 Chapter 27 Part 1 of The Betrothed. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Betrothed, or Epromasi Sposy, by Alessandro Manzoni. Chapter 27 Part 1. It has already occurred to us more than once to make mention of the war which was at this time raging for the succession of the states of the Duke Vicenzo Gonzaga, the second of that name. But it has always occurred in a moment of great haste, so that we have never been able to give more than a cursory hint of it. Now, however, for the due understanding of our narrative, a more particular notice of it is required. They are matters which anyone who knows anything of history must be acquainted with. But as, from a just estimate of ourselves, we must suppose that this work can be read by none but the ignorant, it will not be a miss that we should here relate as much as will suffice to give some idea of them to those who need it. We have said that on the death of this Duke, the first in the line of succession, Carlo Gonzaga, head of a younger branch now established in France, where he possessed the duchies of Nevere and Retel, had entered upon the possession of Mantua. And we now add of Montferrat, for our haste made us leave this name on the point of the pen. The Spanish minister, who was resolved to any compromise, we have said this too, to exclude the new prince from these two fiefs, and who, to exclude him, wanted some pretext, because wars made without any pretext would be unjust, had declared himself the upholder of the claims, which another Gonzaga, Ferante, prince of the Guastalla, pretended to have upon Mantua. And Carlo Immanuel I, Duke of Savoy, and Margarita Gonzaga, dowager duchies of the Reign, upon Montferrat. Dom Gonzalo, who was of the family of the great commander and bore his name, who had already made war in Flanders and was extremely anxious to bring one into Italy, was perhaps the person who made most stir that this might be undertaken. And in the meanwhile, interpreting the intentions and anticipating the orders of the above-name minister, he concluded a treaty with the Duke of Savoy for the invasion and partition of Montferrat. And afterwards readily obtained a ratification of it from the Count Duke, by persuading him that the acquisition of Casale would be very easy, which was the most strongly defended point of the portion assigned to the king of Spain. He protested, however, in the king's name against any intention of occupying the country further than under the name of a deposit until the sentence of the emperor should be declared, who, partly from the influence of others, partly from private motives of his own, had in the meanwhile denied the investiture to the new Duke and intimated to him that he should give up to him a sequestration of the controverted states. Afterwards, having heard the different sides, he would restore them to him who had the best claim. To these conditions the Duke of Navarre would not consent. He had, however, friends of some eminence in the Cardinal de Richelieu, the Venetian nobleman and the Pope. But the first of these, at that time engaged in the siege of La Rochelle and in a war with England and thwarted by the party of the Queen Mother Maria de Medici, who, for certain reasons of her own, was opposed to the House of Navarre, could give nothing but hopes. The Venetians would not stir nor even declare themselves in his favour unless a French army were first brought into Italy. And while secretly aiding the Duke as they best could, they contented themselves with putting off the court of Madrid and the governor of Milan with protests, propositions and peaceable or threatening admonitions according to circumstances. Urban VIII recommended Navarre to his friends, interceded in his favour with his enemies, and designed projects of accommodation, but would not hear a word of sending men into the field. By this means the two Confederates for offensive measures were enabled the more securely to begin their concerted operations. Carlo Immanuel invaded Montferrat from his side. Don Gonzalo willingly laid siege to Casale, but did not find in the undertaking all the satisfaction he had promised himself, for it must not be imagined that war is a rose without a thorn. The court did not provide him with nearly all the means he demanded. His ally, on the contrary, assisted him too much. That is to say, after having taken his own portion, he went on to take that which was assigned to the King of Spain. Don Gonzalo was enraged beyond expression, but fearing that, if he made any noise about it, this duke, as active in his leagues and fickle in treaty, as bold and valiant in arms, would revolt to the French. He was obliged to shut his eyes to it, nor the bit put on a satisfied air. The siege, besides, went on badly, being protracted to a great length and sometimes thrown back owing to the steady, cautious and resolute behaviour of the besieged. The lack of sufficient numbers on the part of the besiegers and, according to the report of some historian, the many false steps taken by Don Gonzalo. On which point we leave truth to choose her own side, being inclined even, as it were really so, to consider it a very happy circumstance if it were the cause that in this enterprise there were some fewer than usual slain, beheaded or wounded, and Catares Paribus, rather fewer tiles injured in Casala. In the midst of these perplexities, the news of the sedition at Milan arrived to the scene of which he repaired in person. Here, in the report which was given him, mention was also made of the rebellious and clamorous flight of Renzo and of the real or supposed doings which had been the occasion of his arrest. And they could also inform him that this person had taken refuge in the territory of Bergamo. This circumstance arrested Don Gonzalo's attention. He had been informed from another quarter that great interest had been felt at Venice in the insurrection at Milan, that they had supposed he would be obliged on this account to abandon the siege of Casala, and that they imagined he was reduced to great despondency and perplexity about it. The more so, as shortly after this event, the tidings had arrived so much desired by these noblemen and dreaded by himself of the surrender of La Rochelle. Feeling considerably annoyed, both as a man and a politician, that they should entertain such an opinion of his proceedings, he sought every opportunity of un-deceiving them and persuading them by induction that he had lost none of his former boldness. For to say explicitly, I have no fear, is just to say nothing. One good plan is to show displeasure, to complain and to expostulate. Accordingly, the Venetian ambassador, having waited upon him to pay his respects, and at the same time to read in his countenance and behaviour how he felt within, Don Gonzalo, after having spoken lightly of the tumult, like a man who had already provided a remedy for everything, made those complaints about Renzo which the reader already knows, as he is also acquainted with what resulted from them in consequence. From that time he took no further interest in an affair of so little importance, which, as far as he was concerned, was terminated. And when, a long time afterwards, the reply came to him at the camp of Casale, whether he had returned and where he had very difficult things to occupy his mind, he raised and threw back his head like a silkworm searching for a leaf, reflected for a moment to recall more clearly to his memory a fact of which he had only retained a shadowy idea. Remembered the circumstances had a vague momentary recollection of the person passed on to something else and thought no more about it. But Renzo, who, from the little which he had darkly comprehended, was far from supposing so benevolent and indifference, had, for a time, no other thought, or rather, to speak more correctly, no other care than to keep himself concealed. It may be imagined whether he did not ardently long to send news of himself to the women and receive some from them in exchange. But there were two great difficulties in the way. One was that he also would have been forced to trust to a manuensis, for the poor fellow knew not how to write, nor even read, in the broad sense of the word. And if, when asked the question, as the leader may perhaps remember, by the doctor Arzenka Garbugli, he replied in the affirmative, it was not certainly a boast, a mere bravado, as they say. It was the truth that he could manage to read print, when he could take his time over it. Writing, however, was a different thing. He would be obliged then to make a third party the depository of his affairs, and of a secret so jealously guarded. And it was not easy in those times to find a man who could use his pen, and in whom confidence could be placed, particularly in a country where he had no old acquaintances. The other difficulty was to find a bearer, a man who was going just to the place he wanted, who would take charge of the letter, and really recollect to deliver it. All these, too, qualifications rather difficult to be met within one individual. At length, by dint of searching and sounding, he found somebody to write for him. But ignorant where the women were, or whether they were still at Monza, he judged it better to enclose the letter directed to Agnesi, undercover to Father Christophoro, with a line or two or so for him. The writer undertook the charge, moreover, of forwarding the packet, and delivered it to one who would pass not far from Pescarenico. This person left it with many strict charges at an inn on the road, at the nearest point to the monastery, and, as it was directed to a convent, it reached this destination. But what became a bit afterwards was never known. Renzo, receiving no reply, sent off a second letter, nearly like the first, which he enclosed in another an acquaintance or distant relation of his Atleco. He sought for another bearer and found one. This time, the letter reached the person to whom it was addressed. Agnesi, posted off to Magianico, had it read and interpreted to her by her cousin Alessio, concerted with him a reply, which he put down in writing for her, and found means of sending it to Antonio Revolta in his present place of abode. All this, however, not quite so expeditiously as we have recounted it. Renzo received the reply, and in time sent an answer to it. In short, a correspondence was set on foot between the two parties, neither frequent nor regular, but still kept up by starts and at intervals. To form some idea, however, of this correspondence, it is necessary to know a little how such things went on in those days, indeed, how they go on now, for in this particular, I believe, there is little or no variation. The peasant who knows not how to write and finds himself reduced to the necessity of communicating his ideas to the absent has recourse to one who understands the art, taking him as far as he can from among those of his own rank. For, with others, he is either shame-faced or afraid to trust them. He informs them with more or less order and perpiscuity of past events, and in the same manner describes to him the thoughts he is to express. The man of letters understands part, misunderstands part, gives a little advice, proposes some variation, says, leave it to me. Then he takes the pen, transfers the idea he has received as best he can from speaking to writing, corrects it in his own way, improves it, puts in flourishes, abbreviates, or even omits, according as he deems most suitable for his subject. For so it is, and there is no help for it, he who knows more than his neighbours will not be a passive instrument in their hands. And when he interferes in other people's affairs, he will force them to do things his own way. In addition to all this, it is not always quite a matter of course that the above-named literate himself expresses all that he intended. Nay, sometimes it happens just the reverse, as indeed it does even to us who write for the press. When the letter thus completed reaches the hands of the correspondent, who is equally unpracticed in his ABC, he takes it to another learned genius of that tribe who reads and expands it to him. Questions arise on the matter of understanding it, because the person interested, presuming upon his acquaintance with the antecedent circumstances, asserts that certain words mean such and such a thing. The reader, resting upon his greater experience in the art of composition, affirms that they mean another. At last, the one who does not know is obliged to put himself into the hands of the one who does, and trusts him the task of writing a reply, which, executed like the former example, is liable to a similar style of interpretation. If, in addition, the subject of the correspondence be a rather delicate topic, if secret matters be treated of in it, which it is desirable should not be understood by a third party, in case the letter should go astray, if with this view there be a positive intention of not expressing things quite clearly, then, however short a time the correspondence is kept up, the parties invariably finish by understanding each other, as well as the two schoolmen who had disputed for four hours upon abstract mutations. Not to take our similarly from living beings, lest we expose ourselves to have our ears boxed. Now, the case of our two correspondence was exactly what we have described. The first letter written in Renzo's name contained many subjects. Primarily, besides an account of the flight, by far more concise, but at the same time more confused than that which we have given, was a relation of his actual circumstances from which both Agnesi and her interpreter were far from deriving any lucid or tolerably correct idea. Then he spoke of secret intelligence, change of name, his being in safety, but still requiring concealment. Things in themselves not very familiar to their understandings and related in the letter rather enigmatically. Then followed warm and impassioned inquiries about Lucia's situation, with dark and mournful hints of the rumours which had reached even his ears. There were, finally, uncertain and distant hopes and plans in reference to the future and for the present promises and entreaties to keep their plighted faith, not to lose patience or courage and to wait for better days. Some time passed away and Agnesi found a trusty messenger to convey an answer to Renzo with the fifty scoody assigned to him by Lucia. At the sight of so much gold he knew not what to think and with a mind agitated by wonder and suspense which left no room for gratification he set off in search of his ammanuensis to make him interpret the letter and find the key to so strange a mystery. Agnesi's scribe, after lamenting in the letter the want of perpiscuity in Renzo's epistle, went on to describe in a way at least quite as much to be lamented the tremendous history of that person so he expressed himself and here he accounted for the fifty scoody then he went on to speak of the vow employing much circumlocution in the expression of it but adding in more direct and explicit terms the advice to set his heart at rest and think no more about it. Renzo very nearly quarreled with the reader he trembled, shuddered became enraged with what he had understood and with what he could not understand three or four times did he make him read over the melancholy writing now comprehending better now finding what had first appeared clear more and more incomprehensible and in this fervour of passion he insisted upon his emmanuensis immediately taking pen in hand and writing a reply after the strongest expressions imaginable of pity and horror at Lucia's circumstances right he pursued as he dictated to his secretary that I won't set my heart at rest and that I never will and that this is not advice to be giving to a lad like me and that I won't touch the money that I'll put it by and keep it for the young girl's dowry that she already belongs to me and that I know nothing about a vow and that I have often heard say that the Madonna interests herself to help the afflicted and obtains favours for them but that she encourages them to despise and break their word I never heard and that this vow can't hold good and that with this money we have enough to keep house here and that I am somewhat in difficulties now it's only a storm which will quickly pass over and other similar things and Yezi received this letter also and replied to it and the correspondence continued in the manner we have described End of Chapter 27 Part 1 Recording by Alan Matstone in Oxford, England Chapter 27 Part 2 of The Betrothed This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Betrothed or Ipromasi Sposy by Alessandro Manzoni Chapter 27 Part 2 Lucia felt greatly relieved when her mother had contrived by some means or other to let her know that Renzo was alive, safe and acquainted with her vow and desired nothing more than that he should forget her or to express it more exactly that he should try to forget her She on her part made a similar resolution as she was a day with respect to him and employed to every means she could think of to put it into effect She continued to work indefatigably with her needle trying to apply her whole mind to it and when Renzo's image presented itself to her view would begin to repeat or chant some prayers to herself But that image just as if it were actually by pure malice did not generally come so openly It introduced itself stealthily behind others so that the mind might not be aware of having harboured it till after it had been there for some time Lucia's thoughts were often with her mother How should it have been otherwise and the ideal Renzo would gently creep in as a third party as the real person has so often done So with everybody in every place in every remembrance of the past he never failed to introduce himself and if the poor girl allowed herself sometimes to penetrate in fancy into the obscurities of the future there too he would appear as if it were only to say I, ten to one, shall not be there However if not to think of him at all were a hopeless undertaking yet Lucia succeeded up to a certain point in thinking less about him and less intensively than her heart would have wished She would have even succeeded better had she been alone in desiring to do so But there was Donna Prasade who, bent on her part upon banishing the youth from her thoughts had found no better expedient than constantly talking about him Well, she would say Have you given up thinking about him? I am thinking of nobody replied Lucia Donna Prasade, however these were so evasive an answer replied that there must be deeds not words and enlarged upon the usual practices of young girls who, she said when they have set their hearts upon a disilute fellow and it is just as such they have a leaning won't consent to be separated from them An honest and rational contract to a worthy man a well tried character which by some accident they are quickly resigned but let it be a villain and it is an incurable wound and then she commenced a panageric upon the poor absentee the rascal who had come to Milan to plunder the town and massacre the inhabitants and tried to make Lucia confess all the navish tricks he had played in his own country Lucia, with a voice tremulous with shame sorrow and such indignation as could find place in her gentle breast and humble condition affirmed and testified that the poor fellow had done nothing in his country to give occasion for anything but good to be said of him she wished, she said that someone were present from his neighbourhood that the lady might hear his testimony even on his adventures at Milan the particulars of which she could not learn she defended him merely from the knowledge that she had of him and his behaviour from his very childhood she defended him or intended to defend him from the simple duty of charity from her love of truth and to use just the expression by which she described her feelings to herself as her neighbour but Donna Prasade drew fresh arguments from these apologies to convince Lucia that she had quite lost her heart to this man and to say the truth in these moments it is difficult to say how the matter stood the disgraceful picture the old lady drew of the poor youth revived from opposition more vividly and distinctly than ever in the mind of the young girl the idea which long habit had established there the recollection she had stifled by force returning crowds upon her a version and contempt recalled all her old motives of esteem and sympathy and blind and violent hatred only excited stronger feelings of pity with these feelings who can say how much there might or might not be of another affection which follows upon them and introduces itself so easily into the mind let it be imagined what it would do in one whence it was attempted to eject it by force however it may be the conversation on Lucia's side was never carried to any great length for words were very soon resolved into tears had Donna Prasadae been induced to treat her in this way for some inveterate hatred towards her these tears might perhaps have vanquished and silenced her but as she spoke with the intention of doing good she went on without allowing herself to be moved by them as groans and imploring cries may arrest the weapons of an enemy but not the instrument of the surgeon having however discharged from her duty for that time she would turn from reproaches and denunciation to exhortation and advice sweetened also by little praise thus designing to temper the bitter with the sweet the better to obtain her purpose by working upon the heart under every state of feeling these quarrels however which had always nearly the same beginning, middle and end left no resentment properly speaking who cheers heart against the harsh sermonizer who after all treated her in general very kindly and even in this instance evinced a good intention yet they left her in such agitation with such a tumult of thoughts and affections that it required no little time and much effort to regain her former degree of calmness it was well for her that she was not the only one to whom Donna Prasadae had to do good for by this means these disputes could not occur so frequently besides the rest of the family all of whom were persons of more or less needing amendment and guidance beside all the other occasions which offered themselves to her or she contrived to find of extending the same kind of office of her own free will to many to whom she was under no obligations she had also five daughters none of whom were at home who gave her more to think about than if they had been three of these were nuns two were married hence Donna Prasadae naturally found herself with three monasteries and two houses to superintend a vast and complicated undertaking and the more arduous because two husbands backed by fathers, mothers and brothers three abbesses supported by other dignitaries and many nuns would not accept her superintendence it was a complete warfare alias five warfare concealed and even courteous up to a certain point but ever active, ever vigilant there was in every one of these places a continued watchfulness to avoid her solicitude to close the door against her councils to elude her inquiries and to keep her in the dark as far as possible on every undertaking we do not mention the resistance the difficulties she encountered in the management of other still more extraneous affairs it is well known that one must generally do good to men by force the place where her zeal could best exercise itself and have full play was in her own house here everybody was subject in everything and for everything to her authority saving Don Ferante with whom things went on in a matter entirely peculiar a man of studious turn he neither loved to command nor obey in all household matters his wife was the mistress with his free consent but he would not submit to be her slave and if when requested he occasionally lent her the assistance of his pen it was because it suited his taste and after all he knew how to say no when he was not convinced of what she wished him to write use your own sense he would say in such cases do it yourself since it seems so clear to you Dona Prasade after vainly endeavouring for some time to induce him to recant and to do what she wanted would be obliged to content herself with murmuring frequently against him with calling him one who hated trouble a man who would have his own way and a scholar a title which though pronounced with contempt was generally mixed with a little complacency Don Ferante passed many hours in his study where he had a considerable collection of books scarcely less than 300 volumes all of them choice works and the most highly esteemed on their numerous several subjects in each of which he was more or less versed in astrology he was deservedly considered as more than Adilatante for he not only possessed the generic notions and common vocabulary of influences aspects and conjunctions but he knew how to talk very aptly and as it were ex-cathedra of the twelve houses of the heavens of the great circles of lucid and obscure degrees of exaltation and dejection of transitions and revolutions in short of the most assured and most recondite principles of science and it was for perhaps twenty years that he maintained in long and frequent disputes the system of Cardano against another learned man who was staunchly attached to that of Alcobizio from mere obstinacy as Don Ferante said who readily acknowledging the superiority of the ancients could not however endure that unwillingness to yield to the moderns even when they evidently had reason on their side he was also more than indifferently acquainted with the history of the science he could on an occasion quote the most celebrated predictions which had been verified using clearly and learnedly on other celebrated predictions which had failed showing that the fault was not in the science but in those who knew not how to apply it he had learned as much of ancient philosophy as might have sufficed him but still went on acquiring more from the study of Diogenes Laertius as however these systems how beautiful so ever they may be cannot all be held at once as a philosopher it is necessary to choose an author so Don Ferante had chosen Aristotle who he used to say was neither ancient nor modern he was the philosopher and nothing more he possessed also various works of the wisest and most ingenious disciples of that school among the moderns those of its impuners he would never read not to throw away time as he said nor buy not to throw away money surely by way of exception did he find room in his library for those celebrated 2 and 20 volumes di subtilitate and for some other anti-peripatetic work of Cadanos in consideration of his value in astrology he said that he who could write the treatise Don Restiutione Temporum et Motum Colestium and the book Diodesim Genitororum deserved to be listened to even when he aired that the great defect of this man was that he had too much talent and that no one could conceive what he might have arrived at even in philosophy had he kept himself in the right way in short although in the judgment of the learned Don Ferante passed for a consummate peripatetic yet he did not deem that he knew enough about it himself and more than once he was obliged to confess with great modesty the essence, universals the soul of the world and the nature of things were not so very clear as might be imagined he had made a recreation rather than a study of natural philosophy the very works of Aristotle on this subject he had rather read than studied and yet with this slight perusal with the noses incidentally gathered from treatise on general philosophy with a few cursory glances at the Maggia naturalae of Porta at the three hisses Lapidum and Imallium plantarum of Cardano at the treatise on herbs, plants and animals by Albert Magnus and a few other works of less note he could entertain a party of learned men for a while with dissertations on the most wonderful virtues and most remarkable curiosities of many medicinal herbs he could minutely describe the forms and habits of sirens and the solitary phoenix and explain how the salamander exists in the fire without burning how the remora, that diminutive fish has strength and ability completely to arrest the ship of any size in the high seas how drops of dew become pearls in the shell how the chameleon feeds on air how ice being generally hardened is formed into crystal in the course of time with many others of the most wonderful secrets of nature into those of magic and witchcraft he had penetrated still more deeply as it was a science says our anonymous author much more necessary and more in vogue in those days in which the facts were of far higher importance and it was more within reach to verify them it is unnecessary to say that he had no other object in view in such a study than to inform himself and to become acquainted with the very worst arts of the sorcerers in order that he might guard against them and defend himself and by the guidance principally of the great martino del rio a leader of the science he was capable of discoursing ex-professor upon the fascination of love the fascination of sleep the fascination of hatred and the infinite varieties of the three principle genuses of enchantment which are only too often again says our anonymous author beheld in practice at the present day attended by such lamentable effects not less vast and profound as his knowledge of history particularly universal history in which his authors were tagnotta, dolce, bugatti campania and guazzo in short all the most highly esteemed but what is history said don ferante frequently without politics a guide who walks on and on with no one following to learn the road and who consequently throws away his steps as politics without history is one who walks without a guide there was therefore a place assigned to statistics on his shelf where among many humbler rank and less renown appeared in all their glory calvicante, sansevino paruta and boccalini there were two books however which don ferante infinitely preferred above all others on this subject two which up to a certain time he used to call the first without ever being able to decide which of the two this rank should exclusively belong one was the prinkipia and discorsi of the celebrated florentine secretary a great rascal certainly said don ferante but profound the other the ragione distatto of the no less celebrated giovanni botero an honest man certainly said he again but shrewd shortly after however just at the period which our story embraces a work came to light which terminated the question of preeminence by surpassing the work of even those two matadors and a book in which was enclosed and condensed every trick of the system that might be known and every virtue that it might be practiced a book of small dimensions but all of gold in one word the statistic rignante of don valeriano castiglione that most celebrated man of whom it might be said that the greatest scholars rivaled each other in sounding his praises and the greatest marriages in trying to rob him of them that man whom pope urban the eighth honoured as is well known with magnificent encomiums whom the cardinal borghese and the viceroy of naples don pietro di toledo and treated to relate one the doings of pope paul the fifth the other the wars of his catholic majesty in italy and both in vain that man whom louis the 13th king of france at the suggestion of cardinal richelieu nominated his historiographer on whom don carlo immanuel of savoy conferred the same office in praise of whom not to mention other lofty testimonials the duchess christina daughter of the most christian king henry the fourth could in a diploma among many other titles enumerate the certainty of the reputation he is obtaining of being the first writer of our times but if in all the above mentioned sciences don ferante might be considered a learned man there was one in which he merited and enjoyed the title of professor the science of chivalry not only did he argue on it in a really masterly manner but frequently requested to interfere in affairs of honour always gave some decision he had in his library and one may say indeed in his head the works of the most renowned writers on this subject paris del pozo fausto de loggiano urea museo rome albergato the first and second forno of torcato tasso of whose other works jerusalem delivered as well as jerusalem taken he had ever in readiness and could quote from memory on occasion all the passages which might serve as a text on the subject of chivalry the author however of all authors in his estimation was our celebrated francesco birrago with whom he had more than once associated in giving judgement on cases of honour and who on his side spoke of don ferante in terms of particular esteem and from the time Scorsi Cavaloreschi of this renowned writer made their appearance he predicted without hesitation that this work would destroy the authority of olivano and would remain together with its other noble sisters as a code of primary authority among posterity and everyone may see says our anonymous author how this prediction has been verified from this he passes on to the study of bellettra but we begin to doubt whether the reader has really any great wish to go forward with us in this review and even to fear that we may already have won the title of servile copyist for ourself and that of a bore to be shared with the anonymous author having followed him out so simply even thus far into a subject foreign to the principal narrative and in which probably he was only so diffuse for the purpose of parading erudition and showing that he was not behind his age however leaving written what is written that we may not lose our labour we will omit the rest to resume the thread of our story the more willingly as we have a long period to traverse without meeting it with any of our characters and a longer still before finding those in whose success the reader will be most interested if anything in the whole story has interested him at all until the autumn of the following year 1629 they all remained some willingly some by force almost in the state in which we left them nothing happening to anyone and no one doing anything worthy of being recorded the autumn at length approached in which Agnesi and Luchia had counted upon meeting again but a great public event frustrated that expectation and this certainly was one of its most trifling effects other great events followed which however made no material change in the destinies of our characters at length new circumstances more general more influential and more extensive reached even to them even to the lowest of them according to the world scale it was like a vast sweeping and irresistible hurricane which uprooting trees tearing off roots and scattering their fragments in every direction stirs up the straws hidden in the grass prized into every corner for the light and withered leaves which a gentler breeze would only have lodged there more securely and bears them off in its headlong course of fury now that the private events which yet remain for us to relate may be rendered intelligible it will be absolutely necessary for us even here to promise some kind of account of these public ones and thus make a still further digression End of Chapter 27 Part 2 Recording by Alan Matstone in Oxford, England Chapter 28 Part 1 of The Betroth This is a LibraVox recording All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibraVox.org Reading done by Jules Harlech of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada The Betroth by Alessandro Manzoni Chapter 28 Part 1 After the sedition of St. Martins and the following day it seemed that abundance had returned to Milan as by enchantment the bread shops were plentifully supplied the price as low as in the most prolific years and flour in proportion they who during those two days had employed themselves in shouting or doing something worse had now accepting a few who had been seized reason to congratulate themselves and let it not be imagined that they spared these congratulations after the first fear of being captured was subsided in the squares at the corners of the street and in the taverns there was undisguised rejoicing a general murmur of applause and half uttered boasts of having found a way to reduce bread to a moderate price in the midst, however of this vaunting and festivity there was, and how could it be otherwise a secret feeling of disquietude and resentment that the thing could not last long they besieged the bakers and meal-sellers as they had before done in the former artificial and transient abundance procured by the first tariff of Antonio Ferrer he who had a little money in advance invested it in bread and flour which were stored up in chests small barrels and iron vessels by thus emulating each other in enjoying present advantage they rendered, I do not say its long duration impossible for such as it was of itself already but even its continuance from moment to moment ever more difficult and lo, on the 15th of November Antonio Ferrer D'Ordin di Sue Excellencia issued a proclamation in which all who had any corn or flour in their houses were forbidden to buy either one or the other and everyone else to purchase more than would be required for two days under pain of pecuniary and corporal punishments at the will of His Excellency it contained also intimations to the elders a kind of public officer and insinuations to all other persons to inform against offenders orders to magistrates to make strict search in any houses which might be reported to them together with fresh commands to the bakers to keep their shops well furnished with bread under pain in case of failure of five years in the galleys or even greater penalties at the will of His Excellency he who can imagine such a proclamation executed must have a very clever imagination and certainly had all those issued at that time take an effect the duchy of Milan would have had at least as many people on the seas as Great Britain itself may have at present at any rate as they ordered the bakers to make so much bread it was also necessary to give some orders that the materials for making it should not fail they had contrived as in times of scarcity the endeavor is always renewed to reduce into bread different elementary materials usually consumed under another form they had contrived I say to introduce rice into a composition called mixed bread on the 23rd of November an eddick was published to limit to the disposal of the superintendent and the twelve members who constituted the board of provision one half of the dressed rice Rizioni it was then and is still called there which everyone possessed with the threat to anyone who should dispose of it without permission of these noblemen of the loss of the article and a fine of three crowns of bushel the honesty of this proceeding everyone can appreciate but it was necessary to pay for this rice and at a price very disproportioned to that of bread the burden of supplying the enormous inequality had been imposed upon the city but the council of the Deccherioni who had undertaken to discharge the debt in behalf of the city deliberated the same day the 23rd of November about remonstrating with the governor on the impossibility of any longer maintaining such an engagement and the governor in a decree of the 7th of December fixed the price of the above named rice at twelve levers per bushel to those who should demand a higher price as well as to those who should refuse to sell he threatened the loss of the article and a fine of equal value and greater pecuniary and even corporal punishment including the galleys at the will of his excellency according to the nature of the case and the rank of the offender the price of undressed rice had been already limited before the insurrection as the tariff or to use the most famous term of modern annals the maximum of wheat and other of the commonest grains had probably been established in different decrees which we have not happened to meet with bread and flour being thus reduced to a moderate price at Milan it followed of consequence that people flocked thither in crowds to obtain a supply to obviate this inconvenience as he said Don Gonzalez in another edict of the 15th of December prohibited carrying bread out of the city beyond the value of 20 pence under penalty of the loss of the bread itself and 25 crowns or in the case of inability of two stripes in public and greater punishment still as usual at the will of his excellency on the 22nd of the same month and why so late it is difficult to say a similar order was issued with regard to flour and grain the multitude had tried to procure abundance by pillage and incendiarism the legal arm would have maintained it with the galleys and the scourge the means were convenient enough in themselves but what they had to do with the end the reader knows how they actually answered their purpose he will see directly it is easy too to see and not useless to observe the necessary connection between these stranger measures each was an inevitable consequence of the antecedent one and all of the first which fixed a price upon bread so different to that which would have resulted from the real state of things such a provision ever has and ever must have appeared to the multitude as consistent with justice as simple and easy of execution hence it is quite natural that in the deprivations and grievances of a famine they should desire it implore it and if they can enforce it in proportion then as the consequences began to be felt it is necessary that they whose duty it is should provide a remedy for each by a regulation prohibiting men to do what they were impelled to do by the preceding one we may be permitted to remark here in passing a singular coincidence in a country and at a period by no means remote a period the most clamorous and most renowned of modern history in similar circumstances similar provisions obtained the same we may almost say in substance with the sole difference of proportions and in nearly the same succession they obtained in spite of the march of intellect and the knowledge which had spread over Europe and in that country perhaps more than any other and this principally because the great mass of the people whom this knowledge had not yet reached could in the long run make their judgment prevail and as it were there said compel the hands of those who made the laws but to return to our subject on a review of the circumstances there were two principal fruits of the insurrection destruction and actual loss of provision in the insurrection itself and a consumption while the tariff lasted immeasurable and so to say jovial which rapidly diminished the small quantity of grain that was to have sufficed till the next harvest to these general effects may be added the punishment of four of the populace who were hung as ring leaders of the tumult two before the bakehouse of the crutches and two at the end of the street where the house of the superintendent of provisions was situated as to the rest the historical accounts of those times have been written so much at random that no information is to be found as to how and when this arbitrary tariff ceased if in the failure of positive notices we may be allowed to form a conjecture we are inclined to believe that it was withdrawn shortly before or soon after the 24th of December which was the day of the execution as to the proclamations after the last we have quoted of the 22nd of the same month we find no more on the subject of provisions whether it be that they have perished or have escaped our researches or finally that the government discouraged if not instructed by the inefficiencies of these remedies and quite overwhelmed with different matters abandoned them to their own course we find indeed in the records of more than one historian inclined as they were rather to describe great events than to note the cause and progress of them a picture of the country and chiefly of the city in the already advanced winter in following spring when the cause of the evil the disproportion that is between food and demand for it which far from being removed was even increased by the remedies which temporarily suspended its effects when the true cause I say of the scarcity or to speak more correctly the scarcity itself was operating without a check and exerting its full force it was not even checked by the introduction of a sufficient supply of corn from without to which remedy were opposed the insufficiency of public and private means the poverty of the surrounding countries the prevailing famine the tediousness and the restriction of commerce and the laws themselves tending to the production and violent maintenance of moderate prices we will give a sketch of the mournful picture at every step the shops closed manufactories for the most part deserted the streets presenting an indescribable spectacle an incessant train of miseries a perpetual abode of sorrows professed beggars of long standing now become the smallest number mingled and lost in a new swarm and sometimes reduced to contend for alms with those from whom in former days they had been accustomed to receive them apprentices and clerks dismissed by shopkeepers and merchants who when their daily profits diminished or entirely failed were living sparingly on their savings or on their capital shopkeepers and merchants themselves to whom the cessation of business had brought failure and ruin workmen in every trade and manufacture the calmness as well as the most refined the most necessary as well as those more subservient to luxury wandering from door to door and from street to street leaning against the corners stretched upon the pavement along the houses and churches begging piteously or hesitating between want and a still unsubdued shame emaciated, weak and trembling from long fasting and the cold through their tattered and scanty garments which still however in many instances retain traces of having been once in a better condition as their present idleness and despondency ill disguised indications of former habits of industry and courage mingled in the deplorable throng and forming no small part of it were servants dismissed by their masters who either had sunk from mediocrity into poverty or otherwise from wealthy and noble citizens had become unable in such a year to maintain their custom pomp of retinue and for each one so to say of these different needy objects was a number of others accustomed in part to live by their gains children women and aged relatives grouped around their old supporters or dispersed in search of relief elsewhere there were also easily distinguishable by their tangled locks by the relics of their showy dress or even by something in their carriage and gestures and by that expression which habits impress upon the countenance the more marked and distinct as the habits are strange and unusual any of that vile race of bravos who having lost in the common calamity their wickedly acquired substance now went about imploring it for charity subdued by hunger contending with others only in on treaties and reduced in person they dragged themselves along through the streets which they had so often traversed with a lofty brow and a suspicious and ferocious look dressed in sumptuous and fantastic liveries furnished with rich arms plumed decked out and perfumed and humbly extended the hand which had so often been insolently raised to threaten or treacherously to wound but the most frequent the most squalid the most hideous spectacle was that of the country people alone in couples or even in entire families husbands and wives with infants in their arms or tied up in a bundle upon their backs with children dragged along by the hand or with old people behind some there were who having had their houses invaded and pillaged by the soldiery had fled thither either as residents or passengers in a kind of desperation and among these were some who displayed stronger incentives to compassion and greater distinction and misery in the scars and bruises from the wounds they had received in the defense of their few remaining provisions while others gave way to blind and brutal licentiousness others again unreached by that particular scourge but driven from their homes by those too from which the remotest corner was not exempt the sterility and prices more exorbitant than ever to meet what were called the necessities of war had come and were continually pouring into the city as to the ancient seat an ultimate asylum of plenty and pious munificence the newly arrived might be distinguished not only by a hesitating step and novel air but still more by a look of angry astonishment at finding such an accumulation such an excess such a rivalry of misery in a place where they had hoped to appear singular objects of compassion and to attract to themselves all assistance and notice the others who for more or less time had haunted the streets of the city prolonging life by the scanty food obtained as it were by chance in such a disparity between supply and demand or expressed in their looks and carriage still deeper and more anxious consternation various in dress or rather rags as well as appearance in the midst of the common prostation there were the pale faces of the marshy districts the bronze continences of the open and hilly country and the ruddy complexion of the mountaineer all alike wasted and emaciated with sunken eyes a stare between sternness and idiocy matted locks and long and ghastly beards bodies once plump and innured to fatigue now exhausted by want shriveled skin on their parched arms legs and bony breasts which appeared through their disordered and tattered garments of different from but not less melancholy than this spectacle of wasted vigor was that of a more quickly subdued nature of languor and a more self-abandoning debility in the weaker sex and age here and there in the streets and crossways along the walls and under the eaves of the houses were layers of trampled straw and stubble mixed with dirty rags yet such revolting filth was the gift and the provision of charity there were places of repose prepared for some of those miserable wretches where they might lay their heads at night occasionally even during the day someone might be seen lying there whom faintness and abstinence had robbed a breath and the power of supporting the weight of his body sometimes these wretched couches bore a corpse sometimes a poor exhausted creature would suddenly sink to the ground and remain a lifeless body upon the pavement bending over some of these prostate sufferers a neighbor or passerby might frequently be seen attracted by a sudden impulse of compassion in some places assistance was tendered organized with more distant foresight and proceeding from a hand rich in the means and experienced in the exercise of doing good on a large scale the hand of the good Federigo he had made a choice of six priests whose ready and persevering charity was united with and ministered to by a robust constitution these he divided into pairs and assigned to each a third part of the city to perambulate followed by porters laden with various kinds of food together with other more effective and more speedy restorative and clothing every morning these three pairs dispersed themselves through the streets in different directions approached those whom they found stretched upon the ground and administered to each the assistant he was capable of receiving some in the agonies of death and no longer able to partake of nourishment received at their hands the last sucours and the consolations of religion to those whom food might still benefit they dispensed soup, eggs, bread or wine while to others exhausted by longer abstinence they offered jellies and stronger wines reviving them first if need wear with cordials and powerful acids at the same time they distributed garments to those who were most indecoriously and miserably clothed nor did their assistance end here it was the good bishops wish that at least where it could be extended efficacious and more permanent relief should be administered those poor creatures who felt sufficiently strengthened by the first remedies to stand up and walk were also provided by the same kindly ministry with a little money that returning need and the failure of further sucours might not bring them again immediately into their first condition for the rest they sought shelter and maintenance in some of the neighboring houses those among the inhabitants who were well off in the world afforded hospitality out of charity and on the recommendation of the cardinal where there was the will without the means the priests requested that the poor creature might be received as a border agreed upon the terms and immediately defrayed a part of the expense they then gave notice of those who were thus lodged to the parish priests that they might go to see them and they themselves would also return to visit them it is unnecessary to say that Federico did not confine his care to this extremity of suffering nor wait till the evil had reached its height before exerting himself his ardent and versatile charity must feel all be employed in all hasten where it could not anticipate and take so to say as many forms as there were varieties of need in fact by bringing together all his means saving with still more rigorous economy and applying some's destined to other purposes of charity now alas rendered of secondary importance he had tried every method of making money to be expended entirely in alleviating poverty he made large purchases of corn which he dispatched to the most indigent parts of his diocese and as the sucurs were far from equaling the necessity he also sent plentiful supplies of salt with which says Ripamante relating the circumstances the herbs of the field and the bark from the trees might be converted into human sustenance he also distributed corn and money to the clergy of the city he himself visited it by districts dispensing alms he relieved in secret many destitute families in the archipiscopal palace large quantities of rice were daily cooked and according to the account of the contemporary writer the physician Alessandro Tadino in his la Guaglio which we shall frequently have occasion to quote in the sequel 2,000 porringers of this food were here distributed every morning but these fruits of charity which we may certainly specify as wonderful when we consider that they proceeded from one individual and from his sole resources for Federico habitually refused to be made a dispenser of the liberality of others these together with the bounty of other private persons if not so copious at least more numerous and the subsidies granted by the council of the Decorione to meet this emergency the dispensation of which was committed to the board of provision where after all in comparison of the demand scarce and inadequate while some few mountaineers and inhabitants of the valleys who were ready to die of hunger had their lives prolonged by the cardinal's assistance others arrived at the extremist verge of starvation the former having consumed their measured supplies returned to the same state in other parts not forgotten but considered as less straightened by a charity which was compelled to make distinctions the suffering became fatal in every direction they perished from every direction they flocked to the city here 2,000 we will say of famishing creatures the strongest and the most skillful in surmounting competition and making way for themselves obtained perhaps a bowl of soup so as not to die that day but many more thousands remained behind envying those shall we say more fortunate ones when among them who remained behind were often their wives, children or parents and while in two or three parts of the city some of the most destitute and reduced were raised from the ground revived, recovered and provided for for some time in a hundred other quarters many more sank, languished or even expired without assistance, without alleviation throughout the day a confused humming of lamentable entreaties was to be heard in the streets at night a murmur of groans broken now and then by howls suddenly bursting upon the ear by loud and long accents of complaint or by deep tones of invocation terminating in wild shrieks it is worthy of remark that in such an extremity of want in such a variety of complaints not one attempt was ever made not one rumour ever raised to bring about an insurrection at least we find not the least mention of such a thing yet among those who lived and died in this way there was a great number of men brought up to anything rather than patient endurance there were indeed in hundreds those very same individuals who on St. Martin's Day had made themselves so sensibly felt nor must it be imagined that the example of those four unhappy men who bore in their own persons the penalty of all was what now kept them in awe what force could not the sight but the remembrance of punishments have on the minds of a dispersed and reunited multitude who saw themselves condemned as it were to a prolonged punishment which they were already suffering but so constituted are we mortals in general that we rebel indignantly and violently against medium evils and bow in silence under extreme ones we bear not with resignation but stupefaction the weight of what at first we had called insupportable the void daily created by mortality in this deplorable multitude was every day more than replenished there was an incessant concourse first from the neighboring towns then from all the country then from the cities of the state to the very borders even of others and in the meantime old inhabitants were every day leaving Milan some to withdraw from the sight of so much suffering others being driven from the field so to say by new competitors for support in a last desperate attempt to find sustenance elsewhere anywhere anywhere at least where the crowds and the rivalry and begging were not so dense and importunate these obstately bound travelers met each other on their different routes all spectacles of horror and disastrous omens of the faith that awaited them at the end of their respective journeys they prosecuted however the way they had once undertaken if no longer with the hope of changing their condition at least not to return to a scene which had become odious to them and to avoid the sight of a place where they had been reduced to despair some even whose last vital powers were destroyed by abstinence sank down by the way and were left where they expired still more fatal tokens to their brethren in condition an object of horror perhaps of reproach to other passengers I saw Wright's reprimanti lying in the road surrounding the wall the corpse of a woman half eaten grass was hanging out of her mouth and her contaminated lips still made almost a convulsive effort she had a bundle at her back and secured by bands to her bosom hung an infant which with bitter cries was calling for the breast some compassionate persons had come up who raising the miserable little creature from the ground brought it some sustenance thus fulfilling in a measure the first maternal office End of Chapter 28 Part 1 Chapter 28 Part 2 of The Betrothed This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Reading done by Jules Harlech of Miss Saga, Ontario, Canada The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni Chapter 28 Part 2 The contrast of gay clothing and rags of superfluidity and misery the ordinary spectacle of ordinary times had in these peculiar ones entirely ceased rags and misery had invaded almost every rank and what now at all distinguished them was but an appearance of frugal mediocrity the nobility were seen walking and becoming and modest or even dirty and shabby clothing some because the common cause of misery had affected their fortunes to this degree or even given a finishing hand to fortunes already much dilapidated others either from fear of provoking public desperation by display or from a feeling of shame at thus insulting public calamity petty tyrants once hated and looked upon with awe and accustomed to wander about with an insolent train of bravos at their heels now walked almost unattended dressed fallen and with a look which seemed to offer an entreat peace others who in prosperity also had been of more humane disposition and more civil bearing appeared nevertheless confused, distracted and as it were overpowered by the continual view of a calamity which excluded not only the possibility of relief but we may also say the power of commiseration they who were able to afford any assistance were obliged to make a melancholy choice between hunger and hunger between extremity and extremity and no sooner was the compassionate hand seen to drop anything into the hand of a wretched beggar than a strife immediately rose between the other miserable wretches those who retained still a little strength pressed forward to solicit with more importunity the feeble aged people and children extended their emaciated hands mothers from behind raised and held out their weeping infants miserably clad in their tattered swaddling clothes and reclining languidly in their arms thus passed the winter and the spring for some time the Board of Health had been remonstrating with the Board of Provision on the danger of contagion which threatened the city from so much suffering accumulated in and spread throughout it and had proposed that all the vagabond mendicants should be collected together into the different hospitals while this plan was being debated upon and approved while the means, methods and places were being devised to put it into effect corpses multiplied in the streets every day bringing additional numbers and in proportion to this followed all the other concomitants of loathesomeness, misery and danger it was proposed by the Board of Provision as more practicable and expeditious to assemble all the mendicants healthy or diseased in one place the Lezzaretto and there to feed and maintain them at the public expense and this expedient was resolved upon in spite of the Board of Health which objected that in such an assemblage the evil would only be increased which they wished to obviate the Lezzaretto at Milan for chance this story should fall into the hands of anyone who does not know it either by sight or description is a quadrilateral and almost equilateral enclosure outside the city to the left of the gate called the Porta Orientali and separated from the bastions by the width of the Fosse a road of circumvalation and a smaller moat running round the building itself the two larger sides extend to about the length of 500 paces the other two, perhaps 15 less all on the outside divided into little rooms on the ground floor while running round three sides of the interior is a continuous vaulted portico supported by small light pillars the number of the rooms was once 288 some larger than others but in our days a large aperture made in the middle and a smaller one in one corner of the side that flanks the highway have destroyed I know not how many at the period of our story there were only two entrances one in the center of the side which looked upon the city wall the other facing it in the opposite side in the midst of the clear and open space within rose a small octagonal temple which is still in existence the primary object of the whole edifice begun in the year 1489 with a private legacy and afterwards continued with the public money and that of other testetors and donors was, as the name itself denotes to afford a place of refuge in cases of necessity to such as were ill of the plague which for some time before that epic and for a long while after it usually appeared two, four, six or eight times a century now in this, now in that European country sometimes taking a great part of it sometimes even traversing the whole so to say from one end to the other at the time of which we are speaking the Lezzaretto was merely used as a repository for goods suspected of conveying infection to prepare it on this occasion for its new destination the usual forms were rapidly gone through and having hastily made the necessary cleansings and prescribed experiments all the goods were immediately liberated straw was spread out in every room purchases were made of provisions of whatever kind and in whatever quantities they could be procured and by a public addict all beggars were invited to take shelter there many willingly accepted the offer all those who were lying ill in the streets or squares were carried thither and in a few days there were altogether more than three thousand who had taken refuge there far more were they who remained behind whether were that each one expected to see others go and hope that there would thus be a smaller party left to share the relief which could be obtained in the city or from the natural repugnance to confinement or from the distrust felt by the poor of all that is proposed to them by those who possess wealth or power a distrust always proportioned to the common ignorance of those who feel it and those who inspire it to the number of the poor and the strictness of the regulations or from the actual knowledge of what the offered benefit was in reality or whether it were all these put together and whatever else it might be certainly it is that the greater number paying no attention to the invitation continued to wander about begging through the city being perceived it was considered advisable to pass from invitation to force bailiffs were sent round who drove all the mendicants to the lasaretto who even brought those bound who made any resistance for each one of whom a premium of ten soldy was assigned to them so true it is that even in the scarcest times public money may always be found to be employed foolishly and though as it has been imagined and even expressly intended by the provision a certain number of beggars made their escape from the city to go and live or die elsewhere if it were only in freedom yet the compulsion was such that in a short time the number of refugees what with guests and prisoners amounted to nearly ten thousand we must naturally suppose that the women and children were lodged in separate quarters though the records of the time make no mention of it regulations besides and provisions for the maintenance of good order would certainly not be wanting but the reader may imagine what kind of order could be established and maintained especially in those times and under such circumstances in so vast and diversified and assemblage where the unwilling inmates associated with the willing those to whom mendacity was a mournful necessity and subject of shame with those whose trade and custom it had long been many who had been trained to honest industry in the fields or warehouses with many others who had been brought up in the streets, taverns or some other vile resorts to idleness, roguery, scoffing and violence how they fared all together for lodging and food might be sadly conjectured had we no positive information on the subject but we have it they slept crammed and heaped together by twenty and thirty in each little cell or lying under the porticoes on pallets of putrid and fetid straw or even on the bare ground it was ordered indeed that the straw should be fresh and abundant and frequently changed but in fact it was scarce, bad and never renewed there were orders likewise that the bread should be of good quality for what administration ever decreed that bad commodities should be manufactured and dispensed but how to obtain under the existing circumstances and in such confusion what in ordinary cases could not have been procured even for a less enormous demand it was affirmed as we find in the records of the times that the bread of the lazeretto was adulterated with heavy but un-nutritional materials and it is too likely that this was not a mere unfounded complaint there was also a great deficiency of water that is to say of wholesome spring water the common beverage must have been from the moat that washed the walls of the enclosure shallow, slow, in places even muddy and become too what the use and the vicinity of such and so vast a multitude must have rendered it to all these causes of mortality the more effective as they acted upon diseased or enfeebled bodies was added the most unperpetuous season obstinate rains followed by a drought still more obstinate and with it an anticipated and violent heat to these evils were added a keen sense of them the tedium and frenzy of captivity a longing to return to old habits grief for departed friends anxious remembrances of absent ones disgust and dread inspired by the misery of others and many other feelings of despair or madness either brought with them or first awakened there together with the apprehension and constant spectacle of death which was rendered frequently by so many causes and had become itself a new and powerful cause nor is it to be wondered at that mortality increased and prevailed in this confinement to such a degree as to assume the aspect and with many the name of pestilence whether it were that the union and augmentation of all these causes only served to increase the activity of a merely epidemic influenza or as it seems frequently to happen in less severe and prolonged famines that a real contagion had gained ground there which embodies disposed and prepared for it by the scarcely and bad quality of food by unwholesome air by uncleanliness by exhaustion and by consternation upon its own temperature so to say and its own season the conditions in short necessary for its birth, preservation and multiplication if one and skilled in these matters may be allowed to put forth these sentiments after the hypotheses propounded by certain doctors of medicine and re-propounded at length with many arguments and much caution by one as diligent as he is talented or whether again the contagion first broke out in the lezaretto itself as according to an obscure and inexact account it seems was thought by the physicians of the Board of Health or whether it were actually in existence and hovering above before that time which seems perhaps the most likely if we recollect that the scarcity was already universal and of long date and the mortality frequent and that when once introduced there it spread with fresh and terrible rapidity owing to the accumulation of bodies which were rendered still more disposed to receive it from the increasing efficacy of the other causes whichever of these conjectures be the true one the daily number of deaths in the lezaretto shortly exceeded a hundred while all the rest here was languor suffering fear lamentations and horror in the Board of Provision there was shame stupid faction and insertitude they consulted and listened to the advice of the Board of Health and could find no other course than to undo what had been done with so much preparation so much expense and so much unwillingness they opened the lezaretto and dismissed all who had any strength remaining who made their escape with a kind of furious joy the city once more resounded with its former clamor but more feeble and interrupted it again saw that more diminished and more miserable crowd says ripamonte when remembering how it had been thus diminished the sick were transported to Santa Maria della Stella at that time a hospital for beggars and here the greater part perished in the meanwhile however the blessed fields began to whiten the mendicans from the country set off each one to his own parts for this much desired harvest the good Federico dismissed them with last effort and new invention of charity to every countryman who presented himself at the Archipescapal Palace he gave a guilo and a reaping sickle with the harvest the scarcity at length ceased the mortality however whether epidemic or contagious though decreasing from day to day was protracted even into the season of autumn it was on the point of vanishing when behold a new scourge made its appearance many important events of that kind which are more peculiarly denominated historical facts had taken place during this interval the cardinal Richelieu having, as we have said taken La Rochelle and having patched up an accommodation with the king of England had proposed and carried by his potential voice in the French Council that some effectual sucre should be rendered to the Duke of Nevers and had at the same time persuaded the king himself to conduct the expedition in person while making the necessary preparations the Count de Nessau Imperial Commissary suggested that Mantua to the new Duke that he should give up the states into Ferdinand's hands or that the latter would send an army to occupy them the Duke who in more desperate circumstances had scorned to accept so hard and little to be trusted that condition and encouraged now by the approaching aid from France scorned at so much the more but in terms in which the no was wrapped up and kept at a distance as much as might be and with even more apparent but less costly proposals of submission the commissary took his departure threatening that they would come to decide it by force in the month of March the cardinal Richelieu made a dissent with the king at the head of an army he demanded a passage from the Duke of Savoy entered upon a treaty which however was not concluded and after an encounter in which the French had the advantage again negotiated and concluded an agreement in which the Duke stipulated among other things that Cordova should raise the siege of Casali pledging himself in case of his refusal to join with the French for the invasion of the Duchy of Milan Don Gonzalo reckoning it to a very cheap bargain withdrew his army from Casali which was immediately entered by a body of French to reinforce the garrison it was on this occasion that Ecellini addressed to King Louis his famous sonnet to date all foci a preparar metalie and another in which he exhorted him to repair immediately to the deliverance of Terra Santa but there is a fatal decree that the advice of poets should not be followed and if any doings happen to be found in history in conformity with their suggestions we may safely affirm that they were resolved upon beforehand the cardinal Richelieu determined instead to return to France on affairs which he considered more urgent Gerolamo Soranzo the Venetian envoy urged indeed much stronger reason to divert his resolution but the king and the cardinal paying no more attention to his prose than to the verses of Ecellini returned with the greater part of the army leaving only 6,000 men in Sousa to occupy the pass and maintain the treaty while this army was retiring on one hand that a Ferdinand headed by the Count D. Colalto approached on the other it invaded the country of Grissons and Veltelini and prepared to descend upon the Milanese besides all the terrors to which the announcement of such a migration gave rise the alarming rumor got abroad and was confirmed by expressed tidings that the plague was lurking in the army of which there were always some symptoms at that time in the German troops according to Varchi in speaking of that which a century before had been introduced into Florence by their means Alessandro Tadino one of the conservators of the public health there were 6 besides the president 4 magistrates and 2 physicians was commissioned by the board as he himself relates in his Ragu Aglio already quoted to remonstrate with the governor on the fearful danger which threatened the country if that vast multitude obtained a passage through it to Mantua as the report ran on Gonzalo it appeared he had a great desire to make a figure in history which in truth cannot avoid giving an account of some of his doings but as often happens it knew not or took no pains to record an act of his the most worthy of remembrance and attention the answer he gave to the physician Tadino on this occasion he replied he knew not what to do that the reasons of interest and reputation which had caused the march of that army were of greater weight than the represented danger but that nevertheless he must try to remedy it as well as he could and must then trust in providence to remedy it therefore as well as he could the 2 physicians of the board of health the above mentioned Tadino Senatore Cetella son of the celebrated Lodovicio proposed in this committee to prohibit under severe penalties the purchase of any kind of commodities whatsoever from the soldiers who were about to pass but it was impossible to make the president understand the advantage of such a regulation a kind hearted man says Tadino who would not believe that the probability of the death of so many thousands must follow upon traffic with these people and their goods we quote this extract as one of the singularities of those times for certainly since there have been boards of health no other president of one of them ever happened to use such an argument if argument it be as to Don Gonzalo this reply was one of his last performances here for the ill success of the war promoted and conducted chiefly by himself was the cause of his being removed from his post in the course of the summer on his departure from Milan a circumstance occurred which by some contemporary writer is noticed as the first of that kind that ever happened there to a man of his rank on leaving the palace surrounded by a great company of noblemen he encountered a crowd of the populace some of whom preceded him in the way and others followed behind shouting and abrading him with implications as being the cause of the famine they had suffered by the permission they said he had given to carry corn and rice out of the city at his carriage they hurled worse missiles than words stones, bricks, cabbage stalks rubbish of all sorts the usual ammunition in short of these expeditions repulsed by the guards they drew back but only to run augmented on the way by many fresh parties to prepare themselves at the Porta Ticinese through which gate he would shortly have to pass his carriage when the equipage made its appearance followed by many others they showered down upon them all both with hands and slings a perfect torrent of stones the matter however went no further the Marquis Ambrogio Spinola was dispatched to supply his place whose name had already acquired in the wars of Flanders the military renown it still retains in the meanwhile the German army had received definite orders to march forward to Mantua and in the month of September they entered the Duchy of Milan the military forces in those days were still chiefly composed of volunteers enlisted under commanders by profession sometimes by commission from this or that prince sometimes also on their own account that they might dispose of themselves and their men together these were attracted to this employment much less by the pay than by the hopes of plunder and all the gratifications of military license there is no fixed and universal discipline in an army so composed nor was it possible easily to bring into concordance the independent authority of so many different leaders these two in particular were not very nice on the subject of discipline nor had they been willing can we see how they could have succeeded in establishing and maintaining it for soldiers of this kind would either have revolted against an innovating commander who should have taken it into his head to abolish pillage or at least would have left him by himself to defend his colors besides as the princes who hired these troops sought rather to have hands enough to secure their undertakings than to proportion the number to their means of remuneration which were generally very scanty so the payments were for the most part late on account and by little at a time and the spoils of the countries they were making war upon or overran became as it were a compensation tacitly accorded to them it was a saying of Wallenstein's scarcely less celebrated than his name that it was easier to maintain an army of a hundred thousand men than one of twelve thousand and that of which we are speaking was in great part composed of men who under his command commanded Germany in that war so celebrated among other wars both for itself and for its effects which afterwards took its name from the thirty years of its duration it was then the eleventh year there was besides his own special regiment conducted by one of his lieutenants of the other leaders the greatest part had commanded under him and there were also more than one of those who four years afterwards had to assist in bringing him to that evil end which everybody knows there were twenty eight thousand foot and seven thousand horse and in descending from Vaultolini to reach the territory of Mantua they had to follow more or less closely the course of the adder where it forms two branches of a lake then again as a river to its junction to the pole and afterwards for some distance along the banks of this river on the whole eight days march in the Duchy of Milan a great part of the inhabitants retired to the mountains taking with them their most valuable effects and driving their cattle before them others stayed behind either to tend upon some sick person or to defend their houses from the flames on precious things which they had concealed under ground some because they had nothing to lose and a few villains also to make acquisitions when the first detachment arrived at the village where they were to halt they quickly spread themselves through this and the neighboring ones and plundered them directly all that could be eaten or carried off disappeared not to speak of the destruction of the rest of the fields laid waste of the houses given to the flames the blows the wounds the rapes committed all the expedience all the defenses employed to save property often proved useless sometimes even more injurious to the owners the soldiers far more practiced in the stratagems of this kind of war too rummaged every corner of the dwellings or down walls easily discovered in the gardens the newly disturbed soil penetrated even to the hills to carry off the cattle went into caves under the guidance of some villain as we have said in search of any wealthy inhabitant who might be concealed there his spoiled his person dragged him to his house and by dint of threats and blows compelled him to point out his hidden treasure at length however they took their departure and the distance sound of drums or trumpets gradually died away on the ear this was followed by a few hours of death like calm and then a new hateful clashing of arms a new hateful rumbling announced another squadron these no longer finding anything to plunder applied themselves with the more fury to make destruction and havoc of the rest burning furniture doorposts beams casks wine vats and sometimes even the houses they seized and ill used the inhabitants with double ferocity and so on from worse to worse for twenty days or into this number of detachments the army was divided Cholizio was the first town of the duchy invaded by these fiends afterwards they threw themselves into Belano thence they entered and spread themselves through Valsassana and then poured down into the territory of Lechio end of chapter 28 part 2