During The Interregnum Of Bourbonism Between Murat And Garibaldi The
Mischief Revived - Again In A Political Form.
Brigands drew pensions from
kings and popes, and the system gave rise to the most comical incidents;
the story of the pensioned malefactors living together at Monticello
reads like an extravaganza.
It was the spirit of Offenbach, brooding
over Europe. One of the funniest episodes was a visit paid in 1865 by
the disconsolate Mrs. Moens to the ex-brigand Talarico, who was then
living in grand style on a government pension. Her husband had been
captured by the band of Manzi (another brigand), and expected to be
murdered every day, and the lady succeeded in procuring from the
chivalrous monster - "an extremely handsome man, very tall, with the
smallest and most delicate hands" - an exquisite letter to his colleague,
recommending him to be merciful to the Englishman and to emulate his own
conduct in that respect. The letter had no effect, apparently; but Moens
escaped at last, and wrote his memoirs, while Manzi was caught and
executed in 1868 after a trial occupying nearly a month, during which
the jury had to answer 311 questions.
His villainies were manifold. But they were put in the shade by those of
others of his calling - of Caruso, for example, who was known to have
massacred in one month (September, 1863) two hundred persons with his
own hands. Then, as formerly, the Church favoured the malefactors, and I
am personally acquainted with priests who fought on the side of the
brigands. Francis II endeavoured to retrieve his kingdom by the help of
an army of scoundrels like those of Ruffo, but the troops shot them
down. Brigandage, as a governmental institution, came to an end.
Unquestionably the noblest figure in this reactionary movement was that
of Jose Borjes, a brave man engaged in an unworthy cause. You can read
his tragic journal in the pages of M. Monnier or Maffei. It has been
calculated that during these last years of Bourbonism the brigands
committed seven thousand homicides a year in the kingdom of Naples.
Schools and emigration have now brought sounder ideas among the people,
and the secularization of convents with the abolition of ecclesiastical
right of asylum (Sixtus V had wisely done away with it) has broken up
the prosperous old bond between monks and malefactors. What the
government has done towards establishing decent communications in this
once lawless and pathless country ranks, in its small way, beside the
achievement of the French who, in Algeria, have built nearly ten
thousand miles of road. But it is well to note that even as the
mechanical appliance of steam destroyed the corsairs, the external
plague, so this hoary form of internal disorder could have been
permanently eradicated neither by humanity nor by severity. A scientific
invention, the electric telegraph, is the guarantee of peace against the
rascals.
These brigand chiefs were often loaded with gold. On killing them, the
first thing the French used to do was to strip them. "On le depouilla."
Francatripa, for instance, possessed "a plume of white ostrich feathers,
clasped by a golden band and diamond Madonna" (a gift from Queen
Caroline) - Cerino and Manzi had "bunches of gold chains as thick as an
arm suspended across the breasts of their waistcoats, with gorgeous
brooches at each fastening." Some of their wealth now survives in
certain families who gave them shelter in the towns in winter time, or
when they were hard pressed. These favoreggiatori or manutengoli
(the terms are interconvertible, but the first is the legal one) were
sometimes benevolently inclined. But occasionally they conceived the
happy idea of being paid for their silence and services. The brigand,
then, was hoist with his own petard and forced to disgorge his
ill-gotten summer gains to these blood-suckers, who extorted heavy
blackmail under menaces of disclosure to the police, thriving on their
double infamy to such an extent that they acquired immense riches. One
of the wealthiest men in Italy descends from this class; his two hundred
million (?) francs are invested, mostly, in England; every one knows his
name, but the origin of his fortune is no longer mentioned, since
(thanks to this money) the family has been able to acquire not only
respectability but distinction.
XXVIII
THE GREATER SILA
A great project is afoot. As I understand it, a reservoir is being
created by damming up the valley of the Ampollina; the artificial lake
thus formed will be enlarged by the additional waters of the Arvo, which
are to be led into it by means of a tunnel, about three miles long,
passing underneath Monte Nero. The basin, they tell me, will be some ten
kilometres in length; the work will cost forty million francs, and will
be completed in a couple of years; it will supply the Ionian lowlands
with pure water and with power for electric and other industries.
And more than that. The lake is to revolutionize the Sila; to convert
these wildernesses into a fashionable watering-place. Enthusiasts
already see towns growing upon its shores - there are visions of gorgeous
hotels and flocks of summer visitors in elegant toilettes,
villa-residences, funicular railways up all the mountains, sailing
regattas, and motor-boat services. In the place of the desert there will
arise a "Lucerna di Calabria."
A Calabrian Lucerne. H'm. ...
It remains to be seen whether, by the time the lake is completed, there
will be any water left to flow into it. For the catchment basins are
being so conscientiously cleared of their timber that the two rivers
cannot but suffer a great diminution in volume. By 1896 already, says
Marincola San Fioro, the destruction of woodlands in the Sila had
resulted in a notable lack of moisture. Ever since then the vandalism
has been pursued with a zeal worthy of a better cause. One trembles to
think what these regions will be like in fifty years; a treeless and
waterless tableland - worse than the glaring limestone deserts of the
Apennines in so far as they, at least, are diversified in contour.
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