So he quietly
occupied himself in his prison by writing sonnets, and when an artist
came to pay him a visit, he gave him an order for a new work.
In spite of the eloquent defence made in his behalf by a young
advocate, the tribunal condemned him to twenty years' hard labour. At
this rate, the Minister who had allowed him to borrow the money should
certainly have been beheaded. But the lambs of the clergy don't eat
one another.
The advocate who had defended Campana was punished for having pleaded
too eloquently, by being forbidden to practise in Court for three
months.
You may imagine that this cruel sentence cast a stigma upon Campana.
Not a bit of it. The people, who have often experienced his
generosity, regard him as a martyr. The middle class despises him much
less than it does many a yet unpunished functionary. His old friends
of the nobility and of the Sacred College often shake him by the hand.
I have known Cardinal Tosti, at once his gaoler and his friend, let
him have the use of his private kitchen.
Condemnations are a dishonour only in countries where the judges are
honoured. All the world knows that the pontifical magistrates are not
instruments of justice, but tools of power.
CHAPTER XV.
TOLERANCE.
If crimes against Heaven are those which the Church forgives the
least, every man who is not even nominally a Catholic, is of course in
the eyes of the Pope a rogue and a half.
These criminals are very numerous: the geographer Balbi enumerates
some six hundred millions of them on the surface of the globe.
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