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

walk in the yard daily,
between two soldiers with loaded muskets, was the only respite from
solitude and inaction; "Lives of the Saints" were 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,