"I have
always had the most unshaken faith in my star," he said one day, "even
when, from hunger or despair, thoughts of suicide occurred to me. When I
broke my black bread, I said to myself: 'The day will come when I shall
eat white.'"
Like all Italians at that time, Saredo detested and despised modern
France. As far as reconquered Rome was concerned, he regarded her with
sorrowful eyes. "There are only nobility, ecclesiastics, and workmen
here," he said; "no middle classes, no industry and no trade. Absurd
tariff laws have up till now shut off the Papal States from the
surrounding world. And what a government! A doctor, who after his second
visit did not make his patient confess to a priest, lost his official
post, if he happened to hold one, and was in any case sent to prison for
five months. A doctor who did not go to Mass a certain number of times
during the week was prohibited practising. The huge number of tied-up
estates made buying and selling very difficult. The new government has
struck the nobility a fatal blow by abolishing entailed property and
lands. The calling in of the ecclesiastical property by the State is
giving the towns a chance to breathe."
Whenever I revisited Italy, I saw Saredo. His heroism during the
inquiries into the irregularities in Naples in 1900-1901 made his name
beloved and himself admired in his native country.
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