MICHELE AMAMI'S WAN Or THE SICILIAN VESPERS. * As usually received,
the story of the Sicilian Vespers forms one of the strangest romances of history:. A conspiracy extending from Constantinople to Aragon, embracing all classes of people, yet kept secret for two years, and carried into effect suddenly, with immeffiate triumph and final success, is more extraordinary than the Gunpowder Plot, the massacre of the Danes, or any other action that stands out exceptionably from the common course of events. When Michele Amari began to Andy this portion of the annals of his native country with a view to write its history, he held the ownmon opinion, although Voltaire had derided the fact of the conspiracy, and Gibbon had doubted, not its existence, but the formed plan of its outbreak: and this opinion, with considerable modifications as to the extent of the conspiracy, is the conclusion at which Amari has arrived. That Peter of Aragon aimed at the kingdom of Sicily, either from self-prompting or the suggestions of John of Prooida and other Sicilian exiles, is clear. It is equally clear that he prepared an army for that purpose, under the pretence of waging war against the Infidels. It appears to be true that he entered into a treaty' with the Greek Emperor Michael Paleologus, whom Charles of Anjou was threatening with war: it is also possible that a general conspiracy was formed among some of the Sicilian barons butbeyond this Amari does not believe that any conspiracy extended. The stories of the ubiquitous and all-persuasive John of Proaida negotiating in various disguises with the Paleologus, the, Pope, and the barons, and a conspiracy embracing a majority at least of the Sicilian people, Amari does not believe. "When carefully sifted," he writes, "the contemporary records amount to this—that Peter eagerly aspired to the crown of Sicily ; that he armed himself; that he treated for subsidies with the Emperor of Constantinople, whose power was threatened by Charles ; that Procida was one of his messengers ; that he may perhaps have conspired with some few Sicilian barons, but that their pleas were not yet matured nor their preparations completed when the people of Sicily broke forth." The foundation of the outbreak was long oppression in every form ; the immediate cause, like two great revolutions in Rome and in some of the Italian cities of the middle ages, was injury to a woman. This is Amari's narrative of the beginning. "New outrages shed a gloom over the festival of Easter at Palermo the, ancient capital of the kingdom ; detested by the strangers more than any other city, as being the strongest and the most deeply injured. Ides. sina was the seat of the King's Viceroy in Sicily, Herbert of Orleans; Palermo was governed by the Justiciary of Val di Mazzara, John of St. ReIMO°, a minister worthy of Charles. His subaltern; worthy both of the Justiciary and of the King, had recently launched out into fresh acts of rapine and violence. But the people submitted. It oven went so far that the citizens of Palermo, seeking comfort from God amid their worldly tribelotions, and having entered a church to pray, in that very church, on the days sacred to the memory of the Saviour% passion, and amidst the penitential rites, were exposed to the most cruel outrages. The ban-dogs of the exchequer searched out amongst them those who had failed in the payment of the taxes ; dragged them forth from the sacred edifice, manacled, and bore them to prison, crying out insultingly before the multitude attracted to the spot, 'Pay, patertn:' pay And the people still submitted. The Tuesday after Easter, which fell on the 31st of March, there was a festival at the church of Santo Spirito. On that occasion a heinous outrage against the liberties of the Sicilians afforded the impulse, and the patience of the people gave way. We will now record all that the historians most deserving of credence have transmitted to us concerning this memorable event. "Half a mile from the Southern wall of the city, on the brink of the ravine of Oreto, stands a church dedicated to the Holy Ghost; concerning which the Latin Fathers have not failed to record, that on the day on which the first stone of it was laid, in the twelfth century, the sun was darkened by an eclipse. On one side of it are the precipice and the river, on the other the plain extending to the city, which in the present day is in great part encumbered with walls and gardens ; while a square enclosure, of moderate size, shaded by dusky cypresses, honeycombed with tombs, and adorned with urns and other sepulchral monuments, surrounds the church. This is a public cemetery, laid out towards the eighteenth century, and fearfully filled in three weeks by the dire pestilence which devastated Sicily in 1837. On the Tuesday, at the hour of reapers, religion and custom crowded this then cheerful plain, carpeted with the flowers of spring, with citizens wending their way towards the church. Divided into numerous group; they walked, sate in clusters, spread the tables, or danced upon the grass ; and, whether it were a defect or a merit of the Sicilian character, threw for the moment, the recollection of their sufferings ;—when the followers of the Justiciary suddenly appeared amongst them, and every bosom thrilled with a shudder of disgust. The strangers mune, with their usual insolent demeanour, as they said, to maintain tranquillity ; and for this purpose they mingled in the groups, joined in the dances, and familiarly accosted the women, pressing the hand of one, taking unwarranted liberties with others; addressing indecent words and gestures to those more distant ; until some temperately admonished them to depart, History of the War of the Sicilian Vespers. By Michele Amari„ Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by the Earl of Elksinere. In three volumes. Published by Bentley-.
in God's name, without insulting the women ; and others murmured angrily ; but the hot-blooded youths rained their voices so fiercely that the soldiery said to one another, These insolent paterini must be armed, that they dare thus to answer' ; and replied to them with the most offensive insults, insisting, with great insolence, on searching them for arms, and even here and there striking them with sticks or thongs. Every heart already throbbed fiercely on either side, when a young woman of singular beauty, and of modest and dignified deportment, appeared with her husband and relations bending her steps towards the church. Drouet, a Frenchman, impelled either by insolence or licence, approached her, as if to examine her for concealed weapons ; seized her, and searched her bosom. She fell fainting into her husband's arms; who, in a voice almost choked with rage, ex
claimed, Death, death to the French At the same moment, a youth burst from the crowd which had gathered round them, sprang upon Drouet, disarmed and slew him ; and probably at the same moment paid the penalty of his own lire, leaving his name unknown, and the mystery for ever unsolved, whether it were love for the injured woman, the impulse of a generous heart, or the more exalted flame of patriotism, that prompted him thus to give the signal of deliverance. Noble examples have a power far beyond that of argument or eloquence to rouse the people, and the abject slaves awoke at length from their long bondage. Death, death to the French they cried ; and the cry, say the historians of the time, reechoed like the voice of God through the whole country, and found an answer hi every. heart. Above the corpse of Drouet were heaped those of victims slain on either side the crowd expanded itself, closed in, swayed hither and thither in wild confusion; the Sicilians, with sticks, stones, and knives, rushed with desperate ferocity upon their fully-armed opponents ; they sought for them and hunted them down ; fearful tragedies were enacted amid the preparations for festivity, and the overthrown tables were drenched in blood. The people displayed their strength and conquered. The struggle was brief, and great the slaughter of the ; but of the French there were two hundred—and two hundred fell.
" Breathless, covered with blood, brandishing the plundered weapons' and
'
proclaiming the insult and its vengeance the insurgents rushed towards the tranquil city. 'Death to the French !' they shouted ; and as many as they found were put to the sword. The example the words, the contagion of passion, in an instant aroused the whole people. In the heat of the tumult Roger Mastrangelo, a nobleman, was chosen, or constituted himself their leader. The multitude continued to increase ; dividing into troops, they scoured the streets, burst open doors, searched every nook, every hidingplace, and shouting 'Death to the French!' smote them and slew them, while those too distant to strike added to the tumult by their applause. On the outbreak of this sudden uproar the Justiciary had taken refuge in his strong palace ; the next moment it was surrounded by an enraged multitude, crying aloud for his death : they demolished the defences, and rushed funously ; but the Justiciary escaped them ; favoured by the confusion and the closing darkness, he succeeded, though wounded in the face, in mounting his horse unobserved, with only two attendants, and fled with all speed. Meanwhile, the slaughter continued with increased ferocity ; even the darkness of night failed to arrest it, and it was resumed on the morrow more furiously than ever; nor did it cease at length because the thirst for vengeance was slaked, but because victims were wanting to appease it. Two thousand French perished in this first outbreak."
Amari's view of the unpremeditated nature of the massacre is supported by various reasons in the text, and by an elaborate review in the appendix of all the chroniolers who have written upon the subject ; the main arguments being, the silence of the bestinformed contemporary historians about the conspiracy-, and the inconsistencies of the narratives themselves with several established facts. There is also the inherent improbability of so extensive a plot being kept secret for such a length of time; there is, too, the air of truth which pervades the historical view of Amari. Revolutions not brought about by constituted powers, or large classes acting openly but by sudden risings, have always emanated from the people. A sudden spark has inflamed the latent passion which long oppression has induced, and roused the populace like an electric shock. When they have done their work sufficiently to give promise of success, the "educated classes" step in to lead and regulate—which is necessary ; and to profit by the popular enthusiasm —the necessity for which is not so clear. Another feature in Amari's work, though that might as well be developed in a narrative of the common idea of the Vespers' is its picture of French conquest and occupation. Charles of Anjou himself was pitiless and tyrannical, but strictly moral. He, however, allowed the licence of his followers free scope ; he oppressed the people by exactions, which in the hands of his agents passed from grinding taxation into plunder' while the hostility of race was increased by Gaulish insolence. The same causes of exaction, licence, and contemptuous insolence, which have ever lost French conquests almost as soon as they were made, were exhibited as completely in the thirteenth century as they have even been since. The same causes which precipitated Europe on Paris in 1814 and ni5 drove Charles of Anjou from the throne of Sicily, brought him to the grave, from anger and disappointment operating upon advancing age, and caused the loss of thousands of Frenchmen and the disgrace of the French name.
Lord Ellesmere, in his introduction, speaks of Sicilian history about the period of the Vespers as having an interest for its "direct bearing on the development of the English constitution. The lure of Sicilian dominion, held out by the Pope to Henry the Third of England, led to financial embarrassments and consequent exactions, which not only incensed the clergy and armed the barons against arbitrary rule, but led to the representation of the commons." We must confess we can trace but little of this direct connexion in Amari's work, or of "incidental notices of the creation and progress of political institutions presenting analogies to those which in the progress of time have ripened into the British constitution." The interest of the work is absolute rather than comparative. It is shown in the moral of oppressive occupation already alluded to, as well as in the folly of forsaking or weakly supporting a native prince against a foreign invader on account of some complaints or grudges. The arrogant claims of the Papacy, though its power had already passed its meridian, and the unprincipled conduct of various Popes, is a source of variety and interest scattered glimpses offered of the strange and as yet unsettled state ! of the peoples bordering on the Mediterranean, Saracens serving ; in Christian armies, and Christians in the pay of the Mahometans of Tunis, with the fuller sketches of the manners of the times in their simplicity and ferocity, is another attractive feature. Matter for speculation and reflection is furnished by the softened feudal system of Sicily and the strong republican feelings of the people, imitated, we may suppose, from the Italian cities, and shown by , several attempts to establish a republic, one of which was after the massacre of the French. Neither is the narrative of the history itself without interest. The leading actors on both sides are men of great abilities and marked character; there is a people oppressed to the last point of resistance, and effectually smiting their oppressors ; the war which followed the revolt is distinguished by great plans, by great battles, and more than all by the law of consequences, which frequently visits on great oppressors the results ofotheir oppressions. In an epic point of view the interest of the narrative ceases with the death of Charles of Anjou; or at least of Peter of Aragon, in the prime of life, and at the zenith of his fame and success. The Sicilian history is properly carried on through the wars and troubles that followed the death of Peter, till the final establishment of his son Frederick upon the throne of Sicily, and the general pacification that accompanied it.
The style of Amari leans rather to the disquisitional than the pictorial school of history, the essayist frequently predominating over the narrator. This may arise from the necessity the writer is under of supporting his own view of the Sicilian Vespers, as well as from a national mode of treatment. Amari is writing for Sicilians, and naturally introduces more remarks on circumstances, institutions, and Sicilian excellences, than he would have done had he addressed himself primarily to an European public. This increases the size of his work ; but his narrative is not defective, though on the whole a little prolix. It is clear, easy, and if it has not a condensed vigour, it brings out the salient points of the subject.
Although Lord Ellesmere figures conspicuously, in the titlepage, he seems to have only encouraged the translation and furnished a pleasant critical and biographical preface with a few notes. The book, however, does not want extraneous assistance ; it is a work of interest on an interesting subject, and is a useful addition to English literature.
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