No More Learning

NOTE C.

Venetian Society and Manners.

"Vice without splendour, sin without relief
Even from the gloss of love to smooth it o'er;
But in its stead, coarse lusts of habitude," etc.

"To these attacks so frequently pointed by the government against the
clergy,--to the continual struggles between the different constituted
bodies,--to these enterprises carried on by the mass of the nobles
against the depositaries of power,--to all those projects of innovation,
which always ended by a stroke of state policy; we must add a cause not
less fitted to spread contempt for ancient doctrines; _this was the
excess of corruption_.

"That freedom of manners, which had been long boasted of as the
principal charm of Venetian society, had degenerated into scandalous
licentiousness: the tie of marriage was less sacred in that Catholic
country, than among those nations where the laws and religion admit of
its being dissolved. Because they could not break the contract, they
feigned that it had not existed; and the ground of nullity, immodestly
alleged by the married pair, was admitted with equal facility by priests
and magistrates, alike corrupt. These divorces, veiled under another
name, became so frequent, that the most important act of civil society
was discovered to be amenable to a tribunal of exceptions; and to
restrain the open scandal of such proceedings became the office of the
police. In 1782 the Council of Ten decreed, that every woman who should
sue for a dissolution of her marriage should be compelled to await the
decision of the judges in some convent, to be named by the court. [486]
Soon afterwards the same council summoned all causes of that nature
before itself. [487] This infringement on ecclesiastical jurisdiction
having occasioned some remonstrance from Rome, the council retained only
the right of rejecting the petition of the married persons, and
consented to refer such causes to the holy office as it should not
previously have rejected. [488]

"There was a moment in which, doubtless, the destruction of private
fortunes, the ruin of youth, the domestic discord occasioned by these
abuses, determined the government to depart from its established maxims
concerning the freedom of manners allowed the subject. All the
courtesans were banished from Venice; but their absence was not enough
to reclaim and bring back good morals to a whole people brought up in
the most scandalous licentiousness. Depravity reached the very bosoms of
private families, and even into the cloister; and they found themselves
obliged to recall, and even to indemnify,[489] women who sometimes
gained possession of important secrets, and who might be usefully
employed in the ruin of men whose fortunes might have rendered them
dangerous. Since that time licentiousness has gone on increasing; and we
have seen mothers, not only selling the innocence of their daughters,
but selling it by a contract, authenticated by the signature of a public
officer, and the performance of which was secured by the protection of
the laws. [490]

"The parlours of the convents of noble ladies, and the houses of the
courtesans, though the police carefully kept up a number of spies about
them, were the only assemblies for society in Venice; and in these two
places, so different from each other, there was equal freedom.
Music,
collations, gallantry, were not more forbidden in the parlours than at
the casinos. There were a number of casinos for the purpose of public
assemblies, where gaming was the principal pursuit of the company. It
was a strange sight to see persons of either sex masked, or grave in
their magisterial robes, round a table, invoking chance, and giving way
at one instant to the agonies of despair, at the next to the illusions
of hope, and that without uttering a single word.

"The rich had private casinos, but they lived _incognito_ in them; and
the wives whom they abandoned found compensation in the liberty they
enjoyed. The corruption of morals had deprived them of their empire. We
have just reviewed the whole history of Venice, and we have not once
seen them exercise the slightest influence. "--Daru, _Hist. de la Repub.
de Venise_, Paris, 1821, v. 328-332.

* * * * *

The author of "Sketches Descriptive of Italy," (1820), etc. , one of the
hundred tours lately published, is extremely anxious to disclaim a
possible plagiarism from _Childe Harold_ and _Beppo_. See p. 159, vol.
iv. He adds that still less could this presumed coincidence arise from
"my conversation," as he had "_repeatedly declined an introduction to me
while in Italy_.