I Have An Impression That One Sees About The Proportion Of Italian
Soldiers In Rome That One Sees Of American Soldiers In Washington, Or,
At Least, Not Many More.
The barracks are apparently outside the walls;
there you meet cavalry going and coming, and detachments of
_bersaglieri;_ or riflemen, pushing on at their quick trot, or plainer
infantry trudging wearily.
Certainly, in a capital where the Church
holds itself prisoner, there is no show of force on the part of its
captors; and this is pleasant to the friend of man and the lover of
Italy for other reasons. In the absence of the military you can imagine
that not only does the state not wish to boast its political supremacy
in the ancient capital of the Church, but it does not desire to show the
potentiality of holding its own against the republic which is instinct
there. The monarchy is the consensus of all the differing wills in
Italy, which naturally would not for the most part have chosen a
monarchy. But never was a monarchy so mild-mannered or seated so firmly,
for the present at least, in the affection and reason of its people.
This is not the place (as writers say who have not prepared themselves
with the requisite ideas at a given point) to speak of the situation in
Rome; and I meant only to note that there are more ecclesiastics than
conscripts to be seen there. Of all the varying costumes of the varying
schools, none is so pleasing, so vivid, as that of the German students
as they rush swiftly by in their flying robes of scarlet. The red
matches the ruddy health in their cheeks, and there is a sort of
gladness in their fling that wins the liking as well as the looking; so
that almost one would not mind being a German student of theology one's
self. There are other-costumes running in color from violet, and blue
with orange sashes, to unrelieved black and black trimmed with red; but
I cannot remember which nationality wears which.
I am not sure but one sees as many priests in Rome now as in the times
when they ruled it; and I am no such Protestant that I will pretend I do
not like a monsignore when I meet him, either in the street or at
afternoon tea, as one sometimes may. I have no grudge against priests of
any rank; but I did not seek to see them at the functions, as I used in
the old days to do. Shall I say that I now rather tolerated than
welcomed myself there through the hospitality which so freely opens the
churches of the Church to all comers of whatever creed? What right had
I, a heretic and recusant, to come staring and standing round where the
faithful were kneeling and praying? If we could conceive of our
fast-locked conventicles being thrown as freely open, could we conceive
of Catholics wandering up and down their naves and aisles while the
hymning or preaching went on?
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