The Manzoni Family Read Online Free PDF Page B

what happened to them.
    On 2 April 1810 the wedding of Napoleon and Marie-Louise of Austria was celebrated in Paris. There were great crowds in the streets, among them Alessandro and Enrichetta. Suddenly mortars were fired. People panicked and began to run to and fro in confusion, and in this panic there were dead and wounded. Alessandro lost sight of Enrichetta. He seems then to have experienced a malaise, a giddiness, and he feared he was going to faint; he went into the church of San Rocco. He found Enrichetta shortly after. They say that there, in the church, he prayed a real prayer to God for the first time in his life, asking Him to let him find his wife again safe and sound. ‘Entering the church of San Rocco one day, he prayed feverishly and rose from his knees a believer,’ says Abbé Zanella, who was a friend of his. ‘It was the grace of God, my son, the grace of God,’ Manzoni replied much later to his stepson Stefano, who asked him when he had found faith, and where, and how. He would never add to these words. A tablet has been placed in the Church of San Rocco which states that Manzoni’s conversion happened at that place and that moment.
    The malaise and vertigo which led him to seek refuge in the church were a real crise de nerfs, the first in his life. From then he realised he was liable to convulsions, or afraid of experiencing attacks. And this fear caused him palpitations and vertigo. In fact, his grandfather, Cesare Beccaria, had been convulsionary, and his uncle Giulio Beccaria, son of Cesare. Abbé Degola was also subject to convulsions, and this probably created mutual understanding between Manzoni and Degola.
    â€™He rose from his knees a believer. He was in a frantic state when he knelt to pray: he had felt he was fainting or dying; his prayer had been ‘feverish’; feverishly he had begged God to restore Enrichetta to him, and also to restore to him a less hateful image of himself, for in the confusion of his malaise he had looked at himself with disgust; his faults had seemed very great: he had been cynical, fatuous, indifferent to his neighbour, and cruel; this is how he saw himself at that moment, and he had never believed in God. From then, he suffered frequent crises of acute anguish; he kept remembering that moment; he was oppressed by remorse, and felt that his faith was never sufficiently strong, limpid or sure.
    The three of them became Catholics: Enrichetta, Alessandro, Giulia. They were strongly united but profoundly different, and each arrived at the Catholic faith in a different way. Enrichetta had to break the bonds that bound her to her family and childhood, as it were with blood and toil. Alessandro bore within him that burden of secret remorse, doubts and travail. Giulia rushed forward, stumbling and breathless, like someone afraid of missing an appointment; but she moved forward with a light tread, for she was always ready for any change or turn and faced the future eagerly, whatever new form it might take; she too bore a sense of remorse and guilt, but it never completely darkened her path. They were at one in deciding to go back and settle in Italy; all three wanted to change their life and breathe new air. Giulia remembered Ce vilain Italie with affection; Enrichetta had never liked Paris, and now Alessandro hated it.
    On 22 May, in the Church of Saint-Séverin in Paris, Abbé Degola received Enrichetta’s abjuration and her profession of faith in the Catholic Church. It was a solemn ceremony, attended by Somis, the President of the Court of Appeal Agier, Signora Geymúller with her two sons, lofty prelates and magistrates, and many ladies. One of Enrichetta’s uncles who lived in Paris got to know of it, and immediately informed the Blondel family in Milan, who knew nothing of it.
    â€˜I, Enrichetta Luisa Manzoni, née Blondel, called by the grace of Almighty God to return to the bosom of the Church, recognize the errors of the