THIRTEEN YEARS LATER.

ONE evening in July, 1846, a few acquaintances met at Professor Fabrizi's house in Florence to discuss plans for future political work.

Several of them belonged to the Mazzinian party and would have been satisfied with nothing less than a democratic Republic and a United Italy. Others were Constitutional Monarchists and Liberals of various shades. On one point, however, they were all agreed; that of dissatisfaction with the Tuscan censorship; and the popular professor had called the meeting in the hope that, on this one subject at least, the representatives of the dissentient parties would be able to get through an hour's discussion without quarrelling.

Only a fortnight had elapsed since the famous amnesty which Pius IX. had granted, on his accession, to political offenders in the Papal States; but the wave of liberal enthusiasm caused by it was already spreading over Italy. In Tuscany even the government appeared to have been affected by the astounding event. It had occurred to Fabrizi and a few other leading Florentines that this was a propitious moment for a bold effort to reform the press-laws.

"Of course," the dramatist Lega had said, when the subject was first broached to him; "it would be impossible to start a newspaper till we can get the press-law changed; we should not bring out the first number. But we may be able to run some pamphlets through the censorship already; and the sooner we begin the sooner we shall get the law changed."

He was now explaining in Fabrizi's library his theory of the line which should be taken by liberal writers at the moment.

"There is no doubt," interposed one of the company, a gray-haired barrister with a rather drawling manner of speech, "that in some way we must take advantage of the moment. We shall not see such a favourable one again for bringing forward serious reforms. But I doubt the pamphlets doing any good. They will only irritate and frighten the government instead of winning it over to our side, which is what we really want to do. If once the authorities begin to think of us as dangerous agitators our chance of getting their help is gone."

"Then what would you have us do?"

"Petition."

"To the Grand Duke?"

"Yes; for an augmentation of the liberty of the press."

A keen-looking, dark man sitting by the window turned his head round with a laugh.

"You'll get a lot out of petitioning!" he said. "I should have thought the result of the Renzi case was enough to cure anybody of going to work that way."

"My dear sir, I am as much grieved as you are that we did not succeed in preventing the extradition of Renzi. But really--I do not wish to hurt the sensibilities of anyone, but I cannot help thinking that our failure in that case was largely due to the impatience and vehemence of some persons among our number. I should certainly hesitate----"

"As every Piedmontese always does," the dark man interrupted sharply. "I don't know where the vehemence and impatience lay, unless you found them in the strings of meek petitions we sent in. That may be vehemence for Tuscany or Piedmont, but we should not call it particularly vehement in Naples."

"Fortunately," remarked the Piedmontese, "Neapolitan vehemence is peculiar to Naples."

"There, there, gentlemen, that will do!" the professor put in. "Neapolitan customs are very good things in their way and Piedmontese customs in theirs; but just now we are in Tuscany, and the Tuscan custom is to stick to the matter in hand. Grassini votes for petitions and Galli against them. What do you think, Dr. Riccardo?"

"I see no harm in petitions, and if Grassini gets one up I'll sign it with all the pleasure in life. But I don't think mere petitioning and nothing else will accomplish much. Why can't we have both petitions and pamphlets?"

"Simply because the pamphlets will put the government into a state of mind in which it won't grant the petitions," said Grassini.

"It won't do that anyhow." The Neapolitan rose and came across to the table. "Gentlemen, you're on the wrong tack. Conciliating the government will do no good. What we must do is to rouse the people."

"That's easier said than done; how are you going to start?"

"Fancy asking Galli that! Of course he'd start by knocking the censor on the head."

"No, indeed, I shouldn't," said Galli stoutly. "You always think if a man comes from down south he must believe in no argument but cold steel."

"Well, what do you propose, then? Sh! Attention, gentlemen! Galli has a proposal to make."

The whole company, which had broken up into little knots of twos and threes, carrying on separate discussions, collected round the table to listen. Galli raised his hands in expostulation.

"No, gentlemen, it is not a proposal; it is merely a suggestion. It appears to me that there is a great practical danger in all this rejoicing over the new Pope. People seem to think that, because he has struck out a new line and granted this amnesty, we have only to throw ourselves-- all of us, the whole of Italy--into his arms and he will carry us to the promised land. Now, I am second to no one in admiration of the Pope's behaviour; the amnesty was a splendid action."

"I am sure His Holiness ought to feel flattered----" Grassini began contemptuously.

"There, Grassini, do let the man speak!" Riccardo interrupted in his turn. "It's a most extraordinary thing that you two never can keep from sparring like a cat and dog. Get on, Galli!"

"What I wanted to say is this," continued the Neapolitan. "The Holy Father, undoubtedly, is acting with the best intentions; but how far he will succeed in carrying his reforms is another question. Just now it's smooth enough and, of course, the reactionists all over Italy will lie quiet for a month or two till the excitement about the amnesty blows over; but they are not likely to let the power be taken out of their hands without a fight, and my own belief is that before the winter is half over we shall have Jesuits and Gregorians and Sanfedists and all the rest of the crew about our ears, plotting and intriguing, and poisoning off everybody they can't bribe."

"That's likely enough."

"Very well, then; shall we wait here, meekly sending in petitions, till Lambruschini and his pack have persuaded the Grand Duke to put us bodily under Jesuit rule, with perhaps a few Austrian hussars to patrol the streets and keep us in order; or shall we forestall them and take advantage of their momentary discomfiture to strike the first blow?"

"Tell us first what blow you propose?"

"I would suggest that we start an organized propaganda and agitation against the Jesuits."

"A pamphleteering declaration of war, in fact?"

"Yes; exposing their intrigues, ferreting out their secrets, and calling upon the people to make common cause against them."

"But there are no Jesuits here to expose."

"Aren't there? Wait three months and see how many we shall have. It'll be too late to keep them out then."

"But really to rouse the town against the Jesuits one must speak plainly; and if you do that how will you evade the censorship?"

"I wouldn't evade it; I would defy it."

"You would print the pamphlets anonymously? That's all very well, but the fact is, we have all seen enough of the clandestine press to know----"

"I did not mean that. I would print the pamphlets openly, with our names and addresses, and let them prosecute us if they dare."

"The project is a perfectly mad one," Grassini exclaimed. "It is simply putting one's head into the lion's mouth out of sheer wantonness."

"Oh, you needn't be afraid!" Galli cut in sharply; "we shouldn't ask you to go to prison for our pamphlets."

"Hold your tongue, Galli!" said Riccardo. "It's not a question of being afraid; we're all as ready as you are to go to prison if there's any good to be got by it, but it is childish to run into danger for nothing. For my part, I have an amendment to the proposal to suggest."

"Well, what is it?"

"I think we might contrive, with care, to fight the Jesuits without coming into collision with the censorship."

"I don't see how you are going to manage it."

"I think that it is possible to clothe what one has to say in so roundabout a form that----"

"That the censorship won't understand it? And then you'll expect every poor artisan and labourer to find out the meaning by the light of the ignorance and stupidity that are in him! That doesn't sound very practicable."

"Martini, what do you think?" asked the professor, turning to a broad-shouldered man with a great brown beard, who was sitting beside him.

"I think that I will reserve my opinion till I have more facts to go upon. It's a question of trying experiments and seeing what comes of them."

"And you, Sacconi?"

"I should like to hear what Signora Bolla has to say. Her suggestions are always valuable."

Everyone turned to the only woman in the room, who had been sitting on the sofa, resting her chin on one hand and listening in silence to the discussion. She had deep, serious black eyes, but as she raised them now there was an unmistakable gleam of amusement in them.

"I am afraid," she said; "that I disagree with everybody."

"You always do, and the worst of it is that you are always right," Riccardo put in.

"I think it is quite true that we must fight the Jesuits somehow; and if we can't do it with one weapon we must with another. But mere defiance is a feeble weapon and evasion a cumbersome one. As for petitioning, that is a child's toy."

"I hope, signora," Grassini interposed, with a solemn face; "that you are not suggesting such methods as--assassination?"

Martini tugged at his big moustache and Galli sniggered outright. Even the grave young woman could not repress a smile.

"Believe me," she said, "that if I were ferocious enough to think of such things I should not be childish enough to talk about them. But the deadliest weapon I know is ridicule. If you can once succeed in rendering the Jesuits ludicrous, in making people laugh at them and their claims, you have conquered them without bloodshed."

"I believe you are right, as far as that goes," Fabrizi said; "but I don't see how you are going to carry the thing through."

"Why should we not be able to carry it through?" asked Martini. "A satirical thing has a better chance of getting over the censorship difficulty than a serious one; and, if it must be cloaked, the average reader is more likely to find out the double meaning of an apparently silly joke than of a scientific or economic treatise."

"Then is your suggestion, signora, that we should issue satirical pamphlets, or attempt to run a comic paper? Th............