Part 12 (1/2)

Small as these numbers appear in comparison with the large army of prost.i.tutes exercising their calling at Paris, it is not at all doubtful but the establishment is a useful one. No one can help but concur with M.

Parent-Duchatelet when he observes that, ”did it not exist, it would be necessary to create it.”

NOTE.--As M. Parent-Duchatelet has written the best, we might almost say the only philosophical work on prost.i.tution extant, it may be useful to subjoin the test of the statute which he proposed to regulate the subject of prost.i.tution.

LAW RELATIVE TO THE REPRESSION OF PROSt.i.tUTION.

_Art. 1._ The duty of repressing prost.i.tution, whether with provocation on the public highway or otherwise, is intrusted at Paris to the Prefect of Police, and in all the other _communes_ of France to the mayors respectively.

_Art. 2._ A discretionary authority over all persons engaged in public prost.i.tution is vested in these functionaries, within the scope of their powers.

_Art. 3._ Shall const.i.tute evidence of public prost.i.tution either, 1st, direct provocation thereto on the public highway; 2d, public notoriety; or, 3d, legal proof adduced after accusation and trial.

_Art. 4._ The Prefect of Police at Paris, and the mayors in the other _communes_, shall make any and all regulations which they may deem suitable for the repression of prost.i.tution, and such regulations shall bear upon all those who encourage prost.i.tution as a trade--lodgers, inn-keepers and tavern-keepers, landlords and tenants.

_Art. 5._ The Dispensary at Paris for the superintendence of women of the town is placed on the same footing as the public health establishments. Other similar dispensaries may be established wherever they are needed.

_Art. 6._ A full report of the proceedings of these dispensaries shall be forwarded annually to the Minister of the Interior.

M. Duchatelet conceived this short law to be adequate for the purpose.

It may be presumed that he took for granted that the mayors of the _communes_ would never attempt to carry out original views of their own on the subject; he doubtless gave them credit for sufficient self-abnegation to adopt, without question, the elaborate and sensible plan which experience has taught the authorities of Paris. How far this a.s.sumption was justifiable appears uncertain, in view of the fact that at Lyons and Strasbourg, the prost.i.tutional system has always differed from that of the capital. In both those cities a tax has been levied on prost.i.tutes till a very late period; at Lyons it was exacted, it is believed, in 1842.

CHAPTER XI.

ITALY.

Decline of Public Morals.--Papal Court.--Nepotism.--John XXII.--s.e.xtus IV.--Alexander VI.--Effect of the Reformation.--Poem of Fracastoro.-- Benvenuto Cellini.--Beatrice Cenci.--Laws of Naples.--Pragmatic Law of 1470.--Court of Prost.i.tutes.--Bull of Clement II.--Prost.i.tution in Lombardy and Piedmont.--Clerical Statute.--Modern Italy.--Laws of Rome.--Public Hospitals.--Lazaroni of Naples.--Italian Manners as depicted by Lord Byron.--Foundling Hospitals.--True Character of Italian People.

Birth-place of modern art and literature, dowered with the fatal heritage of beauty, Italy, in the varied pa.s.sages of her career among the nations, has been as remarkable for the vice and sensuality of her children as she has been eminent for their talents and acquirements.

The heart of the historical student thrills with respectful sympathy over the sorrows and enn.o.bling virtues of her patriots in all ages, or his intellect is captivated with enthusiastic admiration and reverence in considering the monuments of resplendent genius given to mankind by her sons. Let him turn the page, and his soul recoils in disgust and deepest horror from the narrative of corruption the most abandoned, ambition the most unscrupulous, l.u.s.t the most abominable, crime the most tremendous, to which the history of the world scarcely offers a parallel, and which brands the perpetrators with the execration of all succeeding generations.

The most glorious era of the Italian republics immediately preceded their downfall. Like s.h.i.+ning lights, they perished by their own effulgence. The mutual jealousies of Florence, Pisa, Genoa, Lucca, and the numerous independent cities and states, stirred up in them a ”n.o.ble and emulous rage” to excel each other in the encouragement they gave to art and letters, and the mighty works produced by their respective citizens. But the same sentiment also roused them to deadlier feuds, and the common field of national patriotism being shut up, they exhausted themselves and each other by desperately-protracted struggles and incredible sacrifices of blood and treasure. Thus they paved the way to the introduction of the foreigner and the mercenary, who completed their ruin; until, in place of the small but ill.u.s.trious republics which formed a diadem of brightest gems, arose a system of petty tyrants, who plunged the country into misery and degradation. These, in turn, were swept away by the strong arm of a despotism which has never since relaxed its grasp of this loveliest country of the earth.

No influence played a more important part in bringing about this catastrophe than that of the court of Rome. By the intrigues of the Roman pontiffs the mutual jealousies of the states were exacerbated and their quarrels fomented. While these results were caused by the political actions of the popes and their advisers, the worst effects were produced upon public manners and morals by their example. The abuses which had established themselves among the Roman hierarchy were the natural consequences of long and undisturbed enjoyment by the clergy of their vast immunities and privileges. The demoralization and dissoluteness which thus existed, and which spread its poison throughout the civilized world, but especially throughout Italy, are attested to posterity by all contemporary writers.

The enormous iniquity which distinguished such men as John XXII., s.e.xtus IV., or Alexander VI., is notorious to all. Although the character of communities is not to be inferred from the actions of exceptional prodigies, either of virtue or vice, it is evident that the system which could place monsters like these in the august positions they filled must have been rotten to the core. The worth of a Leo X. or a Clement VII.

consisted in the absence of the grosser vices rather than in any positive excellence, and the encouragement given by such men to objectionable practices did more to confirm a laxity of morals than the odious and unpardonable offenses of their predecessors.

Some of the political profligacy of the court of Rome, and, through its example, of the other Italian courts, was owing to the system which had sprung up of each pope providing for his family. The term _nepote_ (nephew) was in common use as expressing the relations.h.i.+p which existed between the pope and the individuals selected for advancement. The priests of all denominations had nephews and nieces to provide for, and the abuses covered by the term were objects of the keenest satire. In fact, Innocent VIII. thus provided for eight openly avowed sons and daughters.[215] The pseudo-avuncular obligations of s.e.xtus IV. were also well known. Other popes, whose sins were not in this particular direction, having no sons, adopted a _bona fide_ nephew, and one or two, feeling the want of ties of kindred or family relations.h.i.+p, actually adopted strangers. In one instance, the Donna Olimpia, a niece by marriage, and ”a lady of ability and a manly spirit,” took the place of a nephew in the court of Innocent X., without any imputation on the character of either pope or niece.[216]

The effect produced by this example in high places, particularly upon the clergy, and through them on the community, can be imagined. By a decree of the Church in the eleventh session of the Lateran Council it appears that the clergy were accustomed to live in a state of public concubinage, nay, more, to allow others to do so for money paid to them by permission.

Dante, in one of his daring flights, compares the papal court to Babylon, and declares it a place deprived of virtue and shame. In the nineteenth canto of the Inferno, Dante, visiting h.e.l.l, finds Nicholas III. there waiting the arrival of Boniface, who again is to be succeeded by Clement.

The Reformation compelled some attention to morals among the clergy, and for a time an earnest endeavor was made at a purification of the Church.

This was one of the chief labors of the famous Council of Trent. That council certainly did repress the abuses among the general clergy, but the law-makers were law-breakers. They could not touch the cardinals, archbishops, or the Pope himself, and thus little radical change was effected among the chief dignitaries.[217]

There are not wanting writers who acquit the Italian national character of blame in the matter, attributing the general corruption partly to the frightful example of foreign invaders. The invasion of Charles VIII., himself a dissolute monarch, with the universal licentiousness of the French troops, did undoubtedly contribute largely to ruin the morals of the people at large, but, to use the words of Machiavelli, ”If the papal court were removed to Switzerland, the simplest and most religious people of Europe would, in an incredibly short time, have become utterly depraved by the vicious example of the Italian priesthood.”[218]

The ecclesiastics did not confine themselves to licentiousness of conduct.