Beati Paoli

by Luigi Natoli

part four, chapter 1

On the morning of July 1, 1718 the citizen was deeply moved and agitated by a great news, of which the first warnings had been received during the night. The "lighthouses" or fires of the watchtowers, in fact, had sent the warning that a great fleet sailed the seas of Sicily, and a messenger of the prince of Carini had shortly after brought to the Viceroy Count Mattei a letter, with which, in a hurry, the same prince communicated that that fleet crossed the Gulf of Castellamare.

In the morning the fleet had appeared in sight of the city; it was so numerous that it filled the horizon. No doubt it was the Spanish army, which was known to be concentrated in Sardinia and was strong of four hundred and thirty-two woods between battleships and landing ships, with twenty-two thousand men and fifty thousand horses, artillery, food and all that was needed to an invasion, under the orders of the Marquis de Lede, experienced captain.

However, it was not known whether the army came to Sicily as a friend or not; the majority of the citizens would have wished it, to get rid of the Savoy domination which, while aiming to improve the conditions of the kingdom and restore the full and entire autonomy and precedence of the secular authority over the ecclesiastical, in the matter of temporality, as in the good times of the ancient monarchy, had perhaps not been able to adapt the means; he had believed that he could change suddenly and with violence prejudices, prerogatives, material advantages inveterated and had, moreover, stripped the realms of offices and dignity to invest the Piedmontese.

Both for the long and bitter discord with Rome, which disturbed the consciences, and for the rigid fiscalism of the agents of the government, Sicily crossed such a danger of narrowness as to provoke a live discontent; so much so that someone named Victorius Amedeus made the anagram Cor eius est avidum; and in a popular song the name of Casa Savoia served to represent the devastation and desolation:

Pari c'ci passed Casa Savoia.

The work of the clergy that, with few exceptions, during the struggle between the State and the Church had openly sided for the pope, against the secular rights of the monarchy, at other times strongly defended by the clergy itself, had not been foreign to fomenting the bad mood. But perhaps it was not the Sicilian clergy so much ligio to the pope for hierarchical and spiritual sentiment, as to oppose the Sabaudo king, whose government did not seem willing to widen towards the convents and churches in prerogatives, privileges, exemptions, legacies etc. as the previous Spanish government.

All these things, and the disruptions that the change of monarchy inevitably had to bring, had made the Spanish government desirable, whose work in Sicily had been explained according to a very simple formula: make money, enrich clergy and nobility, hang as many people as possible, and care for nothing. For then those who commanded were free to do what they wanted, and the people had feasts, shows, acts of faith, processions, carnivalistic dancing, and the baddoers could haunt the countryside and despotize in the cities, how could they not regret Spanish rule?

For this reason the announcement and then the sight of the army, and the knowledge of the Spanish flag, spreading through the city had moved her and had attracted to the Navy a crowd of curious, among which those who nourished some fear, not already for the foreign invasion, but for dangers of a conflict, of which the city would be the camp. However, it was no surprise to see the Viceroy's concern, and to see that the Piedmontese soldiers were mixed among the crowds to see the Spanish ships parade.

To those gentlemen who had gone, as usual, to revere his Excellency, the Viceroy had said reassuring words.

"Don't be afraid, gentlemen; the king our lord, whom God looks at, had already warned me with his courier of the passage of this fleet, which goes to Naples; on the contrary, I have orders to offer refreshments and how much else it may take. They're quiet."

But more news came to the Avemariah, which apprehended the city. Prince Lanza had returned quickly from his vacation in the village of Aspra, announcing that from the ships they landed militias in full order of war and that the abbot his brother, approached a superior officer and asked him what it meant, had received an answer that his majesty Philip V took back the kingdom, not having King Vittorio kept the pacts. Almost at the same time a campier of the Prince of Catholics brought to his lord the same news, and the prince was hastening to inform the priest count of St. Mark, who, without delay, ran to the Royal Palace from the Viceroy.

The poor Count Mattei fell from the clouds. How? Landing? Invasion? So by surprise, by betrayal, without declaration of war, against good use? All we had to do was get ready, quickly, to bring the city.

"I don't have enough force to repel the attack; the city must be armed."

"But, Your Excellency, do not improvise a defense against a strong army of artillery!"

"And then there is nothing left but a party. Your most illustrious lordship, I will command the defense of the kingdom."

"It is well; but I desire that your Excellency write it to me."

The same evening the priest rode through the city giving orders to the consuls of the workers, to go in full order to occupy the bulwarks and the city was filled with the sound of the drums that beat the general, and spread the trepidation and dismay of the great events.

The next morning, the bastions were occupied and garnished by the workers; the artillery ready, but more for a necessity of staging, than to oppose a real resistance. A reconnaissance had been ordered by the Viceroy in the night, but the troops had not performed it until the morning, and returning to escape messy said that the defense would be useless, because the Spaniards were numerous. The weirdest and most diverse rumors ran; the praisers of the past, all those who had already enjoyed benefits from the Spanish government, those who until then had dared to reveal their hostile feelings to the Sabaud government, now, encouraged by hope, dissolved the singing language; Someone compared the Marquis de Lede to Gideon.

"As soon as the trumpets ring, the walls of Jericho will fall!"

"And Don Gaspare Narbonne? Where is he, where is Don Gaspare Narbonne?"

"That one? But he's gone to the camp. He knew all about it; smart old man!"

Don Gaspare Narbona was the pro curator of King Philip V for the county of Modica; because, just the pacts of the Treaty of Utrecht, Filippo V, in surrendering Sicily to Vittorio Amedeo, he considered for himself that ancient and vast county, and kept there a garrison and a prosecutor. The first year for a fiscal question a great quarrel had arisen; the Narbonne claimed that the county was exempt from any obligation to the kingdom of Sicily; the tax attorney Don Ignazio Perlongo, instead, claimed that being the feudal county of the kingdom, King Philip, Count of Modica, was vassal of the crown of Sicily and owed it all the obligations of the vassallage. It was therefore wanted to send a Savoy garrison, but the Modicanos turned; so that the viceroy's wrath against the Narbonne.

It was therefore explained that the king of Spain's attorney now took up his head and took revenge.

The whole day went through a lot of excitement. The Viceroy summoned the nobility in the palace to justify himself, showing the letter of the king, and proposing the defense, which everyone rejected, because it was too late. Someone more daring murmured that it looked like a comedy.

"It is all a fiction, a comedy, to catch us suddenly; do you really believe that King Vittorio and King Philip do not agree? This says: I pretend to come as a friend and disembark my troops; you pretend to know nothing and to be deceived: Four cannons, and then we'll fix it!... And we're the weirdos!... Defense? What defense?" The Viceroy's ban had no better effect, with which that very day "despite the imminent need for the defense of the kingdom" was told "that all the barons and feudal men subject to military service should be provided with men, weapons and horses to the tenor of their obligation, between the twelve precise days v and ordered them to concentrate in Piazza Armerina armed "with two guns, sword and carrubin or broom" threatening "the indignation of S. M." to the disobedient. No one was given by understood, because, even before the ban was sent, from the Spanish camp had been sent couriers everywhere to announce that from that moment on they obeyed only King Philip; and also because no one wanted to fight the Spaniards, since the leaders had concerted in the Senate to settle the surrender of the capital and had formulated the proposal of capitulation to be submitted to the Marquis de Lede. The agitation of the city for this was losing that bit of dismay, born of uncertainty and curiosity, more than anything else, aroused that unusual noise, that chatter, that ask and give news, because the people, that of the dynastic changes drew no advantage, did not care now that the double spectacle of the exit of the Savoyard troops and the Viceroy and the entrance of the Spanish troops. The Navy was full of people going to see if the army entered the gulf and approached the city: The people with their wives and children, the ladies in the carriage, the chariot, the lords on horseback; the humble garments and the garments of silk, the vests of the people and the liveries of the lackeys and the flyers; the friars' robes and the short clothes of the abbots; the carriages and the magnificent carriages pulled by the mighty Frisian horses were woven, confused and separated again.

Three young men, the oldest of whom could be twenty - two years old, were bizarrely caracollare their horses who, now curling up, now clinging to the crowd of pedestrians, messed up the women, who with high stride were wandering and fleeing. The scene seemed to amuse the three knights, who instead of walking in the wide road, on the pretext of watching the vessels mooring and making evolutions towards Cape Saffron, hunted the horses among the people.

"Well," asked one of them, groping the neck of his beautiful sauro, "Well, Emanuele, when will we eat these confetti?"

The youngest, Emanuele Albamonte, Duke of Motta, replied with an air of discontent:

"On my own, later that you can..."

"It's not your grandfather's opinion."

"Not so much mine as her grandfather."

"They say she's beautiful," said the third.

Emanuele made a move with his shoulders.

"I saw her a few times, two or three, I think, when her father died... Yeah, maybe she'll be beautiful and she'll like it; I don't like point..."

"He's got a good dowry..."

"I know. And just a Branciforti."

"Now we'll have to see how things are going to look like war..."

"Here you see," said Emanuele, "the grandfather threw away the Viceroy's ban on military service, but, if I had been of age, on my own I would have enlisted my feudal militias. Because this, the war, I would have liked to have done it. They tell me that mine Father was so..."

"Would you have served King Vittorio?"

"He is like another; it is the war in itself that I like!..."

"You know. You're the best jockey in the lineup..."

"But that is war to be mocked. I'd like to be more serious. Who knows? If everything you say will be true, chances wouldn't be lacking!... Ah, to be 21 years old, to be free and master of himself, to be able to administer his own income without being forced to ask a Tarì to the guardian... It takes a lot longer: six months and fourteen days!"

"Bacchus! Keep a rational master to count you day by day?"

"I'll do it myself: Every day that passes I take one from the account, but I think I still have too many; one hundred ninety-seven days!..."

So, chatting, they pushed the horses here and there, laughing at the fear of the crowd and muttering, with the insolence of rich young people and powerful families, those who mutter.

Emanuele had made himself tall and mighty and seemed older than his age; his grandfather had made him give a suitable education to his state: riding, fencing, dancing; literary culture was not necessary, both because Don Girolamo had provided it, and because Emanuele did not feel a great preference for books... The only knowledge that Emanuele desired was knowledge of his heritage.

The acts of acknowledgment and his right to inheritance were enforced, immediately after Don Raimondo died and the protection and administration of the vast heritage had been entrusted to the prince of Geraci, as well as grandfather, for his authority. However, the dotal possessions of the first wife, the mother of Violante, and Gabriella, were recognized; and to avoid quarrels, both with the Branciforti and with the Grua, he had come to friendly agreements.

For an excess of gallantry the prince had declared that Gabriella could, if she liked, continue to live in the palace of Motta, but she refused to live as a guest the house where she had been lady and mistress and retired temporarily to the home of her brother, but shortly thereafter, bought a building behind the convent of St. Dominic, she went to hide her widowhood and her torments. Her dowry and an annual allowance from her family were enough to make her live with that prosperity that required her rank.

Violante, under the protection of the prince of Branciforti, returned to the monastery. The two nobles had found it very natural that the two cousins, orphans both, whose wealth had until then been accumulated in the hands of Don Raimondo, were married and thus kept intact.

In the discussion and conclusion of the marriage the two young people did not enter either point or little; and it was not necessary, because, although this should concern them more than any other, the conveniences and good customs did not allow them to take care of it, or that their inclinations were consulted before taking the big step. Love marriages were not frequent and habitual in the nobility, they ended up in the interests and convenience of relatives and, according to good custom, young people did not see each other, nor did they have any relationship with each other. The future bride ordinarily stayed in a monastery where she completed her education, and from where she would leave a few days before the wedding, to abruptly pass from the cloistered life to the storms of the world.

By mutual agreement, the two lords had established that the wedding would take place when Emanuele reached his age and that Violante would wait that day in the monastery. The dowry of Violante was constituted not only by the maternal inheritance, but also by the personal heritage of Don Raimondo, the fruit of his work, of his economy, of some profitable speculation, such as usury, which he had exercised discreetly with loans and loans to lords: and it was a remarkable, truly princely dowry that would make Emanuele one of the richest lords in the city.

At first, Emanuele had not opposed these projects: Although the cousin had not exercised any charm over him or even aroused sympathy, even the idea of a marriage with a lady of nobility equal to her and rich seemed to him the most natural thing in the world. But little by little the taste of the new life, the gallant feats to which he had given himself much in time with the greed of a small satire, and more a feeling of rebellion, of arrogance, of authoritarianism, had made him appear that marriage, concerted without his will and imposed on him, as a heavy and unpathetic thing, to which he felt decidedly opposed.

He felt no sympathy for that cousin whose cold and sustained appearance had struck him. Between one and the other there was something insurmountable, a kind of high barrier and a deep and so wide abyss that made them feel far away and strangers.

In the spring of that year he wanted to visit his lands. The elect and the jurors of the greats lands, the secretaries of the villages, the captains, had gone to meet him, receiving him under triumphal arches of verzura, at the shot of the rifles and the mortarets; in the parishes, the parish priests and the curates had given him the blessing with the Most Holy, after a speech with which they wished, indeed they were sure, that he would have the same zeal for the religion of his majors. In the grand hall of the castle he had received the tributes of the judiciary of the feudal lands and the hand kisser never ended; the vassals improvised games of bulls and fireworks of artifice and some literature of the place improvised praised Latin verses, in which Emanuele was compared to Hercules or other ancient hero, or, playing on the etymology of the name, he was undoubtedly called the mandate from God, like another Messiah.

All these feasts - which gave him the measure of his power and made known to him how there were people, a crowd, who depended on him, who had the duty to work for him, who had to worship him as a number, that he could hang by the magistrates elected by him - had drunk him. Why, if he was so powerful and masterful to do and undo, if he had a will to impose, why should he obey his grandfather and accept that unwanted, unwanted marriage?

In Pellegra he had no longer thought, except as a nice and pleasant adventure, that he had left no trace of passion in his heart. Only by comparing it to Violante so cold and reserved, he found it delicious and desirable.

The poor girl had in vain waited for her prince, although the sudden fortune that she had transformed in her eyes, at any moment, the poor nephew of the rational of the Mount in the heir of the Duke of Motta, had given her a painful grip on her heart, and had cut off the hope of the future.

From the balcony he had seen the young man leave in the carriage of his grandfather and had hoped for a look, a greeting, a nod: but in vain. He left without remembering that there was a suffering heart up there, and she had felt that her heart was leaving forever in that carriage.

However, he waited for him. Were you hoping? He didn't actually hope, but he didn't know how to resign and he didn't want to believe that Emanuele had completely forgotten her. Instead, he no longer showed up.

Sometimes, going out with her father already half an idiot and dragging on the wavering feet, she saw him in a carriage or on horseback with the air or with other young men; her heart beat, tumultuous, but in vain. He passed away without even looking at her.

After two years Pellegra left for Rome, led by his mother's relatives, because Don Vincenzo had become completely stupid, and agreed to entrust him to the care of a distant relative, with a monthly fee. In Rome, Pellegra had begun to study, engraving herself with poetry, and had begun to give vent to her soul, composing sonnets in which she pretended to be Laura and to respond to Petrarch: Sonnets who had liked a prelate his relative, and who later had to deserve the girl's admission to Arcadia, the hand of a Roman lawyer and, completed, were to be published and praised as a miracle of poetry.

After his departure, Emanuele thought of her sometimes, only as a term of comparison with Violante, but nothing else. Other aspirations now had his heart, or rather his vanity, and too many beautiful ladies he saw in the new society into which he had entered. That aunt, for example, so young, so beautiful, alone... Oh, why would he want to leave Motta's building?

They almost never saw each other, except on solemn occasions, as at the end of the year, at Christmas, at Easter and in general on all the occasions on which it was obliged to go and kiss the hands of the older relatives or the superiors to wish them good holidays. They were short visits that did not go beyond the limits of the narrowest good creation, by the will of woman Gabriella, who had locked herself in a reserve and in a truly singular loneliness, and who perhaps found the tall and mighty young man, whose face had, in a certain way, something that remembered that of Blasco, uncomfortable and empty. There was the family air, the imprint of the lineage; but what a difference between him and Blasco! She could not help but recognize that the bastard was worth much more than the rightful one, and that in comparison this lost what he earned. Perhaps this confrontation prevented her from using Emanuele's cordial and friendly welcomes, which would entice her to intimacy and confidence. So the young man refrained from attending the aunt's house, although he found it beautiful and pleasant and, in addition, piazza sporanita.

In these conditions he was Emanuele on the eve of his age and the boredom and annoyance of those weddings, which threatened to imprison his youth, were renewed, when riding with his friends, the tone of whose words seemed to him contained a slight irony.