Affairs In Italy.
Though the disgraceful part which the Italian monarchy has played in the late invasion of Rome by marauding bands is now a matter of common notoriety, elaborate efforts are still being made by a majority of the Italian, and a certain portion of the European, press to deny the well-known facts of the case. These organs are, however, only following the illustrious example set to them by Victor Emmanuel and Count Menabrea, whose official declarations that the revolutionists had acted entirely without the authority and knowledge of the Italian government are certainly the most pitiful subterfuges to which the king and the premier of a great power could possibly have been reduced. Indeed, we can hardly conceive a more humiliating spectacle than that which the Italian government presents in solemnly assuring the world that it had not been secretly leagued with filibusters, while, to crown the disgrace of the spectacle, nobody believes a word of its denial. But General Menabrea has attempted even more than this. In his answer to the invitation to the European Conference, dated November 19th, 1867, he had the assurance to state that Rome, not Italy, was the real cause of the present trouble. On another occasion he ventured upon a somewhat similar statement by saying that experience had taught Italy the impossibility of maintaining friendly relations with her neighbor on the Tiber! It is difficult to believe that any public man should care so little for his reputation for truth as to utter such reckless falsehoods. The whole history of the past eight years gives him the lie, for it proves clearly that every provocation has come from that Piedmont which is now styled Italy. Provocations by resort to the revolution, as in the seizure of the Legations in 1859, and again in that of the Marches and Umbria in 1860, when Viterbo, the capital of the patrimony, was also taken by force; provocations by resort to legislation, as in the breach of the concordats, in the civil marriages in an unchristian form, in the suppression of the spiritual orders, in the confiscation of the ecclesiastical property, in the violent measures adopted against the episcopate, and in the parliamentary resolutions about Rome; provocations by the personal speeches and acts of King Victor Emmanuel, whom neither the sense of his exalted station nor the traditions of his strictly orthodox dynasty have deterred from expressions which he will yet have cause to deplore when the fruits they are destined to bear become fully apparent; in a word, all the provocations have come from the side of Italy. All the evidences of moderation and conciliation (as was seen to the very last in the case of the bishoprics) have come from the side of the Holy Father; but they were always repaid with the blackest ingratitude. The piratical raid against the church state was merely the fit ending and the logical result of that long series of aggressive measures which furnishes the counts in the indictment against the Italian monarchy. We need not recapitulate the provocations that have for years preceded the invasion of Garibaldi's filibusters; for everybody will readily recall to mind the machinations to excite a spirit of discontent in the holy city and the surrounding districts; the aid and comfort extended to the self-styled Roman Revolutionary Committee, which has its seat at Florence; the libels against the person of the supreme pontiff and his sacred office, which have disgraced not only the press, but the floor of the two chambers; the encouragement afforded to every incendiary and fugitive from Roman justice, and the marked favor shown to all such characters by the authorities. Indeed, but for the agency which the Italian monarchy had in bringing about the invasion, that demonstration would never have become what it is, one of the most flagrant outrages known to the law of nations in modern days. In the midst of profound peace, without a shadow of an excuse or a pretext on the other side, Italy has not only tolerated, but sanctioned, the publication of the most indecent attacks on the head of the church. She has permitted the circulation of revolutionary manifestoes and appeals against a neighboring state, whose integrity the honor of the nation was pledged to respect and enforce. She has suffered the raising of money and arms for avowedly hostile and unlawful purposes; the opening of recruiting stations in public places, and under the direct patronage of high officials; the discussion of general plans for the campaign; the concentration of armed bands along her frontiers, and that under the eyes of troops ostensibly stationed there to disperse and prevent all such gatherings. She has enacted a farce, as foolish as it was discreditable, in regard to the chief conspirator himself, and carried this so far as to order her navy to blockade a deserted rock, while he was held in reserve, to be turned loose when the loyalty of the pope's subjects and the incapacity of the minor chiefs threatened to defeat the whole enterprise. All these are well-authenticated facts, and have since been proved by the admissions made by the Italian press. Thus, for instance, the Florence Diritto, of November 25th, 1867, uses the following significant language: "All the world," says this popular organ of the Italian democracy, in an article sharply criticising the past policy of Ratazzi's cabinet, "will remember that the Garibaldian movement, which was openly tolerated in its last phase by the government, had given rise to the general belief that the authorities were aware of everything going on, and fully prepared to assume all the consequences. Public opinion and the public press, as they beheld the government borne along by the mighty popular torrent, unanimously approved of the supposed determination of the ministry, and rejoiced to think that such a patriotic and exalted object as the acquisition of Rome should at once have the support of Garibaldi's irregular action and the avowed sanction of the government. The whole nation fancied that the ministry had taken all the precautions necessary to attain its ends in one way or other, and in any case. …. It is therefore impossible for us to describe how bitter the disappointment was when France intervened at the most critical moment. Rome remained quiet, Prussia gave no sign of moving, and the Italian army proved entirely unprepared for the emergency." It is in the face of such admissions as these that King Victor Emmanuel has ventured to issue a manifesto denouncing the invasion of St. Peter's patrimony as having been undertaken without the authority and knowledge of his government, and that his prime minister has dared to say it was Rome, not Italy, which should be blamed for the renewed interference of France.
It is the perfidy and lawless ambition of the Italian monarchy which have brought the French back to Rome. If this be regarded as a misfortune—as, no doubt, in a certain sense it is, for a foreign occupation always gives rise to an abnormal condition, whose evils are great and whose effects often prove lasting—to whom does the guilt attach? Not to the Holy Father, not to the Romans, who have turned a deaf ear to the whispers of treason, although their temptation was not great when we take into account the present state and prospects of the monarchy! But there is no need for us to indulge in sinister prognostications. Even had the Italian forces stationed on the line, where they neither protected the papal territory nor indicated the good faith of their own government, really prevented the invasion, the crisis must have come sooner or later. It was unavoidable from the very nature of the relations between the two neighbors. But it is extraordinary that the party who is alone to blame for it should claim as a reward to be released from the obligations contracted by the September convention. We cannot bring ourselves to believe for a moment that the recent outrage will result to the advantage of its authors and abettors. In the sense of the parliamentary resolutions passed at Turin and Florence, the solution of the Roman problem means nothing less than the destruction of the papal rights, and the spoliation and the oppression of the church. It will be well to bear this fact distinctly in mind. The new monarchy has unmistakably shown how it means to respect its most solemn obligations and the vested rights of others; and, above all, it has shown how it would like to treat the head of the church. And this Italy dares to demand that the gate of the papacy should be intrusted to her safe-keeping? Were it possible to obliterate the whole history of the last eight years from men's recollection, the occurrences of the last few months would alone suffice to warn Christendom against listening to such a proposition. The Roman Catholic community will hardly feel disposed to see Victor Emmanuel the intestate heir of Garibaldi at Rome, as it has seen him once before at Naples.
The Roman problem requires, no doubt, a solution, for the French are merely a momentary expedient. The subject is one that interests the whole world, and which demands a settlement that will not again expose the supreme pontiff to the danger of being besieged at the Vatican, as was his handful of defenders in the Bicoque Monte Rotondo, where they fought one against ten. We shall not even touch here upon the claims of the pope as a mere temporal ruler, and the most ancient on earth at that. Our religious sentiment rebels against dragging a question whose two component elements are indivisible into the narrow sphere of politics, and still more into the sphere of revolutionary politics which has made the nationality idea its god. The Catholic sentiment resents the base suggestion of peril to the independence of the church and its head. It cannot conceive a popedom like the one to which the Byzantine exarchs have been reduced. It wants no repetition of a Greek patriarchate among Greeks and Turks. This is a question which concerns the entire civilized Christian world, and not the Roman Catholic powers alone. The royal speech from the throne to the North German Diet contained a passage alluding to the important interests which Germany and Italy are supposed to hold in common, and the chances of Prussia's support in the case of a war with France about Rome have, no doubt, entered largely into the calculations of the Florence cabinet. But Prussia alone has over eight millions of Roman Catholic subjects, who will never consent to the total destruction of the foundation on which the independence of their church rests, and who will therefore oppose every attempt to rob the pope of his temporality. Such, at least, is the inference which we are warranted in drawing from the spirit displayed during the last month in Germany, and especially at the Mainz meeting, where two thousand leading Catholics from all parts of the country discussed the dangers of the church state. The following are the resolutions which were passed unanimously on that occasion:
"1. Divine Providence has made the successor of St. Peter the sovereign of the Roman church state, and raised him above all mere national interests, that he might be the subject of no political power, but manage the religious affairs of all Christian nations in perfect independence. This sovereign right, conferred by God and confirmed by more than ten centuries possession, is neither to be surrendered by the Catholic Church, nor to be taken away from it by diplomatic treaties or a revolutionary popular vote. The arbitrary and chimerical scheme to make Rome the capital of Italy can never be considered in comparison with the rights and interests of Catholic Christendom.
2. The assertion that the pope, as a priest, is unfit to be the head of a political government, and therefore unable to promote the temporal welfare of his subjects, is an untruth sufficiently refuted by the history of a thousand years. The maintenance and restoration of the pope's political authority in its original integrity is the only means to save Italy from the demoralization which threatens her from the secret societies and King Victor Emmanuel's policy. To have the Holy Father in her midst constitutes to-day, as it has during her whole Christian past, the highest honor, the true greatness, and the blessing of Italy.
3. It is the duty of princes, and of every sovereign power, to protect the independence of the head of the church to which their Catholic subjects belong; and the Catholics of all nations are entitled to demand that these obligations should be sacredly observed. A government which countenances the violation of the supreme pontiffs rights makes itself the accomplice of the revolution. To suffer the government of Victor Emmanuel to encourage with impunity or to undertake itself enterprises tending to imperil the security of the Roman church state, is to undermine all respect for the law of nations and the principles of justice.
4. Love gifts, raised by the free, unanimous, and untiring devotion of all Catholics, must supply the Holy Father with that assistance which is indispensable for the government of the church, as long as treachery and force withhold from him the enjoyment of the estates bestowed on him in the past for the advantage of all Christendom. For this purpose a general organization must be formed.
5. In view of the present crisis, the maintenance of the army which the Holy Father requires for the protection of his own person and that of his loyal subjects is a matter which profoundly concerns the whole Catholic world. It should be a question of honor for every nation to be represented among its ranks, and Germans could not dedicate their lives to a nobler cause."
But apart from the influence of these eight millions of Roman Catholics in Prussia, no state which recognizes the binding force of its own civilizing mission, and claims to be governed by law, could take part in such a dangerous violation of international unity, whatever its political affinities and antecedents might otherwise happen to be. Germany may or may not have vast interests in common with the Italian nationality, and may even desire their realization. But the interests of religion rank far above those of Italian nationality, with which, as we have seen, the Roman question is constantly being confounded. The Italian monarchy, as at present constituted, can inspire little confidence and respect at home or abroad. Independent of all other considerations, it is difficult to perceive how any true friend of Italy, any patriot, could, even from a purely politico-national stand-point, approve of the Garibaldian raid, and the policy pursued by the Florence government in relation to it. What the new monarchy stands most in need of at present is something quite different from the Utopian completion of its unity. If this object has not been reached already because Rome and its half a million of people are ruled by the pope, it will never be accomplished. The monarchy wants to strengthen itself internally, not to extend externally. A strong, able, and honest government, an efficient administration, a restored finance, a thorough system of public instruction, a development of its commerce, agriculture, and industry, and, above all, peace and harmony—these are the indispensable conditions to its future welfare, even to its existence. Nothing could therefore have been more fatal, even from the narrowest and most selfish point of view, than the breach of the September convention. It was, upon the whole, the most statesmanlike programme which the Italian government has yet adopted during its brief life, and should have been sacredly observed. Neither the treaty of alliance with Prussia, which gave Italy the chance to acquire Venetia, nor the peace of Vienna, which ratified that acquisition, could have exerted so far-reaching an influence on the domestic and foreign position of the country. The alliance with Prussia, it is true, contained the germs of advantages which might eventually have extended much beyond the settlement of the Venetian question and the abandonment of the Quadrilateral by the Austrians. But the fruition of these promises required time; for, as soon as Venetia was disposed of, it became evident that the connection between Italy and Prussia would have to remain long less intimate and important than the connection between Italy and France. As long as the latter power remained at Rome, the attention of the Italian statesmen would have to continue fixed rather on Paris than on Berlin. According to the intentions of its Italian framers, the convention of September 15th was to serve gradually to loosen the ties which bound Italy to France, and which began then already to be borne with impatience by the nation. By the evacuation of the Eternal City the Roman question was to be changed into an exclusively Italian question. But this project the conduct of the Italian monarchy, or, to speak more precisely, that of the statesmen who succeeded in office those who had devised the programme, has defeated, as we shall hereafter fully explain; and the result is, that the Roman problem has once more assumed a diplomatic, international phase, pending again between Florence and Paris.
The September convention has failed to put an end to these further pretexts for foreign interference in the domestic affairs of Italy, because its terms were never observed, and because its authors were not afforded a chance to carry their policy out. Nothing could have been more inauspicious than the fact that the statesmen who concluded the convention should have been driven from office on account of the Turin difficulties, at the very time when their measures had received the approbation of a large majority of the nation, and the sanction of the majority of the two chambers. The fall of the Minghetti ministry was an anomaly utterly contrary to all ideas of constitutional government. An important programme, which changed the entire policy of the country and committed it to a new one for the next future, had been accepted. It could never have been adopted without the sanction of the sovereign, nor without the approval of the country and its representatives in parliament. And yet those who had originated it and assumed all its responsibilities were compelled to resign power to men that accepted the legacy only because they could not help themselves, and whose views differed totally from those of their predecessors in office. The Minghetti cabinet, which had to retire in consequence of the excitement caused among the people of Piedmont by the transfer of the national capital stipulated for in the September convention, was succeeded by the La Marmora, composed chiefly out of Piedmontese elements, although it repudiated all the principles of the Minghetti, while pretending to recognize the obligations resulting from the convention itself. It is easy to conceive the profound agitation produced by this change in the ranks of the moderate party, which had hitherto constituted the parliamentary majority. The most energetic element of this party had been the Piedmontese. Through its intimate relations with the reigning house, its long parliamentary experience, its business knowledge, its marked predominance in the administration and the army, the Piedmontese had always been the most trustworthy supporters of the moderate cause, the strongest bulwark against the incessant encroachments of radicalism. It was the majority of this element that now coalesced with the radicals for the purpose of fighting by their side against the late moderate leaders, whom they could not pardon for having severed the hegemony of Piedmont and Turin by the transfer of the capital to Florence. In addition to the desertion of the bulk of the Piedmontese, the remainder of the moderates split among themselves. Some refused to desert their fallen leaders; others, and especially such as had joined the new administration, while still content to adhere to a moderate policy and to accept the September convention as a part of it, yet thought they might safely venture to sacrifice the authors of the latter to the prejudices of Piedmont, and that without serious injury to the material features of the programme. This division between the supporters of the old cabinet, the so-called "Consorteria," and the new, became most conspicuous at the elections in the autumn of 1865, when the latter opposed, or permitted its followers to oppose, the candidates of the former, which resulted in large accessions to the radicals. The Ricasoli cabinet, formed in the spring of 1866, also hoped to strengthen itself by conciliating the radicals, while it continued to maintain the unfriendly attitude of its predecessors toward the Consorteria. But the result was, that the Ricasoli ministry failed to secure a majority when it dissolved parliament in February, 1867.
Is the steady decadence of the Italian monarchy due to the disintegration of the moderate party, or is this disintegration of the party of order merely a symptom of the general decline of the old country and the new kingdom? It will suffice to throw out these queries, and to contestate at the same time the circumstance that the influence of the government has diminished in the same ratio as that of the radicals has increased; that the confusion and disorder in all departments of the public service have kept pace with the financial embarrassment. Although every ministry called to office since 1864 has been more or less recruited from the débris of the old moderate party, each succeeding administration has proved itself less capable of resisting the advances of the radicals and the Piedmontese opposition, and the last Ratazzi ministry was forced at the start to depend altogether on their support and forbearance. These being the facts, it is only natural that the programme of the moderates in relation to the Roman and the ecclesiastical questions should have lost authority year after year, session after session, until it has finally become impracticable of execution. The non-intervention policy presupposed first of all a government strong and honest enough to enforce a pacific course toward the pope. But no such government has ever yet been known in Italy. The secret negotiations with Rome, conducted by the La Marmora and the Ricasoli cabinets, (through Vegezzi and Tonello,) related only to spiritual affairs; but even these were defeated by the machinations of the radicals in parliament and in the press. This party desires no dealings whatever with the papal government, neither in relation to temporal nor spiritual matters. It is an uncompromising opponent of Cavour's maxim, Libero chiesa in libero stato, which it considers the greatest misfortune that could befall the country. Between the radicals of Italy and the Church of Rome the war is one of life and death. They charge the papacy with having caused the division and subjugation of the peninsula. They hold up the whole institution as the mortal foe of every national aspiration for unity and independence. They say that only doctrinarians and disguised clericals can draw a line of demarcation between Rome's temporal and spiritual rule, and openly boast that it is their mission to complete at once the unity of Italy, and to free the world from papacy. These are the leading points in the radical programme, and they are, therefore, the exact opposite to those laid down in the September convention.
But, despite the disintegration of the moderate party, despite the feebleness of the consecutive ministries in office since 1864, a programme which substitutes the subjugation of the church for its freedom, the physical conquest of Rome for its moral, would perhaps have less rapidly gained ground, had not an entirely new factor entered into the relations between the Italian and the papal governments—between church and state; and this factor was the all-engrossing financial question. The radicals cunningly used it to hasten the solution of the Roman problem by advocating the confiscation of the ecclesiastical property, and they succeeded in persuading the moderates to countenance a policy which was felt to be an outrage to all justice. The latter, instead of acting in accordance with the principle of a free church in a free state, accepted the radical postulates. The influence of the radicals constantly grew, because they were perfectly united, decided, and logical on all questions relating to church and state, while, the moderates only reluctantly, and with the secret consciousness of their own inconsequence, assented to measures which endangered both the discipline and possessions of the church. A party which fights boldly under its own colors may be vanquished to-day, yet rally again to-morrow and conquer at last; but a party which is compelled to hide its colors and to hoist those of its foes resigns all hopes of resuming the contest after the first reverse. As far as the interests of the papacy are, therefore, concerned, there is very little difference between the radicals and the moderates of Italy. Both would like to obtain Rome, only that the latter differ in regard to the means. While the radicals would resort to brute force, the moderates would trust to cunning and plotting; for they know that the Roman question is not, like the Venetian, a mere question of national independence and unity, which can be solved permanently by war or revolution. Their object is not simply the destruction of the worldly power of the pope and the annexation of the small strip of territory still left to him. The supreme pontiff has more than once lost his temporality; but his ascendency over the minds of men was rather strengthened than weakened by his adversity, and with the aid of his moral authority, his spiritual influence, he has every time regained what he had lost. To deprive him, once for all, of his worldly power, he must first be reduced to a condition which will not allow him to avail himself again of his moral authority as the head of the church, and it is to this end that the moderates have been working in various ways.
In relation to the proposed European congress we have nothing to say, except that it is an impossibility. As the pastoral letter of the Bishop of Orleans forcibly remarked, such a conference could only be composed of kings; for the fate of the supreme pontiff should never be left to the decision of a Gortschakoff or a Bismarck.
Since the above article was written, the debates in the Italian chambers have shown to us anew that the Holy Father can expect nothing from the monarchy. They have proved again that the Roman question is considered by them to be a mere political question, and this without the slightest reference to its religious and international features. Cavour once announced, with the approbation of parliament, that Italy must have Rome; but General Menabrea knows full well the pressure under which the modern Machiavelli, the man of impromptu and chicane, was forced to resort to this expedient. Menabrea may, perhaps, never make common cause with Garibaldi as Ratazzi has done, not even for the sake of Rome; but he is equally destitute of moral principles. Italy, it appears, has not been rendered one whit the wiser or more honest by the deep humiliation which she has recently undergone; otherwise, she would not have the audacity to ask that the Catholic world should confide the fate of the church to a state which has for years persistently derided, oppressed, and plundered the church. Italy has too recently been leagued with one who never ceases to utter the vilest invectives and threats against the papacy, and she is quite ready to avail herself again of the next opportunity to outrage the law of nations by proclaiming the law of the revolution. Italy, even had she the wish, which she has not, would not have the power to protect the church, for she has unchained every element most hostile to it, and can now herself only exist by a chain of negations. To a state like this, to which nothing has been sacred since Charles Albert's revolt against Austria, in May, 1848, and which is so feeble internally, the Catholic world could never dream of intrusting its holiest and highest interests. Whole Europe would first have to take leave of its senses. It is not solely the Catholic powers which—unless, indeed, they aim, like Russia, at the total destruction of Catholicism—are profoundly concerned in this question. Every existing state has a vital interest in opposing this openly avowed scheme to unsettle all fundamental principles of equity and justice. Should the Italian doctrine triumph, as Menabrea dares to prophesy, the old feudal times, when might made right and brute force ruled supreme, would return on earth in this nineteenth century. The church state exists since eleven centuries, the Italian monarchy not yet as many years; the church state owes its rise to the consent of its populations, the Italian monarchy to a series of intrigues and violence, rendered successful through foreign support. And now the Italian monarchy comes again, in the midst of peace, without cause or provocation, without the wish of those most deeply interested in the question, the Romans themselves, to declare once more, "Rome is mine!" Hers? how? Through those boasted moral means, which have turned out to be a band of filibusters, the accomplices of the banditti who selected the evening of the twenty-second day of October, 1867, for the purpose of inaugurating their heroic achievements with deeds of murder and arson? This is the policy—these are the principles—which General Menabrea, the putative father of the September convention and of a "moral solution" of the Roman question, has the unblushing hardihood to proclaim in the face of civilized and christianized Europe! What answer will the two hundred millions of Roman Catholics return?