Silvio Pellico was born in 1788 and spent a great part of his youth at Pinerolo, a place of captivity of the mysterious “Man with the Iron Mask.” His health was delicate; he was a student consumed with literary aspirations and intense political fervour, and he presently moved to Milan, where he began to write for the stage. A famous actress inspired him with the idea of his play, Francesca da Rimini, which eventually achieved such a brilliant success. Pellico was welcomed at Milan by the best literary society and made the acquaintance of many distinguished writers, native-born and foreign—Monti, Foscolo and Manzoni, Madame de Stael, Schlegel and Lords Byron and Brougham among them. The author of “Childe Harold” paid him the compliment of translating “Francesca” into English verse.
About this time Silvio Pellico accepted the post of tutor to the sons of Count Porro, a prominent leader of the agitation against Austria, and whose dream it was to give an independent crown to Lombardy. Count Porro approached the Emperor Joseph pleading the rights of his country, and but narrowly escaped arrest. He saw that overt resistance was impossible, but never ceased to conspire and encourage the desire for freedom in his fellow-countrymen. He opened schools for the purpose and founded a newspaper, the Conciliatore, to which many talented writers contributed, including Pellico. It was a brilliant, though brief, epoch of literary splendour, and the new journal was supported by the most notable thinkers and eloquent publicists, whose productions were constantly mutilated by the censorship. In the end, the Conciliatore was suppressed.
Silvio Pellico, soon after his entry into Count Porro’s household, was invited to affiliate himself with the Carbonari but hesitated to join, having no accurate knowledge of the aims and intentions of the society. He was moved, however, to inquire further and very incautiously wrote through the post to a friend, asking what obligations he would have to assume and the form of oath he must take,—all of which he was willing to accept if his conscience would permit him. There was no inviolability for private correspondence under Austrian rule, and Silvio Pellico’s letter was intercepted and passed into the hands of Count Bubna, the governor of Milan, who was already well informed of the conspiracy brewing. He was, however, a humane official and did not wish to proceed to extreme measures, but quietly warned the most active leaders to disappear, telling them that “a trip to the country” might benefit them just then. Many took the hint and left the city, among them Count Porro, who escaped on the very day that the police meant to make a descent on his house. Confalonieri, one of the chiefs, was not so fortunate. He declined to run away until the sbirri were at his door and then climbed up to the top of the house, hoping to gain the roof, but the lock of a garret window had been changed and he was taken by the officers.
Silvio Pellico, having no suspicion of danger, was easily captured in his house and was carried at once to the prison of Santa Margherita in Milan, where he lay side by side with ordinary criminals, and also made the acquaintance of the “false” Dauphin commonly called the Duke of Normandy, the pretended heir of Louis XVI. It may be remembered that a fiction long survived of the escape of the little dauphin from the Temple prison, to which he had been sent by the French revolutionaries, and that an idiot boy had been substituted to send to the guillotine. The real dauphin—so runs the story—was spirited out of France and safely across the Atlantic to the United States and afterward to Brazil, where he passed through many dire adventures until the restoration in France. A serious illness at that time prevented him from vindicating his right to the throne, and thenceforth he became a wanderer in Europe, vainly endeavouring to win recognition and support from the various courts. The assassination of this inconvenient claimant had been more than once attempted, and his persistence ended in his arrest by the Austrian governor at the instance of the French government, and resulted in his being held a close prisoner in Milan.
The warders of the Santa Margherita assured Silvio Pellico that they were certain his fellow prisoner was the real king of France, and they hoped that some day when he came to his own he would reward them handsomely for their devoted attention to him when in gaol. Pellico was not imposed upon by this pretender, but he noticed a strong family likeness to the Bourbons and very reasonably supposed that herein was the secret of the preposterous claim.
This curious encounter no doubt served to occupy Pellico’s thoughts during his long trial which was conducted by methods abhorrent to all ideas of justice. No indictments were made public and no depositions of witnesses, who were always invisible. Conviction was a foregone conclusion, and the sentence was death, on the ground that Pellico had been concerned in a conspiracy against the state, that he had been guilty of correspondence with a Carbonaro and that he had written articles in favour of Carbonarism. His fate was communicated to him at Venice, to which he had been removed and where he occupied a portion of the Piombi, or prison under the “leads” of the ducal palace.
After a wearisome delay, the sentence was read to the prisoners, Pellico and his intimate friend and companion Maroncelli, in court, and afterward formally communicated to them on a scaffold which had been raised in the Piazzetta of San Marco. An immense crowd had collected, full of compassionate sympathy, and to overawe them a strong body of troops had been paraded with bayonets fixed, and artillery was posted with port fires alight. An usher came out upon an elevated gallery of the palace above and read the order aloud until he reached the words “condemned to death,” when the crowd, unable to restrain overwrought feeling, burst into a loud murmur of condolence, which was followed by deep silence when the words of commutation were read. Maroncelli was sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment and Silvio Pellico to fifteen, both to be confined under the rules of carcere duro in the fortress of Spielberg.
The conditions of carcere duro may be described as extremely irksome and rigorous. The subject was closely chained by the legs; he had to sleep on a bare board—the lit de soldat or “plank bed”—and to subsist on a most limited diet, little more than bread and water, with a modicum of poor soup every other day. More merciless and brutal treatment was that of carcere durissimo, when the chaining consisted of a body belt or iron waist-band affixed to the wall by a chain so short that it allowed no movement beyond the length of the plank bed. Part of the rations was a most unpalatable and filthy food, consisting of flour fried in lard and put by in pots for six months, then ladled out and dissolved in boiling water.
An Austrian commissary of police came from Vienna to escort the patriot prisoners to Spielberg, and he brought with him news that afforded some small consolation. He had had an audience with the Emperor Joseph, who had been graciously pleased to grant a remission of sentence by making every twelve hours instead of twenty-four count as one day; in other words, diminishing the term by just half. No official endorsement of this proposal was signified and there was no certainty that it was true, and indeed, after the lapse of the first half of the sentence, release was not immediately accorded. Silvio’s seven and a half years was expanded into ten, and the imprisonment might have been dragged on for the full fifteen years but for the warm pleadings of the Sardinian ambassador at the court of Vienna.
The long journey to Brünn was taken in two carriages and in much discomfort, for each coach was crowded with the escort and their charges, and each prisoner was fettered with a transversal chain attached to the right wrist and left ankle. The one compensation was the kindly sympathy that greeted the prisoners everywhere along the road, in every town, village and isolated hut. The people came forth with friendly expressions, and as the news of their approach preceded them, great crowds collected to cheer them on their way. At one place, Udine, where beds had to be prepared, the hotel servants gave place to personal friends who came in, disguised, to shake them by the hand. The demonstrations were continued far across the frontier, and even Austrian subjects were anxious to commiserate the sad fate of men whose only crime was an ardent desire to free their country.