CHAPTER XV.
TOLERANCE.
If crimes against Heaven are those which the Church forgives the least, every man who is not even nominally a Catholic, is of course in the eyes of the Pope a rogue and a half.
These criminals are very numerous: the geographer Balbi enumerates some six hundred millions of them on the surface of the globe. The Pope continues to damn them all conformably with the tradition of the Church; but he has given up levying armies to make war upon them here below.
Things are improved when we daily find the Head of the Roman Catholic Church in friendly intercourse with the foes of his religion. He partakes of the liberality of a Mussulman Prince; he receives a schismatic Empress as a loving father; he converses familiarly with a Queen who has abjured Catholicism to marry a Protestant; he receives with distinction the aristocracy of the New Jerusalem; he sends his Majordomo to attend upon a young heretic prince[11] travelling incognito. I hardly know whether Gregory VII. would approve this tolerance; nor can I tell how it is judged in the other world by the instigators of the Crusades, or by the advisers of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. For my own part, I should award it unbounded praise, if I could believe it took its source in a spirit of enlightenment and Christian charity. I should regard it differently, if I thought it was to be traced to calculations of policy and interest.
The difficulty is to penetrate the secret thoughts of the Sovereign Pontiff; to find a key to the real motive of his tolerance. Natural mildness and interested mildness resemble each other in their effects, but differ widely in their causes. When the Pope and the Cardinals overwhelm M. de Rothschild with assurances of their highest consideration, are we to conclude that an Israelite is equal to a Roman Catholic in their eyes, as he is in yours or mine? Or are we to conclude that they deem it expedient to mask their real sentiments because M. de Rothschild has millions to spare?
This delicate problem is not difficult to solve. We have but to seek out a Jew in Rome who is not the possessor of millions, and to ask him how he is considered and treated by the Popes. If the Government really make no difference between this citizen who is a Jew, and another who is a Catholic, I will say the Popes have become tolerant in earnest. If, on the contrary, we find that the administration accords this poor Jew a social position somewhere between man and the dog, then I am bound to set down the fine speeches made to M. de Rothschild, as proceeding from calculations of interest, and as inferring a sacrifice of dignity.
Now mark, and judge for yourselves. There were Jews in Italy before there were Christians in the world. Roman polytheism, which tolerated everything except the kicks administered by Polyeucte to the statue of Jupiter, gave a place to the God of Israel. Afterwards came the Christians, and they were tolerated till they conspired against the laws. They were often confounded with the Jews, because they came from the same corner of the East. Christianity increased by means of pious conspiracies; enrolled slaves braved their masters, and became master in its turn. I don't blame it for practising reprisals, and cutting the pagans' throats; but in common justice it has killed too many Jews.
Not at Rome. The Popes kept a specimen of the accursed race to bring before God at the last judgment. The Scripture had warned the Jews that they should live miserably till the consummation of time. The Church, ever mindful of prophecy, undertook to keep them alive and miserable. She made enclosures for them, as we do in our Jardin des Plantes for rare animals. At first they were folded in the valley of Egeria, then they were penned in the Trastevere, and finally cribbed in the Ghetto. In the daytime they were allowed to go about the city, that the people might see what a dirty, degraded being a man is when he does not happen to be a Christian; but when night came they were put under lock and key. The Ghetto used to close just as the Faithful were on their way to damnation at the theatre.
On the occasion of certain solemnities the Municipal Council of Rome amused the populace with Jew races.
When modern philosophy had somewhat softened Catholic manners, horses were substituted for Jews. The Senator of the city used annually to administer to them an official kick in the seat of honour: which token of respect they acknowledged by a payment of 800 scudi. At every accession of a Pope, they were obliged to range themselves under the Arch of Titus, and to offer the new Pontiff a Bible, in return for which he addressed to them an insulting observation. They paid a perpetual annuity of 450 scudi to the heirs of a renegade who had abused them. They paid the salary of a preacher charged to work at their conversion every Saturday, and if they stayed away from the sermon they were fined. But they paid no taxes in the strict sense of the word, because they were not citizens. The law regarded them in the light of travellers at an inn. The license to dwell in Rome was provisional, and for many centuries it was renewed every year. Not only were they without any political rights, but they were deprived of even the most elementary civil rights. They could neither possess property, nor engage in manufactures, nor cultivate the soil: they lived by botching and brokage. How they lived at all surprises me. Want, filth, and the infected atmosphere of their dens, had impoverished their blood, made them wan and haggard, and stamped disgrace upon their looks. Some of them scarcely retained the semblance of humanity. They might have been taken for brutes; yet they were notoriously intelligent, apt at business, resigned to their lot, good-tempered, kind-hearted, devoted to their families, and irreproachable in their general conduct.
I need not add that the Roman rabble, bettering the instruction of Catholic monks, spurned them, reviled them, and robbed them. The law forbade Christians to hold converse with them, but to steal anything from them was a work of grace.
The law did not absolutely sanction the murder of a Jew; but the tribunals regarded the murderer of a man in a different light from the murderer of a Jew. Mark the line of pleading that follows.
"Why, Gentlemen, does the law severely punish murderers, and sometimes go the length of inflicting upon them the penalty of death? Because he who murders a Christian murders at once a body and a soul. He sends before the Sovereign Judge a being who is ill-prepared, who has not received absolution, and who falls straight into hell—or, at the very least, into purgatory. This is why murder—I mean the murder of a Christian—cannot be too severely punished. But as for us (counsel and client), what have we killed? Nothing, Gentlemen, absolutely nothing but a wretched Jew, predestined for damnation. You know the obstinacy of his race, and you know that if he had been allowed a hundred years for his conversion, he would have died like a brute, without confession. I admit that we have advanced by some years the maturity of celestial justice; we have hastened a little for him an eternity of torture which sooner or later must inevitably have been his lot. But be indulgent, Gentlemen, towards so venial an offence, and reserve your severity for those who attempt the life and salvation of a Christian!"
This speech would be nonsense at Paris. It was sound logic at Rome, and, thanks to it, the murderer got off with a few months' imprisonment.
You will ask why the Jews have not fled a hundred leagues from this Slough of Despond. The answer is, because they were born there. Moreover, the taxation is light, and rent is moderate. Add that, when famine has been in the land, or the inundations of the Tiber have spread ruin and devastation around, the scornful charity of the Popes has flung them some bones to gnaw. Then again, travelling costs money, and passports are not to be had for the asking in Rome.
But if, by some miracle of industry, one of these unfortunate children of Israel has managed to accumulate a little money, his first thought has been to place his family beyond the reach of the insults of the Ghetto. He has realized his little fortune, and has gone to seek liberty and consideration in some less Catholic country. This accounts for the fact that the Ghetto was no richer at the accession of Pius IX. than it was in the worst days of the Middle Ages.
History has made haste to write in letters of gold all the good deeds of the reigning Pope, and, above all, the enfranchisement of the Jews.
Pius IX. has removed the gates of the Ghetto. He allows the Jews to go about by night as well as by day, and to live where they like. He has exempted them from the municipal kick and the 800 scudi which it cost them. He has closed the little church where these poor people were catechized every Saturday, against their will, and at their own expense. His accession may be regarded, then, as an era of deliverance for the people of Israel who have set up their tents in Rome.
Europe, which sees things from afar, naturally supposes that under so tolerant a sway as that of Pius IX., Jews have thronged from all parts of the world into the Papal States. But see how paradoxical a science is that of statistics. From it we learn that in 1842, under Gregory XVI., during the captivity of Babylon, the little kingdom of the Pope contained 12,700 Jews. We further learn that in 1853, in the teeth of such reforms, such a shower of benefits, such justice, and such tolerance, the Israelites in the kingdom were reduced to 9,237. In other words, 3,463 Jews—more than a quarter of the Jewish population—had withdrawn from the paternal action of the Holy Father.
Either this people is very ungrateful, or we don't know the whole state of the case.
While I was at Rome, I had secret inquiries on the subject made of two notables of the Ghetto. When the poor people heard the object I had in view in my inquiries, they expressed great alarm. "For Heaven's sake don't pity us!" they cried.
"Let not the outer world learn through your book that we are unfortunate—that the Pope shows by his acts how bitterly he regrets the benefits conferred upon us in 1847—that the Ghetto is closed by doors invisible, but impassable—and that our condition is worse than ever! All you say in our favour will turn against us, and that which you intend for our good will do us infinite harm."
This is all the information I could obtain as to the treatment of this persecuted people. It is little enough, but it is something. I found that their Ghetto, in which some hidden power keeps them shut up just as in past times, was the foulest and most neglected quarter of the city, whence I concluded that nothing was done for them by the municipality. I learnt that neither the Pope, nor the Cardinals, nor the Bishops, nor the least of the Prelates, could set foot on this accursed ground without contracting a moral stain—the custom of Rome forbids it: and I thought of those Indian Pariahs whom a Brahmin cannot touch without losing caste. I learnt that the lowest places in the lowest of the public offices were inaccessible to Jews, neither more nor less than they would be to animals. A child of Israel might as well apply for the place of a copying-clerk at Rome as one of the giraffes in the Jardin des Plantes for the post of a Sous-Préfet. I ascertained that none of them are or can be landowners, a fact which satisfies me that Pius IX. has not yet come quite to regard them as men. If one of their tribe cultivates another man's field, it is by smuggling himself into the occupation under a borrowed name; as though the sweat of a Jew dishonoured the earth. Manufactures are forbidden them, as of old; not being of the nation, they might injure the national industry. To conclude, I have observed them myself as they stood on the thresholds of their miserable shops, and I can assure you they do not resemble a people freed from oppression. The seal of pontifical reprobation is not removed from their foreheads. If, as history pretends, they had been liberated for the last twelve years, some sign of freedom would be perceptible on their countenances.
I am willing to admit that, at the commencement of his reign, Pius IX. experienced a generous impulse. But this is a country in which good is only done by immense efforts, while evil occurs naturally. I would liken it to a waggon being drawn up a steep mountain ascent. The joint efforts of four stout bullocks are required to drag it forward: it runs backwards by itself.
Were I to tell you all that M. de Rothschild has done for his co-religionists at Rome, you would be astounded. Not only are they supported at his expense, but he never concludes a transaction with the Pope without introducing into it a secret article or two in their favour. And still the waggon goes backwards.
The French occupation might be beneficial to the Jews. Our officers are not wanting in good will; but the bad will of the priests neutralizes their efforts. By way of illustrating the operation of these two influences, I will relate a little incident which recently occurred.
An Israelite of Rome had hired some land in defiance of the law, under the name of a Christian. As everybody knew that the Jew was the real farmer, he was robbed right and left in the most unscrupulous manner, merely because he was a Jew. The poor man, foreseeing that before rent-day he should be completely ruined, applied for leave to have a guard sworn to protect his property. The authorities replied that under no pretext should a Christian be sworn in the service of a Jew. Disappointed in his application, he mentioned the fact to some French officers, and asked for the assistance of the French Commander-in-Chief. It was readily promised by M. de Goyon, one of the kindest-hearted men alive, who undertook moreover to apply personally to the Cardinal in the matter. The reply he received from his Eminence was,
"What you ask is nothing short of an impossibility. Nevertheless, as the Government of the Holy Father is unable to refuse you anything, we will do it. Not only shall your Jew have a sworn guard, but out of our affection for you, we will select him ourselves."
Delighted at having done a good action, the General warmly thanked the Cardinal, and departed. Three months elapsed, and still no sworn guard made his appearance at the Jew's farm. The poor fellow, robbed more than ever, timidly applied again to the General, who once more took the field in his behalf. This time, in order to make the matter sure, he would not leave the Cardinal till he held in his own hand the permission, duly filled up and signed. The delighted Jew shed tears of gratitude as he read to his family the thrice-blessed name of the guard assigned to him. The name was that of a man who had disappeared six years back, and never been heard of since.
When the French officers next met the Jew, they asked him whether he was pleased with his sworn guard. He dared not say that he had no guard: the police had forbidden him to complain.
The Jews of Rome are the most unfortunate in the Papal States. The vicinity of the Vatican is as fatal to them as to the Christians. Far from the seat of government, beyond the Apennines, they are less poor, less oppressed, and less despised. The Israelitish population of Ancona is really a fine race.
It is not to be inferred from this that the agents of the Pope become converts to tolerance by crossing the Apennines.
It is not a year since the Archbishop of Bologna confiscated the boy
Mortara for the good of the Convent of the Neophytes.
Only two years ago the Prefect of Ancona revived the old law, which forbids Christians to converse publicly with Jews.
It is not ten years since a merchant of considerable fortune, named P. Cadova, was deprived of his wife and children by means as remarkable as those employed in the case of young Mortara, although the affair created less sensation at the time.
M.P. Cadova lived at Cento, in the province of Ferrara. He had a pretty wife, and two children. His wife was seduced by one of his clerks, who was a Catholic. The intrigue being discovered, the clerk was driven from the house. The faithless wife soon joined her lover at Bologna, and took her children with her.
The Jew applied to the courts of law to assist him in taking the children from the adulteress.
The answer he received to his application was, that his wife and children had all three embraced Christianity, and had consequently ceased to be his family.
The Courts further decreed that he should pay an annual income for their support.
On this income the adulterous clerk also subsists.
Some months later Monsignore Oppiszoni, Archbishop of Bologna, himself celebrated the marriage of M.P. Cadova's wife and M.P. Cadova's ex-clerk.
Of course, you'll say, P. Cadova was dead. Not a bit of it. He was alive, and as well as a broken-hearted man could be. The Church, then, winked at a case of bigamy? Not so. In the States of the Church a woman may be married at the same time to a Jew and a Catholic, without being a bigamist, because in the States of the Church a Jew is not a man.