“ ‘De la musique avant toute chose,Et pour cela préfère l’impairPlus vague et plus soluble dans l’air,Sans rien en lui qui pèse ou qui pose.Il faut aussi que tu n’ailles pointChoisir tes mots sans quelque méprise:Rien de plus cher que la chanson griseOù l’indécis au précis se joint....Car nous voulons la nuance encor,Pas la couleur, rien que la nuance!Oh! la nuance seule fianceLe rêve au rêve, et la flute au cor....’
“ ‘De la musique avant toute chose,Et pour cela préfère l’impairPlus vague et plus soluble dans l’air,Sans rien en lui qui pèse ou qui pose.Il faut aussi que tu n’ailles pointChoisir tes mots sans quelque méprise:Rien de plus cher que la chanson griseOù l’indécis au précis se joint....Car nous voulons la nuance encor,Pas la couleur, rien que la nuance!Oh! la nuance seule fianceLe rêve au rêve, et la flute au cor....’
“ ‘De la musique avant toute chose,Et pour cela préfère l’impairPlus vague et plus soluble dans l’air,Sans rien en lui qui pèse ou qui pose.
Il faut aussi que tu n’ailles pointChoisir tes mots sans quelque méprise:Rien de plus cher que la chanson griseOù l’indécis au précis se joint....
Car nous voulons la nuance encor,Pas la couleur, rien que la nuance!Oh! la nuance seule fianceLe rêve au rêve, et la flute au cor....’
“On the other side, he is quite simple:—
“ ‘Je suis venu, calme orphelin,Riche de mes seuls yeux tranquilles,Vers les hommes des grandes villes:Ils ne m’ont pas trouvé malin.’
“ ‘Je suis venu, calme orphelin,Riche de mes seuls yeux tranquilles,Vers les hommes des grandes villes:Ils ne m’ont pas trouvé malin.’
“ ‘Je suis venu, calme orphelin,Riche de mes seuls yeux tranquilles,Vers les hommes des grandes villes:Ils ne m’ont pas trouvé malin.’
“Or, elsewhere:—
“ ‘J’ai peur d’un baiserConnue d’une abeille.Je souffre et je veilleSans me reposer,J’ai peur d’un baiser.’ ”
“ ‘J’ai peur d’un baiserConnue d’une abeille.Je souffre et je veilleSans me reposer,J’ai peur d’un baiser.’ ”
“ ‘J’ai peur d’un baiserConnue d’une abeille.Je souffre et je veilleSans me reposer,J’ai peur d’un baiser.’ ”
Thus far Lemaître.
It will be seen that thedécadentscorrespond exactly to the diagnosis of literary mattoids, in all their old vacuity, but with the appearance of novelty. At the same time, there are among them, real men of genius who—amid the (frequently atavistic) oddities of mattoidism—have struck an original note.
All these cases show us that the gradations and transitions between sanity and insanity are far from being as hypothetical as Livi asserts them to be. Moreover, all this is in perfect harmony with the eternal evolution which we see going on in the ample realm of nature, which, as has been well said, never proceeds by leaps, but by successive and gradual transformations.
Now, it is natural that, as these gradations exist in this very strange form of literary insanity, they should also be found in the forms of criminal insanity, and that, in consequence, many of those asserted to be guilty or mad, are only half responsible, although no human thought can trace the limits with entire certainty.
It is well to observe here, what a different appearance madness assumes, according to the age in which it occurs. Had Bosisio lived in the Middle Ages, or in Spain or Mexico at a later period, the kind-hearted liberator of birds, the martyr for posterity, would have become a St. Ignatius or a Torquemada—the Positivist atheist an ultra-Catholic, commanded by a cruel Deity to immolate human victims; but Bosisio was an Italian, living in 1870.
This case affords an excellent explanation of the occurrence, in remote times, and among savage or slightly civilized nations, of numerous outbreaks of epidemic insanity; and shows that many historical events may have been the result of mania on the part of one or more persons. Cases in point are those of the Anabaptists, the Flagellants, the witch-mania, the Taeping revolution.
Mental aberration gives rise in some men to ideas which, though bizarre, are sometimes gigantic and rendered more efficacious by a singular force of conviction, so as to sweep along the feeble-minded multitude, who are all the more attracted by any singularity in dress, attitudes or abstinence (which such disease alone can suggest andrender possible), that these phenomena are made inexplicable to them (and therefore worthy of veneration) by their ignorance and barbarism. The ignorant man always adores what he cannot understand.
Our poor sufferer from hallucinations wanted nothing but a favourable epoch to impress his ideas on the multitude—neither muscular strength, nor a certain vigour of thought, nor extraordinary endurance under privations, nor disinterestedness, nor conviction. At another epoch, Italy would have found her Mahomet in Bosisio.
Mattoids in Art.—At the competition opened at Rome for designs for a proposed monument to Victor Emmanuel—the subject being an international one—mattoids came forward in crowds. In fact, we find, in Dossi’s curious book, not less than 39 out of 296 (13 per cent.), a number which would be raised to 25 per cent. if we add 38 more, who, in addition to their eccentricity, gave tokens of being imbecile.
The most general characteristic of these productions is their stupidity. One of them proposes a square stone box without a roof (similar to the “magnaneries” or roofless stone buildings used in the South of France for silkworms), which he calls a “Right Quadrangular Tower”—destined to receive the late king’s remains, and protect them against the inundations of the Tiber. Tr——’s monument—“destined to live for centuries”—consists of a column surrounded by obelisks, by four flights of steps, and four triangles, each surrounded by twelve small spires. Each of the latter is to support a bust, each of the columns a statue of some great Italian; with regard to six statues, the artist reserves the right of changing them at the death of our illustrious men—Sella, Mamiani, &c. This is a case for saying, “Perish the astrologer!” Another competitor—two, in fact—have projected rooms to serve as public lavatories at the base of their columns. There is a curious coincidence and emulation of hatred in nearly all; most of them make use of celebrated monuments, whose destruction is, of course, asine quâ nonto the erection of theirs.
But, if wanting in every sign of genius, these designsare not deficient in allegorical symbols of the most grotesque type, or in inscriptions. Some of them, indeed, are nothing but a mass of irrelevant inscriptions, relating to everything in the world, except the poorRe Galantuomohimself—but more particularly to the supposed genius of the artist.
Here we find that the main characteristic of such minds—vanity, heightened to the point of disease—makes each of them think his own production a masterpiece. Canfora declares that he is “neither engineer nor architect, butinspired by God alone.” A. B. does not send in his design to the Committee, because it is too grand; and another ends by saying, “How mighty is the thought of the artist!”
Nearly all are absolutely ignorant of the art in which they claim to excel. Thus Dossi found among the projectors, teachers of mathematics and of grammar, doctors in medicine and in law, military men, accountants, and others who themselves asserted that they had never before handled pencil or compasses. At the same time, their far from humble social position bears out what I consider to be one of the principal points: viz., that we have before us (as might be suspected) idiots, or persons actually insane, but men quite respectable outside their special artistic mania. Such should be M——, a member of the Russian Archæological Society, of the Hellenic Syllage, Architect-in-chief of Roumelia and the palaces of the Sultan, Knight and Commander of various Orders, &c., &c.
When we compare these stupid abortions with the pictures inspired by insanity (I am not now speaking of those painters who, like various poets and musicians, in losing their reason, lost artistically more than they gained—especially in right proportion and the harmony of colour), we shall often find the absurd and disproportionate; but also, at the same time, a true, even excessive originality, mingled with a savage beautysui generis, which, up to a certain point, recalls the masterpieces of mediæval, and, still more, of Chinese and Japanese, art, so extraordinarily rich in symbols. We shall see, in short, that art suffers here, not from a defect,but from an excess of genius, which ends by crushing itself.
In conclusion, it is very evident that the insane artist is as superior to the mattoid in the practice of his art, as he is inferior to him in practical life; that, in short, in the region of art, the mattoid approaches nearest to the imbecile, and the lunatic to the man of genius.
Part played by the insane in the progressive movements of humanity—Examples—Probable causes—Religious epidemics of the Middle Ages—Francis of Assisi—Luther—Savonarola—Cola da Rienzi—San Juan de Dios—Campanella—Prosper Enfantin—Lazzaretti—Passanante—Guiteau—South Americans.
Part played by the insane in the progressive movements of humanity—Examples—Probable causes—Religious epidemics of the Middle Ages—Francis of Assisi—Luther—Savonarola—Cola da Rienzi—San Juan de Dios—Campanella—Prosper Enfantin—Lazzaretti—Passanante—Guiteau—South Americans.
ALLthis helps us to understand why the great progressive movements of nations, in politics and religion, have so often been brought about, or at least determined, by insane or half-insane persons. The reason is that in these alone is to be found, coupled with originality (which is the special characteristic of the genius and the lunatic, and still more of those who partake of the character of both), the exaltation capable of generating a sufficient amount of altruism to sacrifice their own interests, and their lives, for the sake of making known the new truths, and, often, of getting them accepted by a public to which innovations are always unwelcome, and which frequently takes a bloody revenge on the innovator.
“Such persons,” says Maudsley, “are apt to seize on and pursue the bypaths of thought, which have been overlooked by more stable intellects, and so, by throwing a side-light on things, to discover unthought-of relations. One observes this tendency of mind even in those of them who have no particular genius or talent; for they have a novel way of looking at things, do not run in the common groove of action, or follow the ordinary routine of thought and feeling, but discover in their remarks a certain originality and perhaps singularity, sometimes at a very early period of life.
“Notable, again, is the emancipated way in which some of them discuss, as if they were problems of mechanics,objects or events round which the associations of ideas and feelings have thrown a glamour of conventional sentiment. In regard to most beliefs, they are usually more or less heterodox or heretical, though not often constant, being apt to swing round suddenly from one point to a quite opposite point of the compass of belief.... Inspired with strong faith in the opinions which they adopt, they exhibit much zeal and energy in the propagation of them.”[357]They are careless of every obstacle, and untroubled by the doubts which arise in the minds of calm and sceptical thinkers. Thus they are frequently social or religious reformers.
It should be understood that they do notcreateanything, but only give a direction to the latest movements prepared by time and circumstances, as also—thanks to their passion for novelty and originality—they are nearly always inspired by the latest discoveries or innovations, and use these as their starting-point in guessing at the future.
Thus Schopenhauer wrote at an epoch in which pessimism was beginning to be fashionable, together with mysticism, and only fused the whole into one philosophic system. Cæsar found the ground prepared for him by the Tribunes.
When, says Taine, a new civilization produces a new art, there are ten men of talent who express the idea of the public and group themselves round one man of genius who gives it actuality; thus De Castro, Moreto, Lopez de la Vega, round Calderon; Van Dyck, Jordaens, De Vos, and Snyders round Rubens.
Luther summed up in himself the ideas of many of his contemporaries and predecessors; it is sufficient to mention Savonarola.
The spherical shape of the earth had already been maintained by St. Thomas Aquinas, and by Dante, before the discoveries of Columbus, which are also antedated by those of the Canary Islands, Iceland, and Cape Verde.
If the new ideas are too divergent from prevalent popular opinion, or too self-evidently absurd, they dieout with their author, if, indeed, they do not involve him in their fall.
Arnold of Brescia, Knutzen,[358]Campanella, tried to shake off the dominion of the clergy, and take away the temporal power of the Pope; they were persecuted and crushed.
“The insane person,” says Maudsley, “is in a minority of one in his opinion, and so, at first, is the reformer, the difference being that the reformer’s belief is an advance on the received system of thought, and so, in time, gets acceptance, while the belief of the former, being opposed to the common sense of mankind, gains no acceptance, but dies out with its possessor, or with the few foolish persons whom it has infected.”[359]
Of late years there has arisen in India, owing to the efforts of Keshub Chunder Sen, a new religion which deifies modern rationalism and scepticism; but here, also, the madness of Keshub evidently outran the march of the times; for the triumph of a similar religion is not probable, even among us, with our much greater progress in knowledge. Thus, too, Buddhism, finding the ground contested by the caste system in India, took no firm hold there, while it extended itself in China and Tibet. Keshub was induced to take up this line of action by a form of madness analogous to that which we shall also see in B—— of Modena. In fact, this strange rationalist believes in revelation, and in 1879 he declaimed, “I am the inspired prophet,” &c.[360]
The same thing may be said of politics. Historical revolutions are never lasting, unless the way has been prepared for them by a long series of events. But the crisis is often precipitated—sometimes many years beforeits time—by the unbalanced geniuses who outrun the course of events, foresee the development of intermediate facts which escape the common eye, and rush, without a thought of themselves, on the opposition of their contemporaries, acting like those insects which, in flying from one flower to another, transport the pollen which would otherwise have required violent winds, or a long space of time to render it available for fertilization.
Now, if we add the immovable, fanatical conviction of the madman to the calculating sagacity of genius, we shall have a force capable, in any age, of acting as a lever on the torpid masses, struck dumb before this phenomenon, which appears strange and rare even to calm thinkers and spectators at a distance. Add further, the influence which madness, in itself, already has over barbarous peoples at early periods, and we may well call the force an irresistible one.
The importance of the madman among savages, and the semi-barbarous peoples of ancient times, is rather historical than pathological. He is feared and adored by the masses, and often rules them. In India, some madmen are held in high esteem, and consulted by the Brahmins—a custom of which many sects bear traces. In ancient India the eight kinds ofdemonomaniabore the names of the eight principal Indian divinities; the Yakshia-graha have deep intelligence; the Deva-graha are strong, intelligent, and esteemed and consulted by the Brahmins; the Gandharva-graha serve as choristers to the gods. But, in order to know what a point the veneration of the insane may reach, and how little modern India has changed in this respect, it is quite sufficient to observe that there exist at present in that country 43 sects which show particular zeal towards their divinity, sometimes by drinking urine, sometimes by walking on the points of sharp stones, sometimes by remaining motionless for years exposed to the rays of the sun, or by representing to their own imagination the corporeal image of the god, and offering up to him, also in imagination, prayers, flowers, or food.[361]
The existence of endemic insanity among the ancient Hebrews (and, by parity of reasoning, among their congeners,the Phœnicians, Carthaginians, &c.—the same words being used forprophet,madman, andwicked man) is proved by history and language. The Bible relates that David, fearing that he would be killed, feigned madness,[362]and that Achish said, “Have I need of madmen that ye have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence?” This passage is evidence of their abundance, and also of their inviolability, which was certainly owing to the belief, still common among the Arabs, which causes the wordnabi(prophet) to be constantly used in the Bible in the sense ofmadman, andvice versa. Saul, even before his coronation, was suddenly seized with the prophetic spirit, so much to the surprise of the bystanders that the event was made the occasion of a proverb—“Is Saul also among the prophets?” One day, after he had become king, the spirit of an evil deity weighed upon him, and he prophesied (hereraged) in the house, and attempted to transfix David with a lance.[363]In Jeremiah xxix. 26, we read “The Lord hath made thee priest, ... for every man that is mad and maketh himself a prophet, that thou shouldst put him in prison and in the stocks.” In 1 Kings xviii. we see the prophets of the groves, and of Baal crying out like madmen, and cutting their flesh. In the First Book of Samuel we find Saul as a prophet rushing naked through the fields.[364]Elsewhere we see prophets publicly approaching places of ill-fame, cutting their hands, eating filth, &c. The Medjdub of the Arab, and the Persian Davana are the modern analogues.[365]
“Medjdubim,” says Berbrugger, “is the name given to these individuals who, under the influence of special circumstances fall into a state which exactly recalls that of the Convulsionnaires of St. Medard. They are numerous in Algeria, where they are better known under the names of Aïssawah or Ammarim.” Mula Ahmed, in the narrative of his journey (translated by Berbrugger) speaks of “Sidi Abdullah, the Medjdub, who brought the best influence to bear on the Hammis, his thievish and vicious fellow-citizens. He would remain forthree or five days like a log, without eating, drinking, or praying. He could do without sleep for forty days at the end of which, he was seized with violent convulsions” (p. 278). Further on, he speaks of one Sidi Abd-el-Kadr, who wandered from place to place, forgetful of himself and his family—an indifference probably due to his sainthood. Drummond Hay shows us how far respect for the insane is carried in Morocco, and among the neighbouring nomadic tribes: “The Moor tells us that God has retained their reason in heaven, whilst their body is upon earth; and that when madmen or idiots speak, their reason is, for the time, permitted to return to them, and that their words should be treasured up as those of inspired persons.”[366]
The author himself and an English consul were in danger of being killed by one of these novel saints, who, naked, and often armed, insist on acting out the strangest caprices which enter their heads; and those who oppose them do so at their peril.
In Barbary, says Pananti,[367]the caravans are in the habit of consulting the mad santons (Vasli), to whom nothing is forbidden. One of them strangled every person who came to the mosque; another at the public baths violated a newly married bride, and her companions congratulated the fortunate husband on the occurrence.
The Ottomans[368]extend to the insane the veneration which they have for dervishes, and believe that they stand in a special relation to the Deity. Even the ministers of religion receive them into their own houses with great respect. They are calledEulya,Ullah Deli—“divine ones,” “sons of God”—or, more accurately, “madmen of God.” And the various sects of Dervishes present phenomena analogous to those of madness. Every monastery[369]has its own species of prayer or dance—or rather its own peculiar kind of convulsion. Some move their bodies from side to side, others backwards and forwards, and gradually quicken the motion as they go on with their prayer. These movements are calledMukabdi(heightening of the divine glory), orOvres Tewhid(praise of the unity of God). The Kufais are distinguished above all other orders by exaggerated sanctity. They sleep little, lying, when they do, with their feet in water, and fast for weeks together. They begin the chant of Allah, advancing the left foot and executing a rotatory movement with the right, while holding each other by the forearm. Then they march forward, raising their voices more and more, quickening the motion of the dance, and throwing their arms over each other’s shoulders, till, worn out and perspiring, with glazing eyes and pale faces, they fall into the sacred convulsion (haluk). In this state of religious mania (says our author) they submit to the ordeal of hot iron, and, when the fire has burnt out, cut their flesh with swords and knives.
In Batacki, when a man is possessed by an evil spirit, he is greatly respected; what he says is looked on as the utterance of an oracle, and immediately obeyed.[370]
In Madagascar, the insane are objects of veneration. In 1863 many people were seized with tremors, and impelled to strike those who came near them. They were also subject to hallucinations and saw the dead queen coming out of her grave. The king ordered these persons to be respected, and for a space of at least two months, soldiers were seen beating their officers, and officials their superiors.
In China the only well-defined traits of insanity are to be found in the only Chinese sect which was ever conspicuous, in that sceptical nation, for religious fanaticism. The followers of Tao[371]believe in demoniacal possession, and endeavour to gather the future from the utterances of madmen, thinking that the possessed person declares in words the thought of the spirit.
In Oceania, at Tahiti, a species of prophet was calledEu-toa—i.e., possessed of the divine spirit. The chief of the island said that he was a bad man (toato-eno). Omai, the interpreter, said that these prophets were a kind of madmen, some of whom, in their attacks, were not consciousof what they were doing, nor could they afterwards remember what they had done.[372]
With regard to America, Schoolcraft, in that enormous medley entitledHistorical and Statistical Information of the Indian Tribes[373](1854), says that the regard for madmen is a characteristic trait of the Indian tribes of the north, and especially of Oregon, who are considered the most savage. Among these latter, he mentions a woman who showed every symptom of insanity—sang in a grotesque manner, gave away to others all the trifles she possessed, and cut her flesh when they refused to accept them. The Indians treated her with great respect.
The Patagonians[374]have women-doctors and magicians who prophesy amid convulsive attacks. Men may also be elected to the priesthood, but they must then dress as women, and cannot be admitted unless they have, from their childhood, shown special qualifications. What these are is shown by the fact that epileptics are appointed as a matter of course, as possessing the divine spirit.
In Peru, besides the priests, there were prophets who uttered their improvisations amid terrible contortions and convulsions. They were venerated by the people, but despised by the higher classes.[375]
All revolutions in Algeria and in the Soudan[376]are due to lunatics or neurotics who make, of their own neurosis and the religious societies to which they attach themselves, instruments for invigorating religious fanaticism and getting themselves accepted as inspired messengers of God. Such were the Mahdi, Omar, and a madman who headed the great revolt of the Taepings in China.[377]
Phenomena which present such complete uniformity must arise from like causes. These seem to me to be reducible to the following:
1. The mass of the people, accustomed to the few sensations habitual to them, cannot experience new ones without wonder, or strange ones without adoration.Adoration is, I should say, the necessary effect of the reflex movement produced in them by the overwhelming shock of the new impression. The Peruvians applied the wordHuacha(divine) to the sacred victim, the temple, a high tower, a great mountain, a ferocious animal, a man with seven fingers, a shining stone, &c. In the same way the SemiticEl(divine) is synonymous withgreat,light,new, and is applied to a strong man, as well as to a tree, a mountain, or an animal. After all, it is quite natural that men should be struck by the phenomenon of one of their fellow-creatures completely changing his voice and gestures, and associating together the strangest ideas—when we ourselves, with all the advantages of science, are often puzzled to understand the reasons for his actions.
2. Some of these madmen possess (as we have seen, and shall see again, in the Middle Ages and among the Indians) extraordinary muscular strength. The people venerate strength.
3. They often show an extraordinary insensibility to cold, to fire, to wounds (as among the Arab Santons, and among our own lunatics), and to hunger.
4. Some, affected either by theomania or ambitious mania, having first declared themselves inspired by the gods, or chiefs and leaders of the nation, &c., drew after them the current of popular opinion, already disposed in their favour.
5. The following is the principal reason. Many of these madmen must have shown a force of intellect, or at any rate of will, very much superior to those of the masses whom they swayed by their extravagances. If the passions redouble the force of the intellect, certain forms of madness (which are nothing but a morbid exaltation of the passions) may be said to increase it a hundred-fold. Their conviction of the truth of their own hallucinations, the fluent and vigorous eloquence with which they give utterance to them—and which is precisely the effect of their real conviction—and the contrast between their obscure or ignoble past, and their present position of power or splendour, give to this form of insanity, in the mind of the people, a natural preponderance over sane but quiet habits of mind. Lazzaretti, Briand, Loyola, Molinos,Joan of Arc, the Anabaptists, &c., are proofs of this assertion. And it is a fact that, in epidemics of prophecy—such as those which prevailed in the Cevennes, and, recently, at Stockholm—ignorant persons, servant-maids, and even children, excited by enthusiasm, are fired to deliver discourses which are often full of spirit and eloquence.
A maid-servant said, “Can you put a piece of wood in the fire without thinking of hell?—the more wood, the greater the flames.” Another prophetess, a cook, cried out, “God pronounces curses on this wine of wrath (i.e., brandy), and the sinners who drink of it shall be punished according to their sin, and torrents of this wine of wrath shall flow in hell to burn them.” A child of four said, “May God in heaven call sinners to repentance! Go to Golgotha—there are the festal robes!”[378]
6. Mania, among barbarous people, often takes the epidemic form, as among the savage negroes of Juidah, among the Abipones and among the Abyssinians in those affections analogous to the tarantula which are calledtigretier. Thus, in Greece, an instance is recorded of an epidemic madness among the people of Abdera, who had been deeply moved by the recital of a tragedy; and those Thyades who appeared at Athens and Rome—worshippers of Bacchus, thirsting for luxury and blood, and seized with sacred fury—were affected by erotico-religious insanity. But this is more especially seen in the Middle Ages, when mental epidemics were continually succeeding one another.
The strangest forms of madness were thus communicated, like a true contagion, from whole villages to whole nations, from children to old men, from the credulous to the most resolute sceptics. Demonomania, more or less associated with nymphomania and convulsions, &c., produced sometimes witches, sometimes persons possessed with devils, according as it was boasted of and displayed, or suffered with horror, by its victims. It showed itself in the most obscene hallucinations (especially of commerce with evil spirits, or the animals which represented them), in an antipathy to sacred things, or those believedto be such (e.g., the bones said to be relics), or in an extraordinary development, sometimes of muscular, sometimes of intellectual, power, so that they spoke languages of which they had previously only the slightest knowledge, or recalled and connected the most remote and complicated reminiscences. This form of insanity was sometimes associated with erotic ecstasies, or partial anæsthesia, and often with a tendency to biting, to murder, or to suicide. Sometimes there was a shuddering horror, oftener gloomy hallucinations; but always a profound conviction of their truth.
When the prophetic enthusiasm became epidemic in the Cevennes, women, and even children, were reached by this contagion, and saw Divine commands in the sun and in the clouds. Thousands of women persisted in singing psalms and prophesying, though they were hanged wholesale. Whole cities, says Villani, seemed to be possessed of the devil.
At Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1374, there spread, from epileptics and choreics to the people in general—affecting even decrepit old men and pregnant women—a mania for dancing in the public squares, crying, “Here Sant Johan, so so, vrisch und vro!” This was accompanied by religious hallucinations, in which they saw heaven opened, and within it, the assembly of the blessed. The subjects also had an antipathy to anything red, unlike tarantula subjects who are madly attracted to red. The mania extended to Cologne, where 500 persons were seized with it; thence to Metz, where there were 1,100 dancers, Strasburg, and other places. Nor did it cease speedily, for it recurred periodically in subsequent years; and on the day of St. Vitus (probably chosen as a patron on account of the Celtic etymology of his name) thousands of dances took places near his relics. In 1623 these pilgrimages still continued.[379]
Most curious is that epidemic mania for pilgrimages, developed among children in the Middle Ages. When men’s minds were cast down with grief for the loss of the Holy Land, in 1212, a shepherd-boy of Cloes, in Vendôme,thought himself sent by God, who had appeared to him in the shape of an unknown man, accepted bread from him, and entrusted him with a letter for the king. All the sons of the neighbouring shepherds flocked to him; 30,000 men became his followers. Soon there arose other prophets of eight years old, who preached, worked miracles, and led hosts of delirious children to the new saint at Cloes. They made their way to Marseilles, where the sea was to withdraw its waves in order to let them pass over dry-shod to Jerusalem. In spite of the opposition of the king and their parents, and the hardships of the journey, they reached the sea, were put on board ship by two unscrupulous merchants, and sold as slaves in the East.
The first impulse towards the epidemic form caused by mania was the veneration for individuals affected by it, which rendered them liable to be taken as models; but the principal cause is just that isolation, that ignorance, which is the accompaniment of barbarism. It is, above all, the advance of civilization, the greater contact of a greater number of persons, which gives definite form to the sense of individuality, sharpening it by means of interest, diffidence, ambition, emulation, ridicule; but, above all, by the continual variety of sensations and consequent variety of ideas. Thus it seldom happens that great masses of people are equally predisposed towards, and impressed by, the same movement. In fact, though epidemics of mental alienation have shown themselves, even in the most recent times, it has always been among the most ignorant classes of the population, and in districts remote from the great centres of communication; always, moreover, in mountainous countries (certainly through atmospheric influences, as well as on account of greater isolation)[380]—as in Cornwall, Wales, Norway, Brittany (the barking women of Josselin), in the remotest colonies of America, in the distant valley of Morzines in France, and the Alpine gorge of Verzegnis in Italy, where Franzolini has so well described it. Thus, at Monte Amiata (where, later on, we shall find Lazzaretti), the chroniclers record that one Audiberti lived in an extraordinarystate of filth, and was for this reason venerated as a saint. Not far from this place, Bartolomeo Brandano, a tenant of the Olivetan monks, who lived towards the end of the sixteenth century—perhaps overcome by the sufferings of his country during the occupation by the Spanish army—was seized by religious monomania, and believed himself to be John the Baptist. He assumed the dress of the saint, and, covered with a hair-shirt reaching to his knees, with bare feet, a crucifix in his hand, and a skull under his arm, he travelled through the district of Siena, preaching, prophesying, working miracles, and finding proselytes. He then went to Rome, and, on the square of St. Peter’s, preached against the Pope and the Cardinals. But Clement VII., instead of having him hanged, sent him to the Tordinona prison, where it was usual at that time to seclude the insane, when they were not burnt at the stake as being possessed of demons. When he came out of prison he returned to Siena, and several times insulted Don Diego Mendoza, commander of the Spanish army; but Don Diego, unable to tell whether he were a saint, a prophet, or a madman, had him seized and taken to the prison of Talamone, so that the governor might decide the question. The Siennese governor would have nothing to do with him, and said, “If he is a saint, saints are not sent to the galleys; if he is a prophet, prophets are not punished; and if he is mad, madmen are exempt from the laws.” Brandano was thus liberated in a short time, and, after having preached a sermon to the prisoners, he went away, and returned to his prophecies and his exorcisms.
Even recently, in the remote village of Busca, in Piedmont, two saints have arisen, one of whom had been a convict for twenty years,[381]and the other already had a congregation of over 300 members. Not far from there, in the Alpine village of Montenero, there appeared, in 1887, the epidemic delirium of the second coming of Christ, in expectation of which event more than 3,000 inhabitants assembled, in spite of the snow. About the same time a vagabond Messiah was arrested at Vezzola, in the Abruzzi.
The retrograde metamorphosis of the intellectual faculties passes through slighter gradations in the barbarian than in the civilized man. The former is much less able to distinguish illusions from realities, hallucinations from desires, and the possible from the supernatural, and also to keep his imagination in check.
The Norwegian preaching epidemic of 1842 was termedMagdkrankheit—the maid-servants’ disease—because it attacked servants, hysterical women in general, and children of the lower classes. The Redruth epidemic was diffused entirely among persons “whose intellect is of the very lowest class”;[382]whereas when, in recent years, the craze of magnetism, and the still more foolish one of table-rapping, appeared, they never presented any other characteristic than that of widely diffused errors, and mental alienation in this direction could only boast of isolated victims.
It is not long since the Haytian negroes looked on certain trees which had been hung with cloths as images of saints; and the Nubians see their gods in the grotesque forms of splintered rocks. The slightest cause predisposes the barbarian to terror; and from terror to superstition is but a short step. This last, which disappears before the logic and the sarcasm of civilized people, is the most important factor in the development of insanity. Ideler,[383]speaking of the Stockholm epidemic of 1842, mentions it as a historical fact that, in the places where the disease first appeared, people’s minds had for a long time past been disturbed and excited by sermons and devotional exercises; and that, in these places, the number of those affected had perceptibly increased.
This is the explanation of ancient and modern prophets, and their sudden power which has left traces on the history of nations.
Many unhappy persons affected by ambitious mania, or theomania, are looked upon as prophets, and their delusions taken for revelations; and this is the origin of a number of sects which have intensified the strugglebetween religion and liberty both in the Middle Ages and in modern times.
Picard, for example, imagined himself to be a son of God, sent on earth as a new Adam, to re-establish the natural laws, which consisted, according to him, in going naked, and in the community of women. He met with believers and imitators, and founded the sect of the Adamites, who were exterminated by the Hussites in 1347, but were afterwards revived under the name of Turlupins.
In the same way, the Anabaptists, at Münster, at Appenzell, and in Poland, believed that they saw luminous forms of angels and dragons fighting in the sky, that they received orders to kill their brothers or their best-beloved children (homicidal mania), or to abstain from food for months together, and that they could paralyze whole armies by their breath or by a look. Later on, those sects of Calvinists and Jansenists which caused the shedding of so much blood, had—as Calmeil has demonstrated—an analogous origin. This is also the origin of the belief in wizards and demoniacs.
If we glance over the lists of literary madmen andilluminatigiven by Delepierre, Philomneste, and Adelung, the number of followers found by many of them makes us laugh and sigh in the same breath at the extent of human folly. Let us mention, for example, Kleinov, who, in the middle of the eighteenth century, claimed to represent the King of Zion, whose sons his followers asserted themselves to be; and Joachim of Calabria, who declared that the Christian era was to end in 1200, when a new Messiah was to appear with a new gospel. Swedenborg, who believed that he had spoken with the spirits of the various planets for whole days, and even for months together, who had seen the inhabitants of Jupiter walking partly on their hands and partly on their feet, those of Mars speaking with their eyes, and those of the Moon with their stomachs, incredible as it may seem, has believers and followers even up to the present time.[384]
Irving, in 1830, asserted that he had received, by divine inspiration, the gift of unknown tongues, and founded the sect of the Irvingites.
John Humphrey Noyes, of the United States, believed himself to have the gift of prophecy, and founded the sect of “Perfectionists” established at Oneida, who considered marriage and property as theft, did not recognize human laws, and believed every action, even the commonest, to be inspired by God.
At the beginning of the century that prophetess of monarchy, Julie de Krüdener, possessed great influence. She was hysterical, and so far erotic as to throw herself on her knees in public before a tenor; afterwards, impelled by disappointment in love towards the ancient faith, she believed herself chosen to redeem humanity, and found in this belief the vigour of a burning eloquence. She went to Bâle and turned the city upside down by preaching the speedy coming of the Messiah. Twenty thousand pilgrims responded to her call; the Senate became alarmed and banished her. She hastened to Baden, where four thousand people were waiting on the square to kiss her hands and her dress. A woman offered her ten thousand florins to build a new church; she distributed them to the poor “whose reign was at hand.” She was exiled from Baden, and returned to Switzerland, followed by crowds. Though persecuted by the police, she passed from town to town, followed by acclamations and blessings. She said that her works were dictated to her by angels. Napoleon, who had treated her with contempt, became, for her, the “dark angel,” Alexander of Russia, the angel of light. Her influence became the inspiration of the latter; so much so, that the idea of the Holy Alliance seems to be due to her alone.[385]
Loyola, when wounded, turned his thoughts to religious subjects, and, terrified by the Lutheran revolt, planned and founded the great Company. He believed that he received the personal assistance of the Virgin Mary in his projects, and heard heavenly voices encouraging him to persevere in them.
Analogous phenomena may be observed in the lives of George Fox and the early Quakers.[386]
Francis of Assisi.[387]—The son of a religious woman, Francis of Assisi was forced to devote himself to business after receiving only the elements of education from the priests of S. Giorgio. Being rich, and able to spend money as he pleased, he became the life and soul of the joyous companies of young men, whose custom it was to go about the city by day and night, singing and diverting themselves. He seemed to be the son of a great prince rather than of a merchant. The citizens of Assisi called him “the flower of youths,” and his companions deferred to him as to their leader. He excelled in singing, his biographers praise his sweet and powerful voice; and he was also dexterous in feats of arms. When taken prisoner, in a skirmish between the burghers of Perugia and those of Assisi, he encouraged his companions in prison, and exhorted them to cheerfulness both by word and example. His naturally refined and noble disposition was shown both in his person and manners, and in a liberality which delighted in giving to the poor.
It is said that, in his twenty-fourth year, a severe illness confined him for a long time to his bed. At the beginning of his convalescence, he left the house, leaning on a stick, and stood still to gaze at the beautiful country which surrounds Assisi, but could find no pleasure in it, as he had once done. From that day forward, he was sad and thoughtful. He often left his companions, and retired to a cave, where he spent hours in meditation.
In order to relieve his sufferings, he had recourse to prayer, and prayed so fervently that one day he thought he saw before him Christ nailed to the cross, and felt “the passion of Christ impressed even upon his bowels, upon the very marrow of his bones, so that he could not keep his thoughts fixed upon it without being overflowed with grief.” He was then seen wandering about the fields with his face bathed in tears; and when asked whether he felt ill, he replied, “I am weeping for the passion of my Lord Jesus.” His friends said to him, “Think of choosing awife,” and he replied, “Yes, I am thinking of a lady—of the noblest, the richest, the most beautiful, that was ever seen!” Who was the lady of his thoughts, he revealed on the day when, laying aside the dress of his rank, he threw a beggar’s mantle over his shoulders, to the unbounded anger of his father, who in vain tried to imprison him, and to the great scandal of every one. By many, we read in theFioretti, he was thought a fool; and as a madman he was mocked and driven away with stones, by his relations and by strangers; and he suffered patiently all mockery and harsh treatment, as though he had been deaf and dumb.
Francis of Assisi, however, was original and great, not through those qualities which he had in common with the vulgar herd of ascetics—abstinences, mortifications, prayers, ecstasies, visions—but on account of something which was, without his knowing it, the very negation of asceticism—the affirmation and the triumph of the gentlest and sweetest feelings of humanity. The ascetic abhorred, condemned, and fled from nature, life, all human affections, in order to steep himself in solitary contemplation: Francis, by example and precept, preached the love of nature, concord, mutual affection between human beings, and work. The ascetic called everything beautiful in the world the work of Satan: Francis brought about a true revolution by calling it the work of God, praising and thanking God for it. It was a new kind of loving and passionate Pantheism which inspired him with theSong of the Sun, in which all creatures, animate and inanimate, are joined in fraternal embrace, in which the beautiful and radiant sun, the bright and precious moon and stars, the wind, the clouds, the clear sky—water, “useful, humble, precious, and chaste,”—fire, shining, joyous, “hardy and strong,” Mother Earth, who sustains and feeds us, together with man, who up to that time had been taught to despise everything that might distract him from the selfish thought of his fate in the next world—all these are called upon to sing the glory of the Lordwho is good, to bless Him for having made the universe so rich, varied, and beautiful, so worthy to be loved.[388]
If we think of this bold and far-reaching change, we shall no longer smile in reading theSong; remembering, too, that it was the first attempt made by the Italian people to express their religious feelings in the vulgar tongue.
For such a song to burst from the impassioned heart of Francis, the germs of universal love which he cherished there must already have come to perfect growth. He must have freed himself entirely from the ancient terror, which, in the common superstitious belief, peopled woods, mountains, air and water, with hidden enemies. As also, in order to bring men back to mutual love, in an age when “those whom one wall and one ditch confined, gnawed one another,” he had, through the natural tendency to extremes, to include, not only Brother Sun and Sister Moon, but even Brother Wolf.
Having composed theSong, Francis was so well pleased with it that he adapted to it a musical melody, taught it to his disciples, and thought of choosing among his followers some who should go about the world singing the praises of God, and “asking, as their only recompense that their listeners should repent, should call themselves just ‘God’s jesters’—Joculatores Domini.” Thus he gave the first and most vigorous impulse to religious poetry in the vulgar tongue.
Luther.—Luther[389]attributed his physical pains and his dreams to the arts of the devil, though all those of which he has left us a description are clearly due to nervous phenomena. He often suffered,e.g., from an anguish which nothing could lighten, caused, according to him, by the anger of an offended God. At 27, he began to be seized with attacks of giddiness, accompanied by headaches and noises in the ears, which returned at the ages of 32, 38, 40, and 52, especially when he was on a journey. At thirty-eight, moreover, he had a real hallucination, perhaps favoured by excessive solitude. “When, in 1521,” he writes, “I was in my Patmos, in a room which was entered by no one except two pages who brought me my food, I heard, one evening, after I was in bed, nuts moving inside a sack, and flying of themselvesagainst the ceiling and all round my bed. Scarcely had I gone to sleep, when I heard a tremendous noise, as if many berries were being thrown over; I rose, and cried, ‘Who art thou?’ commended myself to Christ,” &c.
In the church at Wittenberg, he had just begun explaining the Epistle to the Romans, and had reached the words, “The just shall live by faith,” when he felt these ideas penetrate his mind, and heard that sentence repeated aloud several times in his ear. In 1507, he heard the same words when on his journey to Rome, and again in a voice of thunder, as he was dragging himself up the steps of the Scala Santa. “Not seldom,” he confesses, “has it happened to me to awake about midnight, and dispute with Satan concerning the Mass,” and he details the many arguments adduced by the Devil.
Savonarola.—But the illustration in every respect most apposite (if it did not seem almost a national blasphemy to say so) is that offered us by Savonarola. Under the influence of a vision, he believed himself, even from his youth, sent by Christ to redeem the country from its corruption. One day, while speaking to a nun, it seemed to him that heaven suddenly opened; and he saw in a vision the calamities of the Church, and heard a voice commanding him to announce them to the people.
The visions of the Apocalypse and of the Old Testament prophets passed in review before him. In 1491 he wished to leave off treating of politics in his sermons. “I watched all Saturday, and the whole night, but at daybreak, while I was praying, I heard a voice say, ‘Fool, dost thou not see that God will have thee go on in the same way?’ ”
In 1492, while preaching during Advent, he had a vision of a sword, on which was written, “Gladius Domini super terram.” Suddenly, the sword turned towards the earth, the air was darkened, there was a rain of swords, arrows, and fire, and the earth became a prey to famine and pestilence. From this moment, he began to predict the pestilence which, in fact, afterwards came to pass.
In another vision, becoming ambassador to Christ, he makes a long journey to Paradise, and there holds discourse with many saints and with the Virgin, whose thronehe describes, not forgetting the number of the precious stones with which it is adorned.[390]
We shall see how a similar scene was described by Lazzaretti. Savonarola was continually meditating on his dreams; and he tried to distinguish which among his visions were produced by angels, and which were the work of demons. Scarcely ever is he touched by a misgiving that he may possibly be in error. In one of his dialogues he declares that “to feign one’s self a prophet in order to persuade others, would be like making God Himself an impostor. Might it not be,” continues the objector, “that you were deceiving yourself? No,” is the reply, “I worship God—I seek to follow in His footsteps; it cannot be that God should deceive me.”[391]
Yet, with the contradiction peculiar to unhinged minds, he had written a short time before, “I am not a prophet, neither the son of a prophet; it is your sins that make me a prophet perforce.” Moreover, in one page he says that his prophetic illumination is independent of grace, whereas, a few pages back, he had declared that the two were one and the same thing.
Villari justly remarks that “this is the singularity of his character, that a man who had given to Florence the best form of republic, who dominated an entire people, who filled the world with his eloquence and had been the greatest of philosophers—should make it his boast that he heard voices in the air, and saw the sword of the Lord!”
“But,” as the same author well concludes, “the very puerility of his visions proves that he was the victim of hallucinations; and a still stronger proof is their uselessness, even hurtfulness, as far as he himself was concerned.
“What need was there, if he wished to cheat the masses, to write treatises on his visions, to speak of them to his mother, to write reflections on them on the margins of his Bible? Those things which his admirers would have been most eager to hide, those which the simplest intelligence would never have allowed to get into print, these very productions he continued to publish and republish.The truth is that, as he often confessed, he felt an inward fire burning in his bones, and forcing him to speak; and as he was himself swept away by the force of that ecstatic delirium, so he succeeded in carrying with him his audience, who were moved by his words in a way we find it hard to understand when we compare the impression produced with the text of the sermons themselves.”
This helps us to understand how—exactly in the same manner as Lazzaretti—he propagated his divine madness among the people, not only epidemically, by the contagion of ideas, but producing actual insanity in persons, who, being nearly or quite without education, preached and wrote extempore in consequence of their madness. Thus Domenico Cecchi[392]was the author of a work entitledSacred Reform, which contains the very just suggestions of relieving the Great Council from minor business, taxing church property, imposing a single tax, and creating a militia, also that of fixing the amount of girls’ dowries. In his preface, he writes: “I set myself with my fancy to make such a work, and I can make no other, and by day and night methinks I have made such efforts that I might call them miraculous; but it has come to pass that I myself stand amazed thereat.”
A certain Giovanni, a Florentine tailor, seized with morbid enthusiasm, wroteterzinein which he extolled the future glories of Florence, and produced verses worthy of Lazzaretti,[393]and prophecies like the following, “Yet it must needs be that the Pisan shall descend, with irons on his feet, into the sewer, since he has been the cause of so much woe.”
If I were asked whether, in our asylums, we often meet with types analogous to these, I should reply that there is, perhaps, not an asylum in Italy which has not received one of these strange lunatics.
Cola da Rienzi.—In 1330, Rome was sinking into chaos. Historians have left us an appalling picture of the disorders of the time, the absence of any regular government, and the lawless tyranny of the robber barons.
The general conditions of the age were favourable to popular movements. King Robert, the protector of the barons was dead; and Todi (1337), Genoa (under Adorno, in 1367), and Florence (1363), had initiated a democraticrégime, which ushered in the terribleCiompirevolution of 1378. A premature thrill of revolt ran through Europe, and was felt even in feudal and monarchical France, where the movement was organized, for a short time, at Paris, under Marcel.[394]
Under these circumstances, Cola—a young man, born in the Tiber district, in 1313, the son of an innkeeper and a washerwoman, or water-seller, who though at first little better than a field-labourer, had studied as a notary, and acquired a considerable knowledge of the history and antiquities of his country—saw his brother murdered by the wretches who formed the government, or rather the misgovernment of Rome.
Then he—who, as the anonymous historian tells us, always had “a fantastic smile” on his lips, and already, when meditating on ancient books and the ruins of Rome, had often wept, exclaiming, “Where are the good Romans of the old time? Where is their justice?”—was seized, as he afterwards acknowledged,[395]by an irresistible impulse to put into action the ideas which he had acquired from books.
In his capacity of notary, he devoted himself to the protection of minors and widows, and assumed the curious title of their Consul, just as there were, in his time, consuls of the carpenters, cloth-workers, and other guilds.
In 1343, in one of the numerous small revolutions of the period, the people had attempted to overthrow the Senate, creating the government of the Thirteen, under the papal authority. On that occasion, Cola was sent as spokesman of the people, to Avignon, where he vividly depicted the evils prevalent in Rome, and, by his bold and powerful eloquence, amazed and won over the cool-headedprelates, from whom he attained the appointment of notary to the Urban Chamber, in 1344.
On his return to Rome, he continued to exercise this office with exaggerated zeal, and got himself called Consul no longerof the widows, butof Rome. He excelled others in courtesy, was also inflexible in the administration of justice, and never failed to involve himself in long harangues against those whom he called the dogs of the Capitol.
One day, in a moment of exaggerated fanaticism, he cried to the barons, in full assembly, “Ye are evil citizens—ye who suck the blood of the people.” And, turning to the officials and governors, he warned them that it was their place to provide for the good of the State. The result of this was a tremendous buffet dealt him by a chamberlain of the House of Colonna. He then took matters more calmly, and began to depict the former glories and present miseries of Rome, by means of paintings, in which the homicides, adulterers, and other criminals were represented by apes and cats, the corrupt judges and notaries by foxes, and the senators and nobles by wolves and bears.
On another day, he exhibited the famous table of Vespasian, and invited the public, including the nobles, to a dramatic explanation of it. He appeared, arrayed in a German cloak with a white hood, and a hat also white and surrounded by many crowns, one of which was divided in the midst by a small silver sword. The interpretation of these grotesque symbols, which already indicate his madness (the continual use of such being, as already stated, characteristic of monomaniacs, till they end by sacrificing to their passion for symbols the very evidence of the things which they wish to represent), is unknown. Thus, applying—somewhat after his own fashion—the decree of the Senate which granted to Vespasian the right of making laws at his pleasure, of increasing or diminishingthe gardens of Rome and of Italy(if he had been a scholar, he would have said the area of the Roman district), and of making and unmaking kings, he called on them to consider into what a state they had fallen. “Remember that the jubilee is approaching, andthat you have made no provision of food or other necessaries. Put an end to your quarrels,” &c.
But along with these, he delivered other discourses which were, to say the least, eccentric;e.g., “I know that men wish to find a crime in my speeches, and that out of envy; but, thanks to heaven, three things consume my enemies—luxury, envy, and fire.”[396]These two last words were greatly applauded; I do not understand them, however, especially the last. I believe that they were applauded, precisely because the audience did not understand them, as happens to many street orators, with whom resonant and meaningless words supply the place of ideas, and are even greeted with greater enthusiasm.
The fact is, that, among the upper classes, he passed for one of those persons of unsound mind who were then in great request for the amusement of society.[397]The nobles, especially the Colonna, disputed the pleasure of his company with each other, and he would tell them of the glories of his future government. “And when I am king or emperor, I will make war on all of you. I will have such an one hanged, and such another beheaded.” He spared none of them, and mentioned them by name, one by one, to their faces; and, all the time, both to nobles and commons, he continued to speak of the good state, and of how he was going to restore it.
Here I insert a parenthesis. It has been said (by Petrarch in particular) that he feigned madness, and was a second Brutus; but when we see his love for pomp, luxury, strange symbols, and garments, gradually increasing as he advanced in his political career, and after his rise to power, we no longer have any doubt as to the reality of his madness.
He continued to put forth new symbolical pictures, among others one with this inscription: “The day ofjustice is coming—Await this moment.” Be it noted that this picture represented a dove bringing a crown of myrtle to a little bird. The dove stood for the Holy Spirit (as we shall see, one of the favourite objects of his delirium) and the bird was himself, who was to crown Rome with glory. At last, on the first day of Lent, 1347, he affixed to the door of San Giorgio another placard: “Before long, the good State of Rome shall be restored.”
Not being feared by the nobles, who thought him mad, he was able to conspire secretly, or rather to keep up the ferment of public opinion, by taking apart, gradually, one by one, the men who seemed to him best adapted for the purpose, and assigning them their posts on Mount Aventine, towards the end of April, on a day when the governor was to be absent.
In this assembly, the only one which, up to that time, had been held in secret, the mode of bringing about the Good State was deliberated on. Here he showed the eloquence of a man who speaks from conviction, and of things which are too true not to produce a deep impression. He described the discord of the great, the debasement of the poor, the armed men roaming about in quest of plunder, wives dragged from their marriage-beds, pilgrims murdered at the gates, priests drowned in sensual orgies, no strength or wisdom among those who held the reigns of power. From the nobles there was everything to fear and nothing to hope. Where were they, in the midst of all these disorders? They were leaving Rome, to enjoy a holiday on their estates, while everything was going to wreck and ruin in the city.
As the members of the popular party were hesitating for want of funds, he gave them a hint that these might be obtained from the revenues of the Apostolic Chamber, reckoning 10,000 florins for the tax on salt alone, 100,000 for the hearth-tax, figures which Sismondi (chapter xxxviii.) declares to be absolutely erroneous. He also gave them to understand that he was acting in accordance with the wishes of the Pope (which was false), and that he was able with the consent of the latter, to seize upon the revenues of the Holy See.
On May 18, 1347, in Colonna’s absence, he had proclamation made through the streets, by sound of trumpet, that all citizens were to assemble in the night of the day following, in the church of Sant’ Angelo, to take measures for the establishment of the Good State. On the 19th, Rienzi was present at the meeting, in armour, guarded by a hundred armed men, and accompanied by the Papal Vicar, and by three standards covered with the most extraordinary symbols—one of them representing Liberty, one Justice, and one Peace.
Among the measures which he caused to be adopted by this improvised assembly were some which would be well suited to our own times; the following, for instance:—
All lawsuits were to be terminated within fifteen days.
The Apostolic Chamber was to provide for the support of widows and orphans.
Every district of Rome was to have a public granary.
If a Roman were killed in the service of his country, his heirs to receive a hundredlireif he were a foot soldier, and a hundredflorinsif a horseman.
The garrisons of cities and fortresses to be formed of men chosen from among the Roman people.
Every accuser who could not make good his accusation, to be subject to the penalty which his victim would have incurred.
The houses of the condemned not to be destroyed (as was then the case in all communities), but to become the property of the municipality.
Cola received from this popular assembly entire lordship over the city; he associated the Papal Vicar with himself as a harmless assistant, entitled himself Tribune, and performed an actual miracle in restoring peace where there had been chaos. He saw the proud barons—even the rebellious and powerful prefect of Vico—prostrate at his feet. He executed severe justice upon the most powerful nobles as well as the populace. Members of the Orsini, Savelli, and Gaetani families were hanged by him, for violation of the laws; and, what is more, even priests, such as the monk of St. Anastasius who was accused of several murders.
By means of the so-called Tribunal of Peace, he reconciledwith each other 1800 citizens, who had previously been mortal enemies. He abolished, or, more accurately speaking, tried to abolish, the servile use of the titleDon, which is still rampant among us in the south; he prohibited dicing, concubinage, and fraud in the sale of provisions—which last was the measure which conduced most to his popularity. Finally, he created a true citizen militia, a real national guard.
He caused the escutcheons of the nobles to be erased from all palaces, equipages, and banners, saying that there was to be in Rome no other lordship than the Pope’s and his own.
He re-established a tax on every hearth, in all the towns and villages of the Roman district, and was obeyed even by the Tuscan communities, who might have claimed exemption. The collectors were not sufficient for the work. All the governors, except two, submitted; and he finally appointed a kind of justice of the peace, to decide even criminal cases.
He did even more. He was the first to conceive, what even Dante had not thought of, an Italy neither Guelf nor Ghibelline, under the headship of the Roman municipality, in which like Marcel of Paris, he attempted to assemble a true national Parliament.[398]He was the first man in Italy to think of this, and was only understood by thirty-five communes.
At Avignon, finally, he was able to achieve what I consider his greatest enterprise: to get himself pardoned, after a course of speech and action so hostile to the Papal Court, by those who never pardon—the clergy of that ferocious and implacable age; and not only pardoned, but sent back, though for a short period and in an inferior capacity, to a position fraught with the greatest dangers to that order.
But all these miracles, alas! lasted for a few days only. The man who in his political ideas surpassed not only his contemporaries, but many modern thinkers, and preceded Mazzini and Cavour in the idea of unity, was in fact a monomaniac, as is recordedby the historians, Re and Papencordt; if he was great in conception, he was uncertain and incapable in practical matters. This was fully shown,e.g., when, though he had his greatest enemy, the prefect of Vico, in his hands, he let him go, keeping his son as a hostage; and when he failed to profit by his unexpected victory over the barons.