THE MARCHES: POLITICAL METAYERS : OUR LADY OF LORETTO.
Macerate, September 12, 1864. TEE Marches have been deservedly called the "Garden of Italy." Not even the choicest districts of Tuscany can outvie the laughing richness of agricultural fertility and peaceful plenty which here meets the eye in waving plains of luxurious grain, sprinkled here and there with olive groves and regularly festooned with luscious vines. It is a landscape where everything breathes the "Georgics," and where nature still seems to have preserved a remnant of that spontaneity and happy radiance which belonged to the golden age. Peace, mild peace, with its sniffing attendants contentment and a sense for kindly good-fellowship, might seem to have pitched their tents in this favoured region, which overflows with milk and honey and is inhabited by a labouring population full of soft and simple virtues. Certainly Italy abounds in striking contrasts when one compares the patient, frugal, industrious, and mild peasantry of the Marches with the wildly passionate temper which marks the men of the adjoining province of Romagna. You have to deal with two totally different populations in the two provinces. At no time have political passions attained in the Marches the almost ferocious intensity which they attained in Romagna. Those tre- mendous feuds and inextinguishable hatreds which there produced terrible revenges have been utterly foreign to these peaceful parts, where even pontifical government relaxed in some degree from its galling narrowness of spirit, and contracted some of that easy habit of mind which pervades the character of the men of the Marches. Such a population ought not to be difficult to govern, especially when, as certainly is the case here, all the intelligence of the province is favourably disposed towards the Government, and
when this intelligence as represented by the landed gentry possesses an immense moral influence over the peasantry, from the intimate connection which has been produced between the two by
the universal existence of the metayer system. I have had an opportunity of seeing closely the social workings of this system
during my stay here at the villa of a gentleman of property. . I suppose that Macerate is of all the towns in Italy the one least visited by English tourists, for those who do go to the Marches follow the high road, while Macerate stands away from it and on the top of a high hill. Yet it is in such towns as this that the social conditions of Italy must be studied. It is here and not in
metropolitan centres like Florence or Naples that that highly influential element, the provincial gentry of Italy, is to be known— an element which played an immense part in the revolution, for in Italy there is everywhere a large class of gentlemen intimately con- nected with certain localities, living habitually like our couhtry gentlemen on their properties, and consequently possessed like them of great local influence. Of these provincial towns in the old Papal dominions Macerate was always distinguished for the superior cul- ture of its gentry, which acquired a high reputation for its exertions in behalf of popular education. Partly by subscriptions and partly by bequests Discerata, even under the Pope, procured a number of fair schools, while such was the prevailing jealousy of ecclesiastical interference that the Jesuits never contrived to open an establishment here, and an eminent citizen made it in his will the condition of a legacy that the institution to which he bequeathed it should never be under the management of the Bishop. It is indeed inexplicable how the Pope consented to permit tacitly such manifestations—but thee all connected with Rome is full of • anomaly—so that practically there was an amount of freedom from restraint in this district which was not to be found elsewhere. The inevitable result of this favoured state of things is that the Marches have gained immediately by the change of Govern- ment less than any other portion of the Pope's dominions. The material improvements visible in this purely agricultural district are much fewer than meet the eye in Romagna. In addition the new Government has had to encounter a difficulty which, although of its own creation, could not be avoided. This agricultural popu- lation has no taste for soldiering, and largely shirked the conscrip • tion on its introduction. Now here it is that the peculiar influence which the gentry exercises over the peasantry is beginning to do the Government excellent service.
As I have said before, the me'tayer system prevails without ex- ception, resulting in an intimate and yet deferential familiarity between tenant and landlord which is quite patriarchal. I do not wish for a moment to speak to the agricultural value of this naturally very conservative and unprogressive system, which I very much doubt, but merely to the fact of the close union which - has grown up through it between two important sections of society and the great political consequences which can flow from the same. The colono is a tenant at will, and yet very often has resided for generations on the farm, and between him and his landlord there are the relations of half-retainer, half-friend, the one looking con- fidently up to the other and the latter reposing full trust in the former. The connection is an indescribably respectful and affectionate one. Now when the conscription was first decreed these coloni absconded in numbers and hid themselves from the gendarmes, returning to labour on their farms as soon as these were out of the way, but flying again at the first signal of their approach. The truth is these men had the most extraordinary ideas of the hardships they were to be exposed to, and it is in correcting these false notions that the landed gentry has been highly beneficial. An example which has come under my notice will illustrate this in- fluence better than any disquisition. On the property of a friend with whom I am intimately acquainted a colono whose name was drawn shirked the conscription. During two years he led the life of an outlaw, that is to say whenever the police were in the neighbourhood he absconded, and played hide-and-seek through the assistance of his fellow peasants. This was of course no secret to his friends, least of all to his landlord ; but yet so general was the connivance on the part of his own class that it was impossible to catch him. His landlord every time he returned to his farm represented to him the folly and the risks of his conduct, and the effect of these friendly remonstrances was that the man presented himself at last voluntarily to the authorities and was enrolled. Accordingly he has been sent to the depot of his regiment, and now he has written home to his Mends letters expressive of delight at his new life. I believe this to be one case of many. That the conscription still meets in this province with more difficulties than in many others is true ; but it is as decidedly true that it no longer meets with the difficulties that it
did at first, and that this difference is due to a growing sense from experience that the military service is not the ignominious serfage which it was conceived to be. It deserves to be mentioned that one of the greatest landowners in this province is the Emperor Napoleon. Originally the property he owned at Civita Nuova belonged to his Uncle Jerome ; but he has been steadily buying up the adjoining land, and he bears the character both of a very improving landlord and of a very liberal subscriber to all local institutions.
If from the nature of things the agricultural portion of the Marches can show as yet comparatively small advance in virtue of the new order of things, the improvements in their capital city— A ricotta, are perfectly marvellous. No traveller can ever have visited Ancona without carrying away with him an indelible recollection of its fetid, filthy, horrible condition. The squalor of its putrid streets made the stenches of Cologne seem perfume of rose water in comparison. In old times Ancona continued to exist because likes cat with its nine lives it could not be killed. Its situation on the Adriatic secured necessarily for it such trade as the neighbouring provinces could support under very unfavourable circumstances. I had been told that I should find extraordinary changes,—what, however, met my eye exceeded all I ever could have anticipated. I defy any one to recognize Ancona again. The walls have been thrown down in one direction and a whole new town is springing up. As you .pass along, the incessant tick of the stone- mason's chisel and hammer rings in your ear. Houses of enormous dimensions built by men engaged in the trade of the city are being reared in the new Como. Two new theatres are being built by the town. As for the fort, formerly visited by a solitary Lloyds steamer at long intervals, I found no less than four steamers in it plying to all the different harbours of the Mediterranean. Turn where you will and you look upon the unmistakeable symptoms of an active and prosperous community buoyant with enterprise. Very different and deeply suggestive was the scene I looked upon at another and more widely celebrated town of this province, Loretto. The 8th of September is the festival of the Nativity of the Virgin, the greatest day of the year for the miraculous shrine for which Loretto is celebrated. On that day it is the especial object of devout pilgrimage. At Ancona I had already encountered crowds of peasantry on their way thither, and so my curiosity stimulated by accounts of this gathering made me persuade a friend from Macerate to drive over and see a scene which is unique in its way, and not unworthy of being ranked alongside of such monstrous scenes as those of Juggernaut. Indeed Loretto may be likened to the huge shrines of India which attain the proportions of a city, for the whole town consisting of little more than one street perched on a steep hill is more or less a portion of the shrine. As to the Cam Santa itself, which I had visited formerly, every guide-book gives its description ; but I am perplexed how to convey in words an adequate conception of the scene which I looked upon from the moment I passed the city gates. The streets presented one surging sea of human devotees, pushing, thrusting, jostling each other in the sweltering mid-day heat through the main street lined with gay booths of rosaries, and holy medals, and strange amulets, which screaming chapmen were offering for sale. Sometimes through this throng there passed slowly a mag- nificent ecclesiastic of the Holy House in the purple robes which are the privilege of its dignitaries ; but the bulk of the crowd was composed of peasantry, and especially the wild-looking sandal- shod peasantry of the Abruzzi, who were to be counted not by hundreds but by thousands. At last, when I worked my way up to the doors of the church, behind the main altar of which is the shrine of the Santa Casa, my ears were struck with the thrilling accents of an invocation to the Virgin which burst from the lips of the ardent devotees who from the threshold of the church were moving on their knees up to the sanctuary. There was an intensity of fervour in the vibration of this chorus as it burst from the inner- most hearts of these poor creatures which had something quite painfully impressive. One heard the living accent of a feeling quite unfathomable in the depth of its fanatical superstition, and I understood the tremendous power for political horrors there was here ready at hand for unscrupulous manipulation. I walked up the side aisle and got to the side entrance of the sup- posed birth-chamber. Here I saw a reverend dignitary sitting outside the latter by a desk. A crowd of devotees approached him one after the other. Then there ensued some little talk and the chink of money was heard repeatedly, his reverence opening his desk to give change, the correctness of which he seemed to have often difficulty in making the peasantry to understand. A few steps behind at another desk stood a couple of coarse, greasy, jabber- ing friars, incessantly occupied in applying a seal to small parcels which they then handed to the eager expectants who came to them from the dignitary's desk. Suddenly the latter jumped up and shuffled through the bystanders into the birth-chamber, round the door of which these closed. After an instant the priest re-appeared holding the most holy relic of our Saviour's pap-dish, wherein were deposited for a blessing one by one the objects sealed by the friars. These consisted chiefly of coarse woodcuts with shreds of the Virgin's veil stuck on and charms against particular evils, of which latter the favourite were little bells carefully wrapped in paper and stamped with the mirifie seal of Loretto, in virtue whereof they have the power if tingled during a thunderstorm to protect against lightning. As his reverence was blessing away with a singular air of irreverence and as fast as ever he could the objects which were being thrust into the dish by the poor pil- grims from the mountains, on whose faces was stamped an intensity of devotion in striking contrast with his nonchalance, I saw the tall figure of a French priest followed by a lady pass up to the door. He had all the assumed austerity of set asceticism and ecclesiastical earnestness in his deportment so different from the slipshod bearing of the vulgar priests around. He bore stamped on his face all the outward signs of that arrogant sense of self- respect which is so natural to ecclesiastics. Curious to see what a man of his evidently superior education to that of the herd of vulgar priests officiating would do in the midst of this burlesque pantomime of everything sacred I drew close. To my astonishment he turned round to the lady, who gave him three common tea-cups, which, performing all the prescribed genuflections, he put in the pap- dish and got blessed. A short while after I found this priest in the sacristy by himself, sunk apparently in a trance of religious contemplation. I learnt that he was the French representative of the Church, for at Loretto every nation has its appointed repre- sentative amongst the canons, so that no pilgrim from any nation may be at a loss for an interpreter. The man interested me, for in him one saw how far could go a resolute determination to promote deception in virtue of a principle. To me the scene in the church was one I would willingly have looked on all day ; but time pressed, so taking to our carriage we drove away down into the plain. Suddenly a sustained chant sounded on our ears, and on turning a corner we overtook a number of the sandal-shod Abbruzzese of both sexes going in two single files towards their homes, distant near two hundred miles, bareheaded in the hottest of Italian summer suns and singing at the top of their voices a hymn to the Virgin. In this way these poor people are directed to accomplish their journey. Whenever they are in sight of any human dwellings they have to sing their chant to the Madonna. Instinctively I exclaimed to my friend, "The Flagellanti of the middle ages." There was no mistaking the brute force of fanati- cism which here presented itself. Hundreds of miles had these poor savages walked to Loretto, hundreds of miles were they now going to walk back again, in fulfilment of what they were in- culcated to believe to be duty and religion. The same superstitious reverence for priestly counsel which makes them do this makes them also accept it on other matters. Now it is in the Abruzzi that brigandage assumed in some degree a political complexion, or at least something above that of mere highway robbery. The ranks of the bands were filled with precisely the same shaggy, ignorant boors who here were tramping their feet sore because the priests told them it would be to their benefit. Of course it is but human nature that they should show at least equal alacrity in following up pleasant suggestions to lawlessness when coming from the same quarter. I think that what I saw at Loretto is more instructive than a folio report as to whence comes the force which has sus- tained the brigandage of the Abruzzi.
A LOOKER-ON.
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