| 206 | CARDINAL RUFFO | [CHAP. XXI |
I knew, in his old age, this chief and leader of one of the most sanguinary counter-revolutions recorded in modern history, that of Naples in 1799; and I have seldom known a milder or more amiable old gentleman. I first met him at the house of his niece, my very kind and hospitable friend, the Duchessa di Campomele, daughter of Don G. Ruffo, Prince of Scilla. I forget the date, but it must have been between 1819 and 1821. The Cardinal was very animated, affable, and communicative; but he did not like to talk about the “Novanta Nove”—still words of terror in Neapolitan ears—and he would seldom listen to any reference to that disastrous period, or to his own exploits. He was very attentive and even gallant to the ladies, and he appeared to be fond of children and young people.
At this time I was but a youth myself, and no doubt on this account he was
the more easy and amiable with me. Once, and only once, I succeeded in drawing him out, to
speak of his march through the Calabrias, his rapid advance on Naples, and the combats and
horrors that followed. It will be remembered how the French Republicans had invaded the
kingdom; how, being joined by many Neapolitans of the capital, and of some of the larger
provincial towns, they had set up a Republic under the ridiculous name of
“Repubblica Partenopea,” and
how old King Ferdinand and his Court had fled to
Sicily in
| CHAP. XXI] | HIS CAMPAIGN IN CALABRIA | 207 |
General Championnet was left behind with only a few thousand French troops, but the Republicans of Naples had raised an army, and they and Championnet held between them all the castles and other fortresses. It was the Queen—Caroline of Austria, sister of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, Queen of France—the Cardinal, and a Calabrian gamekeeper, an enthusiastic Royalist and a most devoted, daring fellow, who first conceived the notion of recovering possession of the Continental dominions, by collecting an irregular volunteer army in the Calabrias.
The Cardinal, notwithstanding his priestly office, his high rank in the Church, his total inexperience of military affairs, undertook to head and conduct this wild levée en masse. With very little money, with a few red cockades, and two or three white flags, impressed with the royal arms of the Neapolitan Bourbons, he crossed the Straits of Messina, and landed near to Scilla.
Here was his ancestral castle, and here his mere name carried immense weight. His brother, the Prince, a quiet, indolent old gentleman, very submissive to events and circumstances, was, as usual, living in the city of Naples with his family; but he, like many of his forefathers, had been a kind and indulgent master, and was much beloved by his tenants and vassals.
Though much broken in upon, a quarter of a century before this period, by
the reforming Minister, the Marchese Tannucci, the feudal system was
not yet abrogated, and the country people still prided themselves on the greatness or
antiquity of their several lords and still called themselves, as they
| 208 | CARDINAL RUFFO | [CHAP. XXI |
The Prince of the Church did not keep them waiting. As he advanced rapidly towards the doomed capital, he was joined by more and more enthusiastic partisans. Every town, every village or hamlet, every hillside and every valley, contributed something to his forces. Among these fellows were a good many brigands and cut-throats. It was not a time to be particular, nor could the Cardinal have succeeded in purging or purifying his Army of the Faith, if he had tried ever so long or ever so hard to do it. The torrent rolled rapidly onward, nor did it cease to swell when the Calabrias and the Province of Salerno were left in the rear, and when the Molise was entered.
| CHAP. XXI] | HIS CAREER IN CALABRIA | 209 |
* Men poured, rushed down from their mountainous regions, like their own fiumazzi or torrents in wintertime; and all shouting “Death to the Republicans! Death to all Jacobins! Long live Ferdinand our King! Long live the Holy Faith!” Attired in pontificalibus, with a cross of gold upon his breast, a huge crucifix before him, and a numerous staff around him, composed chiefly of priests, monks, and brigand chiefs, the Cardinal rode at the head of this wild, disorderly, multitudinous array. Wherever they halted, they planted, not trees of Liberty, like the Republicans, but crosses and crucifixes; masses, matins, and vespers were regularly performed, and the multitude attended to them with every possible show of devotion and contrition. Yet Ruffo soon found that he could not control these masses, that he could not prevent their plundering and massacring, that he had made and armed a monster that was too much for him!
He could not recede, he could not retrace his steps, he could not unmake the monster, he could not steal away and leave it; his heart and soul were in the cause—truly the cause of Altar and Throne—and, with every prospect of success, he went on with his masses, attempting, when and where possible, to check their furor cieco, to moderate their excesses. It is not to be overlooked that the armed Neapolitan Republicans, and some of the French soldiers as well, had been, for many months previously, committing similar atrocities upon the Royalists. Ettore Carafa, a Neapolitan nobleman of very ancient lineage, who had gone crazed and turned democrat, who had adopted some of the bloodiest maxims of Murat, Robespierre, and St. Just, led into Capitanata and Apulia a republican corps d’armée that wasted those regions with fire and sword, and to the shibboleth of “Libertà, Ugualità, e Fraternità,” left not unperpetrated a
* From this sentence to the end, in C. M.’s handwriting. |
| 210 | CARDINAL RUFFO | [CHAP. XXI |
The Cavalier, Don N. Carafa, the
musical genius, the composer of “Gabriella di Vergi”
and of other operas and of very many separate pieces, who has been so long settled, and so
widely known, at Paris, was of this stock. Conspicuous in the personnel of Ruffo’s staff were those famous robbers
Mammone, Sciarpa, and
Decesari, and that still more famous brigand, Fra
Diavolo, or Friar Devil, and each of these chiefs was attended by his band.
This may account for a good deal of the evil committed. These were fellows who would not
stick at trifles, nor hesitate at gigantic sins; but that the Cardinal himself ever ordered
pillage, sack, and plunder, is what I cannot credit, in spite of the contrary assertions of
Carlo Botta, General
Colletta, W. Pepe, and fourscore other
writers of the Liberal school. I have, in my early days, spoken and
associated with hundreds of both sexes and of both parties, who were eye or ear witnesses
of what was done in the dreadful “Novanta
Nove,” or this counter-revolution, and all admitted that
Ruffo did all that mortal man could do to stop the effusion of
blood. “I never thought
| CHAP. XXI] | A TERRIBLE VENDETTA | 211 |
“It was a vendetta not confined to the ulcerated heart of Queen Caroline, and the hearts of her friends and courtiers! Far from that! It was a vendetta existing and raging throughout the popular, rural body, and in the heart of well-nigh every Neapolitan that was not a Jacobin and Revolutionist. Hundreds of those who joined me had had their relatives or friends massacred, their wives or daughters dishonoured by the horde of Ettore Carafa. Cruelty begets cruelty; let blood-letting once begin, and people will get an appetite for blood! I know this, young man, and many a time then, and many more times since, have I mourned over it! May God in His mercy keep us from such civil wars, from such revolutions and counter-revolutions and revolutions again! You, in England, have happily escaped, but see what these things have done in this Kingdom, in the whole of Italy, in nearly the whole of Europe! And, everywhere, have they not left vendette behind them?”
I am not writing the history of Cardinal
Ruffo’s campaign. I wish I had sufficient materials at hand, for it
has never been well or fairly or dispassionately written. In the accepted accounts of
Botta, Colletta, Vincenzo Cuoco, etc.,
there are innumerable errors and intentional misstatements of facts. The Cardinal overcame
every obstacle, beating his enemies wherever
| 212 | CARDINAL RUFFO | [CHAP. XXI |
He then turned sharp round upon the capital, tumbled over the Republicans in one of its suburbs, at the Bridge of the Maddalena, and entered the city, where all the lazzaroni, and every man belonging to what was strictly il basso popolo joined him, and actively and savagely co-operated with his Calabrians. And now it was that vendetta had an orgy and a glut, that unspeakable horrors were committed on the Jacobins, and that the spontaneous massacres performed by the Calabrians, lazzaroni, and other canaglia, were followed up by too many—far too many—judicial executions on the scaffold.
Naples had a remarkable crop of learning, talent, ingenuity, and even genius, in the course of the eighteenth century. About the last of it perished here, on the block, and the soil has never since sent forth such shoots and borne such a harvest; though, most assuredly, natural quickness, aptitude, and natural talent are not, and have not been, since the “Ninety-Nine,” at all wanting.
In less than seven years, King Ferdinand was again in flight for Sicily, and Cardinal Ruffo with him. Marshal Masséna, with an overwhelming French army, took possession of Naples, and—the Republican democratic “dodge” being over—Europe was told that the reign of the Bourbons of Naples was no more, and that Joseph Bonaparte, brother to the Emperor of the French, was seated on their throne!
There was strenuous opposition in several of the
| CHAP. XXI] | ENGLISH FLEET AND ARMY | 213 |
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