“Baratelli always remained faithful to his principles of public order. In the revolutionary movements in the States of the Church, he always took the side of constituted authority, and was in consequence even persecuted by the Carbonaro party.
“Baron Baratelli was in communication with the Austrian authorities, &c.”
See “Rivolgimenti Italiani,” by the Marquis Gualterio, vol. I., chap. x. Also “Gli Interventi dell'Austria nello Stato Romano,” by the same author.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Accession of Pius IX.—The amnesty—His unbounded popularity—His reforms and concessions—Disasters entailed by the French Revolution—The encyclical of the 29th April—Revulsion of feeling—The Mazzinians gain ground—Austrian intrigues—Assassination of Count Rossi—The Pope's flight to Gaeta—Efforts of the Constitutionalists to bring about an accommodation—The republic is proclaimed in Rome—Excesses in Ancona and Senigallia—Moderation of the Bolognese—Their courageous resistance to General Wimpffen—Siege of Ancona—Extreme severities of the victors.
The amnesty to all political offenders with which, in July, 1846, Pius IX. inaugurated his reign, spread joy and gratitude throughout the pontifical dominions. Thousands of families received back their loved ones from exile or captivity, and the country awoke from the lethargy of despair. This act of grace, it was argued, would be followed by acts of justice;—nor did the Pope's career for nearly two years belie this conclusion. He collected around him the most enlightened men, lay as well as ecclesiastic, of the country, and in spite of the ill-humour of Austria, who did not scruple to express her disapproval of the course on which he had entered, proceeded steadily with his ameliorations.
Men spoke little in those times but of what the Pope was doing, or purposed to do. Unlike his predecessor, who shrunk from any discussion on public affairs, Pius invited all who had any grievances to report, or plans of improvement to propose, to come freely to his presence. He removed the most irksome restraints from the Jewish population; lent a favourable ear to projects of railroads and other scientific and industrial enterprises, as well as to the diffusion of instruction among the lower classes; and permitted the establishment at Rome of a political journal, the first known in Italy. The provincial councils, ineffectually recommended in the Memorandum of 1831, were organized; and the Supreme Consulta selected from their members was convoked. Finally, on the 8th of March, 1848, constrained by the example of the other Italian sovereigns, who themselves had yielded to the impetus of the French revolution of February, he granted a Constitution.
The proclamation of the Republic at Paris was a dire misfortune for the Italians. It precipitated events for which they were not yet prepared, and exposed a people still giddy with their sudden emancipation from a system of degrading oppression and restraint, to the contagion of the most levelling and socialistic doctrines. Their recently acquired privileges of discussion and inquiry were grossly abused, and many and grievous errors committed, which they themselves are now the first to acknowledge. But it is only fair to remember that the Pope took the first step in sundering the bonds which had hitherto bound the people of Italy so ardently to him. The famous encyclical of the 29th April, in which he publicly disavowed the Italian war of liberation against Austria, then waging on the plains of Lombardy,—notwithstanding that, only one month before, he had given unequivocal proofs of his sympathy for the national cause, and had blessed the volunteers on their departure from Rome,—for ever destroyed his prestige in Italy. Most disastrous in its immediate consequences to the success of the Italian arms, the results to the papacy, though more remote, were still more irremediable.
The revulsion of feeling all over the Peninsula was terrible; but nowhere more bitter or hostile than in the States of the Church, where this declaration was received as a formal retractation of the liberal policy which had won Pius his popularity.
The war he now branded as UNJUST AND HURTFUL, had been preached in his own dominions, with his full knowledge and consent, as a new crusade; his condemnation of it stamped him as Austria's vassal. The acts and deeds which had been a steady protest against the principles and the supremacy of the Cabinet of Vienna were at once and for ever annulled. His conscience had taken alarm: he remembered that above his obligations as an Italian king were those of Universal Bishop, and the conflicting principles of the temporal and spiritual attributes of the Papacy were brought into open antagonism.