spirantia mollius æra, …
Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento.
For themselves, if still subjects, they were no longer slaves.
Napoleon, “nato,” in Panizzi’s pregnant phrase, “per dar l’orma all’età sua”, prepared the way for the love of liberty by reviving the love of glory. Looking around them, the Italians beheld an enlightened code of laws, impartial judges, religious toleration, education fostered by the State, active industry, flourishing finances, above all, a strictly national administration, with every post accessible to desert. The instinctive sagacity of the race taught them to be content with so large a measure of good for the present, and to reserve their aspirations for independence until their beneficent master should bequeath his empire to his son. That day never came. Bonaparte fell, execrated by the many nations which he had pillaged and dismembered, but cherished by the one he had trained to national life, with a regard which is still a force in European politics.
Six millions of Italians had, in Napoleon’s time at least, been permitted to bear the Italian name. The Congress of Vienna resolved them back into Lombards, Piedmontese, and the people of Parma and Modena. Modena was assigned to the Austrian Archduke, descended on the female side from the ancient house of Este, a petty tyrant of a peculiarly exasperating type, timorous, suspicious, and hypocritical. His first act was to abolish the Code Napoleon, and replace it by the code promulgated by authority in 1771. The motive for this retrograde proceeding was apparent. The code Napoleon was lucid and comprehensive; the obscurity and imperfection of the “Codice Estense” left a margin of uncertainty, under cover of which the maxims of the antiquated civil and canon law would always be introduced when required. The judge had thus the power of resorting to either as he pleased, and his arbitrary decision might be the most potent element in the proceedings. This was plainly equivalent to a denial of justice to persons charged with political offences. The remodelled magistracy was filled with subservient functionaries; but the real main-spring of the judicial administration was Besini, the Chief of Police. Every act of the Government betrayed the same tendency, especially the oppressive system of taxation, introduced to replenish the Duke’s private exchequer, and the restrictions imposed upon higher education. Schools and colleges were placed under the control of the Jesuits; and scholarships established for the support of poor students at the universities were suppressed, the Duke declaring openly that people must not be encouraged to aspire beyond their station. Every person of liberality or culture became disaffected, and as all open expression of discontent was prohibited, secret societies began to permeate the entire duchy.
Matters were in this state when the sudden explosion of the Neapolitan revolution turned the apprehensions of the petty Italian Governments into an actual panic. Austrian troops, hastily summoned to repress the Liberal movement, passed through Modena on their march. Some of these were Hungarians, a nation sympathising with Italy. An address was prepared and secretly circulated among them, imploring them not to fight against the Neapolitans. The jealousy of the Modenese Government was roused to the highest pitch. Many arrests were made, chiefly by means of espionage and the violation of private correspondence; and on March 14th, 1821, a special tribunal was constituted for the trial of political offenders. It was the formal inauguration of a reign of terror. “Avrà luogo,” says the decree, “un processo e un giudizio statario—Statario, dal latino statim, se mal non avviso,” is the sarcastic note of the editor.
The etymology might seem borne out by the injunction that the duration of the proceedings was in no case to exceed eight days, and by the sinister regulation: “Si terrà, pronto il carnefice, si potrà secondo le circonstanze, eriggere il patibolo anche preventivamente, e si disporrà per aver pronto un religioso il quale assista coloro che fossero condannati.” The priest and the executioner, however, were not immediately called into requisition; and the Neapolitan and Piedmontese revolutions having been promptly extinguished, the tempest seemed about to pass off, when suddenly, about the beginning of 1822, numerous arrests were made of persons suspected of participation in the meetings of secret societies. It was soon reported that one of those implicated had denounced his friends, and dark stories became current of the tortures and privations by which the chief of the police, Giulio Besini, sought to wring out confession. By a decree of unheard of injustice and indecency, this natural enemy of the accused was appointed their judge, and charged to receive the depositions he had himself extorted. The issue was eagerly awaited, when, on the evening of May 14th, 1822, Besini perished by an unknown hand. Besini was taken home, surgeons sent for, and the blow declared mortal. Quick as lightning the welcome news spread through Modena, and the people heard with joy that there was a man in the town who had been bold enough to rid the land of a miscreant. With his dying breath he denounced a certain Gaetano Ponzoni, who, he said, had cause to be his enemy, “as if,” observes Panizzi, “Ponzoni were the only such person in the duchy.”
Upon the admonition of the attendant magistrate, Solmi, Besini acknowledged that he could not positively identify his assailant. Ponzoni was nevertheless arrested, and Solmi’s humane interference cost him his office. The special tribunal, hitherto dormant, was called into activity for Ponzoni’s trial.
The course of the procedure gave earnest of what was to follow. Parenti, Ponzoni’s advocate, was allowed only three days to prepare his defence, and denied an opportunity of examining the adverse witnesses, a part even of the written depositions was withheld from him, he was charitably admonished not to occupy the time of the court with trivialities, and referred to a secret Ducal decree conferring unlimited powers on the tribunal, which could not be shown to the advocate, because it contained very confidential instructions intended for the court alone. In spite of all these obstacles, Ponzoni’s innocence was irrefragably established; but his judges, afraid to acquit and ashamed to condemn, simply laid the proceedings before the Duke, who left them unnoticed, and when Panizzi wrote, Ponzoni was still in prison, where he remained, though innocent, till the year 1831. The true assassin proved to be a certain Morandi, who, when safe in London, openly avowed having committed the deed.
This prosecution was but a preliminary to the indictment of the unfortunate men who had languished in captivity since the beginning of the year. About the middle of June the commission appointed to try them commenced its session at Fort Rubiera. Its first task was to receive the confessions extorted from the prisoners during their incarceration, and to elude the numerous retractations of the accused. All these avowals proved to have been obtained under Besini’s management by fraud or force. Manzotti had been chained to a wall in such a manner as to oblige him to remain in an erect position until he subscribed to what was required of him; Nizzoli’s signature was affixed during the paroxysms of a fever fit, after he had been chained so as not to be able to sit down for forty days. Conti was entrapped by a forged confession attributed to another prisoner; Alberici was gained by allurements and flatteries; Caronzi was persuaded by the prayers and tears of his wife, whose honour was said to have been the price of a fallacious promise of her husband’s deliverance, he being sentenced to twenty years’ penal servitude, a term reduced by the Duke to fifteen. Peretti, Maranesi, Farioli, and others testified to similar deceits and cruelties ineffectually employed against themselves; some, beguiled by the inducement held out to them, remained silent. The chief prosecutor, Vedriani, a man of honour and integrity, called upon the tribunal to acquaint the prisoners that such promises were illusory and unauthorised. His colleague Fieri opposed him; the question was referred to the Duke, who denied having authorised Besini to hold out any expectations of indulgence. Vedriani insisted that the culprits should be apprised of this declaration; the judges, fearful lest the unfortunate men should escape from the snare into which they had fallen, peremptorily negatived the demand. Vedriani indignantly threw up his brief, and the last hope of justice vanished with him. A more supple instrument was found, and the prosecution proceeded as the Government desired. The prisoners were debarred from choosing their own advocates, and those selected were only allowed to confer with them under restrictions. The defenders nevertheless did their duty, and although they could not, without subverting the entire judicial fabric of Modena, as then understood, have brought the judges to acknowledge the uselessness of extorted confessions (the sole evidence against
