A little akin to this experience was that of a visit to the Bank of England, made at the invitation of one of its officers whom I had known and entertained in America. Another of the functionaries of the bank volunteered his services as a cicerone. He showed us among other things the treasure recently received from the Chinese government, in payment of a war indemnity. It was all in little blocks, parallelograms and horseshoes of gold and silver. An ingenious little machine was also shown us for the detection of light weight sovereigns. We paid for his attention by listening to many uncivil pleasantries regarding the financial condition of our own country. I still remember the insolent sneer with which this gentleman said, "By the bye, have you sold the Bank of the United States yet?" He was presumably ignorant of the real history of the bank, which had long ceased to be a government institution, President Jackson having annulled its charter and removed the government deposits.
I mention these incidents because they were the only exceptions to the uniform kindness with which we were generally received, and to the homage paid to my husband as one of the most illustrious of modern philanthropists.
Berlin would have been the next important stop in our journey but for an impediment which we had hardly anticipated. In the days of the French revolution of 1830, the Poles had made one of their oft-repeated struggles to regain national independence. General Lafayette was much interested in this movement, and at his request Dr. Howe undertook to convey to some of the Polish chiefs funds sent for their aid by parties in the United States. He succeeded in accomplishing this errand, but was arrested on the very night of his arrival in Berlin, and was only released by the intervention of our government, after a tedious imprisonment au secret. He was then sent with a military escort to the confines of Prussia with the warning to return no more.
Thirteen years had elapsed since these events took place. Dr. Howe had meantime acquired a world-wide reputation as a philanthropist. The Poles had long been subdued, and Europe seemed to be free from all revolutionary threatenings. Through the intervention of Chevalier Bunsen, who was then Prussian ambassador at the Court of St. James, Dr. Howe applied for permission to revisit the kingdom of Prussia, but this was refused him. Some years after this time, Dr. Howe received from the Prussian government a gold medal in acknowledgment of his services to the blind. On weighing it, he found that the value of the gold was equal to the amount of money which he had been required to pay for his board in the prison at Berlin. In spite of the prohibition, we managed to see something of the Rhine, and journeyed through Switzerland and the Austrian Tyrol to Vienna, where we remained for some weeks. We here made the acquaintance of Madame von Walther and her daughter Theresa, afterward known as Madame Pulszky, the wife of one of Louis Kossuth's most valued friends.
Arriving in Milan, we presented a letter of introduction from Miss Catharine Sedgwick to Count Confalonieri, after Silvio Pellico the most distinguished of the Italian patriots who underwent imprisonment in the Austrian fortress of Spielberg. His life had been spared only through the passionate pleading of his wife, who traveled day and night to throw herself at the feet of the Empress, imploring the commutation of the death sentence passed upon her husband. This heroic woman did not long survive the granting of her prayer. She died while her husband was still in prison; but the men who had been his companions in misfortune so revered her memory as always to lift their hats when they passed near her grave. Years had elapsed since the events of which I speak, and the count had married a second wife, a lively and attractive person, from whom, as from the count, we received many kind attentions.
Dr. Howe was at this time called to Paris by some special business, and I remained a month in Milan with my sister. We greatly enjoyed the beauty of the cathedral and the hospitality of our new friends. Among these were the Marchese Arconati and his wife, a lady of much distinction, and in after years a friend of Margaret Fuller.
Some delightful entertainments were given us by these and other friends, and I remember with pleasure an expedition to Monza, where the iron crown of the Lombard kingdom is still shown. Napoleon is said to have placed it on his head while he was still First Consul. Apropos of this, we saw in one of the Milanese mansions a seat on which Napoleon had once sat, and which, in commemoration of this, bore the inscription, "Egli ci ha dato l'unione" (He gave us unity). Alas! this precious boon was only secured to Italy many years later, and after much shedding of blood.
Several of the former captives of Spielberg were living in Milan at this time. Of these I may mention Castiglia and the advocate Borsieri. Two others, Foresti and Albinola, I had often seen in New York, where they lived for many years, beloved and respected. In all of them, a perfectly childish delight in living seemed to make amends for the long and dreary years passed in prison. Every pulse-beat of freedom was a joy to them. Yet the iron had entered deeply into their souls. Natural leaders and men of promise, they had been taken out of the world of active life in the very flower of their youth and strength. The fortress in which they were confined was gloomy and desolate. For many months no books were allowed them, and in the end only books of religion, so called. They had begged for employment, and were given wool to knit stockings, and dirty linen rags to scrape for lint, with the sarcastic remark that to people of their benevolent disposition such work as this last should be most congenial. The time, they said, seemed endless in passing, but little when past, no events having diversified its dull blankness.
When I listened to the conversation of these men, and saw Italy so bound hand and foot by Austrian and other tyrants, I felt only the hopeless chaos of the political outlook. Where should freedom come from? The logical bond of imprisonment seemed complete. It was sealed with four impregnable fortresses, and the great spiritual tyranny sat enthroned in the centre, and had its response in every other despotic centre of the globe. I almost ask to-day, "By what miracle was the great structure overthrown?" But the remembrance of this miracle forbids me to despair of any great deliverance, however desired and delayed. He who maketh the wrath of man to serve Him can make liberty blossom out of the very rod that the tyrant wields.
The emotions with which people in general approach the historic sites of the world have been so often described as to make it needless for me to dwell upon my own. But I will mention the thrill of wonder which overcame me as we drove over the Campagna and caught the first glimpse of St. Peter's dome. Was it possible? Had I lived to come within sight of the great city, Mistress of the World? Like much else in my journeying, this appeared to me like something seen in a dream, scarcely to be apprehended by the bodily senses.