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Chapter XXVIII.Part II.
Part II.
But these fruits of charity, which we may certainly specify as wonderful,
when we consider that they proceeded from one individual, and from his sole
resources, (for Federigo habitually refused to be made a dispenser of the
liberality of others), these, together with the bounty of other private
persons, if not so copious, at least more numerous, and the subsidies granted
by the Council of the Decurioni to meet this emergency, the dispensation of
which was committed to the Board of Provision, were, after all, in comparison
of the demand, scarce and inadequate. While some few mountaineers and
inhabitants of the valleys, who were ready to die of hunger, had their lives
prolonged by the Cardinal`s assistance, others arrived at the extremest verge
of starvation; the former, having consumed their measured supplies, returned
to the same state; in other parts, not forgotten, but considered as less
straitened by a charity which was compelled to make distinctions, the
sufferings became fatal; in every direction they perished, from every
direction they flocked to the city. Here two thousand, we will say, of
famishing creatures, the strongest and most skilful in surmounting
competition, and making way for themselves, obtained, perhaps, a bowl of soup,
so as not to die that day; but many more thousands remained behind, envying
those, shall we say, more fortunate ones, when among them who remained behind,
were often their wives, children, or parents? And while, in two or three parts
of the city, some of the most destitute and reduced were raised from the
ground, revived, recovered, and provided for, for some time, in a hundred
other quarters, many more sank, languished, or even expired, without
assistance, without alleviation.
Throughout the day a confused humming of lamentable entreaties was to be
heard in the streets; at night, a murmur of groans, broken now and then by
howls, suddenly bursting upon the ear, by loud and long accents of complaint,
or by deep tones of invocation, terminating in wild shrieks.
It is worthy of remark, that in such an extremity of want, in such a
variety of complaints, not one attempt was ever made, not one rumour ever
raised, to bring about an insurrection: at least, we find not the least
mention of such a thing. Yet, among those who lived and died in this way,
there was a great number of men brought up to anything rather than patient
endurance; there were, indeed, in hundreds, those very same individuals who,
on St. Martin`s - day, had made themselves so sensibly felt. Nor must it be
imagined that the example of those four unhappy men, who bore in their own
persons the penalty of all, was what now kept them in awe: what force could,
not the sight, but the remembrance, of punishments have, on the minds of a
dispersed and reunited multitude, who saw themselves condemned, as it were, to
a prolonged punishment, which they were already suffering? But so constituted
are we mortals in general, that we rebel indignantly and violently against
medium evils, and bow in silence under extreme ones; we bear, not with
resignation, but stupefaction, the weight of what at first we had called
insupportable.
The void daily created by mortality in this deplorable multitude, was
every day more than replenished: there was an incessant concourse, first from
the neighbouring towns, then from all the country, then from the cities of the
state, to the very borders, even, of others. And in the meanwhile, old
inhabitants were every day leaving Milan; some to withdraw from the sight of
so much suffering; others, being driven from the field, so to say, by new
competitors for support, in a last desperate attempt to find sustenance
elsewhere, anywhere - anywhere, at least, where the crowds and rivalry in
begging were not so dense and importunate. These oppositely bound travellers
met each other on their different routes, all spectacles of horror, and
disastrous omens of the fate that awaited them at the end of their respective
journeys. They prosecuted, however, the way they had once undertaken, if no
longer with the hope of changing their condition, at least not to return to a
scene which had become odious to them, and to avoid the sight of a place where
they had been reduced to despair. Some, even, whose last vital powers were
destroyed by abstinence, sank down by the way, and were left where they
expired, still more fatal tokens to their brethren in condition, - an object
of horror, perhaps of reproach, to other passengers. `I saw,` writes
Ripamonti, `lying in the road surrounding the wall, the corpse of a woman . .
. Half - eaten grass was hanging out of her mouth, and her contaminated lips
still made almost a convulsive effort . . . She had a bundle at her back, and,
secured by bands to her bosom, hung an infant, which with bitter cries was
calling for the breast . . . Some compassionate persons had come up, who,
raising the miserable little creature from the ground, brought it some
sustenance, thus fulfilling in a measure the first maternal office.`
The contrast of gay clothing and rags, of superfluity and misery, the
ordinary spectacle of ordinary times, had, in these peculiar ones, entirely
ceased. Rags and misery had invaded almost every rank; and what now at all
distinguished them was but an appearance of frugal mediocrity. The nobility
were seen walking in becoming and modest, or even dirty and shabby, clothing;
some, because the common causes of misery had affected their fortunes to this
degree, or even given a finishing hand to fortunes already much dilapidated;
others, either from fear of provoking public desperation by display, or from a
feeling of shame at thus insulting public calamity. Petty tyrants, once hated
and looked upon with awe, and accustomed to wander about with an insolent
train of bravoes at their heels, now walked almost unattended, crestfallen,
and with a look which seemed to offer and entreat peace. Others who, in
prosperity also, had been of more humane disposition and more civil bearing,
appeared nevertheless confused, distracted, and, as it were, overpowered by
the continual view of a calamity, which excluded not only the possibility of
relief, but, we may almost say, the powers of commiseration. They who were
able to afford any assistance, were obliged to make a melancholy choice
between hunger and hunger, between extremity and extremity. And no sooner was
a compassionate hand seen to drop anything into the hand of a wretched beggar,
than a strife immediately rose between the other miserable wretches; those who
retained still a little strength, pressed forward to solicit with more
importunity; the feeble, aged people, and children, extended their emaciated
hands; mothers, from behind, raised and held out their weeping infants,
miserably clad in their tattered swaddling - clothes, and reclining languidly
in their arms.
Thus passed the winter and the spring: for some time the Board of Health
had been remonstrating with the Board of Provision, on the danger of contagion
which threatened the city from so much suffering, accumulated in, and spread
throughout it; and had proposed, that all the vagabond mendicants should be
collected together into the different hospitals. While this plan was being
debated upon and approved; while the means, methods, and places, were being
devised to put it into effect, corpses multiplied in the streets, every day
bringing additional numbers; and in proportion to this, followed all the other
concomitants of loathsomeness, misery, and danger. It was proposed by the
Board of Provision as more practicable and expeditious, to assemble all the
mendicants, healthy or diseased, in one place, the Lazzaretto, and there to
feed and maintain them at the public expense; and this expedient was resolved
upon, in spite of the Board of Health, which objected that, in such an
assemblage, the evil would only be increased which they wished to obviate.
The Lazzaretto at Milan (perchance this story should fall into the hands
of any one who does not know it, either by sight or description), is a
quadrilateral and almost equilateral enclosure, outside the city, to the left
of the gate called the Porta Orientale, and separated from the bastions by the
width of the fosse, a road of circumvallation, and a smaller moat running
round the building itself. The two larger sides extend to about the length of
five hundred paces; the other two, perhaps, fifteen less; all, on the outside,
divided into little rooms on the ground floor; while, running round three
sides of the interior, is a continuous, vaulted portico, supported by small
light pillars. The number of the rooms was once two hundred and eighty -
eight, some larger than others; but in our days, a large aperture made in the
middle, and a smaller one in one corner of the side that flanks the highway,
have destroyed I know not how many.
At the period of our story there were only two entrances, one in the
centre of the side which looked upon the city - wall, the other facing it in
the opposite side. In the midst of the clear and open space within, rose a
small octagonal temple, which is still in existence. The primary object of the
whole edifice, begun in the year 1489, with a private legacy, and afterwards
continued with the public money, and that of other testators and donors, was,
as the name itself denotes, to afford a place of refuge, in cases of
necessity, to such as were ill of the plague; which, for some time before that
epoch, and for a long while after it, usually appeared two, four, six, or
eight times a century, now in this, now in that European country, sometimes
taking a great part of it, sometimes even traversing the whole, so to say,
from one end to the other. At the time of which we are speaking, the
Lazzaretto was merely used as a repository for goods suspected of conveying
infection.
To prepare it on this occasion for its new destination, the usual forms
were rapidly gone through; and having hastily made the necessary cleansings
and prescribed experiments, all the goods were immediately liberated. Straw
was spread out in every room, purchases were made of provisions, of whatever
kind and in whatever quantities they could be procured; and, by a public
edict, all beggars were invited to take shelter there.
Many willingly accepted the offer; all those who were lying ill in the
streets or squares were carried thither; and in a few days there was
altogether more than three thousand who had taken refuge there. But far more
were they who remained behind. Whether it were that each one expected to see
others go, and hoped that there would thus be a smaller party left to share
the relief which could be obtained in the city, or from a natural repugnance
to confinement, or from the distrust felt by the poor of all that is proposed
to them by those who possess wealth or power (a distrust always proportioned
to the common ignorance of those who feel it and those who inspire it - to the
number of the poor, and the strictness of the regulations), or from the actual
knowledge of what the offered benefit was in reality, or whether it were all
these put together, or whatever else it might be, certain it is that the
greater number, paying no attention to the invitation, continued to wander
about begging through the city. This being perceived, it was considered
advisable to pass from invitation to force. Bailiffs were sent around, who
drove all the mendicants to the Lazzaretto, who even brought those bound who
made any resistance; for each one of whom a premium of ten soldi^1 was
assigned to them; so true is it that, even in the scarcest times, public money
may always be found to be employed foolishly. And though, as it had been
imagined, and even expressly intended by the provision, a certain number of
beggars made their escape from the city to go and live or die elsewhere, if it
were only in freedom, yet the compulsion was such, that in a short time the
number of refugees, what with guests and prisoners, amounted to nearly ten
thousand.
[Footnote 1: Tenpence.]
We must naturally suppose that the women and children were lodged in
separate quarters, though the records of the time make no mention of it.
Regulations, besides, and provisions for the maintenance of good order, would
certainly not be wanting; but the reader may imagine what kind of order could
be established and maintained, especially in those times, and under such
circumstances, in so vast and diversified an assemblage, where the unwilling
inmates associated with the willing, - those to whom mendacity was a mournful
necessity, and subject of shame, with those whose trade and custom it had long
been; many who had been trained to honest industry in the fields or
warehouses, with many others who had been brought up in the streets, taverns,
or some other vile resorts, to idleness, roguery, scoffing, and violence.
How they fared all together for lodging and food, might be sadly
conjectured, had we no positive information on the subject; but we have it.
They slept crammed and heaped together, by twenty and thirty in each little
cell, or lying under the porticoes, on pallets of putrid and fetid straw, or
even on the bare ground: it was ordered, indeed, that the straw should be
fresh and abundant, and frequently changed; but, in fact, it was scarce, bad,
and never renewed. There were orders, likewise, that the bread should be of a
good quality; for what administration ever decreed that bad commodities should
be manufactured and dispensed? But how obtain, under the existing
circumstances, and in such confusion, what in ordinary cases could not have
been procured, even for a less enormous demand? It was affirmed, as we find in
the records of the times, that the bread of the Lazzaretto was adulterated
with heavy but unnutritious materials; and it is too likely that this was not
a mere unfounded complaint. There was also a great deficiency of water, that
is to say, of wholesome spring - water: the common beverage must have been
from the moat that washed the walls of the enclosure, shallow, slow, in places
even muddy; and become, too, what the use and the vicinity of such and so vast
a multitude must have rendered it.
To all these causes of mortality, the more effective as they acted upon
diseased or enfeebled bodies, was added the most unpropitious season;
obstinate rains, followed by a drought still more obstinate, and with it, an
anticipated and violent heat. To these evils were added a keen sense of them;
the tedium and frenzy of captivity; a longing to return to old habits; grief
for departed friends; anxious remembrances of absent ones; disgust and dread,
inspired by the misery of others; and many other feelings of despair, or
madness, either brought with them, or first awakened there; together with the
apprehension and constant spectacle of death, which was rendered frequent by
so many causes, and had become itself a new and powerful cause. Nor is it to
be wondered at, that mortality increased and prevailed in this confinement, to
such a degree, as to assume the aspect, and with many the name, of pestilence.
Whether it were that the union and augmentation of all these causes only
served to increase the activity of a merely epidemic influenza, or (as it
seems frequently to happen in less severe and prolonged famines) that a real
contagion had gained ground there, which, in bodies disposed and prepared for
it by the scarcity and bad quality of food, by unwholesome air, by
uncleanliness, by exhaustion, and by consternation, found its own temperature,
so to say, and its own season; - the conditions, in short, necessary for its
birth, preservation, and multiplication; (if one unskilled in these matters
may be allowed to put forth these sentiments, after the hypothesis propounded
by certain doctors of medicine, and re - propounded at length, with many
arguments, and much caution, by one as diligent as he is talented;^2) or
whether, again, the contagion first broke out in the Lazzaretto itself, as,
according to an obscure and inexact account, it seems was thought by the
physicians of the Board of Health; or whether it were actually in existence
and hovering about before that time, (which seems, perhaps, the most likely,
if we recollect that the scarcity was already universal, and of long date, and
the mortality frequent), and that, when once introduced there, it spread with
fresh and terrible rapidity, owing to the accumulation of bodies, which were
rendered still more disposed to receive it, from the increasing efficacy of
the other causes; whichever of these conjectures be the true one, the daily
number of deaths in the Lazzaretto shortly exceeded a hundred.
[Footnote 2: On the Spotted Plague ... and on other contagions in general, by
the learned F. Enrico Acerbi, Ch. iii. Section 1 and 2.]
While all the rest here was languor, suffering, fear, lamentations, and
horror, in the Board of Provision there was shame, stupefaction, and
incertitude. They consulted and listened to the advice of the Board of Health,
and could find no other course than to undo what had been done with so much
preparation, so much expense, and so much unwillingness. They opened the
Lazzaretto, and dismissed all who had any strength remaining, who made their
escape with a kind of furious joy. The city once more resounded with its
former clamour, but more feeble and interrupted; it again saw that more
diminished, and `more miserable` crowd, says Ripamonti, when remembering how
it had been thus diminished. The sick were transported to Santa Maria della
Stella, at that time an hospital for beggars; and here the greater part
perished.
In the mean while, however, the blessed fields began to whiten. The
mendicants from the country set off, each one to his own parts, for this much
- desired harvest. The good Federigo dismissed them with a last effort and new
invention of charity; to every countryman who presented himself at the
archiepiscopal palace, he gave a giulio,^3 and a reaping sickle.
[Footnote 3: A piece of money, in value about sixpence sterling.]
With the harvest, the scarcity at length ceased; the mortality, however,
whether epidemic or contagious, though decreasing from day to day, was
protracted even into the season of autumn. It was on the point of vanishing,
when, behold, a new scourge made its appearance.
Many important events, of that kind which are more peculiarly denominated
historical facts, had taken place during this interval. The Cardinal Richelieu
having, as we have said, taken La Rochelle, and having patched up an
accommodation with the King of England, had proposed and carried by his
potential voice in the French Council, that some effectual succour should be
rendered to the Duke of Nevers, and had, at the same time, persuaded the King
himself to conduct the expedition in person. While making the necessary
preparations, the Count de Nassau, imperial commissary, suggested at Mantua to
the new Duke, that he should give up the states into Ferdinand`s hands, or
that the latter would send an army to occupy them. The Duke, who, in more
desperate circumstances, had scorned to accept so hard and little - to - be -
trusted a condition, and encouraged now by the approaching aid from France,
scorned it so much the more; but in terms in which the no was wrapped up and
kept at a distance, as much as might be, and with even more apparent, but less
costly, proposals of submission.
The commissary took his departure, threatening that they would come to
decide it by force. In the month of March the Cardinal Richelieu made a
descent, with the King, at the head of an army; he demanded a passage from the
Duke of Savoy, entered upon a treaty, which, however, was not concluded; and
after an encounter, in which the French had the advantage, again negotiated
and concluded an agreement, in which the Duke stipulated, among other things,
that Cordova should raise the siege of Casale; pledging himself, in case of
his refusal, to join with the French, for the invasion of the Duchy of Milan.
Don Gonzalo, reckoning it, too, a very cheap bargain, withdrew his army from
Casale, which was immediately entered by a body of French to reinforce the
garrison.
It was on this occasion that Achillini addressed to King Louis his famous
sonnet: -
`Sudate, o, fochi, a preparar metalli;`
and another, in which he exhorted him to repair immediately to the deliverance
of Terra - Santa. But there is a fatal decree, that the advice of poets should
not be followed; and if any doings happen to be found in history, in
conformity with their suggestions, we may safely affirm that they were
resolved upon beforehand. The Cardinal Richelieu determined, instead, to
return to France on affairs which he considered more urgent. Girolamo
Soranzo, the Venetian envoy, urged, indeed, much stronger reasons to divert
his resolution; but the King and the Cardinal, paying no more attention to
his prose than to the verses of Achillini, returned with the greater part
of the army, leaving only six thousand men in Susa, to occupy the pass, and
maintain the treaty.
While this army was retiring on one hand, that of Ferdinand, headed by
the Count di Collalto, approached on the other; it invaded the country of
Grisons and Valtelline, and prepared to descend upon the Milanese. Besides all
the terrors to which the announcement of such a migration gave rise, the
alarming rumour got abroad, and was confirmed by express tidings, that the
plague was lurking in the army, of which there were always some symptoms at
that time in the German troops, according to Varchi, in speaking of that
which, a century before, had been introduced into Florence by their means.
Alesandro Tadino, one of the Conservators of the public health, (there were
six, besides the president; four magistrates and two physicians), was
commissioned by the Board, as he himself relates in his Ragguaglio already
quoted,^4 to remonstrate with the governor on the fearful danger which
threatened the country, if that vast multitude obtained a passage through it
to Mantua, as the report ran. From the whole behaviour of Don Gonzalo, it
appears he had a great desire to make a figure in history, which, in truth,
cannot avoid giving an account of some of his doings; but (as often happens)
it knew not, or took no pains to record, an act of his, the most worthy of
remembrance and attention - the answer he gave to the physician Tadino on this
occasion. He replied, `That he knew not what to do; that the reasons of
interest and reputation which had caused the march of that army, were of
greater weight than the represented danger; but that, nevertheless, he must
try to remedy it as well as he could, and must then trust in Providence.`
[Footnote 4: Account of the Origin and Daily Progress of the great Plague,
communicated by infection, poison, and sorcery, which visited the City of
Milan, &c. - Milan, 1648, p. 16.]
To remedy it, therefore, as well as he could, the two physicians of the
Board of Health (the above - mentioned Tadino, and Senatore Settala, son of
the celebrated Lodovico), proposed in this committee to prohibit, under severe
penalties, the purchase of any kind of commodities whatsoever from the
soldiers who were about to pass; but it was impossible to make the president
understand the advantage of such a regulation; `A kind - hearted man,` says
Tadino,^5 `who would not believe that the probability of the death of so many
thousands must follow upon traffic with these people and their goods.` We
quote this extract, as one of the singularities of those times: for certainly,
since there have been Boards of Health, no other president of one of them ever
happened to use such at argument - if argument it be.
[Footnote 5: Page 17.]
As to Don Gonzalo, this reply was one of his last performances here; for
the ill success of the war, promoted and conducted chiefly by himself, was the
cause of his being removed from his post, in the course of the summer. On his
departure from Milan, a circumstance occurred which, by some contemporary
writer, is noticed as the first of that kind that ever happened there to a man
of his rank. On leaving the palace, called the City Palace, surrounded by a
great company of noblemen, he encountered a crowd of the populace, some of
whom preceded him in the way, and others followed behind, shouting, and
upbraiding him with imprecations, as being the cause of the famine they had
suffered, by the permission, they said, he had given to carry corn and rice
out of the city. At his carriage, which was following the party, they hurled
worse missiles than words: stones, bricks, cabbage - stalks, rubbish of all
sorts - the usual ammunition, in short, of these expeditions. Repulsed by the
guards, they drew back; but only to run, augmented on the way by many fresh
parties, to prepare themselves at the Porta Ticinese, through which gate he
would shortly have to pass in his carriage. When the equipage made its
appearance, followed by many others, they showered down upon them all, both
with hands and slings, a perfect torrent of stones. The matter, however, went
no further.
The Marquis Ambrogio Spinola was despatched to supply his place, whose
name had already acquired, in the wars of Flanders, the military renown it
still retains.
In the mean while, the German army had received definite orders to march
forward to Mantua, and, in the month of September, they entered the Duchy of
Milan.
The military forces in those days were still chiefly composed of
volunteers, enlisted under commanders by profession, sometimes by commission
from this or that prince; sometimes, also, on their own account, that they
might dispose of themselves and their men together. These were attracted to
this employment, much less by the pay, than by the hopes of plunder, and all
the gratifications of military license. There is no fixed an universal
discipline in an army so composed; nor was it possible easily to bring into
concordance the independent authority of so many different leaders. These too,
in particular, were not very nice on the subject of discipline, nor, had they
been willing, can we see how they could have succeeded in establishing and
maintaining it; for soldiers of this kind would either have revolted against
an innovating commander, who should have taken it into his head to abolish
pillage, or, at least, would have left him by himself to defend his colours.
Besides, as the princes who hired these troops sought rather to have hands
enough to secure their undertakings, than to proportion the number to their
means of remuneration, which were generally very scanty, so the payments were
for the most part late, on account, and by little at a time; and the spoils of
the countries they were making war upon, or over - ran, became, as it were, a
compensation tacitly accorded to them. It was a saying of Wallenstein`s,
scarcely less celebrated than his name, that it was easier to maintain an army
of a hundred thousand men, than one of twelve thousand. And that of which we
are speaking, was in great part, composed of men who, under his command, had
desolated Germany in that war, so celebrated among other wars both for itself
and for its effects, which afterwards took its name from the thirty years of
its duration; it was then the eleventh year. There was, besides, his own
special regiment, conducted by one of his lieutenants; of the other leaders,
the greatest part had commanded under him; and there were, also, more than one
of those who, four years afterwards, had to assist in bringing him to that
evil end which everybody knows.
There were twenty - eight thousand foot, and seven thousand horse; and in
descending from Valtelline to reach the territory of Mantua, they had to
follow, more or less closely, the course of the Adda where it forms two
branches of a lake, then again as a river to its junction with the Poe and
afterwards for some distance along the banks of this river; on the whole eight
days` march in the Duchy of Milan.
A great part of the inhabitants retired to the mountains, taking with
them their most valuable effects, and driving their cattle before them; others
stayed behind, either to tend upon some sick person, or to defend their houses
from the flames, or to keep an eye upon precious things which they had
concealed under - ground; some because they had nothing to lose; and a few
villains, also, to make acquisitions. When the first detachment arrived at the
village where they were to halt, they quickly spread themselves through this
and the neighbouring ones, and plundered them directly; all that could be
eaten or carried off, disappeared: not to speak of the destruction of the
rest, of the fields laid waste, of the houses given to the flames, the blows,
the wounds, the rapes, committed.
All the expedients, all the defences employed to save property, often
proved useless, sometimes even more injurious to the owners. The soldiers, far
more practised in the stratagems of this kind of war, too, rummaged every
corner of the dwellings; tore down walls; easily discovered in the gardens the
newly disturbed soil; penetrated even to the hills, to carry off the cattle;
went into caves, under the guidance of some villain, as we have said, in
search of any wealthy inhabitant who might be concealed there; despoiled his
person, dragged him to his house, and, by dint of threats and blows, compelled
him to point out his hidden treasure.
At length, however, they took their departure, and the distant sounds of
drums or trumpets gradually died away on the ear: this was followed by a few
hours of death - like calm: and then a new hateful clashing of arms, a new
hateful rumbling, announced another squadron. These, no longer finding
anything to plunder, applied themselves with the more fury to make destruction
and havoc of the rest, burning furniture, door - posts, beams, casks, wine -
vats, and sometimes even the houses; they seized and ill - used the
inhabitants with double ferocity; - and so on, from worse to worse, for twenty
days; for into this number of detachments the army was divided.
Colico was the first town of the Duchy invaded by these fiends;
afterwards, they threw themselves into Belano; thence they entered and spread
themselves through Valsassina, and then poured down into the territory of
Lecco.
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