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*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

This etext was prepared by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk,
from the 1886 Cassell & Co. edition.

MY TEN YEARS' IMPRISONMENT

by Silvio Pellico

INTRODUCTION.

Silvio Pellico was born at Saluzzo, in North Italy, in the year of
the fall of the Bastille, 1789. His health as a child was feeble,
his temper gentle, and he had the instincts of a poet. Before he
was ten years old he had written a tragedy on a theme taken from
Macpherson's Ossian. His chief delight as a boy was in acting plays
with other children, and he acquired from his father a strong
interest in the patriotic movements of the time. He fastened upon
French literature during a stay of some years at Lyons with a
relation of his mother's. Ugo Foscolo's Sepolcri revived his
patriotism, and in 1810, at the age of twenty-one, he returned to
Italy. He taught French in the Soldiers' Orphans' School at Milan.
At Milan he was admitted to the friendship of Vincenzo Monti, a poet
then touching his sixtieth year, and of the younger Ugo Foscolo, by
whose writings he had been powerfully stirred, and to whom he became
closely bound. Silvio Pellico wrote in classical form a tragedy,
Laodicea, and then, following the national or romantic school, for a
famous actress of that time, another tragedy, Francesca di Rimini,
which was received with great applause.

After the dissolution of the kingdom of Italy, in April 1814,
Pellico became tutor to the two children of the Count Porro
Lambertenghi, at whose table he met writers of mark, from many
countries; Byron (whose Manfred he translated), Madame de Stael,
Schlegel, Manzoni, and others. In 1819 Silvio Pellico began
publishing Il Conciliatore, a journal purely literary, that was to
look through literature to the life that it expresses, and so help
towards the better future of his country. But the merciless
excisions of inoffensive passages by the Austrian censorship
destroyed the journal in a year.

A secret political association had been formed in Italy of men of
all ranks who called themselves the Carbonari (charcoal burners),
and who sought the reform of government in Italy. In 1814 they had
planned a revolution in Naples, but there was no action until 1820.
After successful pressure on the King of the two Sicilies, the
forces of the Carbonari under General Pepe entered Naples on the
ninth of July, 1820, and King Ferdinand I. swore on the 13th of July
to observe the constitution which the Carbonari had proclaimed at
Nola and elsewhere during the preceding month. On the twenty-fifth
of August, the Austrian government decreed death to every member of
a secret society, and carcere duro e durissimo, severest pains of
imprisonment, to all who had neglected to oppose the progress of
Carbonarism. Many seizures were made, and on the 13th of October
the gentle editor of the Conciliatore, Silvio Pellico, was arrested
as a friend of the Carbonari, and taken to the prison of Santa
Margherita in Milan.

In the same month of October, the Emperors of Austria and Russia,
and the Prince of Prussia met at Troppau to concert measures for
crushing the Carbonari.

In January, 1821, they met Ferdinand I. at Laybach and then took
arms against Naples. Naples capitulated on the 20th of March, and
on the 24th of March, 1821, its Revolutionary council was closed. A
decree of April 10th condemned to death all persons who attended
meetings of the Carbonari, and the result was a great accession to
the strength of this secret society, which spread its branches over
Germany and France.

On the 19th of February, 1821, Silvio Pellico was transferred to
imprisonment under the leads, on the isle of San Michele, Venice.
There he wrote two plays, and some poems. On the 21st of February,
1822, he and his friend Maroncelli were condemned to death; but,
their sentence being commuted to twenty years for Maroncelli, and
fifteen years for Pellico, of carcere duro, they entered their
underground prisons at Spielberg on the 10th of April, 1822. The
government refused to transmit Pellico's tragedies to his family,
lest, though harmless in themselves, the acting of them should bring
good-will to a state prisoner. At Spielberg he composed a third
tragedy, Leoniero da Dordona, though deprived of books, paper, and
pens, and preserved it in his memory. In 1828, a rumour of
Pellico's death in prison caused great excitement throughout Italy.
On the 17th of September, 1830, he was released, by the amnesty of
that year, and, avoiding politics thenceforth, devoted himself to
religion. The Marchesa Baroli, at Turin, provided for his
maintenance, by engaging him as her secretary and librarian. With
health made weaker by his sufferings, Silvio Pellico lived on to the
age of sixty-five, much honoured by his countrymen. Gioberti
dedicated a book to him as "The first of Italian Patriots." He died
at Turin on the 1st of February, 1854.

Silvio Pellico's account of his imprisonment, Le Mie Prigioni, was
first published in Paris in 1833. It has been translated into many
languages, and is the work by which he will retain his place in
European literature. His other plays, besides the two first named,
were Eufemia di Messina; Iginia di Asti; Leoniero da Dordona,
already named as having been thought out at Spielberg; his Gismonda;
l'Erodiade; Ester d'Engaddi; Corradino; and a play upon Sir Thomas
More. He wrote also poems, Cantiche, of which the best are Eligi e
Valfrido and Egilde; and, in his last years, a religious manual on
the Duties of Men.

H. M.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

Have I penned these memorials, let me ask myself, from any paltry
vanity, or desire to talk about that self? I hope this is not the
case, and forasmuch as one may be able to judge in one's own cause,
I think I was actuated by better views. These, briefly, were to
afford consolation to some unfortunate being, situated like myself,
by explaining the evils to which I was exposed, and those sources of
relief which I found were accessible, even when labouring under the
heaviest misfortune; to bear witness, moreover, that in the midst of
my acute and protracted torments, I never found humanity, in the
human instruments around me, so hopelessly wicked, so unworthy of
consideration, or so barren of noble minds in lowly station, as it
is customary to represent it; to engage, if possible, all the
generous and good-hearted to love and esteem each other, to become
incapable of hating any one; to feel irreconcilable hatred only
towards low, base falsehood; cowardice, perfidy, and every kind of
moral degradation. It is my object to impress on all that well-
known but too often forgotten truth, namely, that both religion and
philosophy require calmness of judgment combined with energy of
will, and that without such a union, there can be no real justice,
no dignity of character, and no sound principles of human action.

MY TEN YEARS' IMPRISONMENT

CHAPTER I.

On Friday, the 15th of October, 1820, I was arrested at Milan, and
conveyed to the prison of Santa Margherita. The hour was three in
the afternoon. I underwent a long examination, which occupied the
whole of that and several subsequent days; but of this I shall say
nothing. Like some unfortunate lover, harshly dealt with by her he
adored, yet resolved to bear it with dignified silence, I leave la
Politica, such as SHE IS, and proceed to something else.

At nine in the evening of that same unlucky Friday, the actuary
consigned me to the jailer, who conducted me to my appointed
residence. He there politely requested me to give up my watch, my
money, and everything in my pockets, which were to be restored to me
in due time; saying which he respectfully bade me good-night.

"Stop, my dear sir," I observed, "I have not yet dined; let me have
something to eat."

"Directly; the inn is close by, and you will find the wine good,
sir."

"Wine I do not drink."

At this announcement Signor Angiolino gave me a look of unfeigned
surprise; he imagined that I was jesting. "Masters of prisons," he
rejoined, "who keep shop, have a natural horror of an abstemious
captive."

"That may be; I don't drink it."

"I am sorry for you, sir; you will feel solitude twice as heavily."

But perceiving that I was firm, he took his leave; and in half an
hour I had something to eat. I took a mouthful, swallowed a glass
of water, and found myself alone. My chamber was on the ground
floor, and overlooked the court-yard. Dungeons here, dungeons
there, to the right, to the left, above, below, and opposite,
everywhere met my eye. I leaned against the window, listened to the
passing and repassing of the jailers, and the wild song of a number
of the unhappy inmates. A century ago, I reflected, and this was a
monastery; little then thought the pious, penitent recluses that
their cells would now re-echo only to the sounds of blasphemy and
licentious song, instead of holy hymn and lamentation from woman's
lips; that it would become a dwelling for the wicked of every class-
-the most part destined to perpetual labour or to the gallows. And
in one century to come, what living being will be found in these
cells? Oh, mighty Time! unceasing mutability of things! Can he who
rightly views your power have reason for regret or despair when
Fortune withdraws her smile, when he is made captive, or the
scaffold presents itself to his eye? yesterday I thought myself one
of the happiest of men; to-day every pleasure, the least flower that
strewed my path, has disappeared. Liberty, social converse, the
face of my fellow-man, nay, hope itself hath fled. I feel it would
be folly to flatter myself; I shall not go hence, except to be
thrown into still more horrible receptacles of sorrow; perhaps,
bound, into the hands of the executioner. Well, well, the day after
my death it will be all one as if I had yielded my spirit in a
palace, and been conveyed to the tomb, accompanied with all the
pageantry of empty honours.

It was thus, by reflecting on the sweeping speed of time, that I
bore up against passing misfortune. Alas, this did not prevent the
forms of my father, my mother, two brothers, two sisters, and one
other family I had learned to love as if it were my own, from all
whom I was, doubtless, for ever cut off, from crossing my mind, and
rendering all my philosophical reasoning of no avail. I was unable
to resist the thought, and I wept even as a child.

CHAPTER II.

Three months previous to this time I had gone to Turin, where, after
several years of separation, I saw my parents, one of my brothers,
and two sisters. We had always been an attached family; no son had
ever been more deeply indebted to a father and a mother than I; I
remember I was affected at beholding a greater alteration in their
looks, the progress of age, than I had expected. I indulged a
secret wish to part from them no more, and soothe the pillow of
departing age by the grateful cares of a beloved son. How it vexed
me, too, I remember, during the few brief days I passed with them,
to be compelled by other duties to spend so much of the day from
home, and the society of those I had such reason to love and to
revere; yes, and I remember now what my mother said one day, with an
expression of sorrow, as I went out--"Ah! our Silvio has not come to
Turin to see US!" The morning of my departure for Milan was a truly
painful one. My poor father accompanied me about a mile on my way;
and, on leaving me, I more than once turned to look at him, and,
weeping, kissed the ring my mother had just given me; nor did I ever
before quit my family with a feeling of such painful presentiment.
I am not superstitious; but I was astonished at my own weakness, and
I more than once exclaimed in a tone of terror, "Good God! whence
comes this strange anxiety and alarm?" and, with a sort of inward
vision, my mind seemed to behold the approach of some great
calamity. Even yet in prison I retain the impression of that sudden
dread and parting anguish, and can recall each word and every look
of my distressed parents. The tender reproach of my mother, "Ah!
Silvio has not come to Turin to see US!" seemed to hang like a
weight upon my soul. I regretted a thousand instances in which I
might have shown myself more grateful and agreeable to them; I did
not even tell them how much I loved; all that I owed to them. I was
never to see them more, and yet I turned my eyes with so much like
indifference from their dear and venerable features! Why, why was I
so chary of giving expression to what I felt (would they could have
read it in my looks), to all my gratitude and love? In utter
solitude, thoughts like these pierced me to the soul.

I rose, shut the window, and sat some hours, in the idea that it
would be in vain to seek repose. At length I threw myself on my
pallet, and excessive weariness brought me sleep.

CHAPTER III.

To awake the first night in a prison is a horrible thing. Is it
possible, I murmured, trying to collect my thoughts, is it possible
I am here? Is not all that passed a dream? Did they really seize
me yesterday? Was it I whom they examined from morning till night,
who am doomed to the same process day after day, and who wept so
bitterly last night when I thought of my dear parents? Slumber, the
unbroken silence, and rest had, in restoring my mental powers, added
incalculably to the capability of reflecting, and, consequently, of
grief. There was nothing to distract my attention; my fancy grew
busy with absent forms, and pictured, to my eye the pain and terror
of my father and mother, and of all dear to me, on first hearing the
tidings of my arrest.

At this moment, said I, they are sleeping in peace; or perhaps,
anxiety for me may keep them watching, yet little anticipating the
fate to which I am here consigned. Happy for them, were it the will
of God, that they should cease to exist ere they hear of this
horrible misfortune. Who will give them strength to bear it? Some
inward voice seemed to whisper me, He whom the afflicted look up to,
love and acknowledge in their hearts; who enabled a mother to follow
her son to the mount of Golgotha, and to stand under His cross. He,
the friend of the unhappy, the friend of man.

Strange this should be the first time I truly felt the power of
religion in my heart; and to filial love did I owe this consolation.
Though not ill-disposed, I had hitherto been little impressed with
its truth, and had not well adhered to it. All common-place
objections I estimated at their just value, yet there were many
doubts and sophisms which had shaken my faith. It was long, indeed,
since they had ceased to trouble my belief in the existence of the
Deity; and persuaded of this, it followed necessarily, as part of
His eternal justice, that there must be another life for man who
suffers so unjustly here. Hence, I argued, the sovereign reason in
man for aspiring to the possession of that second life; and hence,
too, a worship founded on the love of God, and of his neighbour, and
an unceasing impulse to dignify his nature by generous sacrifices.
I had already made myself familiar with this doctrine, and I now
repeated, "And what else is Christianity but this constant ambition
to elevate and dignify our nature?" and I was astonished, when I
reflected how pure, how philosophical, and how invulnerable the
essence of Christianity manifested itself, that there could come an
epoch when philosophy dared to assert, "From this time forth I will
stand instead of a religion like this." And in what manner--by
inculcating vice? Certainly not. By teaching virtue? Why that
will be to teach us to love God and our neighbour; and that is
precisely what Christianity has already done, on far higher and
purer motives. Yet, notwithstanding such had, for years, been my
opinion, I had failed to draw the conclusion, Then be a Christian!
No longer let corruption and abuses, the work of man, deter you; no
longer make stumbling-blocks of little points of doctrine, since the
principal point, made thus irresistibly clear, is to love God and
your neighbour.

In prison I finally determined to admit this conclusion, and I
admitted it. The fear, indeed, of appearing to others more
religious than I had before been, and to yield more to misfortune
than to conviction, made me sometimes hesitate; but feeling that I
had done no wrong, I felt no debasement, and cared nothing to
encounter the possible reproaches I had not deserved, resolving
henceforward to declare myself openly a Christian.

CHAPTER IV.

I adhered firmly to this resolution as time advanced; but the
consideration of it was begun the first night of my captivity.
Towards morning the excess of my grief had grown calmer, and I was
even astonished at the change. On recalling the idea of my parents
and others whom I loved, I ceased to despair of their strength of
mind, and the recollection of those virtues which I knew they had
long possessed gave me real consolation. Why had I before felt such
great dismay on thinking of them, and now so much confidence in
their strength of mind? Was this happy change miraculous, or the
natural effect of my renewed belief in God? What avails the
distinction, while the genuine sublime benefits of religion remain
the same.

At midnight two secondini (the under jailers are so termed) had paid
me a visit, and found me in a very ill mood; in the morning they
returned, and were surprised to see me so calm, and even cheerful.

"Last night, sir, you had the face of a basilisk," said Tirola; "now
you are quite another thing; I rejoice at it, if, indeed, it be a
sign, forgive me the expression, that you are not a scoundrel. Your
scoundrels (for I am an old hand at the trade, and my observations
are worth something) are always more enraged the second day after
their arrest than the first. Do you want some snuff?"

"I do not take it, but will not refuse your offer. If I have not a
gorgon-face this morning, it must surely be a proof of my utter
insensibility, or easy belief of soon regaining my freedom."

"I should doubt that, even though you were not in durance for state
matters. At this time of day they are not so easily got over as you
might think; you are not so raw as to imagine such a thing. Pardon
me, but you will know more by and by."

"Tell me, how come you to have so pleasant a look, living only, as
you do, among the unfortunate?"

"Why, sir, you will attribute it to indifference to others'
sufferings; of a truth, I know not how it is; yet, I assure you, it
often gives me pain to see the prisoners weep. Truly, I sometimes
pretend to be merry to bring a smile upon their faces."

"A thought has just struck me, my friend, which I never had before;
it is, that a jailer may be made of very congenial clay."

"Well, the trade has nothing to do with that, sir. Beyond that huge
vault you see there, without the court-yard, is another court, and
other prisons, all prepared for women. They are, sir, women of a
certain class; yet are there some angels among them, as to a good
heart. And if you were in my place, sir--"

"I?" and I laughed out heartily.

Tirola was quite disconcerted, and said no more. Perhaps he meant
to imply that had I been a secondino, it would have been difficult
not to become attached to some one or other of these unfortunates.

He now inquired what I wished to take for breakfast, left me, and
soon returned with my coffee. I looked hard at him, with a sort of
malicious smile, as much as to say, "Would you carry me a bit of a
note to an unhappy friend--to my friend Piero?" {1} He understood
it, and answered with another: "No sir; and if you do not take heed
how you ask any of my comrades, they will betray you."

Whether or not we understood each other, it is certain I was ten
times upon the point of asking him for a sheet of paper, &c.; but
there was a something in his eye which seemed to warn me not to
confide in any one about me, and still less to others than himself.

CHAPTER V.

Had Tirola, with his expression of good-nature, possessed a less
roguish look, had there been something a little more dignified in
his aspect, I should have tried to make him my ambassador; for
perhaps a brief communication, if in time, might prevent my friend
committing some fatal error, perhaps save him, poor fellow; besides
several others, including myself: and too much was already known.
Patience! it was fated to be thus.

I was here recalled to be examined anew. The process continued
through the day, and was again and again repeated, allowing me only
a brief interval during dinner. While this lasted, the time seemed
to pass rapidly; the excitement of mind produced by the endless
series of questions put to me, and by going over them at dinner and
at night, digesting all that had been asked and replied to,
reflecting on what was likely to come, kept me in a state of
incessant activity. At the end of the first week I had to endure a
most vexatious affair. My poor friend Piero, eager as myself to
have some communication, sent me a note, not by one of the jailers,
but by an unfortunate prisoner who assisted them. He was an old man
from sixty to seventy, and condemned to I know not how long a period
of captivity. With a pin I had by me I pricked my finger, and
scrawled with my blood a few lines in reply, which I committed to
the same messenger. He was unluckily suspected, caught with the
note upon him, and from the horrible cries that were soon heard, I
conjectured that he was severely bastinadoed. At all events I never
saw him more.

On my next examination I was greatly irritated to see my note
presented to me (luckily containing nothing but a simple
salutation), traced in my blood. I was asked how I had contrived to
draw the blood; was next deprived of my pin, and a great laugh was
raised at the idea and detection of the attempt. Ah, I did not
laugh, for the image of the poor old messenger rose before my eyes.
I would gladly have undergone any punishment to spare the old man.
I could not repress my tears when those piercing cries fell upon my
ear. Vainly did I inquire of the jailers respecting his fate. They
shook their heads, observing, "He has paid dearly for it, he will
never do such like things again; he has a little more rest now."
Nor would they speak more fully. Most probably they spoke thus on
account of his having died under, or in consequence of, the
punishment he had suffered; yet one day I thought I caught a glimpse
of him at the further end of the court-yard, carrying a bundle of
wood on his shoulders. I felt a beating of the heart as if I had
suddenly recognised a brother.

CHAPTER VI.

When I ceased to be persecuted with examinations, and had no longer
anything to fill up my time, I felt bitterly the increasing weight
of solitude. I had permission to retain a bible, and my Dante; the
governor also placed his library at my disposal, consisting of some
romances of Scuderi, Piazzi, and worse books still; but my mind was
too deeply agitated to apply to any kind of reading whatever. Every
day, indeed, I committed a canto of Dante to memory, an exercise so
merely mechanical, that I thought more of my own affairs than the
lines during their acquisition. The same sort of abstraction
attended my perusal of other things, except, occasionally, a few
passages of scripture. I had always felt attached to this divine
production, even when I had not believed myself one of its avowed
followers. I now studied it with far greater respect than before;
yet my mind was often almost involuntarily bent upon other matters;
and I knew not what I read. By degrees I surmounted this
difficulty, and was able to reflect upon its great truths with
higher relish than I had ever before done. This, in me, did not
give rise to the least tendency to moroseness or superstition,
nothing being more apt than misdirected devotion to weaken and
distort the mind. With the love of God and mankind, it inspired me
also with a veneration for justice, and an abhorrence of wickedness,
along with a desire of pardoning the wicked. Christianity, instead
of militating against anything good, which I had derived from
Philosophy, strengthened it by the aid of logical deductions, at
once more powerful and profound.

Reading one day that it was necessary to pray without ceasing, and
that prayer did not consist in many words uttered after the manner
of the Pharisees, but in making every word and action accord with
the will of God, I determined to commence with earnestness, to pray
in the spirit with unceasing effort: in other words, to permit no
one thought which should not be inspired by a wish to conform my
whole life to the decrees of God.

The forms I adopted were simple and few; not from contempt of them
(I think them very salutary, and calculated to excite attention),
but from the circumstance of my being unable to go through them at
length, without becoming so far abstracted as to make me forget the
solemn duty in which I am engaged. This habitual observance of
prayer, and the reflection that God is omnipresent as well as
omnipotent in His power to save, began ere long to deprive solitude
of its horrors, and I often repeated, "Have I not the best society
man can have?" and from this period I grew more cheerful, I even
sang and whistled in the new joy of my heart. And why lament my
captivity? Might not a sudden fever have carried me off? and would
my friends then have grieved less over my fate than now? and cannot
God sustain them even as He could under a more trying dispensation?
And often did I offer up my prayers and fervent hopes that my dear
parents might feel, as I myself felt, resigned to my lot; but tears
frequently mingled with sweet recollections of home. With all this,
my faith in God remained undisturbed, and I was not disappointed.

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