But there is always something fatally defective
in the vigilance of a policeman; and in the very place which perhaps
Austria thought it quite needless to guard, the restless and
indomitable spirit of free thought entered. It was in Tuscany, a
fief of the Holy Roman Empire, reigned over by a family set on the
grand-ducal throne by Austria herself, and united to her Hapsburgs by
many ties of blood and affection--in Tuscany, right under both noses
of the double-headed eagle, as it were, that a new literary and
political life began for Italy. The Leopoldine code was famously mild
toward criminals, and the Lorrainese princes did not show themselves
crueler than they could help toward poets, essayists, historians,
philologists, and that class of malefactors. Indeed it was the
philosophy of their family to let matters alone; and the grand duke
restored after the fall of Napoleon was, as has been said, an absolute
monarch, but he was also an honest man. This _galantuomo_ had even a
minister who successfully combated the Austrian influences, and so,
though there were, of course, spies and a censorship in Florence,
there was also indulgence; and if it was not altogether a pleasant
place for literary men to live, it was at least tolerable, and there
they gathered from their exile and their silence throughout Italy.
Pages:
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213