oomy prison, where all are
'degradati,' and where none are to be found save men stained
with the foulest crimes. I was seventeen months there,----a
'laico,'--a servant of the meanest class,--no consolation of
study, no momentary solace in tracing others' thoughts to
relieve the horrible solitude of my own. Labor--incessant
debasing labor--my lot from day till dawn.

"I have no clew to the nature of my guilt I declare solemnly
before Heaven, as I write these lines, that I am not
conscious of a crime, save such as the confessional has
expiated; and yet the ritual of my daily life implied such.
The offices and litanies I had to repeat, the penances I
suffered, were those of the 'Espiazione!' I dare not trust
myself to recall this terrible period,----the only
rebellious sentiment my heart has ever known sprang from
that tortured existence. As an humble priest in the wildest
regions of Alpine snow, as a missionary among the most
barbarous tribes, I could have braved hardships, want, death
itself; but as the 'de-gradato,' dragging out life in
failing strength, with faculties each day weaker, watching
the ebb of intellect, and wondering how near I was to that
moping idiocy about me, and whether in that state suffering
and sorrow slept! Oh, Michel! my hands tremble, and the
tears blot the paper as I write. Can this ordeal ever work
for good? The mass sink into incurable insanity,--a few,
like myself, escape; and how do they come back into the
world? I speak not of other changes; but what hardness of
the heart is engendered by extreme suffering, what
indifference to the miseries of others I How compassionless
do we become to griefs that are nothing to those we have
ourselves endured! you know well that mine has not been a
life of indolence, that I have toiled hard and long in the
cause of our faith, and yet I have never been able to throw
off the dreary influence of that conventual existence. In
the excitement of political intrigue I remember it least; in
the whirlwind of passions by which men are moved, I can for
a time forget the cell, the penance, and the chain. I have
strong resentments, too, Michel. I would make them feel that
to him they sentenced once to 'degradation' must they now
come for advice and guidance,--that the poor '