April 22nd, 1830
Yesterday to Pompeii, far better worth seeing than anything else in Italy. Who can look at other ruins after this? At Rome there are certain places consecrated by recollections, but the imagination must be stirred up to enjoy them; here you are actually in a Roman town. Shave off the upper storey of any town, take out windows, doors, and furniture, and it will be as Pompeii now is: it is marvellous. About one-fifth part of the town has been excavated, and the last house found is the largest. It is said 1,000 men would clear it in a year, and there are thirty at work. The road is a bed of dust, and infested with blind beggars, each led by a boy. There are habitations almost uninterruptedly along the road between Naples and Pompeii, built apparently for no other reason than because they are exposed to eruptions of the mountain, for any other part of the Bay would be just as agreeable, and safe from that danger.
This morning we went to an Ursuline convent to see two TAKING THE VEIL girls take the veil. The ceremony was neither imposing, nor interesting, nor affecting, nor such as I expected. I believe all this would have been the case had it been the black veil, but it was the white unfortunately. I thought they would be dressed splendidly, have their hair cut off in the church, be divested (in the convent) of their finery, and reappear to take leave of their relations in the habit of the order. Not at all. I went with A. Hill and Legge, who had got tickets from the brother of one of the sposine; we were admitted to the grating, an apartment about ten feet long by five wide, with a very thick double grating, behind which some of the nuns appeared and chattered. A turning box supplied coffee and cakes to the company. I went to the door of the parlour (which was open), but they would not admit me. There the ladies were received, and the nuns and novices were laughing and talking and doing the honours. Their dress was not ugly—black, white, and a yellow veil. The chapel was adorned with gold brocade, and blue and silver hangings, flowers, tapers; a good orchestra, and two or three tolerable voices. It was as full as it could hold, and soldiers were distributed about to keep order; even by the altar four stood with fixed bayonets, who when the Host was raised presented arms—a military salute to the Real Presence! The brother of one of the girls did the honours of the chapel, placing the ladies and bustling about for chairs, which all the time the ceremony was going on were handed over heads and bonnets, to the great danger of the latter. It was impossible not to be struck with this man’s gaiety and sang-froid on the occasion, but he is used to it, for this was the fourth sister he has buried here. When the chapel was well crammed the sposine appeared, each with two marraines. A table and six chairs were placed opposite the altar; on the table were two trays, each containing a Prayer Book, a pocket-handkerchief, and a white veil. The girls (who were very young, and one of them rather pretty) were dressed in long black robes like dressing-gowns, their hair curled, hanging down their backs and slightly powdered. On the top of their heads were little crowns of blue, studded with silver or diamonds. The ladies attending them (one of whom was Princess Fondi and another Princess Bressano) were very smart, and all the people in the chapel were dressed as for a ball. There was a priest at the table to tell the girls what to do. High Mass was performed, then a long sermon was delivered by a priest who spoke very fluently, but with a strange twang and in a very odd style, continually apostrophising the two girls by name, comparing them to olives and other fruit, to candelabri, and desiring them to keep themselves pure that ‘they might go as virgins into the chamber of their beloved.’ When the Sacrament was administered the ladies took the crowns off the girls, who were like automata all the time, threw the white veils over them, and led them to the altar, where the Sacrament was administered to them; then they were led back to their seats, the veils taken off and the crowns replaced. After a short interval they were again led to the altar, where, on their knees, their profession was read to them; in this they are made to renounce the world and their parents; but at this part, which is at the end, a murmuring noise is made by the four ladies who kneel with them at the altar, that the words may not be heard, being thought too heart-rending to the parents; then they are led out and taken into the convent, and the ceremony ends. The girls did not seem the least affected, but very serious; the rest of the party appeared to consider it as a fête, and smirked and gossiped; only the father of one of them, an old man, looked as if he felt it. The brother told me his sister was eighteen; that she would be a nun, and that they had done all they could to dissuade her. It is a rigid order, but there is a still more rigid rule within the convent. Those nuns who embrace it are for ever cut off from any sort of communication with the world, and can never again see or correspond with their own family. They cannot enter into this last seclusion without the consent of their parents, which another of this man’s four sisters is now soliciting.
We afterwards drove through the Grotto of Pausilippo, that infernal grotto which one must pass through to get BAIÆ out of Naples on one side; it is a source of danger, and the ancient account of it is not the least exaggerated:—
Nihil isto carcere longius, nihil illis faucibus obscurius, quo nobis præstant non ut per tenebras videamus sed ut ipsas.
There are a few glimmering lamps always obscured by dust, and it is never hardly light enough to avoid danger except at night; in the middle it is pitch dark.
Then round the Strada Nuova, Murat’s delightful creation, and walked in the Villa Reale, where I found Acton, who had been all the morning at the trial, which was very interesting. A woman was examined, who deposed that her husband was thrown into prison and ill-treated by Matteis because he would not give some false evidence that he required of him; that she went to Matteis and entreated him to release him, and that he told her he would if she would bring her daughter to him, which she refused, and he was put to death. On this evidence being given, the examining judge dropped the paper, and a murmur of horror ran through the audience. The accused attacked the witness and charged her with perjury, and said he was ill in bed at the time alluded to. The woman retorted, ‘Canaglia, tu sai ch’ egli è vero,’ and there was a debate between the counsel on either side, and witnesses were called who proved that he was in good health at the time. They think the evidence of to-day and the apparent disposition of the judges must hang him.