p. 84The Carbonari

Centuries ago the wood-choppers and charcoal-burners of the forests of Germany, France and Switzerland had a kind of union among themselves for their mutual protection against robbers and enemies. In the French department of Jura the hewers of wood called themselves “le bon cousinage” (the good cousinship) and this society spread into Italy during the time of the first Napoleon. Refugees from political feuds, victims of tyrannical rulers, revolutionary leaders, and escaped prisoners often made their homes among these dwellers of the forests and employed themselves in cutting wood and making charcoal. Under pretense of carrying it for sale, they introduced themselves into the villages and bearing the name colliers, carbonajo, or Carbonari, they easily met their partisans and mutually communicated their different plans. They recognized each other by signs, grips, and pass-words. When Napoleon I. had invaded Italy the Carbonari declared themselves a political society determined to free Italy from the foreign intruder. Gradually the leaders avowed an Italian Republic, and when the expelled dynasty was reinstated upon the throne of Naples, they assumed an attitude of uncompromising hostility against monarchism. Their program was: “Italy shall be free and independent. Its boundaries shall be the three seas and the Alps. Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, the seven islands along the coast of the Mediterranean, Adriatic, and Ionian seas, shall form an integral part of the Roman Empire of which Rome shall be the capital.” The reigning sovereigns were to be disposed of and at the death of the Pope the society was to take hold of the Papal states and the College of Cardinals was to be abolished. The new Italy was to be called by its ancient Latin name, Ausonia. All means leading to their object were deemed just. Though in their aggressions against the ruling sovereigns the Carbonari were defeated and their leaders arrested and the organization disbanded, their principles found followers and their aim an apparent realization when on October 8, 1870, Victor Emanuel declared himself in a manifestal from the Quirinal at Rome, King of United Italy.

The Carbonari had three degrees of fellowship. According to their ritual the places of their meetings were called barraca or collier’s hut; the interior of the barraca was called the vendita (from the sale of coals) and its arrangements most simple. At the end of the barn-shaped vendita there must be three blocks of wood, each supported by three legs, for the Grand Master and his two assistants. On the block for the Grand Master there must be the following symbols: A linen cloth, water, salt, a cross, leaves, sticks, fire, earth, charcoal, a crown of white thorns, a ladder, a long pole, a shovel, a ball of thread, three ribbons—one blue, one red, and one black. A furnace and a tree with the roots in the air finish the symbolic furniture. There must be an illuminated triangle on the right and left with the arms of the vendita and the initial letter of the pass-word of the first degree. The Grand Master and the two assistants hold hatchets in their hands. The members sit along the walls on wooden benches without backs. The symbols are thus explained: The furnace is the collective work at which the Carbonari labor; the sacred fire they keep alive is the flame of liberty with which they desire to illumine the world. Charcoal is the fountain of light and warmth that purifies the air. The tree with the roots in the air is a figure of kingdoms destroyed and thrones overthrown. The cross serves to crucify the tyrants that persecute us; the crucifix reminds us of our redemption. The crown of white thorns means the trouble and struggle of good cousins; the crown that is to pierce the tyrant’s head. The thread commemorates that the Mother of God spun it; it denotes the cord which is to lead the tyrant to the gibbet and the ladder will aid him to mount it. The leaves are nails to pierce his hands and feet. The pickaxe will penetrate his breast and shed his impure blood. The axe will separate his head from his body. The salt will prevent the corruption of his head, that it may last as a monument of the eternal infamy of despots. The pole will serve to put his head upon. The furnace will burn his body. The shovel will scatter his ashes to the wind. The water will purify us from the vile blood we shall have shed. The linen will wipe away our stains, etc.

The initiation into the first degree was similar to that in other secret societies, apparently harmless in order to dupe the candidate. In the second degree the candidate represented Christ, the Grand Master took the name of Pilate and his two assistants those of Caiphas and Herod; the Good Cousins are then called the people.

The candidate is first led to the Garden of Olives and there repeats the words of Christ in a mutilated form: “If the sufferings I am to undergo are to be useful for men I do not ask to be freed from them, but thy will, O Lord, and not mine be done.” Having taken a draught from a cup filled with bitter drink the candidate is brought before Pilate and accused of being a disturber of the people and ambitious, desiring to destroy the religion and govern the people. He is then led to Caiphas and from his to Herod. Herod asks him who he is and the reply is: “I am Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God.” A white garment is put on him and, being brought back to Pilate, the master of ceremonies says: “This is Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” The candidate is then scourged, a crown of thorns placed upon his head, and then Pilate says: “Ecce homo,” but the people cry, “Crucify him; his blood be upon us and our children.” The sentence of death is pronounced, the cross laid upon the shoulders of candidate when the people cry: “Mercy, mercy.” The candidate takes an oath binding himself under the penalty of having his body cut to pieces and burnt if he should prove false. The higher degree of Grand Elect was conferred only upon those who had proved their efficiency for work by having manifested their hatred for the rulers of ancient Ausonia (Italy). The candidate had to take the following oath: “I, N. N., a free citizen of Ausonia, swear before the Grand Master of the Universe, and the Grand Elect Good Cousins, to devote my whole life to the triumph of the principles of liberty, equality and progress, which are the soul of all the secret and public acts of Carbonarism. I promise that, if it is impossible to restore the reign of liberty without a struggle, I will fight to the death. I consent, should I prove false to my oath, to be slain by my Good Cousins Grand Elect; to be fastened to the cross in a lodge, naked, crowned with thorns; to have my belly torn open the entrails and heart taken out, burned, and the ashes scattered to the wind. Such I swear.” The Carbonari spread the report that they had the approbation of the Holy See and for a time succeeded in deceiving the ignorant masses. Pius VII condemned them repeatedly in 1814, 1815 and 1821; as also Leo XII in 1825. The society spread into France where it assisted in the Revolutions that agitated that country, during the last century.¹1In 1835 Maiegari described the reason d’etre of the Carbonari in these words: “We form a union of brothers in all parts of the earth; we all strive for the freedom of mankind; we wish to break every kind of yoke.” Giardiniere was the name of the woman’s branch of the Carbonari, the word meaning garden-women, each sister taking the name of a flower.

The Mafia

Is the society of Italians which has been prominently before the people both in Italy and the United States during the last twenty years. The candidate, upon his knees, places the point of a stiletto upon his bare breast over the heart, and swears that he would plunge the blade into his heart rather than betray his brothers in the Mafia. The society was accused of killing the Chief of Police of New Orleans in 1890, and eleven of its members, who had been arrested and acquitted of the charge, were taken from the jail by a mob and lynched.