Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, no. 25, November 1859 | Page 8

the only books allowed; intercourse with the outward world was entirely cut off; surveillance was incessant; on Sunday they were guarded to the chapel, but kept apart; every quarter appeared a priest, who strove, by rigid examination, to elicit political secrets; the agents and officials maintained an unmitigated reserve; what transpired in the world, how it fared with their country and their loved ones, was unknown; existence so near to death itself, in passivity, "cold obstruction," alienation from all the interests, the hopes, and the very impressions of human life, it is impossible to imagine. Subsequently reforms were introduced, and the rigors of this system somewhat modified; but the era of Foresti's confinement at Spielberg was that which has become accursed in political history as the reign of Francesco Primo. He insisted to the last on chains, the badge of crime, and the severest _régime_ possible to life. He had even visited Brunn, and been within hearing of his victims, and sent his physician to ascertain their condition; but refused any mitigation of sufferings, moral and physical, which involved sanity, health, and almost vitality.
The details of this experience are familiar through current European memoirs. Silvio Pellico has made the life of an Austrian prisoner-of-state, in its outward environment and inward struggles, as well known as that of the Arctic explorer or the English factory-operative. A confirmatory supplement to this dark chapter in the history of modern civilization has recently appeared from the pen of another of Foresti's fellow-martyrs, Pallavicino. [Footnote: _Spielbergo e Gradisca: Scene del Carcere Duro di_ GIORGIO PALLAVICINO. Torino. 1856.] But while they were undergoing the bitter ordeal, it was all but unknown in Europe and undreamed of in America; literature, that noble vantage-ground for oppressed humanity, has now broken the silence and proclaimed the truth. There was one solace ingeniously obtained by these buried members of the living human family,--occasional indirect intercourse with each other: the telegraphs of eye and ear conveyed their mutual feelings. One after another succumbed, from the vital injuries of the _régime_; in one case the brain grew weak, in another the blood was impoverished or fevered; this one was prostrated by gangrene in wounds caused by chafing fetters, and that attenuated by insufficient nourishment: yet they contrived to make known to each other how it fared with them respectively. Pellico, through an indulgent guard, sent Foresti verses on his birthday; Maronchelli sounded on the wall the intimation of his continued existence after his leg was amputated; and when marshalled for a walk or convened on Sunday in the chapel, the devoted band had the melancholy satisfaction of beholding each other, though the different groups were not permitted to communicate. Andryane, a French officer, included in the original edict, though upon most inadequate evidence, describes, with keen interest, his first impressions when permitted to go to mass at Spielberg. His companion speculated on the identity of each of the captives. "That one, with dejected looks and hollow eyes, who seems so exhausted, and, though a tall man, is bent down into a dwarf, is Villa. Poor fellow! he has but a few months to live. As for the last one, with the stern looks and bushy black hair, he appears to bear his fate in such a manner as ought to make us resigned to our own." "That," whispered a fellow-prisoner, "is Foresti, who, like Ajax, doubtless mutters between his teeth, 'I will foil them yet, though even the gods oppose me!'" [Footnote: "_Mémoires d'un Prisonnier d'Etat_." Par ALEXANDRE ANDRYANE. Paris.]
This observation was sagacious. It was by calm resolution and philosophic self-possession, through faith in the ultimate triumph of justice and freedom, that Foresti kept at bay the corrosive despair which irritated less noble characters into melancholy or wasted spirits of gentler mould to insanity. Yet his physical torture was extreme. Of robust frame and in the plenitude of youthful vigor when arrested, the want of food during the earlier years of his captivity made serious and permanent inroads upon a naturally powerful constitution. We have heard him relate, with a humorous emphasis indicative of brave endurance, yet suggestive of the keenest pangs, how eagerly he one day seized a pudding, thrust under his dress, as he passed the lodge of an official in the court, by a compassionate woman,--how ingeniously he concealed it from the sentinels, at the risk of burning his hands,--with what triumph he unfolded and with what voracity he devoured it in the solitude of his cell. Sometimes an indignity overcame his self-possession, as, on one occasion, when the jailer's attendant rudely awoke him with a kick, as he deposited a basin of hot broth, which Foresti indignantly seized and dashed its scalding contents into the face of the brutal menial, who thenceforward was more respectful in his salutations.