Attacks
A Hail of Blows
These attacks that I am recounting my seem like fables, but sadly, they are all too true. Many people witnessed them. Here is an even stranger attempt on my life.
One August evening around six o’clock, I was standing at the fence that we had put in the Oratory courtyard, surrounded by my young men. Suddenly a cry went up: An assassin! An assassin! And there was a certain man whom I knew quite well and had even given assistance to. He was in his shirt sleeves and was brandishing a big knife. Rushing wildly at me, he was shouting,
I want Don Bosco! I want Don Bosco!
All of us scattered in every direction, and the intruder chased one of the seminarians, mistaking him for me. When he realised his mistake, he turned and came running furiously in my direction. I just had time to beat a retreat to the stairs of the old house, and the lock to the gate was barely secured when the madman reached it. He hammered, shouted, and bit at the iron bars to open them, to no avail. I was safe inside.
My young men wanted to overpower the unfortunate man and break him apart, but I repeatedly forbade them and they obeyed me. We sent word to the police, to police headquarters, to the carabinieri. It was not till 9:30 that evening, however, that two carabinieri arrested the rogue and took him to the barracks.
Next day, the chief of police sent an officer to ask whether I would drop the charges against my attacker. I answered that I forgave that assault and all other injuries. But in the name of the law, I demanded of the authorities greater protection for the persons and property of citizens. But would you believe it? At the very same time when I had been attacked, as I was leaving the house, there was my attacker waiting for me a short distance off.
A friend of mine, seeing that I could not expect police protection, decided to speak to the wretched man.
I’ve been paid, he was told. If you give me as much as the others do, I’ll go away peacefully.
He was paid 80 francs for back rent, another 80 to book him into new lodgings well away from Valdocco, and so ended that first comedy.
The second which I am going to relate was not like that. About a month after the episode just narrated, one Sunday evening, I was asked to hurry to the Sardi house near the Refuge to hear the Confession of a sick woman who was said to be dying.
Because of my previous experiences, I asked several of the bigger boys to come along with me.
There’s no need, I was told. We’ll accompany you. Leave these lads at their games.
This was enough for me not to go alone. I left some of them in the street at the foot of the stairs. Joseph Buzzetti and Hyacinth Arnaud were on the first-floor landing not far from the door of the sick woman.
I went inside and saw a woman gasping as if she were about to breathe her last. I asked the men in attendance, four of them, to move off a little so that we might speak of her soul.
Before I make my Confession, she said in a strong voice, I want that blackguard there in front of me to take back the calumnies he has been spreading about me.
One of them answered. No.
Shut up! added another, rising to his feet.
Then they all stood up from their chairs.
Yes! No! Watch it! I’ll strangle you! I’ll cut your throat!
These shouts, mixed with horrible curses, echoed diabolically all over the room. In the midst of that melee, the light was put out. As the din increased, a hail of blows began to be aimed over where I was sitting. I had figured out their game right away, namely to jump me. In a moment, with time neither to ponder nor to reflect, necessity became the mother of invention. I grabbed a chair, put it over my head, and as I edged towards the door under that helmet, a shower of blows from sticks fell with a tremendous racket upon the chair.
Exiting that hotbed of Satan, I flew into the arms of my young men; when they heard that noise and those yells, they were determined to break in, come what may.
I had suffered no serious wound. One blow struck my left thumb, which was exposed against the back of the chair. The nail and half the tip were ripped away, so that I carry the scar to this day. The worst harm was the fright.
I never could discover the real reason for this persecution, but it seems that all these attempts on my life were intended to make me stop, they would say, calumniating the Protestants.