Chapter XI

Great Gathering in Rome, June 1867--Impressions and Anticipations--Improvements in the City--Louis Veuillot on the Great Future.

The whole earth had been moved in the hope of not only exhibiting a pageant outshining former ones, but also of carrying the dogma of Papal infallibility by an ecclesiastical _coup d'état_, or, as it is called, by acclamation, without the delays of a discussion.[65] Had this been accomplished, the legislative form of a General Council would have been rendered futile for the time to come, or at the most, would have been but a grander method of working the institution of "consultative despotism," to adopt the strict definition of Montalembert. The invitation had been enthusiastically responded to. The spectacle of the Papacy menaced with the loss of Rome was touching, and the belief was cherished that a great demonstration of the interest felt by the Catholic world on its behalf would contribute to ward off the peril. Besides these motives, another in full activity was the ever powerful one, especially powerful with Romanists, the desire to see a pageant; and this sight was to surpass all the former displays of Rome.

The city put on its best, the churches were newly embellished, the streets decked in festive array. Bishops came from all the ends of the earth, till the thoroughfares were mottled with the toilets of five hundred. Priests crowded in till, it is said, twelve thousand breathed the sacred air of the city, every one of them proud to tread that spot of our unruly earth, where the priest was king of men.

Besides the clergy, came such multitudes of pilgrims that, according to Cecconi, the population of the city was almost doubled. The Romans saw their familiar rite, the worship of the statue of St. Peter--_l'adorazione della statua di San Pietro_--performed on a prodigious scale. In modern as in ancient Rome, adoration has its degrees; all worship does not imply the ascription of supreme, but only of celestial, honours. No Pontiff in the days of the Republic ever pretended that Quirinus was creator of the world and father of eternity. He was the protecting divinity of Rome, but with very limited powers in comparison with Peter, carrying no sceptre equal to the keys.

Such of the visitors as had seen the city in former times, if not too much pre-occupied with the sanctity of the place to observe such matters, would find several improvements. Side pavements had been allowed in the main streets. Gaslight had, after long and painful efforts, been admitted.

Railways had entered the walls. The personal liberality of the Pope had effected several improvements, both in public works and charitable institutions. The French had done a great deal for the cleansing of the streets, although the filth of some of them, and the indecency of some of the bye ones, were still beyond belief to any one from England. The Pope's army, which as late as 1860 was an odd-looking array, was now a sightly and active force, composed mainly of foreigners, in large part French. And, finally, it had become possible to tell the time of day.

Formerly, midday had been one of the mysteries of Rome. It seemed as if the right of private judgment, banished from the churches, had taken refuge in the steeples, for each particular clock went off at some mysterious impulse, and struck twelve at the noon of its own. Thus for good part of an hour, they do say often longer, the air continued thrilling with the tidings that it was just noon of day. Naughty Romans ascribe the change to General Baraguay d'Hilliers, while in command of the French garrison. Having vainly endeavoured to get a standard of time established, he presumed, with French audacity, to carry the case by appeal from the sacristy to the sun. Placing a gun on Fort St. Angelo, with a burning-glass upon it, he stole the tidings from another world which were not to be got from the temples at hand.[66]

One of the most powerful of the pilgrims was M. Louis Veuillot, who as editor of the _Univers_ had for very many years done much to second in literature the work done in schools, of reviving antipathies and superstitions which were in danger of dying out in France. His notes of this visit form part of his two octavos. As soon as he reaches the foot of the Alps, at Susa, he begins to scold Italy and the Italians, takes every opportunity of doing so, and goes out of the country scolding worse than when he came in.

But if Italy and the Italians were exceedingly evil in the eyes of M. Veuillot, he found compensation in the perfect loveliness of Rome and the Romans. The very cabmen are loudly praised, and the cabs carry "ideas;" the Press, especially the _Civiltá_, is of course far above the French level. But the Pope was the grandest spectacle of all. As he entered the Basilica, preceded by a train of five hundred prelates, it made an impression of power greater than if four millions of men had defiled past, armed with the most perfect artillery.[67]

Naturally, however, the imagination of M. Veuillot was most fired with the prospect of that historical future which was about to open on the human species. Darkness still covers the chaos after the cataclysm, but the breaking of the light draws nigh. The news of a projected Council has reached the ears of M. Veuillot. His first word is, "Rome is officially taking the reins of the world into her hand." Other expressions scattered up and down his animated pages are as follows--

The day that the Council is convoked the counter-revolution will
commence.... Pius IX will open his mouth, and the great word, Let
there be light, will proceed out of his lips.... It will be a
solemn date in history; it will witness the laying of the immovable
stone of Re-construction.... At the voice of the Pontiff the bowels
of the earth will be moved, to give birth to the new civilization
of the Cross.... Here is the great reservoir whence the future will
pour out and overflow the human race.... These days in Rome are a
revelation of the state of the world, and the starting point of a
renovation.... The pilgrimage of Catholic Europe to Rome in 1867
will have consequences of which the _Moniteur_ [alluding to remarks
in that journal] will be informed hereafter, and of which the world
will become aware when the _Moniteur_ would wish them to be unheard
of.... For centuries Rome has not seen the Pope in such splendour,
nor has he so manifestly appeared in his character as head of the
human race.

M. Veuillot is of course one of those who look on the modern liberty of the press as a great curse. We may insert here what came to hand long after these pages were written, as an illustration of the kind of Press that is to be quenched. The _Times_ of January 26, 1876, in the letter of its Paris correspondent, gives a morsel from the _Univers_, in the style of M. Veuillot. The _Times_ had said something about an interview of the Marquis of Ripon, as a new convert, with the Pope. The _Univers_ devotes to that article "a column and a half of invectives," and thus winds up: "The _Times_ is now the giant of the Press, and prospers in both hemispheres. But the day will come when the two worlds will want no more of its agony column, or of its bad literature; and its last compositor, inactive before his immense poison machine, suddenly idle, will wait in vain for copy which will never come." Will the compositor look out of the top window in Queen Victoria Street to see if Macaulay's New Zealander has arrived on London Bridge?

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 65: Acton, _Zur. Ges._, p. 14.]

[Footnote 66: This was first told me by a Roman tradesman, in presence, among others, of a very good-natured canon, who joined in the general laugh at my innocent surprise. This year (1875) an ex-officer of the Pope's service added, "Ay, but the priests bribed the artillerymen to steal half the charge of powder, and to turn the gun toward the Campagna, so that the report should scarcely be heard." Probably the last statement is a mere rumour, not representing any actual transaction, but indicating, really enough, the state of mind of the people as to what their masters were likely to do. I have heard it said that Sir James Hudson used to declare that when first appointed to Turin he could walk all round the city while it struck twelve o'clock.]

[Footnote 67: _Rome pendant le Concile_, vol. i. p. 35.]