Italian Yesterdays, vol. 2

by Mrs. Hugh Fraser

His good work had found friends and supporters from the beginning, and, being brought to the notice of Pius VI, the Pontiff bought the Palazzo Ruggia as a permanent home for it and constituted himself its chief protector. Thus encouraged, Tata Giovanni started on a crusade which had for its object nothing less than the reclamation of all the good-for-nothing boys in Rome! He used to seek them out and follow them up, and if persuasion proved unavailing the dogged old man would seize them by the arm and march them off to his “Asilo” without more ado. Vagrancy, mendicancy, gambling roused his ire to such an extent that his name became a terror to all youthful evildoers, and they would fly at the mere mention of it. Life at the Asilo was conducted on lines of military precision. The youngsters rose early, heard Mass, got a good breakfast, and marched away to their work, where, as I have said, their guardian looked in on some of them—and they never knew which it would be —during the course of the day. When the Ave Maria rang they all came home, and as they passed into the house Tata Giovanni stood at the door with a bag in his hand, and into this they had to drop their earnings—not a baiocco was to be spent on the way or kept back!

Then came the lessons, followed by the rosary, and supper, this last the crown of the day for the tired, healthy young people. The old ideals still found many followers in those days, and it was not at all unusual to see some great Cardinal “gird himself with a towel” and trot humbly a score of times between the kitchen and the refectory to wait on the boys. There were a hundred of them by this time, and great was Daddy John’s preoccupation as to their morals. Long inured to shortening his hours of sleep, he would pace the dormitories all night long to see that all was as it should be, only sleeping himself for a short hour in the morning; and certainly Heaven blessed his efforts, for as years went on, and his waifs grew old enough to go out into the world on their own account and others took their places, not one that I ever heard of brought discredit on his education.

The sick at the hospital were not forgotten amid all these new labours and responsibilities; Tata Giovanni (no one ever called him anything else) went to them whenever he could, and, when he could not, he would send some of the older boys in his place, thus teaching them the lesson which had been the moral of his whole life—that no one must live for himself alone, and that the poorest and most ignorant can always find some sufferer to cheer and console. He died at last—the good, humble old workman—fifteen years after he had strayed from the procession to inspect the ragged sleepers on the steps of the Pantheon. He passed away on the 28th of June, 1798. The whole city mourned for him, and his boys were broken-hearted. His work of love had become a public institution and incorporated with another, of the same kind, lived till a few years ago, when it was swept aside and swallowed up with hundreds of other beneficent foundations in the “indiscriminate brigandage” of Rome’s latest rulers.

Several years after Tata Giovanni’s death a young gentleman of noble birth, who came from Sinigaglia, was appointed the director of the Asilo. It was not a distinguished appointment by any means; of course no salary was attached to the position—it was not till the recent laïcisation of charity that any but unpaid volunteers attended to the wants of the poor in the Eternal City. That made no difference to this handsome young man, for he came of a wealthy family, but his father, who had had great ambitions for his son, was by no means pleased to see him buried in an orphan asylum. The young man himself was suffering under great despondency. He desired with all his heart to be a priest, but his health was so bad that the Bishop did not think it wise to ordain him. As a child he had suffered a severe shock from falling into the water and narrowly escaping drowning, and ever since his early youth he had suffered from sharp attacks of epilepsy, terrible in themselves and yet more terrible in the constant dread that hung over their victim, who never knew when he might be struck down by the fearful visitation.

Very gladly did Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti of Sinigaglia accept the charge of the Asilo which he had already constantly visited as a helper and instructor. And here, for four years, he who was to become Pius IX lived with the orphans, subsisted on their rough fare, and devoted all his powers to making forsaken lads into good Christians and useful citizens. Workshops were now installed in the Asilo itself, and the higher arts went hand in hand with humble trades, each boy’s talent and inclinations being carefully observed and consulted. Many good artists and good workmen were given to the world by the orphanage which had such humble beginnings, but for many of us its chief interest lies in its connection with the Pope, to whom it furnished the first opportunity of developing those gifts of organisation and command that later served humanity so well. Here he waited, a humble postulant on the threshold of the priesthood; here he prayed, as we know, those fervent, almost heart-broken prayers, that God would remove the infirmity which darkened his life and barred his way to the Altar; it was to his little room in the Asilo that he was brought back one night, apparently dying, having been struck down by one of those fearful attacks in the street. From here he used to go, day after day, to one or another of the city’s holy places to pray for relief or resignation; from here he started on the pilgrimage to Loreto, where the first light broke across the darkness and he received the Divine assurance that his prayers were heard, that the affliction was about to pass away. It was, finally, in the little Church of San Giuseppe dei Falegnami (St. Joseph of the Carpenters), close to the Orphanage of Tata Giovanni, that he said his first Mass, on Easter Sunday, April 11, 1819. It was a very quiet affair, only a few near relations and his beloved orphans assisting at it. His uncle, Paulinus, who was a Canon of St. Peter’s and who had been his tutor in sacred studies, stood beside him all through, for the Pope had only consented to the young man’s ordination on condition that he would never celebrate the Holy Mysteries unless accompanied by another priest. This command the Pontiff rescinded soon afterwards at Father Mastai’s earnest request. He felt assured that his malady would trouble him no more, and Pius VII, in reply, said, “I also believe that, my son.” From that moment, during his long and eventful life, Giovanni Maria Mastai never suffered from any recurrence of the attacks which had, to outward seeming, saddened so many years of his life, but in reality had preserved and prepared him for his true vocation.

CHAPTER V EARLY LIFE OF FATHER MASTAI

Birth in 1792—A Happy Family—His Youth—Epilepsy—The Church at the Time of Napoleon—Abduction of Pius to Avignon—Napoleon’s Downfall—Return of the Pope to Rome—His Reception—Prophecies Regarding Pius IX—His Journey to Chile—Ocean Trip—Across the Andes—Failure of Mission—Rounding Cape Horn—English Settlement on the Cape—“Love-of-the-Soil”—The Falkland Islands.

Nearly a hundred years have passed since the day when the young priest who was to be the best loved and the worst hated man in Europe said his first Mass, and Time’s heavy wings have already blurred his memory in their flight, to a fading outline for the present generation. Very few now know anything about his early years, and in the story of them the finger of God is so clear that it seems to be worth while to make a brief record of the steps by which he was prepared for the burdens and honours of his Pontificate. In reading about his childhood one seems to be carried back not one, but many centuries, so sharply does it contrast with the ideals placed before children in these latter days. It seems to be a road on which there is no returning, but there can be no harm in glancing back at it for a moment.

It was on the 13th of May, 1792, that Pius IX was born, in the Umbrian seaport of Sinigaglia, in the Papal States. His father, Count Mastai-Ferretti, was the descendant of a long line of noblemen who had come thither from Crema in Lombardy towards the end of the Fourteenth Century. Home-loving but public-spirited men they had been, and for a long time their fellow-citizens had confided to them the chief interests of the town, one of the family always filling the office of Mayor, which had thereby become practically hereditary, to the advantage and convenience of all concerned. So Count Mastai was Mayor of his native city at the time that his youngest son came to make the eighth in the house already filled with the laughter and play of three sons and four daughters. The mother of this large family was Caterina Solazzo, one of those noble ladies of whom there were yet so many in Italy when I was a child—a woman of high education and devout soul, who saw in her maternal duties the highest honour to which woman could aspire, and fulfilled them with whole-hearted joy and ardour. That meant work such as the modern woman, who thinks she is an example to toilers for the benefit of the race, would shrink from; the Countess had to rise very early so that she should be the first to approach her children’s bedsides when the rising sun woke the nursery to the frolic and laughter of a new day, and from that moment till all were tucked up and asleep at night she never let them out of her sight. The first words they had ever spoken were the Holy Names, the first conscious movement of each baby hand had been trained to make the sign of the Cross.

They were all good and happy children, and the mother-heart prayed and watched and taught, doubtless forming noble plans for all, but as the youngest grew older his sweetness and goodness filled her with the hope that he might be called to the special service of God. Even as a tiny child his charity was of the alert, all-embracing kind that generally spells saintship in the end; toys, sweets, money—the little boy always found poor children to bestow them upon and would beg for his protégés when his own stores were exhausted. Naturally of a particularly cheerful and sociable disposition—as indeed he remained all his life—yet he pondered much on the stories he heard and took things to heart in a way very unusual for a child of his age. All devout and loyal subjects of the Papacy were grieving at that time over the trials inflicted by Napoleon on Pius VII, kept a prisoner far from his own dominions and subjected to many insults and privations. The Countess one evening told her son that he must pray for the Holy Father, thus suffering at the hands of wicked men. The child was deeply impressed, he obeyed, and prayed with tears for the Pope, and then, in his young logic, proposed to pray for the prompt punishment of his persecutors. Great was the surprise of the ardent little champion when his mother pointed out that that would be wrong—he must pray for their conversion instead!