The September convention has failed to put an end to these further pretexts for foreign interference in the domestic affairs of Italy, because its terms were never observed, and because its authors were not afforded a chance to carry their policy out. Nothing could have been more inauspicious than the fact that the statesmen who concluded the convention should have been driven from office on account of the Turin difficulties, at the very time when their measures had received the approbation of a large majority of the nation, and the sanction of the majority of the two chambers. The fall of the Minghetti ministry was an anomaly utterly contrary to all ideas of constitutional government. An important programme, which changed the entire policy of the country and committed it to a new one for the next future, had been accepted. It could never have been adopted without the sanction of the sovereign, nor without the approval of the country and its representatives in parliament. And yet those who had originated it and assumed all its responsibilities were compelled to resign power to men that accepted the legacy only because they could not help themselves, and whose views differed totally from those of their predecessors in office. The Minghetti cabinet, which had to retire in consequence of the excitement caused among the people of Piedmont by the transfer of the national capital stipulated for in the September convention, was succeeded by the La Marmora, composed chiefly out of Piedmontese elements, although it repudiated all the principles of the Minghetti, while pretending to recognize the obligations resulting from the convention itself. It is easy to conceive the profound agitation produced by this change in the ranks of the moderate party, which had hitherto constituted the parliamentary majority. The most energetic element of this party had been the Piedmontese. Through its intimate relations with the reigning house, its long parliamentary experience, its business knowledge, its marked predominance in the administration and the army, the Piedmontese had always been the most trustworthy supporters of the moderate cause, the strongest bulwark against the incessant encroachments of radicalism. It was the majority of this element that now coalesced with the radicals for the purpose of fighting by their side against the late moderate leaders, whom they could not pardon for having severed the hegemony of Piedmont and Turin by the transfer of the capital to Florence. In addition to the desertion of the bulk of the Piedmontese, the remainder of the moderates split among themselves. Some refused to desert their fallen leaders; others, and especially such as had joined the new administration, while still content to adhere to a moderate policy and to accept the September convention as a part of it, yet thought they might safely venture to sacrifice the authors of the latter to the prejudices of Piedmont, and that without serious injury to the material features of the programme. This division between the supporters of the old cabinet, the so-called "Consorteria," and the new, became most conspicuous at the elections in the autumn of 1865, when the latter opposed, or permitted its followers to oppose, the candidates of the former, which resulted in large accessions to the radicals. The Ricasoli cabinet, formed in the spring of 1866, also hoped to strengthen itself by conciliating the radicals, while it continued to maintain the unfriendly attitude of its predecessors toward the Consorteria. But the result was, that the Ricasoli ministry failed to secure a majority when it dissolved parliament in February, 1867.
Is the steady decadence of the Italian monarchy due to the disintegration of the moderate party, or is this disintegration of the party of order merely a symptom of the general decline of the old country and the new kingdom? It will suffice to throw out these queries, and to contestate at the same time the circumstance that the influence of the government has diminished in the same ratio as that of the radicals has increased; that the confusion and disorder in all departments of the public service have kept pace with the financial embarrassment. Although every ministry called to office since 1864 has been more or less recruited from the débris of the old moderate party, each succeeding administration has proved itself less capable of resisting the advances of the radicals and the Piedmontese opposition, and the last Ratazzi ministry was forced at the start to depend altogether on their support and forbearance. These being the facts, it is only natural that the programme of the moderates in relation to the Roman and the ecclesiastical questions should have lost authority year after year, session after session, until it has finally become impracticable of execution. The non-intervention policy presupposed first of all a government strong and honest enough to enforce a pacific course toward the pope. But no such government has ever yet been known in Italy. The secret negotiations with Rome, conducted by the La Marmora and the Ricasoli cabinets, (through Vegezzi and Tonello,) related only to spiritual affairs; but even these were defeated by the machinations of the radicals in parliament and in the press. This party desires no dealings whatever with the papal government, neither in relation to temporal nor spiritual matters. It is an uncompromising opponent of Cavour's maxim, Libero chiesa in libero stato, which it considers the greatest misfortune that could befall the country. Between the radicals of Italy and the Church of Rome the war is one of life and death. They charge the papacy with having caused the division and subjugation of the peninsula. They hold up the whole institution as the mortal foe of every national aspiration for unity and independence. They say that only doctrinarians and disguised clericals can draw a line of demarcation between Rome's temporal and spiritual rule, and openly boast that it is their mission to complete at once the unity of Italy, and to free the world from papacy. These are the leading points in the radical programme, and they are, therefore, the exact opposite to those laid down in the September convention.
But, despite the disintegration of the moderate party, despite the feebleness of the consecutive ministries in office since 1864, a programme which substitutes the subjugation of the church for its freedom, the physical conquest of Rome for its moral, would perhaps have less rapidly gained ground, had not an entirely new factor entered into the relations between the Italian and the papal governments—between church and state; and this factor was the all-engrossing financial question. The radicals cunningly used it to hasten the solution of the Roman problem by advocating the confiscation of the ecclesiastical property, and they succeeded in persuading the moderates to countenance a policy which was felt to be an outrage to all justice. The latter, instead of acting in accordance with the principle of a free church in a free state, accepted the radical postulates. The influence of the radicals constantly grew, because they were perfectly united, decided, and logical on all questions relating to church and state, while, the moderates only reluctantly, and with the secret consciousness of their own inconsequence, assented to measures which endangered both the discipline and possessions of the church. A party which fights boldly under its own colors may be vanquished to-day, yet rally again to-morrow and conquer at last; but a party which is compelled to hide its colors and to hoist those of its foes resigns all hopes of resuming the contest after the first reverse. As far as the interests of the papacy are, therefore, concerned, there is very little difference between the radicals and the moderates of Italy. Both would like to obtain Rome, only that the latter differ in regard to the means. While the radicals would resort to brute force, the moderates would trust to cunning and plotting; for they know that the Roman question is not, like the Venetian, a mere question of national independence and unity, which can be solved permanently by war or revolution. Their object is not simply the destruction of the worldly power of the pope and the annexation of the small strip of territory still left to him. The supreme pontiff has more than once lost his temporality; but his ascendency over the minds of men was rather strengthened than weakened by his adversity, and with the aid of his moral authority, his spiritual influence, he has every time regained what he had lost. To deprive him, once for all, of his worldly power, he must first be reduced to a condition which will not allow him to avail himself again of his moral authority as the head of the church, and it is to this end that the moderates have been working in various ways.
In relation to the proposed European congress we have nothing to say, except that it is an impossibility. As the pastoral letter of the Bishop of Orleans forcibly remarked, such a conference could only be composed of kings; for the fate of the supreme pontiff should never be left to the decision of a Gortschakoff or a Bismarck.
Since the above article was written, the debates in the Italian chambers have shown to us anew that the Holy Father can expect nothing from the monarchy. They have proved again that the Roman question is considered by them to be a mere political question, and this without the slightest reference to its religious and international features. Cavour once announced, with the approbation of parliament, that Italy must have Rome; but General Menabrea knows full well the pressure under which the modern Machiavelli, the man of impromptu and chicane, was forced to resort to this expedient. Menabrea may, perhaps, never make common cause with Garibaldi as Ratazzi has done, not even for the sake of Rome; but he is equally destitute of moral principles. Italy, it appears, has not been rendered one whit the wiser or more honest by the deep humiliation which she has recently undergone; otherwise, she would not have the audacity to ask that the Catholic world should confide the fate of the church to a state which has for years persistently derided, oppressed, and plundered the church. Italy has too recently been leagued with one who never ceases to utter the vilest invectives and threats against the papacy, and she is quite ready to avail herself again of the next opportunity to outrage the law of nations by proclaiming the law of the revolution. Italy, even had she the wish, which she has not, would not have the power to protect the church, for she has unchained every element most hostile to it, and can now herself only exist by a chain of negations. To a state like this, to which nothing has been sacred since Charles Albert's revolt against Austria, in May, 1848, and which is so feeble internally, the Catholic world could never dream of intrusting its holiest and highest interests. Whole Europe would first have to take leave of its senses. It is not solely the Catholic powers which—unless, indeed, they aim, like Russia, at the total destruction of Catholicism—are profoundly concerned in this question. Every existing state has a vital interest in opposing this openly avowed scheme to unsettle all fundamental principles of equity and justice. Should the Italian doctrine triumph, as Menabrea dares to prophesy, the old feudal times, when might made right and brute force ruled supreme, would return on earth in this nineteenth century. The church state exists since eleven centuries, the Italian monarchy not yet as many years; the church state owes its rise to the consent of its populations, the Italian monarchy to a series of intrigues and violence, rendered successful through foreign support. And now the Italian monarchy comes again, in the midst of peace, without cause or provocation, without the wish of those most deeply interested in the question, the Romans themselves, to declare once more, "Rome is mine!" Hers? how? Through those boasted moral means, which have turned out to be a band of filibusters, the accomplices of the banditti who selected the evening of the twenty-second day of October, 1867, for the purpose of inaugurating their heroic achievements with deeds of murder and arson? This is the policy—these are the principles—which General Menabrea, the putative father of the September convention and of a "moral solution" of the Roman question, has the unblushing hardihood to proclaim in the face of civilized and christianized Europe! What answer will the two hundred millions of Roman Catholics return?
The Love Of The Pardoned.
"He to whom less is forgiven,
the same loveth less."
Disciple.
"Sweet Lord,
'Tis true thy love no measure knows;
And yet thou must agree,
A love within my bosom glows
Thou canst not feel for me—
The love that springs in pardoned hearts
With all the joy such love imparts.
I long, but why I do not know,
That thou, dear Lord, couldst love me so."
Master.
"My child,
Thy brethren are my images.
Wherefore I said to thee:
Whate'er thou doest unto these
Thou doest unto me.
Shall I have joy if thou dispense
Thy bounty on their need,
And if thou pardonest their offence
Feel not the loving deed?
That which thou doest is divine.
Doubt not; their love is also mine!"