Rule of the Monk; Or, Rome in the Nineteenth CenturyGaribaldi, Giuseppe
History
Rule of the Monk; Or, Rome in the Nineteenth Century
Garibaldi, Giuseppe
Italian fiction -- Translations into English; Rome (Italy) -- History -- 1798-1870 -- Fiction
The whole host of Government officials, including the police, actively
interfere in aid of the ministerial candidate. Schoolmasters and others
will be dismissed from their posts if they give a refractory vote; and
workmen for the same reason are discharged. Official addresses have been
known to be openly published, desiring the people not to vote for the
opposition candidates; and there are instances of papers on the day
of election being withheld from those voters who might prove to be too
independent. Therefore it was with a view to reforming these abuses that
General Garibaldi, in addressing the municipality of Palma, said, "Let
the new Chambers be impressed with the necessity of reorganizing the
administration, and if the Government, to tempt them, returns to its
evil ways, then ill betide it." We do not intend following the General's
steps as he proceeded from town to town, enthusiastically received by
the multitude, who, joyous at the sight of the "man of the people,"
applauded his doctrine of non-submission to foreign dominion and
humiliation, and above all echoed his plain denunciations of that
clerical infamy and that immoral understanding which exists between the
Papacy and those of the unworthy men who misgovern Italy.
As it may be supposed, the priests attacked the General, and accused him
far and wide of being an atheist. This false and foolish charge led
to his making the following address before twenty thousand people at
Padua:-
"It is in vain that my enemies try to make me out an atheist. I believe
in God. I am of the religion of Christ, not of the religion of the
Popes. I do not admit any intermediary between God and man. Priests have
merely thrust themselves in, in order to make a trade of religion. They
are the enemies of true religion, liberty, and progress; they are the
original cause of our slavery and degradation, and in order to subjugate
the souls of Italians, they have called in foreigners to enchain their
bodies. The foreigners we have expelled, now we must expel those mitred
and tonsured traitors who summoned them. The people must be taught that
it is not enough to have a free country, but that they must learn to
exercise the rights and perform the duties of free men. Duty! duty! that
is the word. Our people must learn their duties to their families, their
duties to their country, their duties to humanity."
Garibaldi proceeded next to the university of Padua; and there, standing
before the statue of Galileo, he uncovered his head, saying, "Who,
remembering Galileo, his genius and his life, the torture inflicted upon
him, the martyrdom he suffered--he, I say, who, remembering this, does
not despise the priests of Rome, is not worthy to be called a man or an
Italian."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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