This malignant distemper had destroyed numbers of prisoners during the preceding years. The governor, upon learning that Maroncelli had been attacked by it, agreed with the physician, that the sole hope of remedy was in the fresh air. They were afraid of its spreading; and Maroncelli was ordered to be as little as possible within his dungeon. Being his companion, and also unwell, I was permitted the same privilege. We were permitted to be in the open air the whole time the other prisoners were absent from the walk, during two hours early in the morning, during the dinner, if we preferred it, and three hours in the evening, even after sunset.
There was one other unhappy patient, about seventy years of age, and in extremely bad health, who was permitted to bear us company. His name was Constantino Munari; he was of an amiable disposition, greatly attached to literature and philosophy, and agreeable in conversation.
Calculating my imprisonment, not from my arrest, but from the period of receiving my sentence, I had been seven years and a half (in the year 1829), according to the imperial decree, in different dungeons; and about nine from the day of my arrest. But this term, like the other, passed over, and there was no sign of remitting my punishment.
Up to the half of the whole term, my friend Maroncelli, Munari, and I had indulged the idea of a possibility of seeing once more our native land and our relations; and we frequently conversed with the warmest hopes and feelings upon the subject. August, September, and the whole of that year elapsed, and then we began to despair; nothing remained to relieve our destiny but our unaltered attachment for each other, and the support of religion, to enable us to close our latter prison hours with becoming dignity and resignation. It was then we felt the full value of friendship and religion, which threw a charm even over the darkness of our lot. Human hopes and promises had failed us; but God never forsakes the mourners and the captives who truly love and fear Him.
CHAPTER XC.
After the death of Villa, the Abate Wrba was appointed our confessor, on occasion of the Abate Paulowich receiving a bishopric. He was a Moravian, professor of the gospel at Brünn, and an able pupil of the Sublime Institute of Vienna. This was founded by the celebrated Frinl, then chaplain to the court. The members of the congregation are all priests, who, though already masters of theology, prosecute their studies under the Institution with the severest discipline. The views of the founder were admirable, being directed to the continual and general dissemination of true and profound science, among the Catholic clergy of Germany. His plans were for the most part successful, and are yet in extensive operation.
Being resident at Brünn, Wrba could devote more of his time to our society than Paulowich. He was a second father Battista, with the exception that he was not permitted to lend us any books. We held long discussions, from which I reaped great advantage, and real consolation. He was taken ill in 1829, and being subsequently called to other duties, he was unable to visit us more. We were much hurt, but we obtained as his successor the Abate Ziak, another learned and worthy divine. Indeed, among the whole German ecclesiastics we met with, not one showed the least disposition to pry into our political sentiments; not one but was worthy of the holy task he had undertaken, and imbued at once with the most edifying faith and enlarged wisdom.
They were all highly respectable, and inspired us with respect for the general Catholic clergy.
The Abate Ziak, both by precept and example, taught me to support my sufferings with calmness and resignation. He was afflicted with continual defluxions in his teeth, his throat, and his ears, and was, nevertheless, always calm and cheerful.
Maroncelli derived great benefit from exercise and open air; the eruptions, by degrees, disappeared; and both Munari and myself experienced equal advantage.