The question fully answered at last.—Farewell, Ferrara!—Welcome inhospitable Caucasus.—Omne solum forti patria est.
Yes! the question was beginning to get answered; beginning, not more as yet. The process of life–discipline, which was to "save" Olympia, to rescue the fine moral gifts and capabilities from suffocation in an element of unrealities, dream–life and Undine–Museship, and to develope the latent capacities of nobleness in her nature, and set her well forward in the Godward path, which shall be, Faith hopes, pursued hereafter,—this was beginning to make its operation appreciable. The baptism of tears had done much. Olympia herself thought that the question had been already answered satisfactorily and in full. She had "got religion," as certain modern sectaries phrase it. And though the special peculiarities of her creed, as professed by her hierophants, are as little calculated to elevate the heart, or enlarge the understanding, as any theory of divine world–governance can well be imagined to be, the religion she had got was a persecuted religion, and derived from that fact an immense saving power, not naturally its own.
But creeds are shown unmistakeably enough to have their home and fatherland in the brain, by the constant exhibition of their powerlessness over the heart; which persists in willing good or evil with most illogical independence of the brain's theories. And human beings accordingly wear their creeds with a difference. Thus these lamentable election and predestination theories, mad and ungodly as they may be, as intellectual beliefs, yet, by the virtue of the persecution with which they were visited,—a virtue addressing itself directly to the heart—served to commence the work of Olympia's rescue from heathendom. But other influences were needed for the maturing of the noble picture of womanhood which her completed career offers us. And these were now ready at her need.
Italy is still the home of art. The citizens of the transalpine nations still flock to her schools of painting, sculpture, and music. But in all else she must submit to be the scholar of her former pupils. It was not so in the sixteenth century. In those days Germans, Englishmen, and Frenchmen thronged the celebrated universities of Italy for instruction in law, science, medicine, and "the humanities." Italy was still the acknowledged leader of European civilisation, though on the very eve of ceasing to be so. Already the orthodox prowess of Duke Hercules was busy in bringing about the change. Human thought cannot be made to advance straight along a path walled in on either side, however long the vista within its narrow bounds may seem to be. Men whose occupation is thinking, will not carry it on at all, while large fields of thought are prohibited to them on penalties, such as those incurred by Fannio of Faenza. So the students from the northern side of the Alps began to find that Ferrara, celebrated as a seat of learning though it had hitherto been, was no longer a home for them.
The learned Germans, John and Chilian Sinapi, were of this number, as was also a young medical student, their countryman and pupil, who had recently received from the University of Ferrara his degree of Doctor of Medicine, named Andreas Grünthler. He was a native of Schweinfurth, one of the Bavarian free cities on the banks of the Main; and was, we are assured, of "honourable" birth, distinguished talents, and the possessor of a modest patrimony. He had visited most of the cities of Italy, and had acquired a reputation for Greek and Latin scholarship, before he settled at Ferrara, and dedicated himself to the study of medicine under the teaching of the brothers[83] Sinapi.
Having rehearsed these particulars, it is almost superfluous to add, that Grünthler also was an adherent of the new theology. And for him, too, Ferrara was no longer a safe residence. But the Protestant German student had lost his heart to the brilliant Italian Muse;—lost it in the time of her heathendom, and classical Grecian virginship! And though Ferrara was deserted by his friends and countrymen, though it was about to reek with the blood of martyrs, though it was falling more and more from day to day under the blighting ban of the Inquisition, how could poor Grünthler shake the dust off his feet against it, and go forth, leaving behind him her who had become dearer to him than life, country, or friends;—leaving her, too, now no longer in the pride and prosperity of her Muse–ship, but in poverty, sorrow, and disgrace, and in danger from the same causes, that made his own retreat expedient? His friend and master Sinapi had loved, and wooed, and won an Italian wife, who had accompanied him across the mountains to his northern home. Why should not he do likewise?
But in the glowing Grecian–virgin days of court prosperity, the gulf that seemed to separate the grave German student from the brilliant creature who had witched his heart was too great, and the contrast between her summer–day existence and the pale life which he could offer to her to share, too strongly marked for him to hope that such an offer would be listened to. It appears, indeed, that the offer had been made and rejected; in terms, too, that would effectually have prevented its repetition by a less devoted and self–forgetting lover. That such was the fact may be gathered from a curious passage in the first letter from Olympia to her husband, which, for some incomprehensible motive, her recent French biographer, who gives a translation of the letter in question,[84] has omitted, without giving any typographical or other intimation, that any part of the sense of the original is absent. After pouring forth her love in the usual delightful fashion of honeymoon letters, she adds, "Were my feelings different I would not conceal them from you, as formerly I plainly told you that I had conceived an aversion to you;"—"ut ante aperte me tui odium cepisse significabam."[85] It was necessary, it should seem, that that Undine nature should be first exorcised by the touch of sorrow, before the mightier wizard, love, could be allowed to enter, and complete the task of purifying, humanising, and elevating it.
But the dark days came; sorrow did its appointed ministry; and then love spoke, and was listened to. In that time of tribulation and trial, when all the world had suddenly changed its welcoming smile to a frown, when none of those she had once thought her friends dared to manifest any interest for the disgraced favourite, then Andreas Grünthler dared to woo, and succeeded in inspiring as devoted a love as ever woman's heart felt. Olympia was deeply touched by the noble disinterestedness of her lover's suit. "Neither the resentment of the Duke," she writes, long afterwards, to her earliest friend, Celio Curione, "nor all the miserable circumstances which surrounded me, could induce him to abandon his desire to make me his wife. So great and true a love has never been surpassed."
In Olympia, the unselfish affection of a noble heart evoked, as the sequel of her story shows, a sentiment of equally ennobling devotion. And thus, whatever issue from the predestination maze the puzzled brain may have fancied it had found for itself, the purified heart furnished the completion of the answer to the great salvation question.
The marriage was celebrated in 1550, probably in the last months of that year. A "marriage prayer," in eight Greek verses by Olympia, has been preserved among her works. Her latest biographer[86] says of these lines, that they are a "chant of Pindar repeated by an echo of the Christian revival at Ferrara"—a performance, one would think, nearly equivalent to that of the well–known Irish echo that answered "How do you do?" by "Pretty well, I thank you." The lines in question touch, in very irreproachable Greek, on the analogy between marriage and the mystic union of Christ with the souls of the faithful, and are remarkable only as indicating how complete was the change in the tone of the poet's mind, since she classicalised on death in the manner we have seen in a former chapter.
Deep–felt and complete as we may suppose the happiness Olympia and her husband felt at their union, the marriage must have partaken more of a solemn than of a festive character. There were many difficulties and uncertainties yet before them. To remain in Ferrara, heretics as they were, whose heresy was every day becoming dearer to them, and the open profession of it a craving desire; when Fannio was daily expecting to be brought out of his dungeon to a martyr's death; when the Inquisition was craving for fresh victims; and when the marriage itself was deemed an offence by the Duke, was out of the question. Yet it was hard to leave a mother and sisters; and that rough northern land across the mountains, where freedom of conscience might indeed be hoped for, nevertheless was not itself by any means in a condition to offer her a secure and quiet home.
So far was this from being the case, that Grünthler deemed it necessary to submit to a separation from his wife almost immediately after his marriage, that he might, before taking her to Germany, go thither alone to fix on, and prepare, a home for her. His hope was to obtain a professorial chair in some of the medical schools of Bavaria or the Palatinate, and to be able to return to Olympia in the spring of 1551. In the meantime, he had the great consolation of leaving her under the protection of Lavinia della Rovere; whose considerable influence, though it seems to have been exercised in vain to obtain Olympia's restoration to the good graces of the ducal family, yet probably sufficed to prevent any measures of active persecution against her.
Here is the letter above mentioned in its entirety. Perhaps some reader may like to see, that a young wife's honeymoon letter was in 1550 pretty much the same thing, word for word, as a similar effusion in 1850 might be. Of no letter on any other topic, three hundred years old, could the same be said.
"Your departure," writes the lovely wife, "was a great grief to me, and the long absence following it the greatest misfortune that could have befallen me. For when I have you by my side, I am not tormented by the anxieties that now beset me. I am always imagining that you have had a fall, or broken your limbs, or been frozen by the extreme cold. And perhaps I have not imagined anything worse than the reality! You know the poet's saying—
"Res est soliciti plena timoris amor."
"Love is a thing compact of jealous fears."
Now, if you would alleviate this haunting anxiety, which I cannot shake off, you will, if possible, contrive to let me know what you are doing, and how you are. For, I swear to you, that my whole heart is yours, as you know full well. Did I feel differently, I would not hide it from you; even as I formerly owned to you that I had conceived an aversion to you. Would that I were with you, my husband, if only the better to tell you the immensity of my love. You would not believe how I pine in your absence. There is nothing so difficult or so disagreeable that I would not do to please you, my husband. But can you wonder that this delay is hateful to me; for true love abominates and will not endure delay. Any other trial to which I could be put would be better for me than this. I beg and beseech you, therefore, to leave no stone unturned to bring about our meeting this summer as you promised. I know well that your affection is equal to mine; so I will not weary you by urging this point further. Nor have I said thus much in any wise to blame you, but only to remind you of your promise, though I know that you are fully occupied with all these cares."
Thus much may be found in "the complete letter writer," under the heading, "A young wife's first letter to an absent husband." What follows is of more interest.
"As to my dresses, I do not think that it would be becoming to make application for them to the court. The Duchess sent me word by one of her women, that it was not true that the wife of the most noble Camillo (Orsini) had said any thing to her about sending greetings to her daughter. (Her daughter–in–law, Lavinia della Rovere, wife of her son Paolo Orsini, seems to be intended.) She said, however, that she would permit it to be done, since her daughter (that is the Duchess's daughter, Leonora, apparently) wished it; but that she (Lavinia) had begged one dress for me, which she (the Duchess) would not give me before her (Lavinia's) return. I think that she answered thus: that I might see that she did nothing for my sake, but for that of Lavinia; and that she might gratify Lysippa, who was, I believe, with her at the time. But it is better to be silent respecting a matter which is plain to everybody. In any case, I scarcely think that I shall get the dresses. Adieu."[87]
It is difficult to understand what the connection can have been between the salutations sent or not sent by the wife of Camillo Orsini, and the restoration of Olympia's dresses. Thus much, at all events, seems clear however, that when Olympia fell into disgrace at the court, her sovereigns stooped to, what to our notions would appear, the utterly incredible meanness of retaining the dresses belonging to her that happened to be under their roof! We may suppose that these dresses had been probably enough supplied by the Duchess. It may be also remembered, that such things were of very much greater value, both absolutely and relatively to other property, than they are now. Yet, if originally furnished by the Duchess, they had been given to Olympia as a part of the remuneration for her services; she evidently considers them as her own property. And this forcible detention of a dismissed servant's wearing apparel cannot but be felt to indicate on the part of these princes, in the midst of their ostentatious magnificence, a degree of insensibility to any of the feelings that we compendiously term gentleman–like, that makes the circumstance a very curious trait of the manners of the period.
It would seem clear, also, that the Duchess Renée was actively hostile to her former favourite. And if the phrase, in connection with Lysippa, to the effect that it was better to say nothing of so notorious a matter, is to be supposed to allude to some court intrigue in which she was concerned, it would seem that Jerome Bolsec was not altogether the contriver of her disgrace. It is remarkable that her old friend Curio, in a letter written from Bâle to a friend of his, who had asked him about Olympia, in giving a little sketch of her career, suppresses all mention of this court disgrace,[88] merely saying that she had been called to the court to share the studies of the Princess Anne, and that she had after that married Andreas Grünthler.
Her husband's absence was a sore trial to Olympia, which demanded all, or somewhat more than all, her fortitude.
Her first letter to her husband was soon followed by a second, imploring him to hasten his return. "The uncertainty of the time fixed for your return, and for our departure from Ferrara, causes me incessant torment." She beseeches him not to conceal from her any bad news respecting their prospects. "Should you be called on to meet any danger, which God forbid, I insist on sharing it with you. But above all, my well–beloved, in these so difficult circumstances, be sure that God is our most powerful protector." She exhorts him to remember that God granted the prayer of Elias, so that no rain fell for three years and six months, and to confide in him for support. "My days," she concludes, "are passed in tears; and I find no alleviation for my sorrows but in invoking the Author of all mercies. May He be also your refuge and your asylum. Write to me very soon, to let me know when I shall see you, and do not set out on your journey without sure guides. Adieu."
She writes five letters, following rapidly one after the other, to John Sinapi, who was now established at Würzburg, urging him to accelerate her husband's return. "I again and again implore you," she says in one of these, "not to detain him, who is dearer to me than life, longer than one month at the furthest. Send him back to me quickly, if you would not have me, miserable as I am, pine to death of grief."
She reminds him more than once of a volume of her poems, which she had sent to be presented to the King (Ferdinand, King of the Romans), and to the great Augsburg merchant, Raymond Fugger, in hopes of interesting them in her husband's favour.
The lady Lavinia had also promised to induce her husband and father–in–law to interest themselves in Grünthler's favour; and there is a letter from her, received by Olympia at this time, in which she tells her friend, that she had after some difficulty succeeded in accomplishing this. She was herself not happy. "As for me," she writes, "understand that my affairs become more and more hopeless from day to day." She concludes her letter by saying that she should have written it in Italian, were it not that she knew that Olympia liked better to read Latin.
Lavinia, however, was at Ferrara during the greater part of Grünthler's absence; and her society was Olympia's greatest comfort. There is a dialogue preserved in the volume of her works between the two friends, which probably embodies the substance of conversations that really passed between them.
"Will you always live then in the midst of your books," Lavinia begins, "and never take any repose, Olympia? Rest awhile, and you will return with renewed vigour to your favourite studies."
"Would to Heaven, my friend," says Olympia, after some few words on her devotion to her study,—"Would to Heaven that I had not been so long plunged in oblivion of the only truths worthy of occupying our thoughts. I fancied myself learned, because I read the books of worldly philosophers, and intoxicated myself with the poison of their writings. But just when I was most puffed up with the praises of men, I made the discovery of my profound ignorance. I had wandered so far from the truth, as to imagine the universe to be the production of chance, without governance and without God."...
"But Italy," rejoins Lavinia, "had before this rung with the fame of your piety and your virtues."
"It is true;" answers her friend; "and perhaps this fame may have reached you—
"'Audieras et fama fuit;'
but if men only knew how to estimate at their just worth the flattery addressed to princes and those around them, they would have judged me less favourably. You at least, my friend, must know how far I then was from having any sentiments of true piety."
Lavinia answers, that even so she cannot help admiring the constancy with which Olympia had devoted to the acquisition of learning those long hours which others employ "in adorning themselves, in arranging their hair, and in running after vain pleasures. What especially surprises me is, that you could remain faithful to those studies in the years of your youth, in spite of the raillery of the men and girls, who were always dinning into your ears that life had something else to do, and that husbands would look more after what you possessed than what you knew."
"It is the Lord who willed it so!" returns Olympia; and at this point the dialogue, which it must be admitted has been composed by our Muse in a rather egotistic tone, passes off into a kind of rhapsody, in which the writer sets forth the vanity of earthly things, and the inestimable price of heavenly wisdom.
Meanwhile Grünthler had been but very partially successful in the objects of his journey. Germany was in no condition to offer, in any part of it, a desirable home to a peaceful student and his wife. True, that in many of its cities the profession of the reformed faith was a recommendation instead of a sure title to the honours of martyrdom. True, that the new theology had there acquired a respectability of standing, that enabled it to enjoy a share occasionally of the ecclesiastical luxury of persecuting its opponents. But the country was distracted by war or rumours of war on all sides;—war of a different kind, and productive of very different national results from the miserable mercenary contests, which ruined Italy, and only prepared the way for the slavery and degradation of the nation. For the gist of the German fighting, however confused, barbarous, and devastating, was to be found in the determination of men to resist authority and oppression, to have souls of their own, and to say they were their own.
Though the division of the country into two camps by their religious differences enabled princes to play off one part of the people against another in the interests of their own rivalries and ambitions, yet the contests were mostly made to wear the appearance of struggles for the securing of spiritual or civil freedom. And all the misery brought about by them was not therefore unfruitful of good. Though the points in dispute between the rival creeds were often nugatory, though the better sense was not invariably on the side of the reformers, and though good men lamented that Church reform had quitted its proper sphere and duties, when it allied itself with worldly policy and descended from the pulpit into the camp and the battle field, yet even so, and even then, the Reformation was preparing the great career which it has run, and that still before it, from which no man can ever more turn it back.
Charles the Fifth was just then busy in imposing his "Interim" on the German cities. The great council at Trent, which was to "heal the wounds of Christendom," made but small progress in that business; manifested, indeed, a fertility of resource in the discovery of means how not to do any thing of the sort, perfectly marvellous. And Charles, who was perfectly earnest in wishing that these wounds should be healed, or at all events closed up in some sort, for reasons of his own, very much of the nature of those which make a coachman wish that his team may be coupled up, so as to draw well together, became impatient. It struck his royal mind, that the thing must be easy enough if one only went about it in a simple straightforward manner. So he ordered three divines,—Julius Pflug and Helding, on the Catholic side, and one Agricola, a "practical" man, inclined, when he got his cue, to make things pleasant, on the Protestant side,—to draw up a scheme of a good working religion, such as all men might accept without objection,—or despite objection, if it came to that; and to be quick about it. On the 15th of May, 1548, his Majesty was gracious enough to lay the scheme so drawn before the diet; whereupon the Elector of Mentz declared it to be as good a religion as any man need wish for; and being an Archbishop, it was clear that he must know. And this was the celebrated Interim; so named because it professed only to be a provisional faith, for men to live and die—and pay their taxes—by, till such time as what they really were definitively to believe could be got settled for them in a more regular and formal manner.
The indignation and disgust felt at Rome by the regular practitioners at such quack–Pope practice as this, may be easily imagined. The regular–bred Pope examined his rivals' prescription, and found, as we hear without surprise, "seven or eight heresies in it,"[89] all clear and evident like so many false quantities in a school–boy's verse task. Evidently a most unworkmanlike production!
As to the Protestant cities of Germany, they found the Interim religion to be flat Popery. And the royal quack–Pope had to adopt the orthodox practice in administering it. Augsburg, Ulm, Strasburg, Bremen, Lubeck, Hamburg, Magdeburg, Constance, and many other towns would have none of it. And Spanish soldiers had to be employed, with more or less success in different places, in recommending it to their favourable consideration. At Augsburg, Charles placed bodies of these troops at the different gates, and in other commanding positions of the town, then called the members of the municipal government to the town–hall, dismissed them all from their functions, abolished "motu proprio" the entire form of municipal government, and nominated a few creatures of his own to govern the city, each man of whom had sworn to receive and observe the Interim. Ulm he converted much in the same manner, sending off in chains the Protestant preachers. The stout Magdeburgers shut their gates, manned their walls, and stood a siege against the imperial troops and the Interim. For a lay Pope's essay at persecution this was zealous and energetic enough, though falling far short of the true ecclesiastical practice of Inquisition, stake, and faggot.
It might be supposed that Charles would have been too sagacious a man to have imagined that any successful issue could have come of this Interim scheme of his. It seems hardly a thing to have been hoped, that Germany had gone through all the sufferings and sorrows, spiritual and temporal, incidental to a national change of religion, and kicked off the authority of a real Pope, venerable with the prestige of fifteen centuries, to submit quietly to a new quack Pope, whose whole theological apparatus consisted of men–at–arms and gunpowder. If men were to submit to an imposed creed, it was better to take one without seven or eight heresies in it. No very profound knowledge of the human heart, one would think, were needed to enable a sagacious ruler of men to anticipate failure for such a plan; and Charles has the reputation of having been such. But it strikes one, in considering this and a hundred other similar mistakes by the Louis XIVths. and other great masters of kingcraft, as doubtful how far it is practicable for such personages to attain to any knowledge of the plebeian human heart. Of the hearts of princes, ministers of state, popes, cardinals, diplomatists, ambassadors, and such,—though hearts are not generally supposed to be worn on embroidered sleeves,—a royal craftsman practised in the business may know a thing or two; may, perhaps, if acute, obtain some uncertain notion of the hearts of gentlemen–ushers, ladies of honour, grand chamberlains, and other such samples of mankind: but it would seem as if such knowledge were rather calculated to lead a royal philosopher astray in dealing with humanity outside the palace gates.
The mistake into which the sagacious Charles was thus led in the matter of the Interim, was causing throughout Germany the uncomfortable state of confusion that has been described when poor Andreas Grünthler, flying from persecution in Italy, came to seek for a home and the means of supporting a wife in his native land.
The search, as we have seen, became prolonged, to Olympia's great distress, far beyond what the young couple had calculated on. Grünthler's profession, indeed, was one which the misrule of monarchs has no tendency to render superfluous. On the contrary, he had soon occasion to find that it provided him with work in more than abundance. But then, as still, in Germany, the professional chairs in the Universities afforded the most reliable prospect of bread, with some small modicum of butter, to a studious and married man. Grünthler's education and talents well fitted him to teach, and that was his ambition. But town councillors turned violently out of their offices, or in daily dread of being so, and burghers in distress, consternation, and hot debate, between temporal and spiritual ruin, had scant attention to give to such matter. Besides, the lecture–rooms were empty, the students dispersed to their own homes, as the most necessary place for a man in critical and perilous times, or joining in resistance against the oppression that weighed on the country.
Andreas Grünthler could hear of no such position as he had hoped to find anywhere. Still he had friends who were influential, and much interested in his and his wife's fortunes. John Sinapi was now settled at Würzburg and his brother Chilian at Spire; and both were eager to assist their Ferrara friends in their projects. Hubert Thomas, of Liège, secretary to the Count Palatine, was also their firm friend. But a recommendation to George Hermann, of Augsburg, councillor to the King of the Romans, which had been obtained for Grünthler by Lavinia della Rovere from her brother–in–law Camillo Orsini, turned out the most immediately valuable. In the impossibility of finding any permanent appointment of the kind desired, this truly friendly man begged the almost despairing professor to bring his wife in the first instance to his house at Augsburg, there to wait till they should be able to see their path in some degree before them.
The proposal opened a harbour of refuge when all the trouble–tossed world seemed to refuse them a resting–place. So poor Andreas hurried back across the Alps to his pining mate, overjoyed to be able to bring her some better tidings than his previous disappointments had enabled him to write to her.
It was decided that they should start from Ferrara for the promised land of free consciences and true religion in the early summer of 1551. How constantly had Olympia been sighing during the months of her solitary life at Ferrara for the coming of this hour! Yet now that it was come, this departure was found to be a very sad business, not to be accomplished without many a wrench of affections rooted in the core of the heart. To leave a mother and three sisters, never in all human probability to be seen again on this side of the grave, was a hard task; and Olympia knew well that such was their parting. In a letter written not long afterwards to Celio Curione at Bâle, she expresses her conviction that she shall never again return to Italy, "where Antichrist is raging with such power."[90] She would rather indeed, she says, seek a refuge in the furthest and most inclement north than re–cross the Alps. Yet that first quitting Italy—bright, sunny, native Italy—and Ferrara, where she had known so much both of happiness and misery—"Ferrara my ungrateful country," as she calls it in another letter[91]—was a bitter moment. That crossing of the mountains had, in those days of little travelling and roads dangerous in all ways, something more alarming to the ideas of an Italian girl than any possible migration on earth's surface could now suggest to the most inexperienced traveller. She writes to worthy George Hermann,[92] when there was a question of some distant appointment for Grünthler, that having followed her husband across the Alps, she could have no difficulty in crossing Caucasus—"inhospitalem Caucasum," in true classic phrase—or accompany him to the uttermost ends of the earth, if it were needed. "Omni solum forti patria est!" she adds. But the greatest trial to her fortitude was the first step beyond the marshy plains around persecuting, ungrateful Ferrara.
Painful partings are always most painful to those who are left behind. The necessity of action, and the excitement of going forth to meet new scenes and new fortunes, brace the nerves and give diversion to the grief of those who are to depart; and Olympia was not leaving him who was of all the world dearest to her. But what must the parting have been to the poor mother! Her old friend and former guest, Celio Curione, writing to her several years afterwards, recurs to the sorrows of that time. "The pangs of that departure," he says, "must have been even as the pangs of death when you felt that probably in this life you would never see her again. And truly you might well feel that the separation of death was not very different from that caused by so great a distance."
In fact, the poor mother never did again see her Olympia. And she was soon after left in entire solitude at Ferrara, in consequence of what she was bound to consider the good fortune of each of her three remaining daughters finding honourable positions. Lavinia della Rovere took one of them with her to Rome. Another was attached to the Lady Helena Rangona de Bentivoglio; and the third to that lady's daughter, who was married at Milan. This last, as we learn from a letter from Olympia to Curione, became the wife of a young man of that city, "an only son, very well off in the world, who asked no dower with her." With them, it would seem, the mother found at last a happier home than she had known since she became a widow.
Worthy Andreas Grünthler took his young brother–in–law Emilio, then eight years old, with him and his wife into Germany.
At length the last words were said, and the little party turned their faces towards the mountains, and began their journey by the pass of the Brenner. There were more points than one in their route which might have been dangerous to them. At Trent the Council was sitting; and all travellers through a city so occupied were likely enough to be subjected to questionings that might lead known fugitives from religious persecution into trouble. At Innspruck the imperial army was quartered, which was not calculated to make the passage through it agreeable or safe to such wayfarers as our friends.
"The beauty of the season, and the magnificence of the scenery that discovered itself at each step to the eyes of the travellers," says Olympia's French[93] biographer, "without doubt distracted them from the sad thoughts that assailed them on their way to exile."
But it is to be feared that this is an anachronism. The snow–capped mountains, the pine–clad valleys, the precipices, the tumbling waters, and the craggy peaks, were all there then as picturesque–hunting tourists find them now. But men, Italians especially, did not admire such things in the fifteenth century. They only saw "inhospitalem Caucasum" in such scenes. And to our little party it was Caucasus infested with ravening bishops and their officials, with men–at–arms and camp–followers. Under which circumstances it is to be feared that they took small comfort from any appreciation of the picturesque.
But the mountains and all their dangers were happily passed, and the hospitable roof of warm–hearted George Hermann in the good city of Augsburg safely reached by the three travellers about the middle of the year 1551.
At Augsburg,—and at Würzburg.
Augsburg, in the middle of the sixteenth century, had a fair claim to be entitled the Athens of the North. Among the cities of Germany it held a place similar to that occupied by Florence among those of Italy. And in both instances the primacy attained in arts and letters had depended on the fostering hand of successful commerce. That which the Medici had done for Florence, the Fugger family had done for Augsburg. The latter name has not at the present day the worldwide celebrity of the former. But then the Fuggers never exalted themselves to sovereignty on the ruin of their country; and flunkeydom has accordingly less assiduously embalmed their memory.
In the sixteenth century, however, their name was celebrated throughout Europe. Rabelais, writing from Rome to the Bishop of Maillezais in the year 1536, tells him that Philip Strozzi was esteemed the richest merchant in Christendom, with the sole exception of the Fuggers. Charles V. was their guest when at Augsburg; and an anecdote has been preserved of the fire in the imperial bedchamber under their roof having been made of a faggot of cinnamon, lighted with an I. O. U. of his majesty's to a large amount. It is true that the cinnamon may probably have been the more costly part of the sacrifice. Towards the end of the century Dominick Custos, an engraver of Antwerp, published a magnificent folio volume of a hundred and twenty–seven portraits, "Fuggerorum et Fuggerarum;" a somewhat cacophonous title, the strange sound of which has amusingly caused the book to be classed in more than one catalogue by un–historical bibliopoles among botanical works, under the impression that the ladies and gentlemen of the great merchant family were specimens of ferns.
When Olympia was at Augsburg, the heads of the family were the brothers Anthony and Raymond Fugger. A contemporary[94] writer has left us a curious account of the magnificence of their residence. He speaks of the abundance of pictures by the great Italian masters; of a large collection of portraits by Lucas Cranach; and especially of a most extensive museum of antiquities,—mosaics and statues in bronze and marble;—"all the divinities of Olympus, Jove with his thunderbolt, Neptune with his trident, Pallas with her ægis." He mentions also a collection of medals occupying one room. The number of fragments of antique sculpture was wonderful. "We stood long in admiration before a head of the God of Sleep, crowned with poppies, and having the eyes closed. We saw several heads of Bacchus of colossal size, ornamented with ivy and vine–leaves. We were told that these remains of antiquity had been brought together from nearly every part of the world, but chiefly from Greece and Sicily. For Raymond, though but very slightly tinctured with learning himself—litterarum minime expers,—has so great a love for antiquity, that he grudges no expense for the pleasure of possessing these things; which indicates the truly noble and generous character of the man." He possessed also, despite his want of erudition, a library, of which the librarian, Jerome Wolff, declared in Greek verse, that it contained more books than there were stars in the heavens;[95] and he commissioned men who had the learning he wanted, to compile a collection of ancient inscriptions, which was published in folio at Ingoldstadt in 1534.[96]
It was to this munificent Raymond Fugger that Olympia had charged her friend John Sinapi to present a volume of her verses. As they were of course written in Greek or Latin, we must suppose, unless, indeed, the "minime expers" of Rhenatus is to be very widely understood, that the Augsburg Mæcenas could not read a word of them. Moreover, the wealthy and worthy merchant would seem to have been far from coming up to Olympia's standard in matters of religion. For the Fuggers were among those to whom Charles committed the government of Augsburg, when he turned out the old municipality; and all those so appointed, we are told, swore to observe the papistical Interim. We are driven, therefore, to the conclusion, that the religious world of the fifteenth century was so totally dissimilar from that of the nineteenth, as not to be extreme to mark the backslidings of men whose position, like that of Raymond Fugger, put "so large a power for good" into their hands.
We have no means of knowing whether the presentation of the poems to the great merchant was followed by any special result. But that the reception of the wanderers at Augsburg generally was flattering and satisfactory is recorded in a letter[97] from Olympia to Gregorio Giraldi, the gouty old friend, now drawing very near his end, who used to write verses to her in her girlhood. "We are still," she writes, "with our excellent friend; and I am delighted with my stay here. I pass my entire day in literary pursuits—me cum Musis delecto;—and have no business to draw me away from them. I also apply myself to the study of Holy Writ, which is so productive of peace and contentment. Nothing can be more favourable than the reception my husband has met with in this town. Our affairs are looking well, and, by God's help, will have a happy issue."
A few months before the date of this letter, while Olympia was pining on account of her husband's absence, she spoke in her dialogue with Lavinia della Rovere, of her regrets at having "intoxicated herself with the poison" of the classical writers. And now we find her again "delighting herself with the Muses." The compatibility of classical studies with a strictly Christian tone and habit of thought and feeling, which many religionists have decided in the negative, seems to have been mooted by Olympia, and by the advice of her learned and devout friends affirmed. For in a letter to Curione written about this time, she says that "since pious men approve it," she will continue her classical studies and writings.
But it would seem, that these "delights with the Muses," however classical, were henceforward for the most part religious in their nature. For almost all that remains of her composition subsequent to this period, with the exception of her letters, are translations from the psalms into Greek verse. These her husband used to set to music, and the singing of them would often form the evening amusement of their little circle. One of these translations had been sent to Curione, who was probably the chief of those pious friends who encouraged her to continue to write. "I have read," he says, "the psalm that you have translated into Greek, and I am delighted with it. I wish that you would treat more of them in the same way. We should then have no cause to envy the Greeks their Pindar. Persevere, then, my Olympia, in the path to which the Muse invites you. Place upon your brow the sacred laurel; for you have drawn your poetic inspiration from a purer fount than Sappho of old."
The stay of Grünthler, his wife, and their young brother under the roof of George Hermann, was prolonged for several months. The tranquil security of her life there, after all she had gone through during the last two or three years, was extremely soothing and delightful to Olympia. The hoped–for professor's chair was not yet found; but she seems to have been in good hope that it soon would be. In the meantime Grünthler had an opportunity of repaying in some measure the generous hospitality he and his family were receiving. For George Hermann fell seriously ill; and his guest had the pleasure of restoring him to health before he left him.
It was while still at Augsburg that Olympia wrote[98] to her friend Lavinia urging her to exert herself in every possible way to save the life of Fannio.
"A thousand thanks," she writes, "for your promise to do all you can in favour of Fannio. Nothing could give me greater pleasure; and I have great hope of what may be done on the occasion of your leaving Ferrara; for I am well aware how powerful is your interest at Rome. Besides, I cannot doubt that the Duke would be willing to gratify you when you are taking leave of him. Entreat him then, if he wishes to do you a favour, to release an innocent man, whose long captivity would have more than expiated his faults, had he been really criminal. That will be the moment to speak, without losing sight of the dictates of prudence, what your heart shall suggest to you.
"'Haud ignara mali miseris succurrere disces.'
Above all, I exhort you not to allow the malevolent representations of designing men to influence your mind in matters pertaining to the pure religion of Christ."
Olympia little understood yet the nature of the power against which she hoped to prevail. How grimly Caraffa would have smiled at the notion, that his prey could be thus taken from him. A Duke of Ferrara release a convicted and relapsed heretic to pleasure a silly woman, herself more than suspected of sympathy with his errors! Or that that contemptible voluptuary at Rome, simoniacal usurper of Peter's keys, dare to absolve him whom the Holy Inquisition has condemned! Not while John Peter Caraffa keeps watch, as Inquisitor, over the interests of the Church! As to the Duke, it would have been saying that his soul was his own, contrary to all contract, and saying so in a most dangerous and blasphemous manner. And had even indolent, easy–going Julius III. dreamed of dipping the tips of his jewelled fingers in such troubled waters, he would have found, as many a Pope has found, that powerful as the Servus Servorum might be while working in accordance with the powers of the machinery of which he is a part, he was powerless to stop the operation of it. Lavinia della Rovere, her sister–in–law Maddalena Orsini, and the other generous and gentle souls, who dreamed of attempting the absurd quixotism of speaking mercy to a Church in danger, succeeded only in leaving to other and happier times a record, still by no means unneeded, of womanly protest against priestly intolerance.
In the same letter to Curione, in which Olympia speaks of her intention not to give up her classical studies, she says that she and her husband would willingly settle at Bâle if there were any prospect of Grünthler's being able to obtain either medical practice or teaching there. For still the future was all uncertain before them; and yet the time was come when they determined on no longer trespassing on the hospitality of their generous host. John Sinapi, now established as physician to the prince–bishop at Würzburg, had pressed them to stay awhile with him; and they accordingly removed from Augsburg to that city. Sinapi had been the master of both husband and wife at Ferrara. His wife, Francesca Bucyronia, had been Olympia's friend at court there; and the reunion of the party, under circumstances so widely different from all that surrounded them in Italy, must have brought back many a recollection of those old times and brilliant scenes, which every one of the party was so thankful to have exchanged for their present pale, and sometimes difficult, northern life.
Sinapi and Francesca had several children. A niece, Bridget, also lived with them; and in one of Olympia's letters of this time we find a Leonora mentioned as one of the inmates of the family, and we get a fleeting glimpse of the party gathered round the good physician's hearth in the evening, with books and learned talk, while Leonora taught the girls embroidery,—"docens ambas acu pingere."
The tenour of this quiet life was one day broken by an accident that happened to the child Emilio. He fell from a high window to the ground on some rough stones, and it was thought that he must be killed. He was little hurt, however; and, as Olympia writes, "lives and is well, to the great surprise of every one." But the incident is only worth mentioning for the sake of Olympia's method of "improving" it. This happened, she writes,[99] "that we might know by experience that God hath given order to his angels to bear up his sons in their hands." And again; "Thus God, who can raise up even the dead from the grave, is wont to defend and preserve his own in safety."
It is painful to find one, for whose character we cannot but have the warmest esteem, and with the feelings of whose heart we can always sympathise, forming for herself such theories of the Divine government of the world. How is it possible, we ask ourselves, that such a one can have supposed the occurrences of life to be arranged by a constant succession of miracles, so that there is no reason to anticipate that similar causes will produce similar effects? How conceivable, that an Olympia Morata should pronounce all those who fall, and do break their bones, to be none of God's own? Her feelings towards her fellow–creatures were assuredly not logically consistent with so monstrous a theory of the Invisible. No! but the creed was held as a creed of the brain; and not arrived at even by the brain by any process of reasoning, but only by intellectual adoption of the theories of others;—probably, even, to a great extent, of their phraseology only. For the most entire sincerity is perfectly compatible with the use of certain phrases imitatively adopted, and believed to be proper to be said in certain conjunctures, the sense, bearing, and consequences of which have never been realised or examined by those who use them.
Olympia and her husband remained with John Sinapi, at Würzburg, till the latter part of October, 1551. It was shortly after the accident of Emilio, that Grünthler received an invitation from the senate of his native town of Schweinfurth to settle himself as physician to the garrison of Spanish soldiers quartered there by the Emperor, when he himself went into winter quarters at Innspruck. Though this was not exactly the kind of employment that he would have wished, yet the proposal was acceptable as coming from his own fellow–citizens; and he was not in a position to allow any opportunity of employment in his profession to escape him. He accepted it. And Olympia, for the first time, was about to find herself in a woman's best and happiest position, a home of her own.
It was but an obscure one to which she was going. But her name was already sufficiently well known in Germany to ensure her carrying with her thither the interest of a large circle of the learned world, especially of such as professed her own faith. There is an amusing indication both of the celebrity her name had acquired, and of the uncertainty, that a small distance could in those days throw over facts of the simplest kind, in a letter written about this time by Curione to one Xysto Betuleio, which has been already cited. Curione's correspondent had written to him to ask if the name Olympia Morata was in reality that of a living woman; because it was very generally asserted to be a fictitious nom–de–plume,—"De Olympia nostra scribis te certiorem fieri cupere, quod plerique fictum nomen arbitrantur." And thereupon he proceeds to give that sketch of her career, which has been before quoted.
In the brilliant springtide of Olympia's career, when she stood before us in Grecian virgin guise, fooled to the top of her bent by the applause and flattery of an entire city, with syntax–laws for a rule of life, a knowledge of words in the place of all experience of things, classicality for a summum bonum, and æsthetic appreciation of the beautiful as sole means of satisfying every need and capacity for worship, the question was suggested, shaping itself into the words so familiar, and, howsoever diversely understood, most important to every man,—How is this Olympia to be saved? And the question has been dwelt on, because the peculiar interest attaching to her story is to be found in the particularly well–marked development of the saving process, whether as studied by those who, like herself, deem it to have been accomplished by her adoption of a special creed, or by those who find it in the working of her awakened moral nature. Both to the religionist and the moralist Olympia is a specially "well–marked specimen;" and both will concur in affirming that, whatever may have been the saving influence, a very noble specimen of womanhood was the result.
Now, to one looking from the moral stand–point, it seems, as has been said in a former chapter, that the question was satisfactorily answered, when the course of our story had shown the heroine under the successive influences of sorrow and adversity, of a true and devoted love, and of the adoption of a persecuted faith, be it a true or false one. And we have now reached the time when this discipline will show its fruit in a "saved" life;—a life fitted to make its close the starting–point of further progress.