The Life of General Garibaldi / Translated from his private papers; with the history of his splendid exploits in Rome, Lombardy, Sicily and Naples, to the present time.

by Giuseppe Garibaldi

We must now leave Garibaldi for a time, and devote a chapter to the affairs of the Pope and Sardinia.

The Emperor of the French and Victor Emanuel had long since advised and urged the Pope to dismiss his foreign troops, with which he garrisoned his fortresses, and not only kept the people in awe, but oppressed them intolerably; but he, under the influence of his prime minister, Antonelli, stubbornly refused, as well as persisted in denying every proposition for the removal of abuses. Adhering to the old and impious claim of divine right, as the vicegerent of God on earth, and hoping, no doubt, that Austria would be able to come to his aid with her armies, when every intelligent eye saw that Austria was hardly able to stand alone, the pope had excommunicated Victor Emanuel, and even Louis Napoleon in fact, though without naming him, at a time when the latter was still upholding with his army the papal power in Rome, which he had restored by besieging that city in 1849. There was an abundance of inconsistencies and self-contradictions on all sides; and it would have been difficult to point out any way in which either of the three sovereigns could consistently move, speak or even stand still. But good men rejoice when good is done, and sometimes the more when it is effected in an unexpected quarter. In 1849 the Roman republic was overthrown by French cannon, though created by the free suffrage of the Pope's subjects; and, in 1860, most of the Pope's territory and fortresses were to be captured in siege and battle, in order to drive out foreign troops, whose presence was "an insult to Italy," and to allow the inhabitants freedom to vote for annexation to Piedmont.

England had often protested to the kings of Naples against their inhumanity toward their subjects; and thus she was prepared to approve, as she has done, of the invasions of her territory by Garibaldi and Victor Emanuel.

We can find here but little space to notice the events which followed the Pope's final refusal to accede to the demands made upon him. How unreasonable soever they appeared to him, or however inconsistent they may have seemed to the world, especially the appeal to free, universal suffrage, which would be hardly submitted to in any other country in Europe, no alternative was left.

After the iniquitous overthrow of the republic by Louis, the occupation of Rome by his army in fact conciliated the entire papal priesthood of the world, and the population which has remained under their spiritual influence; and it has prevented Austria not only from taking that place, but of every excuse and possibility of aspiring to obtain it. While the Pope has been surrounded by French troops, he has appeared to be under safe guardianship, even although during the few months which have passed since the fulmination of the Bull of Excommunication against Victor Emanuel, Louis Napoleon himself has also been, by plain innuendo, laid under the ban by the same instrument, and has been transformed from "the eldest son of the church—the beloved in Christ," as the Pope used to denominate him, to an enemy, delivered over to Satan, and anathematized, in every part and member of his soul and body, from the crown of his head to his accursed feet.

But now things have changed wonderfully, and we have indications that the French emperor is about to change his position accordingly. If events take such a course as we may anticipate, the Pope's temporal power will soon be entirely gone, and his respectability in the eyes of the world will be only such and so much as can be bought with two millions of dollars a year, and by a train of cardinals, with ten thousand dollars apiece. This is the plan now proposed for the future position of Pius IX., which Victor Emanuel seems likely to carry into operation, with the approbation of Louis Napoleon. There is now no longer any danger from Austria, weak as she is by bankruptcy, the loss of most of her Italian possessions, threatened with the invasion of the remainder by Garibaldi on "the ides of March," and with Hungary ready to rise at the first signal. The Italians can now take charge of the Pope and of Rome, without fear of Austria or assistance from France; and, either before any more fighting in Lombardy and Venetia, or, if need be, after it, the kingdom of all Italy is likely to be proclaimed, according to Garibaldi's announcement, from the Quirinal, one of the seven hills of Rome.

When this shall have been done, the anticipations of the Italian patriots will be realized, who have long regarded the loss of the Pope's temporal kingdom as surely involving the destruction of his spiritual; and many of them were early advocates of the doctrine preached by Gioberti twenty years ago, although he was a devotee of popery and they were its radical enemies, because they had sagacity to foresee the necessity of this act, which was beyond his perception. They knew full well, what millions of the unwilling subjects of the papacy have known for centuries, that nothing but severe and cruel oppression could ever keep the human mind submissive to such a system of tyranny, spiritual and physical, and that, whenever force and fear were removed, individuals, communities and nations would throw off the galling and degrading yoke. This the world has seen proved within the past few months, in ways and modes, in a degree and to an extent, which only those who were acquainted with popery, with human nature and with Italy would have expected. As soon as freedom of speech and action was granted to the people of Lombardy, the Duchies, Tuscany and Emilia, and a free, universal suffrage was proclaimed, the inhabitants rose in a mass in city, villages and country, and proceeded, with banners, music and acclamations, to the election urns, and voted unanimously for immediate annexation to the constitutional kingdom of Victor Emanuel. And this expression of the universal and enthusiastic popular will was greatly enhanced by the circumstance that the king had just before been excommunicated by a Bull of the Pope, which consigned him to outlawry, persecution, torture and death in this world, and to eternal misery in hell; and yet many Italian archbishops, bishops and priests, of all degrees, have openly approved the rejection of allegiance to the papacy, and urged and even led their people to the polls, themselves, in many instances, putting in the first votes.

But not only have the hopes of good Italian patriots been gratified: the prophecies of God himself have been fulfilled, by the recent astonishing course of events in Italy. So striking is the resemblance between those changes and the scenes recorded in the Bible, that the mind is filled with solemn awe and grateful adoration while contemplating them in comparison. "The souls under the altar" introduced to the reader of the book of Revelation, with their purity, faithfulness, patience, but earnest inquiry: "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not avenge our blood?" how much do they resemble the victims of the Inquisition, whose horrible secrets were disclosed by the opening of that infernal edifice in Rome by the republican government in 1849! And how much does the present period resemble that described in chap. xviii. ver. 13 of that book, where the destruction of Babylon the Great is described, and one of whose chief articles of traffic were not "the persons of men," as in Tyrus (Ezekiel xxvii.), but their "souls!"

And how Garibaldi appears like the agent by whom that destruction is to be accomplished, when we hear him repeat his open and tremendous denunciations against the papacy, now, recently, standing in Naples, almost in the same words which he wrote in New York in 1850, for this volume, and recorded on page 233.

Before the war with Italy the States of the Church were divided into four legations, not counting the district of Rome. The first comprised the provinces of Bologna, Ferrara, Forli and Ravenna, and was called Romagna. This is the portion which had been already annexed to Piedmont. The second, which separates the Romagna from the Neapolitan states, is composed of the provinces of Urbino, Pesaro, Macerata, Loreto, Ancona, Fermo, Ascoli and Camerino. It is this portion of the Roman territory which is commonly known under the name of the Marches, and is bounded on the north by Romagna, on the east by the Adriatic, on the south by the Neapolitan territory, and on the west by the provinces of Spoleto and Perugia. The third legation was composed of the provinces of Spoleto, Perugia and Rieti. The first two corresponded to what is generally known under the name of Umbria. The fourth legation comprised Velletri, Frosinone and Benevento, the last province being surrounded by Neapolitan territory. The district of Rome was placed under a special régime, and consisted of that city, of Viterbo, Orvieto and Civita Vecchia.