The Three Cities Trilogy: Rome

ROME FROM “THE THREE CITIES” By Émile Zola Translated By Ernest A. Vizetelly PREFACE IN submitting to the English-speaking public this second volume of M. Zola’s trilogy “Lourdes, Rome, Paris,” I have no prefatory remarks to offer on behalf of the author, whose views on Rome, its past, present, and future, will be found fully expounded in the following pages. That a book of this character will, like its forerunner “Lourdes,” provoke considerable controversy is certain, but comment or rejoinder may well be postponed until that controversy has arisen. At present then I only desire to say, that in spite of the great labour which I have bestowed on this translation, I am sensible of its shortcomings, and in a work of such length, such intricacy, and such a wide range of subject, it will not be surprising if some slips are discovered. Any errors which may be pointed out to me, however, shall be rectified in subsequent editions. I have given, I think, the whole essence of M. Zola’s text; but he himself has admitted to me that he has now and again allowed his pen to run away with him, and thus whilst sacrificing nothing of his sense I have at times abbreviated his phraseology so as slightly to condense the book. I may add that there are no chapter headings in the original, and that the circumstances under which the translation was made did not permit me to supply any whilst it was passing through the press; however, as some indication of the contents of the book--which treats of many more things than are usually found in novels--may be a convenience to the reader, I have prepared a table briefly epitomising the chief features of each successive chapter. E. A. V. MERTON, SURREY, ENGLAND, April, 1896.CONTENTS TO PART I. I “NEW ROME”--Abbe Froment in the Eternal City--His First Impressions--His Book and the Rejuvenation of Christianity II “BLACK MOUTH, RED SOUL”--The Boccaneras, their Mansion, Ancestors, History, and Friends III ROMANS OF THE CHURCH--Cardinals Boccanera and Sanguinetti--Abbes Paparelli and Santobono--Don Vigilio--Monsignor Nani CONTENTS TO PART II. IV ROMANS OF NEW ITALY--The Pradas and the Saccos--The Corso and the Pincio V THE BLOOD OF AUGUSTUS--The Palaces of the Caesars--The Capitol--The Forum--The Appian Way--The Campagna--The Catacombs--St. Peter’s. VI VENUS AND HERCULES--The Vatican--The Sixtine Chapel--Michael Angelo and Raffaelle--Botticelli and Bernini--Gods and Goddesses--The Gardens--Leo XIII--The Revolt of Passion CONTENTS TO PART III. VII PRINCE AND PONTIFF--The International Pilgrimage--The Papal Revenue--A Function at St. Peter’s--The Pope-King--The Temporal Power VIII THE POOR AND THE POPE--The Building Mania--The Financial Crash--The Horrors of the Castle Fields--The Roman Workman--May Christ’s Vicar Gamble?--Hopes and Fears of the Papacy IX TITO’s WARNING--Aspects of Rome--The Via Giulia--The Tiber by Day--The Gardens--The Villa Medici---The Squares--The Fountains--Poussin and the Campagna--The Campo Verano--The Trastevere--The “Palaces”--Aristocracy, Middle Class, Democracy--The Tiber by Night CONTENTS TO PART IV. X FROM PILLAR TO POST--The p********a--The Index--Dominicans, Jesuits, Franciscans--The Secular Clergy--Roman Worship--Freemasonry--Cardinal Vicar and Cardinal Secretary--The Inquisition. XI POISON!--Frascati--A Cardinal and his Creature--Albano, Castel Gandolfo, Nemi--Across the Campagna--An Osteria--Destiny on the March XII THE AGONY OF PASSION--A Roman Gala--The Buongiovannis--The Grey World--The Triumph of Benedetta--King Humbert and Queen Margherita--The Fig-tree of Judas XIII DESTINY!--A Happy Morning--The Mid-day Meal--Dario and the Figs--Extreme Unction--Benedetta’s Curse--The Lovers’ Death CONTENTS TO PART V. XIV SUBMISSION--The Vatican by Night--The Papal Anterooms--Some Great Popes--His Holiness’s Bed-room--Pierre’s Reception--Papal Wrath--Pierre’s Appeal--The Pope’s Policy--Dogma and Lourdes--Pierre Reprobates his Book XV A HOUSE OF MOURNING--Lying in State--Mother and Son--Princess and Work-girl--Nani the Jesuit--Rival Cardinals--The Pontiff of Destruction XVI JUDGMENT--Pierre and Orlando--Italian Rome--Wanted, a Democracy--Italy and France--The Rome of the Anarchists--The Agony of Guilt--A Botticelli--The Papacy Condemned--The Coming Schism--The March of Science--The Destruction of Rome--The Victory of Reason--Justice not Charity--Departure--The March of Civilisation--One Fatherland for All Mankind ROME PART I. THE train had been greatly delayed during the night between Pisa and Civita Vecchia, and it was close upon nine o’clock in the morning when, after a fatiguing journey of twenty-five hours’ duration, Abbe Pierre Froment at last reached Rome. He had brought only a valise with him, and, springing hastily out of the railway carriage amidst the scramble of the arrival, he brushed the eager porters aside, intent on carrying his trifling luggage himself, so anxious was he to reach his destination, to be alone, and look around him. And almost immediately, on the Piazza dei Cinquecento, in front of the railway station, he climbed into one of the small open cabs ranged alongside the footwalk, and placed the valise near him after giving the driver this address: “Via Giulia, Palazzo Boccanera.” * Boccanera mansion, Julia Street.It was a Monday, the 3rd of September, a beautifully bright and mild morning, with a clear sky overhead. The cabby, a plump little man with sparkling eyes and white teeth, smiled on realising by Pierre’s accent that he had to deal with a French priest. Then he whipped up his lean horse, and the vehicle started off at the rapid pace customary to the clean and cheerful cabs of Rome. However, on reaching the Piazza delle Terme, after skirting the greenery of a little public garden, the man turned round, still smiling, and pointing to some ruins with his whip, “The baths of Diocletian,” said he in broken French, like an obliging driver who is anxious to court favour with foreigners in order to secure their custom. Then, at a fast trot, the vehicle descended the rapid slope of the Via Nazionale, which dips down from the summit of the Viminalis,* where the railway station is situated. And from that moment the driver scarcely ceased turning round and pointing at the monuments with his whip. In this broad new thoroughfare there were only buildings of recent erection. Still, the wave of the cabman’s whip became more pronounced and his voice rose to a higher key, with a somewhat ironical inflection, when he gave the name of a huge and still chalky pile on his left, a gigantic erection of stone, overladen with sculptured work-pediments and statues. One of the seven hills on which Rome is built. The other six are the Capitoline, Aventine, Quirinal, Esquiline, Coelian, and Palatine. These names will perforce frequently occur in the present narrative.“The National Bank!” he said. Pierre, however, during the week which had followed his resolve to make the journey, had spent wellnigh every day in studying Roman topography in maps and books. Thus he could have directed his steps to any given spot without inquiring his way, and he anticipated most of the driver’s explanations. At the same time he was disconcerted by the sudden slopes, the perpetually recurring hills, on which certain districts rose, house above house, in terrace fashion. On his right-hand clumps of greenery were now climbing a height, and above them stretched a long bare yellow building of barrack or convent-like aspect. “The Quirinal, the King’s palace,” said the driver. Lower down, as the cab turned across a triangular square, Pierre, on raising his eyes, was delighted to perceive a sort of aerial garden high above him--a garden which was upheld by a lofty smooth wall, and whence the elegant and vigorous silhouette of a parasol pine, many centuries old, rose aloft into the limpid heavens. At this sight he realised all the pride and grace of Rome. “The Villa Aldobrandini,” the cabman called. Then, yet lower down, there came a fleeting vision which decisively impassioned Pierre. The street again made a sudden bend, and in one corner, beyond a short dim alley, there was a blazing gap of light. On a lower level appeared a white square, a well of sunshine, filled with a blinding golden dust; and amidst all that morning glory there arose a gigantic marble column, gilt from base to summit on the side which the sun in rising had laved with its beams for wellnigh eighteen hundred years. And Pierre was surprised when the cabman told him the name of the column, for in his mind he had never pictured it soaring aloft in such a dazzling cavity with shadows all around. It was the column of Trajan. The Via Nazionale turned for the last time at the foot of the slope. And then other names fell hastily from the driver’s lips as his horse went on at a fast trot. There was the Palazzo Colonna, with its garden edged by meagre cypresses; the Palazzo Torlonia, almost ripped open by recent “improvements”; the Palazzo di Venezia, bare and fearsome, with its crenelated walls, its stern and tragic appearance, that of some fortress of the middle ages, forgotten there amidst the commonplace life of nowadays. Pierre’s surprise increased at the unexpected aspect which certain buildings and streets presented; and the keenest blow of all was dealt him when the cabman with his whip triumphantly called his attention to the Corso, a long narrow thoroughfare, about as broad as Fleet Street,* white with sunshine on the left, and black with shadows on the right, whilst at the far end the Piazza del Popolo (the Square of the People) showed like a bright star. Was this, then, the heart of the city, the vaunted promenade, the street brimful of life, whither flowed all the blood of Rome? Zola likens the Corso to the Rue St. Honore in Paris, but I have thought that an English comparison would be preferable in the present version.--Trans.However, the cab was already entering the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, which follows the Via Nazionale, these being the two piercings effected right across the olden city from the railway station to the bridge of St. Angelo. On the left-hand the rounded apsis of the Gesu church looked quite golden in the morning brightness. Then, between the church and the heavy Altieri palace which the “improvers” had not dared to demolish, the street became narrower, and one entered into cold, damp shade. But a moment afterwards, before the facade of the Gesu, when the square was reached, the sun again appeared, dazzling, throwing golden sheets of light around; whilst afar off at the end of the Via di Ara Coeli, steeped in shadow, a glimpse could be caught of some sunlit palm-trees. “That’s the Capitol yonder,” said the cabman. The priest hastily leant to the left, but only espied the patch of greenery at the end of the dim corridor-like street. The sudden alternations of warm light and cold shade made him shiver. In front of the Palazzo di Venezia, and in front of the Gesu, it had seemed to him as if all the night of ancient times were falling icily upon his shoulders; but at each fresh square, each broadening of the new thoroughfares, there came a return to light, to the pleasant warmth and gaiety of life. The yellow sunflashes, in falling from the house fronts, sharply outlined the violescent shadows. Strips of sky, very blue and very benign, could be perceived between the roofs. And it seemed to Pierre that the air he breathed had a particular savour, which he could not yet quite define, but it was like that of fruit, and increased the feverishness which had possessed him ever since his arrival. The Corso Vittorio Emanuele is, in spite of its irregularity, a very fine modern thoroughfare; and for a time Pierre might have fancied himself in any great city full of huge houses let out in flats. But when he passed before the Cancelleria,* Bramante’s masterpiece, the typical monument of the Roman Renascence, his astonishment came back to him and his mind returned to the mansions which he had previously espied, those bare, huge, heavy edifices, those vast cubes of stone-work resembling hospitals or prisons. Never would he have imagined that the famous Roman “palaces” were like that, destitute of all grace and fancy and external magnificence. However, they were considered very fine and must be so; he would doubtless end by understanding things, but for that he would require reflection.** Formerly the residence of the Papal Vice-Chancellors.** It is as well to point out at once that a palazzo is not a palace as we understand the term, but rather a mansion.--Trans. All at once the cab turned out of the populous Corso Vittorio Emanuele into a succession of winding alleys, through which it had difficulty in making its way. Quietude and solitude now came back again; the olden city, cold and somniferous, followed the new city with its bright sunshine and its crowds. Pierre remembered the maps which he had consulted, and realised that he was drawing near to the Via Giulia, and thereupon his curiosity, which had been steadily increasing, augmented to such a point that he suffered from it, full of despair at not seeing more and learning more at once. In the feverish state in which he had found himself ever since leaving the station, his astonishment at not finding things such as he had expected, the many shocks that his imagination had received, aggravated his passion beyond endurance, and brought him an acute desire to satisfy himself immediately. Nine o’clock had struck but a few minutes previously, he had the whole morning before him to repair to the Boccanera palace, so why should he not at once drive to the classic spot, the summit whence one perceives the whole of Rome spread out upon her seven hills? And when once this thought had entered into his mind it tortured him until he was at last compelled to yield to it.