Love and Risorgimento

After Harriet has settled in the Château at St. Amand, the narrative turns from French society to Italian politics. Harriet writes to Roland about “Signor Scipio Safi” coming to visit the Baron (The Law of Divorce, Chapter 15) He is a patriot, the Baron declares:

“He is brimful of Italy, and running over with Italy. He talks of Italy by the hour, he raves about Italy, writes about Italy, sings of Italy, and dreams of Italy by night and by day.' 

' What a nice man !' Lizzy exclaimed, ..” (Ibid.)

Safi is a suitably mysterious character: “Happily he has a small fortune. But if, my dear, you had asked me who he is, I should not have been able to tell you. Nobody knows who he is; he does not know it himself. He has no relations, not one in the world, so far as he can tell. He has no remembrance of father or mother, sister or brother.” (Ibid.)

With Mll Cyr being wheeled in a chair around the park (Ibid.), the Italian patriot with “the intellectual expanse of his forehead, and benevolent expression of his Raphael-like face.” (Ibid.) and adulterous Harriet, the inhabitants of the château provide a potentially sensational mix. Unfortunately, what follows is a long section almost entirely dedicated to Italian political history and to statecraft in general, stretching from Chapter 15 to Chapter 20, with the main plot of Roland’s marital disharmony almost entirely set aside.

At first appearance Scipio is asked to give a full account of his background. At the University of Pisa, Scipio befriended “the son of the Sultan's Greek physician at Constantinople.” From this friend, Scipio (and the reader) learns about the long Greek struggle for independence against the Turks (1821-32), and a little about the poetry of Lord Byron (1788-1824). This is followed by Scipio’s lecture on the history of Italy; starting from the Romans and only interrupted for a short time by a clap of thunder (The Law of Divorce, Chapter 15).

Scipio “cannot take arms, as 1 suppose he would wish, in consequence of a blow he received under the right eye, which has materially enfeebled its sight.” (The Law of Divorce, Chapter 15). He received the injury in a duel defending his political and religious views, as he stops to recount: 

“One half-hour of anger and wounded pride had robbed me of my career of glory. Again and again I have sought to serve even as a private soldier in the cause of my country, but no army surgeon will admit me into a regiment, in consequence of the impaired vision which I owe to that unhappy duel. … To return to my history. In 1735, …” (The Law of Divorce, Chapter 16). 

The lecture continues, until finally Scipio reaches what is recent history: “Napoleon fell; and, by the treaty of 1815, the powers of Europe mercilessly delivered us over to Austria bound hand and foot.” (Ibid.)

Instead of taking up arms in the Italian resurgence, Scipio begins to publish a patriotic newspaper La Semenza in Naples. One day he gets an invitation to a ball at the royal court of Ferdinand II. This is Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies (1810-1859). He came to the throne in 1830 and despite a reasonably liberal beginning to his reign became an absolute monarch with despotic tendencies.

from Snipview.com

At the time of our story Italy is in turmoil and the second war of independence is on its way. Before this war (which stated in April 1859) the boot of Italy was broken up into a number of small states. After the war, in 1860, only five remained: Austria in the north-east (holding the state of Venice), the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in the north-west, the Papal states in the middle with San Marino, and the Kingdom of Two Sicilies in the south. The struggle would continue until the declaration of Kingdom of Italy in 1861 and beyond.

As a patriot Scipio cannot possibly accept the monarch’s invitation (The Law of Divorce, Chapter 16) Before he can flee the country, he is captured and thrown into a dungeon. Fortunately, "Being a native of Piedmont, I claimed permission to write to the Sardinian Charge d' Affaires,” and he is soon released (The Law of Divorce, Chapter 17). Scipio’s friend Carlo, however, is brought to trial and condemned to death for the publication of Le Semenza. He is tortured to get information of his accomplices. Carlo’s story is another dramatic digression in the novel that adds romance and drama, but has no link to the main plot (The Law of Divorce, Chapter 17). It paints a horrific picture of Carlo’s fate with two loving women, his mother and his beloved, left mourning him:

“Alone he had endured his tortures; alone he struggled with strong death. No loving eyes watched the feeble flickering flame of life; no tender hand supported his drooping head; no kind voice breathed encouragement or inspired hope; no labouring bosom responded to his last sigh. In the dark, and in the dead of night, he died; and they who slew him found his corpse cold as the cold straw-strewn dungeon pavement which was his bed and his bier.” (The Law of Divorce, Chapter 17)

With this long story (Chapter 15-17), Scipio woos Lizzy. She turns out to have adopted an Italian orphan boy sometime in the past (The Law of Divorce, Chapter 18) and this kindled a great interest in Italy and its culture in her (Ibid.). She and Scipio make a suitable couple and a lengthy discussion about Italian art and literature follows (Ibid). At the end, Scipio proposes marriage to Lizzy. He is invited for dinner at the chateau to meet Roland for the first time. At the dinner table, via Italian politics, the discussion turns to the topic of the law of divorce:

"I heard of a singular case," said Roland, "which occurred lately, and upon which I should like to hear the opinion of the present company.” (The Law of Divorce, Chapter 19).

Roland presents his own situation to the dinner party. Scipio gives his opinion:

“If he who had married again when divorced from his wife, became sincerely convinced that he had done wrong, that he had infringed the Divine laws of matrimony, that his conjugal relations to his first wife were not really dissolved, that her claims upon him, though they had been suspended for a time by her misconduct, were now, by her repentance, and reformation, revived and restored, — if such a man resolved boldly to face the sneering world, to avow that he had erred, and to return to his first love, — why, instead of an idiot, I say he would be a hero of moral courage.” (The Law of Divorce, Chapter 20)

After the French examples, we now have the Italian view on Roland’s marriage trouble. While the French, as sensible and practical, would not have got themselves into a jam like Roland’s, the Italians would resolve the situation with bold action and inner moral conviction. Roland approves of Scipio: “We must never trust foreigners, especially Italians and Frenchmen, too hastily," replied Roland, " but so far as I can discover at present he is the very man for Lizzy.” (Ibid.)

After the dinner with Scipio, Harriet once again desperately pleads Roland not to return to Catherine. But, “Man though Roland was, and of cultivated mind, it is to be feared that he had involuntarily allowed himself to be cowed by a woman.” (The Law of Divorce, Chapter 20). Despite Italian encouragement, Roland remains incapable of liberating himself from Catherine.

Can we read in the Italian fight for self-determinacy and freedom from occupation some kind of a reflection of Roland’s desire to free himself of occupation by Catherine and from the law of divorce imposed on him? Is the narrative showing us how the English Roland is weak and tied by custom and law, unlike his continental brethren who in their own ways are brave enough to pursue their desires regardless of obstacles? Or is The Law of Divorce just a terribly badly structured novel and a clumsy vehicle for the Graduate of Oxford to voice his political views and express his interest in current affairs and political theory?