Part 4

The philosophers Montesquieu and Gibbon, the economist Sismondi, the doctrinaire Guizot, the republican Michelet, the eclectic Schlosser, high tory Alison, moderate Merivale, democrat Bancroft, quasi conservative, quasi liberal Charles Kingsley, wide apart as the poles on all else, agree to name as a cause of Roman ruin the system of forced labor.

But after the Roman downfall the straggle of Italy with her upper caste seems singularly fortunate. At an early day her cities by commerce became rich and strong. Then in the natural course of things--first, free ideas, next, free institutions, next, war upon the nobles to make them respect these ideas and institutions.

The war of municipalities against nobles was successful. Elsewhere in Europe cities sheltered themselves behind lords; in Italy lords sheltered themselves in cities. Elsewhere the lord dwelt in the castle above the city; in Italy the lord was forced to dwell in his palace within the city.

The victory of freedom seemed complete. The Italian republics were triumphant; the nobility were, to all appearance, subdued.

But those republics made a fearful mistake. They had a great chance to destroy caste and lost it. They allowed the old caste spirit to remain, and that evil leaven soon renewed its work. The republics showed generalship in war, but in peace they were outwitted.

First, the nobles insisted on pretended rights within the city, and stirred perpetual civil war to make these rights good.

Beaten at this they had yet a worse influence. Those great free cities would not indeed allow the nobles to indulge in private wars, but gradually the cities caught the infection from the nobles. The cities caught their aristocratic spirit of jealousy,--took nobles as leaders,--ran into their modes of plotting and fighting, and what I have called the Vitriolic period set in.

Undoubtedly some of this propensity came from other causes, but the main cause was this domineering aristocracy in its midst, giving tone to its ideas. Free cities in other parts of Europe disliked each other,--a few fought each other,--but none with a tithe of the insane hate and rage shown by the city republics of Italy.

Hence arose that political product sure to rise in every nation where an aristocracy shape policy, the Spirit of Disunion. Its curse has been upon Italy for five hundred years. Dante felt it when he sketched the torments of Riniero of Corneto and Riniero Pazzo, and the woes brought on Florence by the feuds of the Neri and Bianchi. Sismondi felt it when his thoughts of Italian disunion wrung from his liberty-loving heart a longing for Despotism. All Italy felt it when Genoa, in these last years, solemnly restored to Pisa the trophies gained in those old civil wars, and hung them up in the Campo Santo behind the bust of Cavour.

No other adequate reason for the chronic spirit of disunion in Italy than the oppressive aristocratic spirit can be given. Italy was blest with every influence for unity;--a most favorable position and conformation, boundaries sharply defined on three sides by seas and on the remaining side by lofty mountains, a great devotion to trade, a single great political tradition, a single great religious tradition, both drawing the nation toward one great central city.

Had Italy been left to herself without the disturbing influence of this chivalric, uneasy, plotting, fighting caste, who can doubt that petty rivalries would have been extinguished and all elements fused into a great, strong Nationality?

Turn from this history and construct such a society with your own reason. You shall find it all very simple. Put into energetic free cities or states a body of men accustomed to lord it over an inferior caste, whose main occupation is to brood over wrongs and to hatch revenges, and you ensure disunion between that state and sister states speedily. To such men every movement of a sister state is cause for suspicion, every betterment cause for quarrel.

But you ensure more than that. Under such circumstances disunion is always followed by disintegration. They are two inevitable stages of one disease. In the first stage the idea of country is lost; in the second, the idea of government is lost; disintegration is closely followed by Anarchy, and Despotism has generally been the only remedy.

To Italy in this strait despotism was the remedy. Disunion between all Italian Republics was followed by disintegration between factions in each Italian Republic. A multitude of city tyrants rose to remedy disintegration,--a single tyrant rose above all to remedy disunion.

These were welcomed because they at least mitigated anarchy. If a Visconti or a Sforza was bad at Milan, he was better than a multitude of tyrants. If the Scala were severe at Verona, they were less severe than the crowd of competitors whom they put down. If Rienzi was harsh at Rome, he was milder than the struggles of the Colonna and Orsini,--if the Duke of Athens was at once contemptible and terrible at Athens, he was neither so contemptible nor so terrible as the feuds of the Cerchi and Donati.

And when, at last, Charles the Fifth crushed all these seething polities into a compact despotism, that was better than disunion, disintegration and anarchy.

This compression of anarchic elements ended the Vitriolic period of Italian Aristocracy, but it brought on the Narcotic period. It was the most fearful reign of cruelty, debauchery and treachery between the orgies of Vitellius and De Sade.

Yet those debaucheries and murders among the Borgias and later Medici, and so many other leading families, were but types of what this second phase of an oppressive aristocracy must be.

For the domineering caste-spirit immediately on its repression breaks out in cruelty. This is historical, and a moment's thought will show you that it is logical. The development of the chivalric noble into the cruel schemer is very easily traced.

Given such a lordling forced to keep the peace, and you have a character which, if it resigns itself, sinks into debauchery--which, if it resists, flies into plotting. Now both the debauchee and the plotter regard bodies and souls of inferiors as mere counters in their games,--hence they must be cruel.

I turn now to another nation where the serf-mastering spirit wrought out its fearful work in yet a different manner, and on a more gigantic scale,--in a manner so brilliant that it has dazzled the world for centuries, and blazoned its faults as virtues;--on a scale so great that it has sunk art, science, literature, education, commerce and manufactures,--brought misery upon its lower caste,--brought death upon its upper caste,--and has utterly removed its nation from modern geography, and its name from modern history. I point you to POLAND.

Look at Polish history as painted by its admirers,--it is noble and beautiful. You see political scenes, military scenes, and individual lives which at once win you.

Go back three centuries, stand on those old towers of Warsaw,--look forth over the Plains of Volo. The nation is gathered there. Its King it elects. The King thus elected is limited in power so that his main function is to do justice. The whole voting body are equals. Each, too, is free. No King, no Noble, is allowed to trench upon his freedom. So free is each that no will of the majority is binding upon him, except by his own consent. Here is equality indeed! Equality pushed so far that each man is not only the equal of every other--but of all others together;--the equal of the combined nation.

These men are brave, hardy, and, as you have seen, free, equal, and allowed more rights than the citizens of any republic before or since.

But leave now this magnificent body--stretching over those vast plains beyond eye-reach. Tear yourselves away from the brave show--the flash of jeweled sabres and crosiers--the glitter of gilded trappings--the curvetings of noble horses between tents of silk and banners of gold-thread. Go out into the country from which these splendid freemen come.

Here is indeed a revelation! Here is a body of men whom history has forgotten. Strangely indeed--for it is a body far larger than that assembled upon the plains of Volo. There were, perhaps, a hundred thousand; here are millions. These millions are Christians, but they are wretchedly clad and bent with labor. They are indeed stupid,--unkempt,--degraded,--often knavish,--but they love their country,--toil for her,--suffer for her.

To them, in times of national struggles, all the weariness,--to them, in times of national triumphs, none of the honor.

These are the serfs of those brilliant beings prancing and caracoling and flashing on yonder plain of Volo--to the applauding universe.