Ancona soon afterwards (February, 1832) received a French garrison. Jealous of the position assumed by Austria in Italy, this measure was resolved upon by France to counterbalance that ascendancy. This joint military occupation of the two nations lasted until the end of 1838. The tears shed by the Anconitans on the departure of the French were significant of their forebodings for the future. Evil indeed must be the condition of a people who prefer foreign occupation to their own sovereign's rule.
The period that followed, until the death of Gregory XVI., was, indeed, dark. The clergy, ignorant, grasping, and corrupt, monopolized almost every channel to emolument or advancement. Ministers, judges, heads of colleges, directors of hospitals, governors of towns—all were prelates; a few, indeed, had not received the tonsure, and were free to marry, on giving up their appointments; but the cases in which the advantages accruing from celibacy and the clerical habit were renounced, are of rare occurrence.[12] The introduction of railways, evening schools for the working-classes, and scientific congresses, were all systematically opposed. Ruinous loans were contracted, and unjust monopolies conceded, to defray the expenses of the Swiss mercenaries, and the army of spies and police agents necessary to keep the population in check. Notwithstanding these precautions, and the utter hopelessness of any effort so long as Austria was on the frontier, ready to pour in her troops when needed, conspiracies were frequently breaking out, which gave a colour to the increasing blind, fanatical severity of the Government, only bent on retaining its grasp for the moment, without a thought on the heritage of hatred and ruin stored up for its successors. In 1843, partial insurrectionary movements in the Romagne were punished as in the days of Cardinal Rivarola. Military commissions were instituted, and in Bologna seven popolani, leaders of the populace, who for the first time were found joined with the more intellectual classes in opposition to the Government, were executed, and many more imprisoned. The chief conspirators having escaped, vengeance was thus wreaked on their subordinates. At Ravenna, the five chiefs of the movement, amongst whom was Farini, since so celebrated, also succeeded in eluding arrest; but the commission was relentless in its inquisition after those on whom a shadow of suspicion could be fastened. The most barbarous measures were pursued to extort confession; solitary confinement, intimidation, false intelligence, even to the terror of impending death. Thirty-six condemnations to the galleys crowned this investigation. Again in 1845, at Rimini, fresh disturbances broke out, of which the aim was no republican Utopia, but simply to demand moderate reforms. The noble manifesto addressed by the insurgents to the peoples of Europe, seconded by a vigorous exposition of their wrongs from the pen of Massimo d'Azeglio, struck powerfully, it is said, upon Cardinal Mastai, shortly afterwards named Pope. But the advisers of Gregory XVI. dealt with this movement as with those that had preceded it. Arrests were made all over the country, and gloom and apprehension filled every heart.
The highways swarmed with robbers and murderers, while the prisons were tenanted by honest men, arrested as political delinquents, often ignorant of the offences laid to their charge, and detained for years without a trial. Commerce languished; bribery and fraud were rife in every department. Religion had never been in such low estimation, yet conformity to its most solemn practices was enforced under severe penalties. Language fails me to describe the misery, the idleness, the decay, which were the characteristics, at that time, both of the Romagne and the Marche; and which, unhappily, continue to be applicable to the latter.
This picture will, I know, be considered exaggerated by those who have not inhabited these provinces. The appearance of Rome may be cited in contradiction to my statements. But Rome cannot be taken as a criterion of the Roman States. It is a cosmopolite city, resorted to by strangers from all parts of the world, animated and enriched by their presence. Take away the artists' studios, the shops of the dealers in mosaic and cameos, statuettes and sarcophagi,—and those who purchase them,—and grass would be growing in the streets of Rome, as it did six months ago in the half-depopulated cities of the Legations.
The Cavaliere Baratelli of Ferrara, who was assassinated in 1847, acquired an unenviable notoriety amongst his countrymen as the head of the Società Ferdinandea, a secret society in the Roman States, of which the scope was to promote the ascendancy of Austria and the spread of its principles. The Marquis Gualterio thus sketches his biography:—“Baratelli was a man on whom the Imperial Government could securely count. His parents, belonging to Migliarino, in the province of Ferrara, lived upon alms; and in his childhood he shared their misery, going to beg his daily food from families whom he afterwards brought to ruin. In one of these houses an interest was excited in behalf of the little mendicant, which led to his removal to Ferrara, where he was educated. In the political turmoil of 1796, he made himself remarkable for his ultra-revolutionary opinions, and was named one of the Commissioners of the Cisalpine Republic. He was one of a committee charged with levying a tax on the opinion of the aristocrats; and through bribes or intimidation laid the foundation of a large fortune. His private life was most scandalous; he tricked a woman of some wealth, whom he had seduced from her husband's protection, into making over to him the whole of her property, and then left her to die in utter destitution. For this transaction no lodge of Freemasons would receive him as a member, neither could he obtain employment under the 'Regno d'Italia.' In 1815 he entered into the service of Austria as a spy, and was commissary of police, under General Nugent, at Parma, where, amongst other misdeeds, the robbery of several valuable works from the public and a conventual library was universally laid to his charge. In 1821 he accompanied the Austrians to Naples with the same appointment, which he exercised with the most flagrant defiance of justice; liberating those prisoners who bid sufficiently high to satisfy his rapacity, and cruelly oppressing such as could not, or would not, purchase their enlargement. Under these circumstances 25,000 dollars were very soon remitted to Ferrara. The Neapolitan Government, having dishonest officials enough amongst its own subjects, complained of his practices, and demanded his removal; but this Austria would not permit, without the promise of an indemnity for Baratelli of 20,000 ducats. Not satisfied with this provision, his patrons insisted on the Pope's nominating him Administrator of Comacchio, with a salary of a hundred dollars a month; a perfect sinecure, inasmuch as he simply drew his pay, and never went to Comacchio. In 1831 he again filled an important situation as Papal Commissary at Bologna; but here his exclusive devotion to the Imperial Government, in his capacity of chief of the Ferdinandea, which aimed at no less than the gradual preparation of the Pontifical States for absorption into the Austrian empire, roused the suspicions of the authorities at Rome, and he was desired to quit the country. But the protection of Austria enabled him to evade this order. The Papal Government was constrained to present him with 20,000 dollars, as an acknowledgment of his services; and his exile never existed but in name. He announced that he chose Modena for his residence, but never quitted Ferrara, where he remained, under the safe-guard of the Austrian garrison, to serve the police of the Vienna Cabinet.”
Continuing its favours beyond the grave, the character of Baratelli was painted in flattering colours by the Imperial Government to Lord Ponsonby, who describes him as follows:—
Extract from a despatch from Lord Ponsonby to Lord Palmerston.
Vienna, 28th June, 1847.
“Baratelli was a landed proprietor in easy circumstances in the Legation of Ferrara; and during the period of the conquests of the French in Italy, their great adversary.
“When in 1813 Austria declared war against Napoleon, the Austrian armies advanced rapidly beyond the Alps, and Baratelli formed friendly relations with General Count Nugent.