

Theodora rode a mule, which had been presented to the general by some
admirer. It was an animal of remarkable beauty and intelligence,
perfectly aware, apparently, of the importance of its present trust, and
proud of its rich accoutrements, its padded saddle of crimson velvet,
and its silver bells. A couple of troopers formed the advanced guard,
and the same number at a certain distance furnished the rear. The body
of the detachment, fifteen strong, with the sumpter-mules, generally
followed Theodora, by whose side, whenever the way permitted, rode their
commander. Since he left England Lothair had never been so much with
Theodora. What struck him most now, as indeed previously at the camp,
was that she never alluded to the past. For her there would seem to be
no Muriel Towers, no Belmont, no England. You would have supposed that
she had been born in the Apennines and had never quitted them. All her
conversation was details, political or military. Not that her manner
was changed to Lothair. It was not only as kind as before, but it was
sometimes unusually and even unnecessary tender, as if she reproached
herself for the too frequent and too evident self-engrossment of her
thoughts, and wished to intimate to him that, though her brain were
absorbed, her heart was still gentle and true.

Two hours after noon they halted in a green nook, near a beautiful
cascade that descended in a mist down a sylvan cleft, and poured its
pellucid stream, for their delightful use, into a natural basin of
marble. The men picketed their horses, and their corporal, who was a
man of the country and their guide, distributed their rations. All vied
with each other in administering to the comfort and convenience of
Theodora, and Lothair hovered about her as a bee about a flower, but she
was silent, which be wished to impute to fatigue. But she said she was
not at all fatigued, indeed quite fresh. Before they resumed their
journey he could not refrain from observing on the beauty of their
resting-place. She assented with a pleasing nod, and then resuming her
accustomed abstraction she said: "The more I think, the more I am
convinced that the battle is not to be fought in this country, but in
France."

After one more ascent, and that comparatively a gentle one, it was
evident that they were gradually emerging from the mountainous region.
Their course since their halting lay through a spur of the chief chain
they had hitherto pursued, and a little after sunset they arrived at a
farm-house, which the corporal informed his captain was the intended
quarter of Theodora for the night, as the horses could proceed no
farther without rest. At dawn they were to resume their way, and soon
to cross the open country, where danger, if any, was to be anticipated.

The farmer was frightened when he was summoned from his house by a party
of armed men; but having some good ducats given him in advance, and
being assured they were all Christians, he took heart and labored to do
what they desired. Theodora duly found herself in becoming quarters,
and a sentry was mounted at her residence. The troopers, who had been
quite content to wrap themselves in their cloaks and pass the night in
the air, were pleased to find no despicable accommodation in the
out-buildings of the farm, and still more with the proffered vintage of
their host. As for Lothair, he enveloped himself in his mantle and
threw himself on a bed of sacks, with a truss of Indian corn for his
pillow, and, though he began by musing over Theodora, in a few minutes
he was immersed in that profound and dreamless sleep which a life of
action and mountain-air combined can alone secure.



CHAPTER 55


The open country extending from the Apennines to the very gates of Rome,
and which they had now to cross, was in general a desert; a plain
clothed with a coarse vegetation, and undulating with an interminable
series of low and uncouth mounds, without any of the grace of form which
always attends the disposition of Nature. Nature had not created them.
They were the offspring of man and time, and of their rival powers of
destruction. Ages of civilization were engulfed in this drear expanse.
They were the tombs of empires and the sepulchres of contending races.
The Campagna proper has at least the grace of aqueducts to break its
monotony, and everywhere the cerulean spell of distance; but in this
grim solitude antiquity has left only the memory of its violence and
crimes, and nothing is beautiful except the sky.

The orders of the general to direct their course as much as possible in
the vicinity of the Italian frontier, though it lengthened their
journey, somewhat mitigated its dreariness, and an hour after noon,
after traversing some flinty fields, they observed in the distance an
olive-wood, beneath the pale shade of which, and among whose twisted
branches and contorted roots, they had contemplated finding a
halting-place. But here the advanced guard observed already an
encampment, and one of them rode back to report the discovery.

A needless alarm; for, after a due reconnoissance, they were ascertained
to be friends -- a band of patriots about to join the general in his
encampment among the mountains. They reported that a division of the
Italian army was assembled in force upon the frontier, but that several
regiments had already signified to their commanders that they would not
fight against Garibaldi or his friends. They confirmed also the news
that the great leader himself was a prisoner at Caprera; that, although,
his son Menotti by his command had withdrawn from Nerola, his force was
really increased by the junction of Ghirelli and the Roman legion,
twelve hundred strong, and that five hundred riflemen would join the
general in the course of the week.

A little before sunset they had completed the passage of the open
country, and had entered the opposite branch of the Apennines, which
they had long observed in the distance. After wandering among some
rocky ground, they entered a defile amid hills covered with ilex, and
thence emerging found themselves in a valley of some expanse and
considerable cultivation; bright crops, vineyards in which the vine was
married to the elm, orchards full of fruit, and groves of olive; in the
distance blue hills that were becoming dark in the twilight, and in the
centre of the plain, upon a gentle and wooded elevation, a vast file of
building, the exact character of which at this hour it was difficult to
recognize, for, even as Theodora mentioned to Lothair that they now
beheld the object of their journey, the twilight seemed to vanish and
the stars glistened in the dark heavens.

Though the building seemed so near, it was yet a considerable time
before they reached the wooded hill, and, though its ascent was easy, it
was night before they halted in face of a huge gate flanked by high
stone walls. A single light in one of the windows of the vast pile
which it enclosed was the only evidence of human habitation.

The corporal sounded a bugle, and immediately the light moved and noises
were heard -- the opening of the hall-doors, and then the sudden flame
of torches, and the advent of many feet. The great gate slowly opened,
and a steward and several serving-men appeared. The steward addressed
Theodora and Lothair, and invited them to dismount and enter what now
appeared to be a garden with statues and terraces and fountains and rows
of cypress, its infinite dilapidation not being recognizable in the
deceptive hour; and he informed the escort that their quarters were
prepared for them, to which they were at once attended. Guiding their
captain and his charge, they soon approached a double flight of steps,
and, ascending, reached the main terrace from which the building
immediately rose. It was, in truth, a castle of the middle ages, on
which a Roman prince, at the commencement of the last century, had
engrafted the character of one of those vast and ornate villas then the
mode, but its original character still asserted itself, and,
notwithstanding its Tuscan basement and its Ionic pilasters, its rich
pediments and delicate volutes, in the distant landscape it still seemed
a fortress in the commanding position which became the residence of a
feudal chief.

They entered, through a Palladian vestibule, a hall which they felt must
be of huge dimensions, though with the aid of a single torch it was
impossible to trace its limits, either of extent or of elevation. Then
bowing before them, and lighting as it were their immediate steps, the
steward guided them down a long and lofty corridor, which led to the
entrance of several chambers, all vast, with little furniture, but their
wells covered with pictures. At length he opened a door and ushered
them into a saloon, which was in itself bright and glowing, but of which
the lively air was heightened by its contrast with the preceding scene.
It was lofty, and hung with faded satin in gilded panels still bright.
An ancient chandelier of Venetian crystal hung illumined from the
painted ceiling, and on the silver dogs of the marble hearth a fresh
block of cedar had just been thrown and blazed with aromatic light.

A lady came forward and embraced Theodora, and then greeted Lothair with
cordiality. "We must dine to-day even later than you do in London,"
said the Princess of Tivoli, "but we have been expecting you these two
hours." Then she drew Theodora aside, and said, "He is here; but you
must be tired, my best beloved. As some wise man said: 'Business
to-morrow.'"

"No, no," said Theodora; "now, now, -- I am never tired. The only thing
that exhausts me is suspense."

"It shall be so. At present I will take you away to shake the dust off
your armor, and, Serafino, attend to Captain Muriel."



CHAPTER 56


When they assembled again in the saloon there was an addition to their
party in the person of a gentleman of distinguished appearance. His age
could hardly have much exceeded that of thirty, but time had agitated
his truly Roman countenance, one which we now find only in consular and
imperial busts, or in the chance visage of a Roman shepherd or a
Neapolitan bandit. He was a shade above the middle height, with a frame
of well-knit symmetry. His proud head was proudly placed on broad
shoulders, and neither time nor indulgence had marred his slender waist.
His dark-brown hair was short and hyacinthine, close to his white
forehead, and naturally showing his small ears. He wore no whiskers,
and his mustache was limited to the centre of his upper lip.