Chapter 17

“June 22.—P.S.—Our servant has been to town to-day; he brings me a letter from the Perkins’, and such news as is the general talk of the _cafes_. Our poor friends in the Hotel de France (Locanda Storti) suffered much. Deceived to the last, they had not even been told of the actual arrival of the troops, and had just sat quietly to dinner when the roar of the guns startled them. They strove to go to another hotel, but alas! the gates of their inn were fastened; they could not stir. The letter I got from them said that the troops were _irritated on account of the firing from the roof_. We knew beforehand how it would be _there_; and in fact they did shoot an officer and two men while passing the door. It was on this that the soldiers, infuriated, rushed and assailed the house.... I hear every one blames the imprudence of these people. They could not afford to be hostile; for the hotel, if you remember, commands the street from the base up the hill. No troops, therefore, could risk going up that hill with a hostile house in that position ready to take them in the rear. The escape of the poor Perkins’ is a perfect miracle; they, I hear, lost everything. The innkeeper, waiter and stableman, they say, were killed in the fray. The number of deaths among the Swiss were 10, and 33 of the Perugians. Several prisoners were made. I went up on this same afternoon (June 22) with the two little boys to see the colonel of the regiment. The town is wonderfully little injured, only broken windows ... after a mob riot, with the exception of a few houses in the suburbs, between the outer and inner gates. One was burned by the accident of the falling of a bomb-shell. The other was cannonaded as being a resort of the rebels. There is great talk of how the heads of the revolution scampered off, betraying thus the tools and dupes of their faction.”

Extract from another letter to David Ross of Bladensburgh:

“There is great terror here among all the country people, who dread, sooner or later, vengeance being taken upon them by the revolutionary party, because they would have nothing to say to the movement.”

(M65) It is well known how rapidly events succeeded one another, when Napoleon’s friendly relations with Austria came to an end. On May 3rd he declared war. On the 12th he arrived at Genoa, commanded in person, on the 4th of June, at the battle of Magenta, where, but for the superior generalship of Marshal McMahon, he would have lost his life, together with his army, and on the 24th of the same month won the great victory of Solferino. He now gave out that he had enough of glory and would fight no more, whilst in reality he was constrained to yield to powerful pressure from without. Prussia, foreseeing that, if Austria experienced a few more defeats, she herself would suffer, deemed it wise to interfere. Prussia had, indeed, concerted matters beforehand with the Emperor of the French, and had undertaken to isolate Austria, her hereditary rival in Germany.

But at the first rumor of the Franco-Piedmontese aggression, the German States were moved. The Diet of Francfort insisted that the confederate nations should proceed to assist the Emperor, who was President of the German Confederation. It fell to Prussia to head the movement. But, as may be conceived, she was not hearty in the cause. Her statesmen hesitated, argued, equivocated, and made a show of preparing, but slowly, for war. Meanwhile, the news of the successive defeats of Austria roused still more the patriotism of the Germans. The Prussian monarch, finding that he was on the point of being overwhelmed, addressed to his Imperial accomplice, the day after the battle of Solferino, a most pressing telegram, informing him that he must make peace, cost what it would. Napoleon, it need hardly be said, obeyed, and so _the peace of Villafranca was concluded_. By this treaty was established an Italian Confederation, under the honorary presidency of the Pope, Lombardy given to Piedmont, Venice left to Austria, the rights of the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the other sovereigns, who were for the moment dispossessed, expressly reserved. Thus appeared to end the intrigues of the revolution. Pius IX. promptly invited the faithful of Rome to join with him in offering thanksgiving to God. His letter thus concludes: “What do we pray for? That all the enemies of Christ, of His Church and of the Holy See, may be converted and live.”

(M66) So clear, apparently, was now the political atmosphere, that men could not avoid accusing themselves of having judged rashly the mighty conqueror, who, by a word, could restore serenity as easily as he had disturbed it. It was not yet known by what power he was restrained. In compliance with the requirements of the treaty of Villafranca, Piedmont, indeed, withdrew her commissioners from Central Italy. The public, however, soon learned, to its great astonishment, what, at first, it could not believe, that provisional governments took the place of the Piedmontese Commissioners, and that Baron Ricasoli, at Florence, Signor Farini, at Modena and Parma, and Cipriani, at Bologna, all agents of Count de Cavour and the revolution, dismissed everywhere such officials as were suspected of looking seriously to the return of the legitimate sovereigns, and had recourse to popular suffrage. This, it is no exaggeration to say, was a mere mockery. The voting directed, expurgated by these parties, never extended to the landward districts, but, confined entirely to the towns, was necessarily calculated to produce the result at which they aimed—a _plebiscitum_ in favor of annexation to Piedmont. In Romagna, for instance, where there were about two hundred thousand electors, only 18,000 were registered, and of these only one-third presented their votes. By such means was a national assembly constituted. This assembly met at Bologna on the 6th of September, and at its first sitting voted the abolition of the Pontifical government, and invited Victor Emmanuel. This potentate dared not, at first, to accept, but appointed Signor Buoncompagni, governor-general of the league of Central Italy. It did not appear from the state of the polls, if, indeed, the polling of votes was even made a fashion of, that the people of the Papal States were at all anxious to do away with the government under which they and their forefathers had enjoyed so many blessings, together with the surpassing honor of possessing, as their capital, the metropolis of the Christian world. They were too happy in being ruled over by the elective monarch whom they themselves had chosen, to desire, in preference to him, the mere shadow of a king—the satrap of an Imperial despot. It was not they who, in a pretended _patriotic_ endeavor to shake off the Pontifical yoke, raised the standard of rebellion in so many cities and provinces of the Papal States. This was wholly the work of foreigners. A Bonaparte, attended by a numerous and well-disciplined army, invaded Italy. His arms were, to a certain extent, successful; and so rebellion was encouraged. Another Bonaparte excited to revolt the city of Perugia. The disturbance was speedily settled by a handful of troops whom the sovereign had despatched from Rome, to the great satisfaction of the citizens of Perugia. In other cities, by the like instrumentalities, were like movements occasioned. They were invariably suppressed by the loyal and devoted people. So much was this the case that the Pontifical government warmly thanked the mayors and municipalities of no fewer than seven or eight cities for their good services in putting down the nascent revolution. At Bologna, the capital of the Romagnol or Æmilian provinces, a cousin of the Bonapartes, the Marquis Pepoli, whom the benevolence of Pius IX. had restored to his country, stirred up rebellion, and caused the Pontifical government to give place to revolutionary misrule. The abettors of Pepoli, in this most base and ungrateful proceeding, were his associates of the secret societies; others who were foreigners at Bologna, and a few malcontents of that city itself. But all these were far from being the citizens of Bologna, far from being the people of the Bolognese provinces. Whilst such things were done, where was the peace of Villafranca? It had become, or rather, never was anything better than, waste paper. The head of the Bonapartes was the offender, and he contrived to make France the partner of his guilt.

“It is France,” the illustrious M. de Montalembert affirms, “that has allowed the temporal power of the Pope to be shaken. This is the fact, which blind men only can deny. France is not engaged alone in this path, but her overwhelming ascendancy places her at the head of the movement, and throws the great and supreme responsibility of it upon her. We know all the legitimate and crushing reproaches that are due to England and Piedmont; but if France had so willed it, Piedmont would not have dared to undertake anything against the Holy See, and England would have been condemned to her impotent hatred.... The Congress of Paris, in 1856—having solemnly declared, ‘that none of the contracting powers had the right of interfering, either collectively or individually, between a sovereign and his subjects’(4)—after having proclaimed the principle of the absolute independence of sovereigns in favor of the Turkish Sultan against his Christian subjects, thought itself justified by its protocol of April 8th, and in the absence of any representative of the august accused, in proclaiming that the situation of the Papal States was _abnormal_ and _irregular_. This accusation, developed, aggravated and exaggerated in parliament and elsewhere, by Lord Palmerston and Count Cavour, was, nevertheless, formally put forward under the presidency and on the _initiative_ of the French minister for foreign affairs. Consequently, France must be held accountable for it to the Church, and to the rest of Europe.” The war which “the skilful but guilty perseverance of Piedmontese policy” succeeded in occasioning between France and Austria facilitated not a little the work of revolution in the States of the Church. In order to dispel the fears that prevailed, the following words were addressed to the Bishops of France by the minister of the Emperor: “The prince who restored the Holy Father to his throne in the Vatican wills that the Head of the Church should be respected in all his rights as a temporal sovereign.” A little later, the Emperor of the French, elated with his military success, issued a proclamation which renewed the apprehensions that had been so happily allayed. “Italians!—Providence sometimes favors nations and individuals by giving them the opportunity of suddenly springing into their full growth. Avail yourselves, then, of the fortune that is offered you! Your desire of independence, so long expressed, so often deceived, will be realized, if you show yourselves worthy of it. Unite then for one sole object, the liberation of your country. Fly to the standards of King Victor Emmanuel, who has already so nobly shown you the way to honor. Remember that without discipline there can be no army, and animated with the sacred fire of patriotism, be soldiers only to-day, and you will be to-morrow free citizens of a great country.”

“The Romagnese,” continues Montalembert, “took the speaker at his word. Four days after the appearance of this proclamation, they rose against the Papal authority, created a provisional government, convoked a sovereign assembly, voted the deposition of the Pope, and the annexation to Piedmont. Finally, seeing their audacity remained unpunished, they organized an armed league, officered by Piedmontese, and commanded by Garibaldi—that Garibaldi, who, having been vanquished by French troops ten years ago, now avails himself of our recent hard-won victories, to boast that he will ‘soon make an end of clerical despotism.’ ”

Three months after the revolution had been established in the Romagna, M. de Montalembert wrote: “The revolution, triumphant, is still asking Europe to sanction its work. France has to impute to herself all the scandals and all the calamities that will follow. Great nations are responsible not only for what they do, but for what they permit to be done under the shadow of their flag, and by the incitement of their influence. The war which France waged in Italy has cost the Pope the loss of the third part of his dominions, and the irreparable weakening of his hold on what remains. The eldest daughter of the church will remain accountable for it before contemporaries, before history, before Europe, and before God. She will not be allowed to wipe her mouth like the adultress in Scripture, _quæ tergens os suum dicit, non sum operata malum_.”

Another power which was, in the full sense of the term, _foreign_ in the Roman States, still more directly aided the revolution. This power was the army of Garibaldi. It will be seen, when it is considered what troops this army was composed of, that it was wholly alien in the States of the Church. In this motley corps there were:

6,750 Piedmontese volunteers. 3,240 Lombards volunteers 1,200 Venetians. 2,150 Neapolitans and Sicilians. 500 Romans. 1,200 Hungarians. 200 French. 30 English. 150 Maltese and Ionians. 260 Greeks. 450 Poles. 370 Swiss. 160 Spaniards, Belgians and Americans. 800 Austrian deserters and liberated convicts.

Could such an army as this be held to be a representation of the people of the Papal States? One-third of it was supplied by two hostile nations, one of which, Piedmont, had actually, by the intrigues of its government and in pursuance of a policy which an able statesman, a most candid writer and an honorable man, Count Montalembert, has stigmatized as _criminal_, caused the rebellion in Romagna, and has since earnestly labored to avail itself of the state of things, by annexing Central Italy to the territories of the Piedmontese King. It were superfluous to direct attention to the numbers of foreigners from various states. It is, however, deserving of remark that the whole population of the Papal States, amounting to 3,000,000, should have shown its alleged sympathy with the “cause of Italy,” by sending only 500 men to fight its battles. They did not want courage, as was shown in 1848, when neither the considerate advice and paternal remonstrances of the Holy Father, nor the wise counsel of grave statesmen and learned cardinals, could moderate the ardor of the Roman youth, believing, as they had been persuaded, that patriotism and duty called them to follow the standard of King Charles Albert. Then they took up arms, as they conceived, in the cause of Italian liberty. But now that honorable cause was manifestly in abeyance; and they would not leave their homes and endanger their lives for the phantom of national independence offered them by the revolution.

The French were equally wary. They sympathized with Italy. They fought for their Emperor. But they had no admiration for Piedmontese ambition, or that of Murats, and Pepolis, and Bonapartes.

England was more cautious still. However much her demagogues may have exerted their oratorical powers at home, they carefully avoided perilling either life or limb in the cause of the revolution. A more numerous band of fighting men of English origin, in Garibaldi’s ranks, would have shown more sympathy with rebellion in some Italian States than the proposal made by a right honorable member of the richest peerage in the world to raise a penny subscription in order to supply the rebels with bayonets and fire-arms. When we call to mind that this suggestion was made by that very lordly peer who was once Governor-General of India, we have little difficulty in understanding why his superiors, the members of the East India Company, dismissed him from the high and responsible office with which he had been entrusted.

It cannot be pretended that the army of Garibaldi was, in any degree, a national representation. No nation or community can be fairly represented by a number of its people, insignificantly small, unless, indeed, these few individuals hold commission from their fellow-countrymen. We have not read anywhere that the Garibaldian army was thus honored. Social status, character and respectability, may, on occasions, give to individuals the privilege of representing their country. But on these grounds the motley troop of the revolutionary leader possessed no claim. They were men for whom peace and order have no charms. The powerful corrective of military discipline was applied to them in vain. Their insubordination was notorious. To Garibaldi even it was intolerable. And this man, daring as he was, withdrew from the command in disgust. He had scarcely retired when many of his men deserted. These the people refused to recognize, and would not afford them assistance on their journey. Some fifty of them arrived at Placentia, after having been reduced to mendicancy before they could reach their homes. The revolutionary governor, Doctor Fanti, issued an order of the day, requiring that these men, on account of their insubordination and bad conduct, should not be admitted anew into the army of the League. The general-in-chief also published an order, under date of 26th November, 1859, absolutely forbidding to accept any person who had belonged to Garibaldi’s force. An army so composed could, by no means, claim to represent the highly refined, intellectual, and moral populations of Italy. Far less did it afford any proof that the people of the Papal States were anxious to forward the work of the revolution.

The inhabitants of Rome and the Roman States, far from showing any inclination to side with the revolutionary party, were wont never to let pass an opportunity of manifesting their satisfaction with the government of the Pope. His Holiness walked abroad without guards. And although he sought the most retired places, for the enjoyment of that pedestrian exercise which his health required, numbers of the people often contrived to throw themselves in his way, in order to testify to him their reverence and affection, as well as to receive his paternal benediction. When taking his walk, one day, on Monte Pincio, many thousands came around him, declaring loudly their unfeigned loyalty. The following day, still greater crowds repaired to the same place. But the Holy Father, with a view to be more retired, had gone in another direction. It ought not to be forgotten, that when returning, in the autumn of 1859, from his villa at Castel Gandolpho, the road was thronged on both sides to the distance of four miles from Rome with citizens who had no other object in view than to give a cordial and loyal welcome to their Bishop and Prince. This was an ovation—a triumph which the greatest conqueror might well have envied. It has already been recorded that, on occasion of the progress which the Holy Father made through his States, he was everywhere received with the most lively demonstrations of enthusiastic loyalty, reverence and affection. On the 18th of January, 1860, the municipal body, or, as it is called, “the Senate,” of Rome, presented to the Sovereign Pontiff, as well in their own name as on behalf of all the people, an address expressive of their filial duty and loyal sentiments. On the following day, January 19th, one hundred and thirty-four of the nobility of Rome, who are, in all, one hundred and sixty, approached the person of the Pontiff in order to present an equally loyal and dutiful address. The sentiments of this address will be best conveyed in its own plain and energetic language—language which does honor to the patricians of modern Rome:

“We, the undersigned, deeply grieved by the publication of various libels which, emanating from the revolutionary press, tend to make the world believe that the people subject to the authority of your Holiness are wishing to shake off the yoke which, as it is reported, has become insufferable, feel necessitated to show fidelity and loyalty to your Holiness, and to make known to the rest of Europe, which, at the present moment, doubts the sincerity of our words, the fidelity of our persons towards your Holiness, by a manifestation of attachment and fidelity towards your person, proceeding from our duty as Catholics, and from our lawful submission as your subjects.

“It is not, however, our intention to vie with the miserable cunning of your enemies—enemies of the faith—of that very faith which they profess to venerate. But placed, as it is our fortune, by your side, and seeing the malignity of those who attack you, and the disloyal character of their attacks, we feel bound to gather ourselves at the foot of your twofold throne, with vows for the integrity of your independent sovereignty; and once more offering you our whole selves, too happy if this manifestation of our fidelity may sweeten the bitterness with which your Holiness is afflicted, and if you are pleased to accept our offerings. Thus may Europe, deceived by so many perverse writings, be thoroughly convinced that if the nobility have hitherto been restrained from the expression of their desires by respect and the fear of throwing any obstacle in the way of a happy solution, so anxiously desired, they have not the less retained them, and expressed them as individuals; and that they, this day, unite to declare them, heartily and sincerely pledging to them before all the world their honor and their faith.

“Accept, Holy Father, Pontiff and King, this energetic protest and the unlimited devotedness which the nobles of Rome offer in reverence to your Sceptre, no less than to your Pastoral staff.”—(_In the Weekly Register of January 28, 1860, from the Giornale di Roma._)