It naturally followed that those who returned did not consider themselves under great obligation to you, individually, but felt themselves more and more confirmed in the necessity of getting rid of your race altogether, as a race that never forgives.
"It grieved you" to see the people meet in assemblies, from which issued the sparks of a fire you had attempted to cover over with ashes; but which the more you endeavoured to extinguish it, the more it fed itself and flamed forth; neither did the Edict of the Secretary of State, in April, 1847, produce any other effect than to make evident your own apprehension and that of your government, concerning matters which had no other aim than to protect a people against the artifices and the control of him, who, from the first, intended, after having granted them a moment's relief, to oppress them afresh. It was very natural that your endeavour should be resisted, and that the people who had roused themselves from their lethargy, should not suffer themselves to be cast into it again. A vigilant people will not remain inert. To you, who feign to be ignorant of its most heavy grievances, it has spoken and it has written. Why then did you not listen to it? You complain of its language and its threats! It is the genius of a southern race to be resentful; towards those who turn a deaf ear to our complaints we feel anger, and to the restive beast we are accustomed to use the whip. You have a peculiar faculty in playing the deaf and the restive, and we very naturally apply to it the treatment it deserves.
According to your account the conspiracy of July, 1847, was not a real one, "but contrived for the express purpose, by public agitators." And pray did you make this notable discovery at Gaeta? Is it not true that when you showed some intention towards useful reform, the adherents of the government of your predecessor, those men of vengeance and of blood, who had filled the prisons and crowded the scaffold with their innocent victims,—those men with whom to love their country and to praise the sacred name of Italy, was a crime;—is it not true that they conspired to our injury and against yourself? And was it not the object of this conspiracy "to plunge the City of Rome into civil war, with slaughter and destruction; until the new institutes being entirely abolished and done away with, the ancient form of government should be restored?" Whence arises then your present madness, to deny a fact which you had full proof of, and which you yourself admitted at the time? Is it true then no longer? And have these conspirators, because they have paid court to you at Gaeta, suddenly become "patterns of goodness, eminent for their religion, and distinguished for ecclesiastical dignity?" Since you have remained out of Rome, how dear they have become to you. It was well for them that you quitted it, and it is through them that you will never more return.[126]
"It was," as you say, "in this time of agitation that it was proposed to form a Civic Guard." We know full well with what jealous eyes you look upon this institution—what a dagger it is in your heart. "Hastily assembled by your own act," it was after your departure only that "it was completely organized and disciplined." If you could now behold this Guard which has received the title of National, you would be compelled to acknowledge it the finest spectacle that Rome affords. It is to this body we owe the tranquillity and good order which never existed before. It defends our country against the aggression of your satellites. It is composed of the flower of our citizens, and has exulted in the cry, Vivà la Repubblica, à basso il Papato."
Do you not blush at the remembrance of that solemn piece of deceit which you termed a Council of State? Was it not natural for us to imagine that in this Council the will of the majority should prevail over that of the minority? that the influence of the people was to be equal to that of the priests? that yourself, a single individual, and by no means infallible, might have the courtesy to submit your individual opinion to that of the many? Otherwise, for what purpose is the Council assembled?—to cause us to undergo the usual humiliation of finding laws imposed upon us in opposition to our own wishes?
As to your glorious Allocution in the Consistory of Oct. 1847, of which you still make boast, we shall leave those to judge who have read the production. For us it was as an apple of discord, thrown among the people of Italy, in order that they might mutually distrust each other, and that all might withdraw themselves from the holy cause of emancipating their common country. And that was no dream of an armed foreign intervention secretly invited and even implored for, by a conspiracy of cardinals and the monarch, to root out, as they said, every germ of what they were pleased to call sedition. And were not you, who, in February, 1843, spoke deceitful words of comfort in order to tranquillize men's minds,—were not you foremost in this demand?
Still we continued to deceive ourselves: many persevered in their opinion that you were good and liberal, and every day expected to see civil and progressive institutions emanating from your decrees; the Romans, still devoted to you, were willing to ascribe every delay, every retrograde movement, every deceitful promise, to the intrigues of evil-minded persons, and to believe that the Jesuits, who were most assiduous about your court, prevented the expansion of your bounty. It was through affection for yourself that we called out for their suppression. Already expelled from other Italian States, why should they continue to hold sway in Rome, where you yourself contributed to render them the more odious? It was not, therefore, so much personal hatred towards them, as love towards our country and yourself, that induced the Romans to rise against the abhorred sons of Loyola. A proof of this is, that not one of them was ill-treated, or even prevented from remaining in the city, provided he kept himself quiet and unobtrusive.
The removal of the Jesuits was so far beneficial, that on the 14th March, a Statute was issued which appeared to us to regard our necessities, and to give evidence of your surpassing liberality. It was read with avidity, and we asked ourselves if the government had really become constitutional. Many reports were spread. The more credulous were transported with extravagant enthusiastic delight; the more sagacious, before they gave way to hope, required time, to see the fulfilment of the promise; long, and sad experience had taught them to distrust the specious professions of a pope. With sincerity and right feeling you might have conducted us to a Republic, but such was not accordant to your character nor to the innate genius of your caste. A republic to be proclaimed by a pope in his own States, would be as impossible as for the devil to turn Christian. You were right, therefore, to exclaim against those who, to tell you what they had fondly dreamed, broke in upon your slumbers, with so little ceremony. You too have had your dream, conjured up through an association of ideas very different from theirs, which you have confided not to their ears alone, but to the hearing of the public at large, when you state that the Republic they wished for "had no other object in view than perpetual agitation, the removal of every principle of justice, virtue, honour, and religion; and to introduce and spread abroad on every side, with loss and ruin to all human society, the fatal and horrible system of Socialism, contrary to all natural right and reason."
This was an ugly dream, and, doubtless, arose from a diseased imagination. But that was no dream which you have since related to us with such satisfaction, how you had, to our injury, opposed the Italian cause, secretly at first, and afterwards more openly. Our youth who flew to arms in the righteous cause, assured you of their intention to seek the sanguinary Croat, where the battle raged the fiercest. And you feigned to approve of their holy design, blessing their banners, and auguring from heaven itself auspicious omens for their victory. Was it not you who expressed to Charles Albert your grief that you could not assist him as you wished? And when was it that Rome discovered your real intentions, and your secret orders not to pass the confines, if not when they heard from your own lips your celebrated Allocution of the 29th April, 1848? Bitter remembrance of an act that destroyed all the hopes of a people, at that time, devoted to you! It is evident, then, that your love for the Italian cause, and all your speeches and professions, were priestly and royal deception. And you dare bring to our recollection those times in the past and the present year; when, in the former, you abhorred to shed the blood of the Croat, and in the latter you thirsted for that of the Romans!
On the 29th of April last, the army of Louis Buonaparte displayed itself beneath the walls of Rome, with a direful train of artillery, of cannon and of bombs, to slaughter in your name all those Romans who should maintain that you, a Christian prelate, ought not to govern them as king. A fatal day was that for Rome; the most disastrous in our annals; the most disgraceful to the Papacy!