The Pope condemned the French for their outrages on
religion, and his subjects murdered Basseville, the agent of the new
republic. The sympathies and impulses of the various states were as
contradictory as they were ineffectual.
Meanwhile, in France, Europe was trying to solve at a stroke the
problems of a thousand years. All the repressed passions which
civilisation had sought, however imperfectly, to curb, stalked abroad
destructive as flood and fire. The great generation of the
Encyclopaedists had passed away, and the teachings of Rousseau had
prevailed over those of Montesquieu and Voltaire. The sober sense of the
economists was swept aside by the sound and fury of the demagogues, and
France was become a very Babel of tongues. The old malady of words had
swept over the world like a pestilence.
To the little Italian courts, still dozing in fancied security under the
wing of Bourbon and Hapsburg suzerains, these rumours were borne by the
wild flight of emigres--dead leaves loosened by the first blast of the
storm. Month by month they poured across the Alps in ever-increasing
numbers, bringing confused contradictory tales of anarchy and outrage.
Among those whom chance thus carried to Pianura were certain familiars
of the Duke's earlier life--the Count Alfieri and his royal mistress,
flying from Paris, and arriving breathless with the tale of their
private injuries. To the poet of revolt this sudden realisation of his
doctrines seemed in fact a purely personal outrage.
Pages:
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562