These Machiavels were such men as Count Balbo, who had given his five sons to the war of independence; Signor D'Azeglio, who had been in the campaign with Durando, and who had a leg broken by a ball at Vicenza, whilst defending Monte Benico with two thousand men against twelve thousand Austrians. D'Azeglio, still smarting from his wounds, as well as from the insults of these reckless politicians, replied in a pamphlet, which appeared under the title of “Fears and Hopes.” He took no pains to spare those club soldiers, those tavern heroes and intriguers, who could wage war so cleverly against the men who had stood under the enemy's guns. “For my part,” he wrote, “I do not fear your republic, but despotism. Your agitation will end with the Croats.” And so it fell out. The prediction was but too speedily and too completely realized. A French author, M. Mignet, comments on this subject at some length, and with remarkable eloquence:
“A party as extreme in its desires as in its doctrines, and which believes that it is possessed of nothing so long as it does [pg 061] not possess everything, and which, when it has everything, knows not how to make anything of it, imagined the establishing of a republic in a country which is scarcely capable of attaining to representative monarchy, and where the only thing to be thought of, as yet, was territorial independence. This party divided the thoughts, weakened the efforts of the country, and caused mutual mistrust to arise between those governments and peoples which were reconciled under constitutional liberty, and had an understanding against the common enemy. They thus compromised the deliverance of the land. The King of Naples, threatened by an insurrection in his capital, retained his troops that were on the point of marching to the theatre of war; the Pope ceased to give encouragement; the King of Piedmont, already in full march, hesitated; and Italy, agitated, without being free, became once more powerless, because she was disunited, and beheld the Austrians reappear as conquerors, and re-establish themselves anew as masters, in the recovered plains of Lombardy.”
These eloquent words confirm the view so generally entertained, that the Red Republicans were all along the cause of Italy's disasters. In consequence of the national weakness which their baneful operations produced, Radetski was enabled to reconquer Upper Italy, whilst they themselves directed their steps towards Rome, spreading terror as they approached, even as if they had been an army of Goths and Vandals. Swelling by their presence the numbers of men who held the same opinions, who, like them, were dissatisfied, and whom nothing could satisfy, they occasioned an extraordinary agitation of the people, caused fearful disquietude, and excited inordinate hopes. They imbued the masses with their subversive principles, and there was an end to all transaction with the Papal government. They had already done all that lay in their power in order to destroy monarchy in Piedmont. They now brought into play every scheme that could be devised, in order to advance the sinister work of dispossessing the Holy Father. They succeeded in gaining many Reformers, who, too easily, allowed themselves to become their dupes.
At first, as has been shown, the popular demonstrations in honor of Pius IX. were honestly expressive of gratitude to the beneficent Pontiff. The Socialists now succeeded in gaining possession of this great influence, and they employed it, certainly, with consummate ability. The masses, when once under the spell of agitation, are at the disposal of the boldest demagogues. The Reformers who had allowed themselves to be ensnared, continued to sing their patriotic hymns, the Roman Marseillaises, without heeding that Socialist radicalism was imperceptibly taking the crown of the causeway, and that the popular demonstrations had undergone a complete change. At an earlier date “Young Italy” had only used them as a threat. They were now an arm in its hands. And so it governed in the streets, making a tribune of every milestone.
There was only wanting to them at this moment a common centre or general headquarters of insurrection, from which should go forth the word of command, the signal for every rising of the people. This was found in the celebrated Roman Circle. This circle was a kind of convention without commission—a travelling cohort of two or three hundred agitators, who carried from town to town the dread and dismal flag of the Red Republic. This mob-power had, in opposition to the wishes of the Holy Father, brought into office the Mamiani ministry. This weak and irresolute minister broke the ranks of his own party, and passed over to “Young Italy”. This party now dictated to him on all occasions. They urged on him with special earnestness war with Austria, knowing full well that the Pope would never agree to it, and so by his refusal would decline in popularity.
The constitution was now in abeyance, the minister being at the orders of a party out of doors, and no longer the organ of the Sovereign and the representative body. The Pontifical authority, although still venerated by many, was no longer obeyed. It was only a name.
The republic reigned, and only waited for the moment, too surely to come at last, when it should be openly recognized. In such circumstances the Mamiani ministry rapidly lost [pg 063] ground. Now in its death agony, and impotent for good, it persisted, with a degree of perverseness which nothing could moderate, in reiterating its declarations of war against Austria. This only added to the confusion which prevailed. The ministers and their more ardent adherents were ready, as became patriots and heroes, to fight for their country. Nevertheless, with all this boasting, they made no haste to be enrolled. Whilst these men were indulging in such idle and vain-glorious talk, the few who had volunteered and taken the field, returned from Vicenza, which, during two days, had been bravely but fruitlessly defended. The forum warriors had only set out in time to meet their defeated and wounded fellow-countrymen, and give them the honors of an ovation on their return to the city. The war agitation was evidently nothing else than a weapon of offence against the Holy See. In its results it was most unprofitable, every day bringing news of fresh disasters. Circumstances now rendered the war-cry more inopportune than ever. Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, had been driven from the Mincio to the Oglio, thence to the Adda, thence to Milan. He was now recrossing the Piedmontese frontier, vanquished, despairing and heart-broken. Piedmont, nevertheless, in the silence of her humiliation, set about preparing for a final effort.
The various ministers whom Pius IX. had called to his counsels were all alike unsuccessful. Circumstances of greater difficulty than ever had now arisen, and not without a sad foreboding of the greater evils that were yet in store, the Holy Father had recourse to the well-known statesmanship of Count Rossi, who had formerly been French Ambassador to the Holy See.
M. Mignet, the able biographer of this eminent statesman, gives a distinct and interesting account of the difficulties with which, as Chief of the Pope's Council of State, he was called to contend:
“M. Rossi at first hesitated. He knew what formidable problems there were to solve. To conduct, according to constitutional [pg 064] principles, a government that had been heretofore absolute; to administer by the hands of laymen the affairs of a country that had been hitherto subject to Ecclesiastics; to unite in an Italian league a state that had been almost always opposed to a political union of the Peninsula; in a word, to establish all at the same time, a Constitutional Government, a Civil Administration, a National Federation, were not the only difficulties that he would have to overcome. The minister of a Prince, whose confidence others would dispute with him, a stranger in a country, where he would exercise public authority, he would be liable to be left without support notwithstanding his devotedness, and without approbation notwithstanding his services; to be attacked as a revolutionist by the blind advocates of abuses, and disavowed as an enemy of liberty by the impassioned partisans of chimeras. He continued to decline for a considerable time. The conditions which he at first proposed to the Sovereign Pontiff not having been accepted, M. Rossi thought that he had escaped the lot that was in store for him. But the Pope, after having essayed in vain a new ministry, pressed him more urgently, in the month of September, 1848, to come to his aid, offering him at the same time his full confidence and unlimited authority. M. Rossi accepted.”