[24] Univers, Jan. 21, 1873.
[25] He was in science a phenomenon, in history an adventurer, in morality a monster (Le Siècle, Jan. 12, 1873). Amid the labyrinth of contradictions in which Bonaparte enveloped his thoughts concerning the political condition in which he meant to place the Roman Pontiff, it is impossible to decide what was his true conception, or whether he had formed any fixed and definite plan. In 1859, when he dreamed of three kingdoms in Italy, one subalpine, a second for his cousin Jerome, and a third for his cousin Murat, Napoleon III. traced upon the map of the Peninsula with his own hand a small circlet enclosing the new Pontifical state, including Rome, and five provinces. At the end of that year, the dream vanished through the opposition of Lord Palmerston in the famous opuscule, The Pope and the Congress, where he showed a wish to restrict the dominion of the Holy Father to Rome, converted into something like a Hanseatic city. In Sept., 1863, according to the revelations of Marquis Carlo Alfieri (L'Italia Liberale, p. 83), who declares himself well informed, Bonaparte consented to the "gradual withdrawal of French troops from Rome, so arranged that, on the departure of the last French battalion, the territorial dominion of the Pontiff should be reduced to the city of Rome, the suburban campagna, and the road and port of Cività Vecchia." So the Pope would have remained king of a city, a road, and a port. In 1867, when the nation obliged Bonaparte to go to the aid of the Pontiff, assailed by the irregolari of Italy, he wished the state to remain as it was left after the dismemberment of 1860, and commanded the Italian regulars to withdraw from Viterbo and Frosinone, which they did with military punctuality. In that year, and during the perplexities (says l'Armonia of Jan. 12, 1873), there came to visit him in Paris an illustrious Italian who enjoyed his confidence, and had been decorated by his imperial hand with the cross of the Legion of Honor. This gentleman, engrossed with the position of the Pope, was lamenting it with Napoleon III., and remarked that, unless reparation were made, the Revolution would enter Rome. The ex-emperor replied: "So long as Pius IX. lives, I shall never permit it. After the death of Pius IX., I will adjust the affairs of the church." If we question whether after his dethronement the unhappy man approved the accomplished fact of Sept. 20, 1870, l'Opinione of Jan. 18, 1873, removes all doubt. It tells us that an individual (generally supposed to be Count Arese, a great friend of his), visited him at Chiselhurst, and, when the conversation turned to Rome, where the Italian government was established, Napoleon III. said with entire frankness that he had personal engagements with the Pope, to which as emperor he could never have proved faithless; but that, since his dethronement, Italian politics had passed beyond his action. And he added: "This was to be foreseen as being in the order of facts, and it is not an occasion for turning back." From which we may infer that he wished the temporal power of the popes to cease with Pius IX., without caring to substitute for their necessary liberty any other guarantee than that of chance. This will be enough to convince posterity that Napoleon III. was not a statesman of the first order.
[26] A partisan or well-wisher has tried to represent Napoleon as an edifying Catholic. The Univers of January 25, 1873, has a curious panegyric, in which it is affirmed that he loved our Lord Jesus Christ. In the Gospels, our Lord has taught us a rule for judging those who love him and do not love him: By their fruits you shall know them (Matt. vii. 16). Now, the long and crafty war of Bonaparte against Christ in his vicar, and the unbridled license given to Renan and to irreligious papers to blaspheme at will the divine majesty of Jesus Christ, while he severely punished those who offended his own imperial majesty, give the true measure of his love for Jesus Christ. By the argument of facts constant, public, and notorious, Napoleon III. is judged. He has been for the church and for Christian society a great scourge of God, one of the worst precursors of Antichrist. We shall believe in his pretended conversion when we have seen a single action which shall disclaim and make amends for the immense scandal of his Julianic persecution of Catholicity. His repentance at the hour of death, of which we have no solid proof, we leave to the infinite mercy of God, who certainly could inspire him with it. But it is not out of place to remember the words of S. Augustine about similar conversions: Of certain examples we have but one—the good thief on Calvary. Unus est ne desperes, but solus est ne præsumas.
MY FRIEND AND HIS STORY.
I had been spending the winter with a friend in poor health in the South of France. I will not name the place, but it was one of the loveliest spots on the northern Mediterranean coast. Perhaps I shall have something to tell of it at another time.
After prolonging our stay till we began to feel that a change would be beneficial, we travelled on along the glorious old Cornice road into Italy, and sat ourselves down among the palms and olives of a region that, on account of its eastern vegetation and general likeness to the Holy Land, is often called "the Jericho of the Riviera."[27] For, in truth, when the traveller climbs the steep slopes and staircases of that old town, pierced by narrow, winding troughs of streets, tied together, as it were, by old crumbling bridges and arches, built as a protection against continual earthquakes; and after groping through what is more like a labyrinth of subterranean caves than a town of civilized build, he gains the crest of the hill, and looks down from the sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin which is its crown, the actual Holy Land itself seems spread below his feet. There are the very outlines of Palestine: The stony slabs and tilted strata of crag and ridge; the aromatic shrubs; the wealth of sad olives, fruit-bearing to an extraordinary degree; the vast tanks, haunted by bright-green, persistently serenading frogs; the lizards darting in the hot glare; the flat-topped, low houses, and the women carrying jars of the identical Eastern forms on their heads. The very dark-skinned men and women themselves have the like sad, sweet, mournful Eastern eyes; for throughout the Riviera there is a large admixture of Arab blood, as many Arab words are crystallized in the strange, rough patois of the speech.
In this wild, bright, solemn country, I found and made the friend whose story I am going to tell; and, if it is disappointing at first to the expectant, I shall ask them to wait till they near the end.
We lived in a not very comfortable boarding-house outside the town, chosen on account of its position, and being quite removed from the noise of the sea, which those acquainted with the Mediterranean will thoroughly understand; for there is no noisier or more aggravating sea-shore than that which is poetically the tideless, waveless, sapphire-like mirror of the old Tyrrhenian. In this house I soon made out my friend—a white dog with black points, shaven to the shoulders, and of Spitz breed, as his tail, put on very high up, and twisted with a jaunty, self-asserting swirl over his back, denoted, but with an undoubted bar sinister in his shield—some English spaniel or terrier "drop," which, strange to say, gave him a power of persistence, a dauntless courage, and loving faithfulness, such as I never saw in any dog before; and yet I know about dogs and dog ways, too.