April 20th, 1830
A delightful drive (made by Murat) to the Marquis di Gallo’s villa on the Capo di Monte, which far surpasses all the villas I saw at Rome. The entrance is about half a mile from the house, through a wood, one part of which is a vineyard; the vines hanging in festoons from cherry trees, and corn growing underneath. The house is not large, but convenient; a wide terrace runs along the whole front of it with a white marble balustrade; below this is a second terrace covered with rose-trees; below that a third, planted with vines, and oranges, and myrtles. From the upper terrace the view is beautiful. Naples lies beneath, and the Bay stretches beyond with the opposite mountains, and all the towns and villages from Portici to Sorrento. On the right the Castle of St. Elmo and the Certosa, and Vesuvius on the left. There is a large wood on one side, cut into shady walks and laid out with grottoes, and on the other a vineyard, through which there is also a walk under a treillage of vines for nearly half a mile. The ground extremely diversified, and presenting in every part of it views of the surrounding country—
Umbrageous grots and caves
Of cool recess, o’er which the mantling vine
Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps
Luxuriant.
It is always let, and, till he went away, was occupied by Stackelberg, the Russian Ambassador.
In the evening went to a ball at the Duchesse d’Eboli’s; very few people, and hardly any English, and those not the best—only four, I think: Sir Henry Lushington, the Consul; a Mr. Grieve, of whom I know nothing but that his father was a physician at St. Petersburg, and that he killed his brother at Eton by putting a cracker into his pocket on the 5th of November, which set fire to other crackers and burnt him to death; Mr. Auldjo, the man who made a very perilous ascent of Mont Blanc, of which he published a narrative; Mr. Arbuthnot, who levanted from Doncaster two years ago—but most of the Italian women were there, and I was surprised at their beauty. Acton, who introduced me to some of them, assured me that they were models of conduct, which did not precisely tally with my preconceived notions of Neapolitan society. They danced, but with no music but a pianoforte. This is one of the few houses here which is habitually open, for they have not the means of doing much in the way of society and gaiety; they are poor, and the Government (the worst in the world) interferes. The Duchesse d’Eboli is poor, but she was a beauty, and has had adventures of various sorts.
April 21st, 1830
Dined with Keppel Craven yesterday; Acton, Morier, Duchesse d’Eboli, and some other people.
The day was so disagreeable yesterday I could not go out—not cold, but a hurricane and clouds of dust. The principal topic of conversation at dinner was the trial, which goes on every day, has already lasted a month, and is likely to last two or three more. The Code Napoléon is in force here, so that there may probably be something like a certain and equal administration of justice between man and man; but this is a Government prosecution, and therefore exempted from ordinary rules. The history of this trial exemplifies the state of both the law and the Government of this country. The accused are five in number; the principal of them, Matteis, was an intendente, or governor, of a province; 2nd, the advocate-general of the province; 3rd, Matteis’s secretary; and 4th and 5th, two spies. These men united in a conspiracy to destroy various persons who were obnoxious to them in the province, some of them actuated by political motives, and others in order to get possession of the property of their victims. The bugbear of the Court is Carbonarism, and Matteis pretended that there was a Carbonari plot on MATTEIS’S TRIAL foot, in which several persons were implicated. He employed the spies to seduce the victims into some imprudence of language or conduct, and then to inform against them; in this way he apprehended various individuals, some of whom were tortured, some imprisoned or sent to the galleys, and some put to death. These transactions took place eight or nine years ago, and such was the despotism of this man and the terror he inspired, that no resistance was made to his proceedings, or any appeal against them ever sent to Naples. At last one of his own secretaries made some disclosures to Government, and the case appeared so atrocious that it was thought necessary to institute an immediate enquiry. The intendente was ordered to Naples, and commissioners were sent to obtain evidence in the province and sift the matter to the bottom. After much delay they made a report confirming the first accusations and designating these five men as the criminals. As soon as the matter was thus taken up, the public indignation burst forth, and a host of witnesses who had been deterred by fear from opening their lips came forward to depose against Matteis and his associates. They were arrested in the year 1825 and thrown into prison, but owing to the difficulties and delay which they contrived by their influence to interpose, and to the anomalous character of the prosecution, five years elapsed before the proceedings began. At length a royal order constituted a Court of Justice, composed of all the judges of the Court of Cassation (about twenty), the highest tribunal in the kingdom, and they have just been enjoined not to separate till the final adjudication of the case. Although the offences with which the criminals are charged are very different in degree, they are all arraigned together; a host of witnesses are examined, each of whom tells a story or makes a speech, and the evidence is accordingly very confused, now affecting one and now another of them. They have counsel and the right of addressing the Court themselves, which the intendente avails himself of with such insolence that they are obliged to begin the proceedings of each day by reading an order to the prisoners to behave themselves decently to the Court. Their counsel are assigned by the Court, and it is not one of the least extraordinary parts of this case that the advocate of Matteis is his personal enemy, and a man whom he displaced from an office he once held in the province. They say, however, that he defends him very fairly and zealously. The day I was there the proceedings were uninteresting, but yesterday they were very important. An officer was examined who had been imprisoned and ill-treated in prison, and who deposed to various acts of cruelty. They on their part hardly deny the facts, but attempt to justify them by proving that the sufferers really were Carbonari, that other governors had done the same thing, and that they were doing a service to the Government by these pretended plots and consequent executions. Though their guilt is clear, it is by no means so clear that they will be condemned, or at least all of them. The public indignation is so great that they must sacrifice some of them, and the spies, it is said, will certainly be hanged. Matteis has interest in the Court, but, as a majority of votes will decide his fate, it is most likely he will be condemned.
April 22nd, 1830
Yesterday to Pompeii, far better worth seeing than anything else in Italy. Who can look at other ruins after this? At Rome there are certain places consecrated by recollections, but the imagination must be stirred up to enjoy them; here you are actually in a Roman town. Shave off the upper storey of any town, take out windows, doors, and furniture, and it will be as Pompeii now is: it is marvellous. About one-fifth part of the town has been excavated, and the last house found is the largest. It is said 1,000 men would clear it in a year, and there are thirty at work. The road is a bed of dust, and infested with blind beggars, each led by a boy. There are habitations almost uninterruptedly along the road between Naples and Pompeii, built apparently for no other reason than because they are exposed to eruptions of the mountain, for any other part of the Bay would be just as agreeable, and safe from that danger.