The White Hands of Aramis
On Board the ' Emma ' : Adventures with Garibaldi's " Thousand " in Sicily. By Alexandre Dumas. Translated with an Introduction by R. S. Garnett. (Benn. 21s.)
Tins book is a notable literary event, for twenty-eight of its fifty-five chapters have never before been translated or pub- lished. They are the more intimate part of the diary kept by Dumas during the eventful summer of 1860, when in response to a romantic telegram from Garibaldi, which read, rally when you hear my guns," he placed himself and his yacht the ' Emma ' at the service of the hero. Three things induced him to do this. The first was his lifelong hatred of the Bourbon family, whose representative Ferdinand II. of Naples had caused Dumas's father to be poisoned ; the second was his love for freedom and its particular embodiment, Garibaldi ; the third was his genius for involved and exciting adventure.
The voyage was conceived nearly thirty years earlier, for when Dumas was a young man he became fired with the idea of making a grand exploration—tour would he too insignificant a word—of the coasts of the Mediterranean, and on this to build a history-travel chronicle of the most amazing scope. Mr. Garnett gives us the prospectus. It reads like a com- pendium of all knowledge.
Not until he had spent the noon of his life in literary slavery, however, was Dumas able to finance so grandiose a project. He then collected his staff and crew. This sounds formal, but, as he tells it, each member becomes a Character, wakened to an exaggerated individuality under the influence of this champagne-like master. Not the least attractive of the happy company was the " midshipman," a beautiful girl dressed in a uniform of violet velvet.
On hearing of the proposed voyage, hosts of Dumas' admirers sent casks and crates of wine and sweetmeats, and even a case of perfumes and soaps. The company set sail, enlivened by this holiday spirit, with frequent halts at the villas and palaces of writers and princes who were waiting to entertain the great literary impresario with the most lavish expenditure of food, drink, and revelry. The telling of this is so good-humoured and Falstaffian, that the bravura writing seems a part of the piece. " If I love the sea as a mistress," he says, " I love Rome as an ancestress." Such gestures as that are mingled with praise and gratitude for the friends and followers who praised him. It is all very glamorous, like the career of a prima donna, without the petulance so fre- quently shown by those darlings of society.
Then began the second act of the opera, with the solemn telegram from Garibaldi. The two heroes had met previously, and Garibaldi had underlined the saying of Michelet, that Dumas " was elemental, one of the forces of Nature." The novelist's passionate Liberalism was well-known, and a valuable ally to the Italian, whose revolution was to be founded on this same doctrine, imported with much good will from Gladstonian England. In addition, Dumas hated the Bourbons, as much for family reasons as for the fact that this over-ripe dynasty had hung too long upon the tree of history. Its festering decadence was poisoning. Italy. Indeed, one may doubt if this unwholesome fruit ever had any other effect in the South. Dumas made it his business to stand below and shake the tree.
He accordingly scrapped the plans for the Homeric itinerary, and turned the prow of the ' Emma ' for Genoa, the head- quarters of the Risorgimerdo. Then followed a leisurely voyage southward past Corsica and Sardinia to Sicily, where the revolution had begun. Garibaldi had landed at Marsala to find the Sicilians groaning under a reign of terror. The Bourbon police, frightened by demonstrations of popular opinion, were trying to crush it by ferocity. Torturing, execu- tion without trial, violation and murder of women and chil- dren, and all the other methods habitual with the tyrants of the senile Empire, succeeded only in rousing the people to fury. Garibaldi was hailed as a saviour, and the peasantry did all in their power to help him and his thousand men in their march on Palermo, the capital.
Dumas entered the harbour to find Garibaldi master of the town, and superintendent of the expulsion of the 15,000 Royalist troops. Dumas came as a sort of benediction from the outside world. He was lodged in the royal palace, and shared with Garibaldi the operatic adulation of the populace. The ruins of the destroyed buildings were hidden under the roses and pennons of carnival. Councils of war, and anxious political intrigue were diluted by the most fantastic festivals whose picturesque colour was heightened by the firework displays given nightly from the Emma.'
Then followed the more difficult task of expelling the Bourbon from the eastern part of the island. It involved heroic fighting and cunning strategy, through which Garibaldi carelessly carried his life unscathed. Again and again he exposed himself recklessly, fighting hand to hand combats, or walking up to enemy outposts to convince them by his spiritual gesture of courage that in him was the cause of freedom and right. Dumas put himself, his fortune, and his yacht at the service of the magnificent rebel. Here was his own literary genius embodied in actual life. He recognized it with his usual generous fervour, and made his powerful per- sonality felt throughout the island. Constituting himself recruiting and publicity agent, purser, spy, and despatch bearer, he worked indefatigably. For Dumas that meant about sixteen hours a day. He was a sleepless giant, who, giiren warmth, food, wine, and congenial female society, could remove mountains. The exuberant Sicilians responded, and wherever he went he was received in triumph, while with all the splendour at their command, the towns presented him with their charters of citizenship.
To crown this excitement, he engaged to go to France and procure munitions. It was a task requiring great tact, for the French Government was sitting on the fence. Dumas did it, negotiating the difficult financial side of the job with a dexterity worthy of his own Athos. He then stationed the ' Emma ' in the Bay of Naples, and intrigued with the members of the Neapolitan Govern- ment on behalf of the rebels. From the windows of the palace, the hated Bourbon could see the receptions on the yacht. This delighted Dumas more than anything else, and made the Gascon element in his nature bubble up and overflow. When at last the King had fled, and the Revolution was complete, Dumas again was royally lodged, and made Curator of the Museum and of the Pompeii Excavations.
Such is the story of the diary, but it is told with all the genius of observation which is characterized in such incidents as that in the Three Musketeers, where Araniis was observed to be sitting with his arms raised so that the blood should not run into his hands and spoil their dainty whiteness.
Mr. Gamett's able translation loses nothing of the humour and gaiety of the original, and he is to be congratulated on a work which he has so patently enjoyed.
RICHARD CHURCH.
Previous page
