Whatever fitness for self-government might be latent in the Roman people, it was certain that, in the existing condition of the Pontifical States, a government by the people was out of the question. Every attempt to satisfy the popular aspirations, every scheme for the introduction of parliamentary and representative institutions, was baffled by the Mazzinian clubs, whose rule, supported by conspiracy and assassination, was the most cruel and absolute of despotisms, yet destitute of that stability and force which make some despotisms respectable. They threatened the church with spoliation, the clergy with death, the young with atheism. They undermined the authority of all government, not merely of this or that particular form, but of all forms. Italy appeared to be rushing towards anarchy. It was time to cry, Halt! Pius resolved to yield not another inch, but, without withdrawing any reasonable concession, to put what remained of his authority upon a firm basis. He invited Count Pellegrino Rossi to form a cabinet.
Count Rossi was an Italian by birth, a Swiss by adoption, a Frenchman by subsequent choice, an old Carbonaro, an old conspirator, an old political exile. He was an ardent partisan of Italian unity, but he had seen the emptiness of some of his early illusions, and he had abandoned the secret societies. He had come to Rome in the time of Gregory XVI. as ambassador of Louis Philippe, charged with a negotiation for the removal of the Jesuits from France; in his diplomatic capacity he had been one of the most moderate advisers of Pius IX.; and after the fall of Louis Philippe he had remained in Rome as a private citizen. He accepted the task of restoring order; he reorganized the administration, negotiated with Naples, Turin, and Florence for the formation of an Italian confederation under the presidency of the Pope, arrested Gavazzi, who was preaching rebellion, and brought back some of the troops which his predecessors had sent away from Rome. The radical press speedily opened an attack upon him. The clubs began to prepare for his downfall. The 15th of November, two months after his accession to power, was the date fixed for the opening of the Chambers. He received more than one warning that the same day had been appointed for his death. The wife of the Minister of War wrote him that his life was to be attempted as he entered the Chamber. A Frenchman sent him a note to the same effect. A priest stopped him at the Quirinal and repeated the warning. The Pope had also learned of the plans of the conspirators and begged Rossi to beware. “They are cowards,” replied the count; “they will not dare to strike.” “The cause of the Pope,” said the intrepid minister to one of his colleagues, “is the cause of God. I must go where my duty calls me.” On the night before the opening of the parliament a corpse was taken from one of the hospitals and carried secretly to the little Capranica theatre. There a select band of conspirators rehearsed the assassination, and the chosen instrument of the vengeance of the societies, a young sculptor named Costantini, learned by repeated practice where to strike. They were waiting for the count at the entrance to the hall of Deputies. As he placed his foot upon the steps they gathered around him. One struck him on the side. He turned his head, and Costantini plunged a dagger into the carotid artery. The nearest priest was called, and Rossi lived just long enough to receive absolution. He had yielded to the fears of his friends so far as to post extra guards about the court and staircase; sed quis custodiet custodes? The assassin and his accomplices walked away unmolested and passed the night promenading the city with songs of triumph. The streets were hung with flags. The bloody dagger, decked with flowers, was exposed to the veneration of their party on the top of a tricolored standard, and held up before the windows of the weeping family of the victim. When the news of the awful crime committed on the stairs was carried into the Chamber, the deputies manifested no concern. “It is nothing, gentlemen,” said Sterbini; “let us to business.” When it was made known to the Pope he fell upon his knees and remained some time in silent prayer. “Count Rossi has died a martyr,” said he; “God will receive his soul in peace.”
The next day the Quirinal was surrounded by a menacing crowd demanding an immediate declaration of war against Austria, the convocation of a Constituent Assembly to devise a new form of government, and the surrender of all power in the meantime to a ministry headed by Sterbini. The Pope would not listen to them. Then they tried to burn the palace. A single volley from the Swiss Guard, fired over the heads of the mob, drove them back. But they returned in force, with an ultimatum, backed by cannon and the whole civic guard. Sharp-shooters occupied the house-tops or sheltered themselves behind the famous equestrian groups in the centre of the piazza, and poured a shower of balls into the palace windows. One of the papal secretaries was killed. A bullet entered the Pope’s chamber. The Holy Father called the diplomatic corps together and told them that he must yield. “But let Europe know that I am a prisoner here; I have no part in the government; they shall rule in their own name, not mine.”
His chief thought now was flight. But he was closely watched and the guards invaded even his private apartments. On the 22d of November, six days after the attack upon the Quirinal, he received from the Bishop of Valence in France a silver pyx in which Pope Pius VI. used to carry the Blessed Sacrament suspended from his neck during his painful exile. “Heir to the name, the see, the virtues, the courage, and many of the tribulations of this great pontiff,” wrote the bishop, “you will perhaps attach some value to this interesting little relic, which I trust may not serve the same destiny in your Holiness’s hands as in those of its former possessor.” The Pope looked upon this as a providential provision for his journey. The ingenuity of the Duke d’Harcourt, ambassador of France, and the boldness of the Bavarian minister, Count Spaur, aided by the quick wit of his pious French wife, finally arranged the escape. The Pope’s faithful gentleman-in-waiting, Filippani, collected the little articles absolutely needed on the route, and at night carried them under his cloak, one by one, to the residence of Count Spaur. Meanwhile, it was announced in Rome that the count, accompanied by his family, was going to Naples on a diplomatic errand. The countess started first in her travelling carriage with her son and his tutor, giving out that her husband, detained a few hours in Rome by important business, would overtake her at Albano. Towards evening on the same day (November 24, 1848) the Duke d’Harcourt visited the Quirinal in state, and, being admitted to a private official interview with the Holy Father, began to read to him a series of long despatches. He read in a loud tone, so that his voice could be heard by the guards in the ante-room. If they could have seen what passed as well as they heard, they would have been very much astonished. For no sooner had the duke begun than the Pope retired to an inner chamber and transformed himself into a simple priest. He put on a black robe, an ample cloak, and a low, round hat, and, accompanied by Filippani, he reached the grand staircase by a private door, passed the guards unsuspected, and found himself in the street. Filippani had a carriage in readiness, and drove with his august master to the church of SS. Peter and Marcellinus, beyond the Colosseum, where Count Spaur was waiting with another conveyance. The Pope entered it; the count took the reins; they passed out by the gate of St. Giovanni, near the Lateran, the sentries being satisfied with the count’s declaration of his name and quality; and late in the night they reached a certain fountain on the Appian Way, where the countess was to meet them with the coach and four. When she drove up a few minutes later she was terrified at finding the fugitive surrounded by an armed patrol. Count Spaur was answering the questions of the soldiers, and the Pope and a trooper stood side by side against the fence. The countess did not lose her presence of mind. “Come, doctor,” she exclaimed, “jump in; you have kept us waiting”; and bidding good-night to the patrol, the party drove off at full speed. The Pope was the first to speak. “Courage!” said he; “I carry the Blessed Sacrament in the same pyx in which it was borne by Pius VI.” They crossed the Neapolitan frontier at daylight, and as soon as they were safe beyond the Pontifical States they all recited the Te Deum. They reached Gaeta in the afternoon. There Cardinal Antonelli joined them in disguise, and Count Spaur, posting on to Naples, with a letter from the Pope to King Ferdinand, resigned the care of the Holy Father to the secretary of the Spanish embassy. Refused admission to the bishop’s palace because the bishop was absent, the Pope and his companions took up their quarters at a poor inn, and there they were placed under surveillance by the military commander, Gen. Gross, who suspected them as spies. The general was questioning the countess and the cardinal next day, when he was astounded by the arrival of the king and queen with three vessels of war and a guard of honor. Count Spaur had reached Naples and delivered his letter to the king in person about midnight, and his majesty, after spending the rest of the night in preparations, embarked in the early morning to do honor to his illustrious guest. And during the year and a half spent by the Pope in the Neapolitan dominions, either at Gaeta or Portici, there was no possible mark of respect which King Ferdinand failed to show him. His purpose had been to embark in a Spanish frigate for the Balearic Islands, the scene of his brief and absurd imprisonment in 1823, but Ferdinand persuaded him to remain in Gaeta, where the royal palace was prepared for his occupation. There the diplomatic body gathered around him, and the cardinals assembled after escaping from Rome by various stratagems and disguises.
And how was it in Rome? The ministry of Sterbini, the parliament, and the authorities left by the Pope disappeared with equal suddenness, and the government passed into the hands, not by any means of the Roman people, but of Mazzini with the secret clubs, and of Garibaldi with two or three thousand soldiers of fortune, brought into the city from other parts of Italy. They pronounced the deposition of the Pope, and declared a republic with an executive triumvirate. Nominally the triumvirs were Mazzini, Armellini, and Saffi; in reality the head of the administration was Mazzini alone. Wherever the pagan democracy triumphed, even for a few days, the result was the same. Religion, the rights of property, and common morality suffered together and personal liberty vanished. Private estates in Rome were confiscated to the uses of the triumvirate under the guise of forced loans. The goods of the church were seized. The shrines and altars were stripped bare. Confessionals were burned in the Piazza del Popolo. The houses of the cardinals were sacked, convents were assaulted. Profane rites were celebrated in St. Peter’s at Easter and Corpus Christi; the papal benediction urbi et orbi was travestied by a suspended priest; the canons of St. Peter’s were fined for refusing to take part in the impious ceremonies; the provost of the cathedral of Sinigaglia was put to death for a similar cause. The clergy were hunted like vermin, cut down in the public roads, dragged from hiding-places. The convent of St. Callisto was turned into a slaughter-house, where one of the Roman priest-catchers used to shut up his victims, and kill them at pleasure without the formality of trial or sentence. He killed fourteen there in one day. Two vine-dressers, accused of being Jesuits in disguise, were torn to pieces on the bridge of St. Angelo. Murder and pillage stalked hand in hand through the city. There soon ceased to be any real government at all in Rome, until on the 2d of July, 1849, the French army restored the papal authority after the horrors of a severe siege, in which foreigners, not Romans, manned the defences. Anywhere else in the world the quelling of such a revolt would have been followed by wholesale condemnations to the galleys and the scaffold. But nothing could conquer the kindness of Pius IX. His restoration, like his accession, was followed by an act of amnesty. It left in exile the guiltiest of the leaders; and care was taken to give the re-established government as much strength as the situation demanded. Some restrictions were certainly necessary; several priests had been assassinated since the surrender of the city; two attempts had been made to burn the Quirinal; and placards menaced with the vengeance of the societies all Romans who should welcome the Pope on his return.
Nevertheless, the Holy Father’s journey home in April was a continuous triumph, and his entrance into Rome was celebrated with frantic demonstrations of delight. He confirmed many of the most valuable of his political reforms, and resumed his old life of charity and devotion. The next ten years of his reign are commonly described as a period of severe reaction. Nothing could be further from the truth. Pius IX. has never been an absolutist, never ceased to favor all true liberty, never believed that nations can be governed in the nineteenth century by the methods which prevailed in the ninth. From his accession down to the present day he has not only been the kindest ruler known to history, but he has invariably granted his people the most liberal institutions and the fullest measure of personal freedom which the incessant activity of the secret conspirators would allow. The enemies of Italian liberty are the dagger and the bayonet. It is mere cant and bigotry to assume that everything calling itself a republic, whatever its true character, is entitled to the sympathy of a free people.
When Charles Albert was defeated by the Austrians, Mazzini declared that the war of the kings had ended and the war of the peoples was about to begin. The war of the peoples had failed in its turn, and now the secret societies went back to a conspiracy of the kings. They found Victor Emanuel a more useful instrument than his father, and with him they made a compact whose terms we can gather plainly enough from the event. As the destruction of Christianity was the avowed purpose of the secret societies from the very beginning, so the first service which Sardinia must render them in payment for the crown of Italy was a systematic attack upon the church in the Sardinian territory. The method of these attacks is always the same. They begin by silencing the clergy, dispersing the religious orders, and giving an anti-religious character to public education. In Sardinia the government went so far as to found a state school of heretical theology, and to impose it upon the episcopate by force. In the university of Turin it was taught that the state is omnipotent over the church, that the temporal power of the Pope is incompatible with the spiritual, that marriage cannot be proved a sacrament; and the government prohibited the appointment of any clergyman to a benefice who had not followed the condemned theological course at this university. For warning their clergy against such heresies the bishops were imprisoned and their revenues were seized. Priests were arrested for preaching “insubordination.” Convents were suppressed without warning, and even without law. Nuns were turned into the streets in the middle of the night. Clerics were pressed into the army. Religious communities engaged in teaching were treated with especial rigor. Church property was confiscated and priests were reduced to beggary. Thus so early as 1849 did the Sardinian government join the pagan conspiracy, and lend itself for a price to the work of emancipating the people from all religious belief.
It was not until 1859 that the plot was ripe, and then, to the dismay of the great Catholic party in France, an accomplice of Victor Emanuel presented himself in the person of Napoleon III. There was no reason to wonder at such an unnatural alliance. Napoleon, whose empire was built upon revolution, and who held despotic power by the double and doubly false titles of massacre and counterfeit suffrage, was always treacherous to the Pope. After the fall of the Mazzinian republic in 1848 he attempted to impose upon the Holy Father a policy in the interest of the revolutionists, and that was the cause of the Pope’s long delay at Portici; Pius IX. would not return to Rome until he could return without conditions. He declared that he “would sooner go to America; he knew the way thither already: or he would take refuge in Austria.”[[46]] Napoleon was compelled to yield. Then came the demonstration of Count Cavour at the Congress of 1856, made, undoubtedly, with Napoleon’s connivance. Cavour hurled “the Roman question” into the midst of European politics by his proposal for the separation of the Legations from the Pontifical States, and their government by a lay vicar; and although the subject was postponed, the mere discussion of it served a practical purpose. “It is the first spark,” said Count Cavour’s own newspaper, “of an irresistible conflagration.” Count Rayneval, the French representative at Rome, refuted the charges brought by Cavour against the papal administration, but his able report to the Minister of Foreign Affairs was suppressed in Paris, and only saw the light through the pages of a London daily paper. Two years later (January 14, 1858) Orsini made his attempt upon Napoleon’s life, and from his prison he warned the emperor that the Carbonari held him to his ancient engagements. “So long as Italy shall not be independent the tranquillity of Europe and that of your majesty will be but a chimera.” From this time there was no more mystery about Napoleon’s purposes. He had a long private conference with Cavour at Plombières, and on the 1st of January, 1859, he made the famous unfriendly remark to the Austrian ambassador at the Tuileries which proved the signal for the Franco-Italian war. A month later appeared his pamphlet, Napoleon III. and Italy, in which he denounced the civil government of the Pope as incompatible with modern civilization, and proposed anew the double-headed confederation of Gioberti, with the King of Sardinia as military chief and the Sovereign Pontiff as honorary president. And Piedmont, in the meantime, played her part astutely. For a long time her agents had been busy among the Italian states. A circular signed by Garibaldi, who was now a general in the Piedmontese service, gave instructions to the conspirators:
“1. Before hostilities have commenced between Piedmont and Austria you are to rise with the cry of 'Italy for ever! Victor Emanuel for ever!’ 2. Wherever the insurrection triumphs, he among you who enjoys most public esteem and confidence is to take the military and civil command, with the title of provisional commissioner, acting for King Victor Emanuel, and to retain it until the arrival of a commissioner sent by the Sardinian government.” But it is unnecessary to quote proofs of the plot; Mazzini himself laid it bare when he attacked the government on account of its prosecution of the authors of the abortive revolt at Genoa, in 1857: “Monarchico-Piedmontese committees exist at Rome, Bologna, Florence, and several cities of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom; and there are secondary centres in several other towns. I could name to you the persons, several of them deputies, who are the agents between the poor dupes and the personages of the government.” In Florence the plot against the Grand Duke of Tuscany, which resulted in his abdication after his troops had been bribed to desert him, was matured in the very house of the Sardinian ambassador. In Parma the Sardinian agents instigated the expulsion of the Duchess Regent, who was yet so popular that her subjects spontaneously recalled her, and Victor Emanuel had to drive her out a second time. In the Papal States the Sardinians stood upon no ceremony, but, when the insurrection took place, they boldly marched in troops to sustain it.
Before the peace of Villafranca all Central Italy was in the hands of the Piedmontese commissioners. By the terms of that treaty these commissioners were to be withdrawn. The amazement of Europe, therefore, was profound when, even before the signatures to the convention were dry, Victor Emanuel was found to be setting up provisional governments in Parma, Modena, Tuscany, and the Romagna, and getting ready to play the favorite French farce of the plebiscitum. As it was managed in one state it was managed in all. The Romagna has a million of inhabitants. The Sardinian agents prepared voting lists, restricted to the large towns where the revolutionary party was strong and bold, and put on these lists only eighteen thousand names. Of these not more than a third voted. The total vote for and against annexation represented, therefore, only three-fifths of one per cent. of the population. And this is called a plebiscitum! Nevertheless, on the 18th of March, 1860, the Legations Parma, Modena, and Tuscany were declared annexed, like Lombardy, to the Sardinian monarchy, and the king, assured of the countenance of the emperor, made preparations for the invasion of Umbria and the Marches.[[47]] It was a comparatively simple process; in this case Sardinia frankly took the coveted provinces by force of arms. The expedition was concerted at Chambery between Napoleon and the Piedmontese general Cialdini, and in closing the interview the emperor is reported to have said, Faites, mais faites vite!—almost the very words which our Lord spoke to Judas: “What thou doest, do quickly.” On the tenth anniversary of this interview Napoleon, a prisoner in the power of the great German Empire which he had done more than any other one man to create, ceased to reign.