The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-20 00:00:00

THE SUN LO_NDO . MONDAY EVENING, JANUARY 20, 1868.

87ATE OF ROME.

ROME, January 4.

On the last day of the year a solemn "Te
Deum" is sung in many of the churches of Rome
in token of thanksgiving for mercies received in
the year just closed. If in the year 1867 the
Church has passed through a searching crisis, try-
ing the faith of her children in her supernatural
vitality, she can count up also, along its course,
a" far larger measure of glories and triumphs. It
is not necessary to recapitulate them in detail,
in columns where they have been chronicled week
by week ; but the most casual retrospect of the
past twelve months calls to mind three special
triumphs of the Holy See over its enemies. (1)
The religious triumph afforded by the Centenary
of S. Peter and the unanimous adoption of its
celebration by representative Catholics from the
whole world's surface, while the Italian Revolu-
tion was covering its name with reproach by
trampling under foot the first principles of re-
ligious liberty. (2) The political triumph afforded
by the loyal bearing of the Pope's subjects under
the most trying provocations of every kind,
while the Italian Revolution was tossed hither
and thither by fratricidal dissensions, displaying
to the world at the same time the most lament-
able spectacle of tergiversation. And (3) the
military triumph afforded by the unvarying suc-
cess of the small but brave and devoted Pontifical
army, while the Italian Revolution strives in vain
to blot out with tears of shame the names of Lissa,
Custozza, and Mentana.

The feast of the Circumcision is commonly
called here the Name of Jesus, and it is accord-
ingly at the Church of the Gee.' that the Pope
presides at the singing of the " Te Deum," on the
eve of that festival. The Senator and the Con-
servatori, in all their array of municipal grandeur,
attend it at the Church of the Ara Cceli, which
adjoins the Capitol. In some other churches
the " Veni Creator Spiritus " is sung, to invoke
the Divine blessing and assistance on the coming

year.
The Gesii was densely thronged in every part
on Tuesday last with Romans of every degree,
who always come to surround the Sovereign Pon-
tiff with this demonstration of affection and sym-
pathy, and there was the usual concourse on the
steps of the church and in the vast surrounding
space, to cheer the Pontifical cortege, as well as
all along its way to and from the Church. Lord
and Lady Clarendon, Lord Hyde, and several
other distinguished English visitors, who have
been spending the Christmas here, were in a
balcony overlooking the Piazza, apparently much
interested in observing the loyal enthusiasm of the
people, of which this occasion afforded a striking
display. Colonel Allet and a knot of officers of
the Zouaves were standing in the midst of the
crowd below.

Lord Clarendon had a lengthened audience of
the Pope on Monday, and is now gone on a few
days' visit to Naples. On Tuesday Count Albert
Crivelli presented his credentials as Ambassador
Extraordinary from the Emperor of Austria,
Baron Hubner having taken leave last week. These
past days have, indeed, been occupied by a series
of audiences on occasion of the recurrence of the
Christmas and New Year's festivals and the
name-day of the Pope, the 27th of December.
Some of these I have already mentioned. The
Sacred College offers its congratulations on Christ-
mas Day itself, because the Christian year was
once considered to begin on that day, and on that
day also the Dean of the Sacred College pre-
sents the compliments of its members to all• sove-
reigns recognized by the Holy See ; for an ancient
Roman maxim says, " Cardinales non sunt reges sed
regibus aquiparantur. Then the senator and muni-
cipal body and heads of various offices of the
State have each their turn. Nor were the officers
of the French army at Civita Vecchia behind-
hand with their salutations. The interview was
very cordial, and his Holiness did not even forget
to express his regret that the accommodation they
have to put np with there is not more com-
fortable.

How long they will have to stay there is a
question often debated, and though there is every
reason to believe that it will be for a couple of
months more, and that then we shall have good
hard work again, yet scarcely a day passes but
one is told of a report on the best authority that
they have received orders to move their troops into
Rome and the other towns of the State ; that 20,000
more men have started from Toulon, and so
forth, while the very instructions of the French
Government to General de Failly, who still com-
mands at Civita Vecchia, are most uncertain, at
one time leading him to expect an almost imme-
diate return to Rome, and then, again, hinting at
the possible recall of part of the army of observa-
tion.

Of course, all depends on the initiative taken by
other Powers, and it cannot be denied that the
tone taken by the Moniteur of late has been singu-
larly mild and unprovocative.

•
Meantime the Pontifical army is not idle. The
fortifications in and around Rome are being
steadily carried on. Those of Monte-Mario and
the Monti Parioli will not, probably, be carried
further, as they would entail an inadequate ex-
pense. The chief works are at Castel St. Angelo,
and on the Aventine and Janiculum. The right
bank of the Tiber, too, is being provided with
palisades, and no doubt the work is being well
done, as General Proudhon is giving it his (non-
official) supervision.

The men, too, are hard at work drilling, and
new recruits are arriving by the hundred. The
Irish, whose return it was my painful duty to
mention last week, have been replaced by as many
more of their countrymen from Dublin, said to be
as fine and steady a body of men as it would be pos-
sible to find. Lieutenant-Colonel de Charette
passed them on Monday and expressed himself
particularly satisfied by their soldierly bearing.
Indeed it is hardly possible to keep pace with
the arrivals in providing uniforms, beds, &c., and
thus the accommodation at all the three present
depots is somewhat of the roughest ; yet we have
men used to comfortable and even luxurious homes
who accept all the hardships of the service without
a murmur; some even tell you it is " awefully jolly."
" I am quite used to it all now," said one, " and
like the adventurousness of our style of life very
much, but at first I found it very hard to get into,
and could never have endured it but that I know
whatever a Zouave does he may reckon he does
for God, and one may make as much merit out
of accepting those privations as out of offering
one's life in the field."

There is a little obscure office on a third floor
in one of the most untidy palaces in Rome, pro-
bably selected to serve as the office of enrolment
at a time when enrolments were fewer, and with-
out a thought as to any appropriateness in the
site, but which stands facing the stately church
under whose foundations lies the cloaca where the
body of the noble Roman soldier, St. Sebastian,
was thrown after his second martyrdom. Here
day by day there come to devote themselves to the
same sacred purpose of defending the Church as
that with which he came to Rome to enter on the
military career sixteen hundred years before, and
that in all humility as simple soldiers, men whose
names entitle them to a far different rank at home.
Thus there were among them this week Count de
Schmissing-Koersembroeck, formerly an officer in
the Prussian Foot Guards, the story of whose
quitting that service with his brother on account
of their manly condemnation of the practice of
duelling made a great noise in Europe some time
ago. His brother obtained a pass-port of emi-
gration, was naturalized an Austrian subject, and
entered the Imperial army. He was thus ranged
on its side in the battle of Sadowa, where he met
with very severe treatment ; for, while lying on the
ground wounded, he received a number of thrusts
from the lances of those who recognized him. lie
has recovered, however, and has resumed his post
in the army. There were likewise Baron Krockovr,
of Westphalia, and Count Stolberg, as well as
four young Englishmen, three of most respectable
names, and one which is well known in the diplo-
matic annals of our country, and no less honour-
ably represented in both its military and naval

careers. Another Englishman there is lately
arrived who has held an officer's commission in
the Prussian army, and who here insists on taking
his turn with the rawest recruit, and will accept no
exemption from the most toilsome and uninviting
offices. An American officer, too, -whose name was
well known on both sides of the Atlantic during
the late war, offered himself a few days ago to
serve as a simple private. I believe, in considera-
tion of his great experience, General Kanzler would
not suffer him to enter with any lower grade than
that of sub-lieutenant.

Nor are those of less illustrious origin less
devoted; the same cheerfulness under difficulties
distinguishes them all. And then, be it remem-
bered, there is no bribing by high bounties—no
" treating ;" so far from it they receive no bounty
at all, and those who only enter for six months
pay down sixty francs towards their outfit. Is this
the way in which " mercenaries" are hired? The
men who would be attracted by bounty-money
are not the men to defend a sacred cause ; we do
not want them, for there is, you see, no lack of
men of a higher order.

Their disinterestedness shows itself in many a
little detail. " I came out to die for the Pope,"
said one, whose want of prudence in the mode of
parting with his private clothes I had chided. " I
have a presentiment I shall not live to want them
again." Yet he is one of the most impatient for the
days of active service to begin. " I don't want a
libretto" (the little book in which the account of the
soldier's pay is kept), said another, instead of
complaining because he happened not to have re-
ceived one. "We have our uniform and our kit,
and our few bajocchi a day, and I am not afraid
but it will be all right."

Then the mutual kindliness and good-will which
reigns between officers and men is most creditable
to the spirit of both. The young Corporal Shea,
whom I have had occasion to mention before, is
quite worshipped by those under him for his
steady patience and thoughtfulness. There is in
the same depot an Algerian sergeant, whom, de-
spite his coffee-coloured skin (" black coffee "
mind), all his men delight to obey, because he is a
very model of good nature, as well as of regularity.
And this is still more the case, if possible, with
the commissioned officers. I asked a man yester-
day how he got on with a certain captain. " A
celui-la it est bon par exemple," he replied, " mais
quant a ca ils le sont tour; it n'en est un seul dont on a
en a se plaindre."

If, when worn out at Mentana by the long day's
march and fight, responsibility and danger, keen
air and fast, Lieutenant-Colonel de Charette sent
out the dinner which had been prepared for his
table to those who had been digging the graves
of the slain, his abnegation can be overmatched
by an example taken from the ranks that day when
two Angevin peasants, seeing their captain (now
commandant of the 2d Battalion), whom-they had
followed out from France, hard pressed by the
enemy, threw themselves before hiin, one falling
dead on the spot, and the other lyipg still in hospi-
tal, cheerfully suffering, and never telling those
who come to visit him how he got his wound.
Nor are instances of, noble devotion by any
means confined to the Zouave regiriaent. 1 could
tell you of many in other corps;. there is one very
remarkable case the earbiniere esteri, of a Pole
who, his father having fallen victim to Russian
oppression, has been the support of his widowed
mother ever since he was ten. He has been em-
ployed for many years as an engineer in England,
where he is much respected by his employers, who
will gladly receive him back at any time. Now
comes the remarkable part of the story. Being a
steady young man, he picked out among his fellow
workmen for his bosom-companion another equally
steady, wh3 was also a devoted son of ,the Church,
he being him' self a Protestant. Fired by the zeal
of his friend, he conceived so great an interest in
the injustice suffered by the Holy Father, that he
accompanied him on the occasion of his coming out
to join the Papal army in 1860. At Castel Fidardo,
he received two sabre-cuts, one in his back, and
one in his head, the scars from which attest that
he has not shrunk from coming to close quarters
with the enemy. At the close of the campaign,
the two friends returned to their work in England,
and at the breaking out of fresh troubles in Rome,
six months ago, they hastened again to join their
regiment. The Englishman was killed at Mentana,
the Pole received a not very severe bayonet-wound,
which has now healed, and he resumed duty two
or three weeks ago. But his labours in the cause
of the Holy See have obtained for him the grace
of conversion, and he is shortly to be received in
to the Church ; it will be seen that he has not ar-
rived at this step by any sudden impulse, but after
the deliberate investigation of years. He appears
very intelligent, and in the course of his adventu-
rous life, which, however, numbers little over six
lustres, has acquired a very tolerable acquaintance
with no less than seven languages. By his profi-
ciency in his profession, he was gaining very high
wages in England, and by his frugal mode of life
he was able, not only to send home a large monthly
allowance to his mother, but to leave in his em-
ployer's hands a sufficient amount out of his
savings for her to receive the same during his
absence.

Is a man who:exchanges such wages for the pay
of a private soldier out of pure love of justice to
be called a " mercenary?"

Regard for your space alone makes me leave un-
told many other similar deeds.
Have you seen a little poem of Victor Hugo's,
which, though unpublished, has been pretty widely
circulated, designed to enlist sympathy on the side
of the Garibaldians by claptrap descriptions of their
sufferings ; representing them as mourned by their
mothers, for whom their eyes are still cherub-
blue ; their hair (despite the beard of manhood),
is still in golden curls ; their strong, bare hands
still the plump, rosy fingers of infancy? But why
did not the said mothers keep them at home ? why
did they invade the soil of the Holy See ?—and is
not every one of the poor fellows they have
wounded " somebody's darling " too ? Also the
" sinistre vieillard," who has caused all this " dechi-
rant" misery, may he not be found at Caprera or
Lugano, or in the Pitti Palace, rather than in the
Vatican?

The cherub-eyed, golden-haired, rosy-fingered
gentry have received a severe lesson, it is true,
but they have not yet had enough to make them
keep at home with their admiring mothers. At
Acquapendente, within the very frontier, they have
been seen gathering in considerable numbers ;
their " rosy fingers " busy practising with needle-
guns—and needle-guns supplied from England,
too. Perhaps there are those in England who
consider it safer to place a few thousand rifles
in the hands of Mazzinians than Fenians, but
let them beware of the recoil. Ifoa hot-bed of
Mazzinianism is fostered in Italy, the half-dozen
Fenians who are wisely hung at home will be
very quickly replaced by a host more from here.
Their agents are even now at work here, endea-
vouring to prepare the way for the next attack;
for, notwithstanding all the caution with which
they go to work, they find to their cost it is dan-
gerous to tamper with a Roman who does not want
them. The police have been thus put upon their
track in several instances, and it is pretty well
known who and where they are.
Some Gendarmi went the other night into a
café, where they expected to find some of the sect.
The gas was instantly turned out, so that the
faces of the men in the room might not be re-
cognised. By the time the order to re-light was
obeyed, they had evaporated.
I myself met, a day or two ago, a man who
stalked along with all the swagger of a would-be
demagogue, wearing very ostentatiously a red,
white, and green neck-scarf. He was surrounded
by some half-dozen rough young fellows, just
emerging from the age of gamin-hood, and looking
much like the troop one sees at the heels of a
recruiting-sergeant in an English town. They
had doubtless been entrapped by fine words and
mysterious promises, and were on their way to
some rendezvous to be " treated," and thoughlit
very fine to follow a leader who carried his
colours through the streets so courageously, and
who yet, informed by a scout's whistle of an ap,
proach of gendarmi, 'would know how to cut;

damn a bye-street as cleverly as any under. gra-
durite at sight of a university proctor. Probably
he -would be allowed to pass on his way just as
leniently. The immense majority of the popu-
lation are known to be loyally and peacefully in-
clined, and the police seem to prefer the maxim of
letting wheat and tares grow together, over the
warning that a little leaven may extend its in-
fluence over the whole lump.
I am sorry to have to tell you that Mr.
White Binny, the English gentleman who claimed
to be considered no prisoner, but to bear the
sacred character of the Chronicle correspondent,
died on Saturday, at four o'clock. His case was
an instance of several we have had—some among
our own men, of the imprudence of exceeding
the medical regulations. It would seem that in
this climate it is necessary to adopt a lower scale
of diet than would be recommended further North.
Those who have not submitted to this necessity,
have paid dearly for their imprudence. Even
the amputation of the wounded limb Las not
sufficed to arrest the mischief produced.
The papers found after his death prove him to
have been a true Garibaldian after all. He was
first captain of a company under Garibaldi, and
was afterwards made an officer of his staff. Thus
his whole story, as well as his inclinations towards
Catholicity, would appear to have been a make-
believe.

There is, as usual, a romantic side to the story
also from which there is no need to withhold our
sympathy. He was, it seems, brought up in St.
Petersburgh, where he formed an attachment to a
Russian lady, to whom he was to have been
shortly united. His burial awaits her arrival,
It is said she did not share his Garibaldian ten
dencies, and had dissuaded him from following
them.

The telegrams have announced that the affair
of Cardinal d'Andrea is settled, and that he is
restored to all his dignities. I fear this is not quite
the case as yet. Though he has shown a dispo-
sition to yield, there are still some difficulties as to
the terms of his retractation.

The expected creation of Cardinals will, it is
thought, take place in March, including, besides
those I mentioned last week, that of the Arch-
bishop of Westminster and Mgr. Monaco, as-
sessor of the Holy Office.

There was a meeting of the Roman branch of
the Archaeological Society last Friday, at which
Mr. Parker read a paper on the different epochs
of the art of construction in Rome.

The gold medal bestowed in acknowledgment of
the devotion of those who, in Rome, Albano, and
some other towns ministered to cholera patients,
and those who were not afraid to bury its dead
last summer, was distributed yesterday. It bears
on one side the profile of Pius. IX., executed by
Voigt, the eminent numismatist, with his name and
the year of his Pontificate. On the obverse this
inscription—" Ob Christianm charitatis officia lue
Asiana correptis exhibita," and below the name of
the person to whom it is given. Permission is
given with it to wear it as a decoration, for it celc.
brates a courage as heroic as any exercised in the
field. Two of our countrymen have earned this
distii)etion. - •
There will be a distribution of silver medhls of
the;saine intention and design- on Sunday. lt is
worn on a ribbon of the Pope's-colours.
Another gold medal will be giyen to all those
who have received wounds in the present cam-
paign.

A warmer and more April-like season has suc-
ceeded our bright and sunny, but (for Rome) un-
usually cold Christmas. The poor pfifferari are
gone back to their mountains with the cold weather,
and now they are gone, one feels a touch of self-
reproach for the occasional irritation their wild
music used to excite when it woke one before day-
light in the cold December morning, or burst in on
one's mid-day occupations, or in the later hours
drowned the conversation of one's-visitors. One
only considers now that it was a beautiful thought
so to remind us of the approach of the great Christ-
mas mystery, and that it would be a cause of last-
ing regret if such customs should ever be swept
away. Simple as they are, they call forth a world
of reflections, reminding one of the part Rome
bears in the midst of Christendom—that of being
the focus and living representative of the teaching
of the New Law. And while in other countries
the visible tokens of belief in it are dying out or
degenerating into grotesque parodies of their origi-
nal intention, here they flourish serenely with undy-
ing energy, and shine forth ever the same ; sug-
gesting one —if even it be considered a low ground
on which the most violent Liberal, if at all con-
sistent, ought to respect the inviolability of Rome,
namely that if all opinions have a right to be re-
presented, Christianity ought to be allowed this
fair field for displaying hers in all the minuteness
of detail and completeness of result she has attained
here.

I have often dwelt, as the seasons have flowed
by, on the appropriateness and harmony of this
system of representation of the doctrines and his-
tory of religion, because it seems eminently cal-
culated to fix those mysteries on the mind, and
because I think they must interest all persons of
taste and feeling, of artistic or antiquarian pur-
suits, as much as the devout. And none of its
acts is more picturesque or full of meaning than
that of this pastoral harmony, in which the special
lesson of humility, involved in the Incarnation, is
brought home to us by the lowly ones of this
earth. They are shepherds and husbandmen from
the poorest districts, and they bring the rustic
melody, which they have learnt from their fathers,
to honour the shrines of the Madonna on the occa-
sion of the celebration of her two great festivals,
the Immaculate Conception and the Nativity.
Their lays are rustic in metre, but are not without
a certain poetic beauty-
-0 Vergine immacolata, e giglio d'amore.
(0 spotless Virgin, lily of love). So begins that
for the first novena, and it will not be denied it is
a pretty line. 'Their instruments are rustic too,
but far from unpleasing ; and, if they are them-
selves rough and uncultivated in appearance, the
uncovered heads, uplifted eyes, and decent serious-
ness with which they go through their perform-
ance, the dignity and earnestness with which they
utter their benedictions on you when you have
spoken with them, show that their simple function
is sacred in their eyes.

About a hundred couples come up to Rome every
Christmas; the rest of the year they gain a frugal
living by tending sheep or sowing or reaping, for
not all are shepherds. " How come you to sing
the novenas ?" I said to a pair of brothers who
owned to greater conversance with field than pas-
toral labour. "We learnt it from the shepherds ;
may we not praise the Madonna, too ?" they replied
apologetically. Some of them are adventurous fel-
lows, however, and have made the tour of Europe,
all on foot, earning their living as they go by their
minstrelsy, and bringing home a small amount of
savings against their marriage or " a rainy day."
One owned to twenty scudi, another to fifty scudi
between four, but then he was a jollier subject,
and had probably spent more by the way.
Their general plan seems to make for Paris in the
first instance, spending some two months, and
wearing out half a dozen pair of cioccie (i.e., the
pieces of leather cut to the shape of the foot and
turned up all round it by means of elaborate
thongs, which form a very easy and inexpensive
style of shoes) on the journey. The sack of their
bagpipe they renew likewise frequently for them-
selves out of the skin of a young sheep or goat, the
wool or hair shorn short and turned inside. It lasts,
under ordinary circumstances, about two months;
but, during constant playing, such as that of this
season, for example, it gets worn out in a novena.
Arrived at Calais, they are obliged, reluctantly,
to accept a place in the steamer in lieu of their
natural means of locomotion, which they gladly re-
sume at Dover. Partly by tradition from those
who have preceded them in the adventure, and
partly by necessity, they pick up enough of the
-language of each country for their simple needs—
" a glass of beer," "a loaf of bread," " the way to
next large village ?" are sentences which they re-
peat with the glee of- a parrot. Belgium, Holland,
Prussia, Bavaria, are visited in turn on the way
home, bat England suits them best, because there
alone they have nothing to pay for a licence to'