But here we will leave poor Don Abbondio, having more important things to speak of than his fears, or the misery of a few villagers from a transient disaster like this.
CHAPTER XXXI.
The pestilence, as the Tribunal of Health had feared, did enter the Milanese with the German troops. It is also known that it was not limited to that territory, but that it spread over and desolated a great part of Italy. Our story requires us, at present, to relate the principal circumstances of this great calamity, as far as it affected the Milanese, and principally the city of Milan itself, for the chroniclers of the period confine their relations chiefly to this place. At the same time we cannot avoid giving a general though brief sketch of an event in the history of our country more talked of than understood.
Many partial narratives written at the time are still extant; but these convey but an imperfect view of the subject, historically speaking. It is true they serve to illustrate and confirm one another, and furnish materials for a history; but the history is still wanting. Strange to say, no writer has hitherto attempted to reduce them to order, and exhibit all the various events, public and private acts, causes and conjectures, relative to this calamity, in a concatenated series. Ripamonti’s narrative, though far more ample than any other, is still very defective. We shall, therefore, attempt, in the following pages, to present the reader with a succinct, but accurate and continuous, statement of this fatal scourge.
In all the line of country which had been over-run by the army, dead bodies had been found in the houses, as well as on the roads. Soon after, throughout the whole country, entire families were attacked with violent disorders, accompanied with unusual symptoms, which the aged only remembered to have seen at the time of the plague, which, fifty-three years before, had desolated a great part of Italy, and principally the Milanese, where it was and still is known by the name of the Plague of San Carlo. It derives this appellation from the noble, beneficent, and disinterested conduct of that great man, who at length became its victim.
Ludovico Settala, a physician distinguished so long ago as during the former plague, announced to the Tribunal of Health, by the 20th of October, that the contagion had indisputably appeared at Lecco; but no measures were taken upon this report. Further notices of a like import induced them to despatch a commissioner, with a physician of Como, who, most unaccountably, upon the report of an old barber of Bellano, announced that the prevailing disease arose merely from the autumnal exhalation from the marshes, aggravated by the sufferings caused by the passage of the German troops.
Meanwhile, further intelligence of the new disease, and of the number of deaths, arriving from all parts, two commissioners were sent to examine the places where it had appeared, and, if necessary, to use precautions to prevent its increase. The scourge had already spread to such an extent, as to leave no doubt of its character. The commissioners passed through the territories of Lecco, the borders of the lake of Como, the districts of Monte-Brianza, and Gera-d’Adda, and found the villages every where in a state of barricade, or deserted, and the inhabitants flying, or encamped in the middle of the fields, or dispersed abroad throughout the country; “like so many wild creatures,” says Doctor Tadino, one of the envoys, “they were carrying about them some imaginary safeguard against the dreaded disease, such as sprigs of mint, rue, or rosemary, and even vinegar.” Informing themselves of the number of deaths, the commissioners became alarmed, and visiting the sick and the dead, recognised the terrible and infallible evidences of the plague!
Upon this information, orders were given to close the gates of Milan.
The Tribunal of Health, on the 14th of November, directed the commissioners to wait on the governor, in order to represent to him the situation of affairs. He replied, that he was very sorry for it; but that the cares of war were much more pressing: this was the second time he had made the same answer under similar circumstances. Two or three days after, he published a decree, prescribing public rejoicings on the birth of Prince Charles, the first son of Philip IV., without troubling himself with the danger which would result from so great a concourse of people at such a time; just as if things were going on in their ordinary course, and no dreadful evil was hanging over them.