One of those present (Lavater, the great physiognomist) tried to suggest that the faces of his two young successors (the future Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette) revealed a kind and charitable disposition, but the Stranger (which the readers would probably have recognized by now as Joseph Balsamo, whom Dumas had not yet named) reminded him that there could be no concern for human pity when advancement of the torch of progress was at stake. Within twenty years the French monarchy had to be wiped off the face of the earth.
At this point each representative of each lodge from each country came forward offering men or wealth for the victory of the republican and Masonic cause, under the banner of Lilia pedibus destrue—Tread under foot and destroy the lilies of France.
It didn’t occur to me that a conspiracy of five continents might be an excessive way to change the constitutional rule in France. Anyone from Piedmont at that time would, in fact, have said the only powers existing in the world were France, certainly Austria, perhaps Cochin China far far away, but no other country was worthy of note, except of course the Papal States. From the picture created by Dumas (in reverence to that great writer), I wondered whether the bard had not discovered, in describing a single conspiracy, the Universal Form of every possible conspiracy.
Let us forget Thunder Mountain, the left bank of the Rhine and those events, I said to myself. Let us imagine conspirators who come from every part of the world and represent the tentacles of their sect spread throughout every country. Let us assemble them in a forest clearing, a cave, a castle, a cemetery or a crypt, provided it is reasonably dark. Let us get one of them to pronounce a discourse that clearly sets out the plan, and the intention to conquer the world…I have known many people who feared the conspiracy of some hidden enemy—for my grandfather it was the Jews, for the Jesuits it was the Masons, for my Garibaldian father it was the Jesuits, for the kings of half of Europe it was the Carbonari, for my Mazzinian companions it was the king backed by the clergy, for the police throughout half the world it was the Bavarian Illuminati, and so forth. Who knows how many other people in this world still think they are being threatened by some conspiracy? Here’s a form to be filled out at will, by each person with his own conspiracy.
Dumas had a truly clear understanding of the human mind. What does everyone desire, and desire more fervently the more wretched and unfortunate they are? To earn money easily, to have power (the enormous pleasure in commanding and humiliating your fellow man) and to avenge every wrong suffered (everyone in life has suffered at least one wrong, however small it might be). And that is why in Monte Cristo he shows how to amass great wealth, enough to give you superhuman power, and how to make your enemies pay back every debt. But why, everybody asks, am I not blessed by fortune (or at least not as blessed as I would like to be)? Why have I not been favored like others who are less deserving? No one believes their misfortunes are attributable to any shortcomings of their own; that is why they must find a culprit. Dumas offers, to the frustration of everyone (individuals as well as countries), the explanation for their failure. It was someone else, on Thunder Mountain, who planned your ruin.
On reflection, Dumas had invented nothing. He had merely put into story form what, according to my grandfather, Abbé Barruel had already shown. This led me to think, even then, that if I wanted to sell the story of a conspiracy, I didn’t have to offer the buyer anything original, but simply something he already knew or could have found out more easily in other ways. People believe only what they already know, and this is the beauty of the Universal Form of Conspiracy.
It was 1855. I was already twenty-five. I had graduated in law and still did not know what to do with my life. I spent my time in the company of old friends without feeling much enthusiasm for their revolutionary zeal, always expecting, skeptically, that they would be disappointed within a few months. Here once again was Rome recaptured by the pope, and Pius IX, having been a reformer, became more reactionary than his predecessors. Here all hope was fading, through misfortune or cowardice, of Carlo Alberto’s becoming the harbinger of Italian unity. Here was the empire reestablished in France after violent socialist revolts had set all hearts alight. Here was the new Piedmont government sending soldiers off to fight a useless war in Crimea instead of liberating Italy.
I could no longer read the novels that had taught me more than my Jesuits had ever managed to do—in France, a supreme council of the university, which (for some reason or other) included a bishop and three archbishops, had passed the so-called Riancey Amendment, imposing a five-centimes-per-copy tax on every newspaper that published a feuilleton in installments. This news was of little importance for those who knew nothing about the publishing business, but my friends and I immediately realized its implications: the tax was so punitive, French newspapers would be forced to stop publishing novels. The voices of those who had condemned the evils of society, such as Sue and Dumas, would be silenced forever.
My grandfather, who was becoming increasingly confused, though at times quite aware of what was going on around him, complained that the government of Piedmont, which had been taken over by such Masons as d’Azeglio and Cavour, had been transformed into a synagogue of Satan.
«You realize, my boy,» he said, «the laws of that man Siccardi have abolished the so-called privileges of the clergy. Why abolish the right of asylum in holy places? Does a church have fewer rights than a police station? Why abolish the ecclesiastical court for priests accused of common crimes? Does the Church not have the right to judge its own? Why abolish prior religious censure on publications? Can anyone now say whatever they please, without moderation and without respect for faith and morality? And when our Archbishop Fransoni invited the clergy of Turin to disobey these measures, he was arrested as a common criminal and sentenced to a month’s imprisonment! And now we have arrived at the dissolution of the mendicant and contemplative orders, almost six thousand monks.
The state confiscates their property and says it will be used to pay parish stipends, but if you put together all the property from all these orders, you reach a figure that is ten…I’d say a hundred times as much as all the stipends throughout the kingdom, and the government will spend the money on schools, to give humble folk an education they don’t need, or it will be used for paving the ghettos! And all under the motto of ‘A free church in a free state,’ where the only one that is truly free to abuse its power is the state. True freedom is man’s right to follow the law of God, to be worthy of heaven or hell. And now instead, freedom means you can choose whatever beliefs and opinions you please, where one is the same as the other—and for the state it is all the same whether you are a Mason, a Christian, a Jew or a follower of the Great Turk. And no one cares about Truth.»
«And when our Archbishop Fransoni invited the clergy of Turin to disobey these measures, he was arrested as a common criminal and sentenced to a month’s imprisonment!»
«And there it is, my son,» he cried one evening, no longer able in his senility to distinguish me from my father, and now he panted and groaned as he spoke. «They are all disappearing: the Canons of the Lateran, Canons Regular of Sant’Egidio, Calced and Discalced Carmelites, Carthusians, Cassinese Benedictines, Cistercians, Olivetans, Minims, Friars Minor Conventual, Observant, Reformed and Capuchin, Oblates of Saint Mary, Passionists, Dominicans, Mercedarians, Servants of Mary, Oratorian Fathers, and the Poor Clares, Crucified Sisters, Celestines or Turchines, and the Baptistines.»
And having recited the list like a rosary, becoming increasingly agitated and ending as if he had forgotten to take a breath, he ordered the civet to be served, made with belly pork, butter, flour, parsley, half a liter of Barbera, a hare cut into pieces the size of an egg (including the heart and liver), small onions, salt, pepper, spices and sugar.
He was almost consoled, but soon after this meal his eyes opened wide, and he passed away with a light belch.
The clock strikes midnight and I realize I have been writing almost without interruption for far too long. However hard I try, I can remember nothing more about the
