Builders of United Italy

by Rupert Sargent Holland

The first months were very troubled, the second Assembly was captious, and continually in opposition to the King and his ministers. There were too many hot-headed representatives of Mazzini’s “Young Italy,” which, as D’Azeglio said, “Being young cannot be expected to have much sense, and certainly has little.” The King fell ill of a fever, and for a time it seemed possible he might not recover and that the country would have to endure a regency during his son’s minority. Most providentially for Italy he did recover, and shortly after the National Assembly was again dissolved, and a popular appeal made to the people. The King issued a royal proclamation which was heeded by the electors, and as a result of which more moderate men were sent to the succeeding Parliament.

The new government boldly took up the question of whether the clergy were entitled to special ecclesiastical tribunals under the constitution to which Victor Emmanuel had just sworn. The ministers proposed to do away with such courts as unconstitutional. Immediately the bishops were up in arms, and a conflict between State and Church began. The King was besought by his mother not to oppose the Church, to be a true son of the Church as his ancestors had been, but Victor Emmanuel, although always grieved at the need to oppose the clergy, stood by his ministers. The Church courts were abolished, and the people, long tired of ecclesiastical overlorddom, acclaimed King and ministry as true lovers of liberty.

This firm stand of the new government immediately caused the greatest ill-will on the part of the Catholic Church, an ill-will which was shown in a multitude of ways. A member of the ministry, the Cavalier Santa Rosa, a devout Roman Catholic, became very ill, and asked his confessor to administer the sacrament to him. The priest was forbidden to do this at the express command of the bishop, and although every effort was made by Santa Rosa’s friends to obtain for him what he wished, not only did the bishop remain obdurate, but the curate in attendance actually insulted the dying man until he was forced to leave the house. Santa Rosa died without having received the sacrament, and the history of the event inflamed the minds of Piedmont more than ever against the narrowness of the Church. The offending bishop was imprisoned, and an exchange of notes followed between Victor Emmanuel and the Pope. The latter complained of the freedom of speech allowed by the Sardinian King to his people, and in reply D’Azeglio issued a pamphlet setting forth his views of the unwarranted assumption of civil authority by the Church. The death of Santa Rosa left a vacancy in the ministry which D’Azeglio filled by inviting the Count Camille Cavour to take the portfolio of Agriculture and Commerce. It was known that the new man was bold and original, but not even D’Azeglio realized what a commanding spirit he had invited into his official family. The King alone seems to have gauged Cavour correctly. “Take care,” he said to D’Azeglio, “this Cavour will rule you all, he will dispose of you; he must become Prime Minister.” Fortunate it was for Italy that the King’s prediction was to be fulfilled.

Meanwhile Victor Emmanuel, the only constitutional sovereign in Italy, was bitterly assailed by the Bourbon rulers. Ferdinand, King of Naples, once more secure upon his throne, lost no opportunity to express his disapproval of a king who was both a nationalist and a liberal. There was continual friction between Turin and Vienna, largely because of the outspoken views of the Piedmontese press with regard to the Austrian treatment of Lombardy. The European Powers, with the exception of England, looked upon Piedmont as an unruly child continually making trouble. England alone was sincerely friendly to the House of Savoy, and keenly interested in Victor Emmanuel’s hopes for a united country.

New troubles arose between the Papacy and Piedmont over the latter’s advocacy of a civil marriage law. D’Azeglio and Cavour disagreed, and the ministry resigned. The King asked D’Azeglio to form a new Cabinet, leaving out Cavour, whom, he said, “we will want later, but not yet.” The new ministry was formed, but only a few months later D’Azeglio, harassed by the trouble with Rome, and still suffering from his old wound, resigned, and advised the King to summon Cavour. Victor Emmanuel hesitated, fearing that Cavour would push matters forward too fast. When finally approached, Cavour said that he could not take office in view of the Church’s exorbitant demands, but he at last consented. The King had relegated his personal desire not to antagonize the clergy farther, to his conviction that his country needed a strong hand at the helm, and, the decision once made, trusted his new minister completely.

There were many difficulties to be met. Austria accused Piedmont of fostering the small revolts which were continually breaking out in Lombardy, the war indemnity—eighty million francs—was heavy and had to be raised by new taxation which was of course universally unpopular. Both at home and abroad the time was trying, but Victor Emmanuel found that in Cavour he had a man who was not afraid of unpopularity, who knew the art of steering between the radicals and the conservatives, and who could make use of the politicians of all the different schools. In Parliament he could more than hold his own with any opponent, in his management of foreign affairs he already showed that extraordinary diplomatic skill which at no late day was to win him the reputation of the first statesman in Europe. Both King and Minister were imperious by nature, but both also wise enough to sink their individual wills when they realized that the cause which they had so much at heart required it of them. So events led to the outbreak of the Crimean War.

The steps which led up to Sardinia’s alliance with England and France against Russia belong to the story of Cavour’s diplomacy. Sufficient it is to say here that Victor Emmanuel was heartily in favor of the alliance, and would, if he could, have proceeded to it by more direct means than Cavour deemed essential. The King was anxious to redeem the glory of Piedmont’s arms, but the Minister, with his cabinet opposed to him on the ground that the war was a purely foreign one, had to consider popular sentiment. Finally, however, Cavour gave the word that the treaty might be signed in safety, and the King, his mind made up long in advance, set his name to the important document that was to send his army to foreign battle-fields. The instance was one in which Victor Emmanuel’s firmness of purpose aided and abetted Cavour’s diplomacy. Dabormida resigned as Foreign Minister, and Cavour immediately took his post.

At the same time the King had heavy burdens to bear in his immediate family. His mother, to whom he was devoted, died, bidding him stand fast by the conservative traditions of his father. His wife, the beautiful Queen Adelaide, died shortly afterwards, and the King lost an adviser who had always counseled him wisely and helpfully, and whom he had worshiped as an ideal wife and mother of his sons. Less than a month later his brother Ferdinand, Duke of Genoa, died, a man intensely high-spirited and brave, the constant companion of Victor Emmanuel’s youth. No wonder that the King felt that he was left solitary. He had small time to give to his feelings, however. “They tell me,” he said, “that God has struck me with a judgment, and has torn from me my mother, my wife, and my brother, because I consented to those laws, and they threaten me with greater punishments. But do they not know that a sovereign who wishes to secure his own happiness in the other world ought to labor for the happiness of his people on this earth?”

There were more trials immediately in store. The Church owned more than a tenth part of the landed property of Piedmont, and the religious houses were extravagantly wealthy. The government, planning reforms, decided that some modification of this condition must be made, and so Rattazzi, then Minister of Grace and Justice, introduced his bill for the suppression of certain of the religious houses and other similar reforms. Immediately the bishops and the conservatives were up in arms, and Victor Emmanuel had to bear the brunt of an attack which proclaimed him an infidel, an enemy of religion, and which predicted the direst punishments to him should he persist in his course. The ministry were firm, however, and the people were with them. Certain bishops offered to pay over the amount which would be derived from the suppression of the religious houses, and the offer was tempting to the King, who could not forget his mother’s wishes, and the close ties that bound his house to Rome. A breach with his ministers followed, and the King sought counsel of his own subjects and of the French and English envoys. All advised him to trust the decision to Cavour. Finally he did so, and the Rattazzi measure, somewhat modified, became law.