Interruption of Preparations for Fourteen Months, through the consequences of Sadowa—The French evacuate Rome—Alleged Double Dealing of Napoleon III—Civiltá on St. Bartholomew's—Change of Plan—Instead of a Council a Great Display—Serious Complaints of Liberal Catholics.
It was on May 24, 1866, that the Directing Congregation held its third meeting, Monsignor Nina acting as secretary in the absence of Giannelli, who was indisposed. But, soon afterwards, dark clouds enveloped the Vatican, and ere the Congregation could again meet fourteen months had passed away.
On July 3, 1866, a shell burst at Sadowa which struck in three different directions, and in each case the blow was heavy. Austria fell from the primacy of Germany, and from her place among Italian States. Italy, acquiring Venice, entered into full possession of herself, Rome alone excepted. The disjointed members of Germany moved to union under Prussia, like bone coming to its bone.
These were deplorable reversals of Papal policy, unfriendly both to the temporal dominion at home and to the spiritual dominion abroad. By the instrumentality of France and Austria it had been possible, for ages, to keep Italy and Germany parcelled into small States, easily played off against one another, inimical to great national organizations or high national sentiment, and glad of an alliance with a small State possessing an organization by which it could interfere almost everywhere, and in almost everything. The long-continued success of the policy directed to this end seemed to stamp it as almost miraculous. Had Germany united under the Hapsburgs, ready to keep Italy disunited, it would have mattered less to Rome. But her uniting under the Hohenzollerns, and aiding Italy to become one, was doubly dangerous. Reconstruction as going on in Italy and Germany must be met by reconstruction on a universal scale.
On November 4, 1866, the people of Venetia carried their suffrages to the feet of King Victor Emmanuel, while Austria and France sullenly acquiesced. The king said, "Italy is made if not completed"—a hint which the Vatican both understood and resented. Five weeks later, at four o'clock on the morning of December 11, Mr. Gladstone, whose name had already left a beneficent mark on the history of Italy, was watching by the gaslight from a window in Rome as the French troops wound round the corner of a street, and he felt that the seed of great events lay in that evacuation![56] That day the flag of red, white, and blue which for seventeen years had cast a light on the Vatican and a shadow on the Tiber, was lowered at St. Angelo. The Pope felt that it would soon be succeeded by the red, white, and green. So that as if by a historical parody on the old furor of the circus, the rage of parties in Rome was once more lashed up by the blue and the green respectively.
"Do not deceive yourselves," said the Pope to General Montebello, when he presented himself to take leave; "the revolution will come hither: it has proclaimed it: you have heard it, you have understood it and seen it."
The Civiltá Cattolica, alluding to the "soporifics" administered at this irritating moment by French journalists and diplomatists, asked whether France would hold the same language to Italy, now menacing the Pope, as she had held to Austria and Spain when preparing to assist him, namely, that "any departure from the principle of non-intervention would involve a war with France." She had not so spoken to Italy, and would not do so, for had not Billault said, "It is not possible to turn French bayonets against Italy." This being the case, France might hold her peace and not tease the respectable public with soporifics.[57]
When Napoleon III, in the discourse from the throne, alluding to the fear of Rome being taken from the Pope, said that Europe would not permit an event which would throw confusion into the Catholic world, the Civiltá bitterly exposed his double dealing. Some would take this language as a pledge to uphold the temporal power, but others would see that it was only a shuffling of the responsibility off the shoulders of France on to those of Europe. Had he said France will not stand it? No, but that Europe will not allow it.
It would be about this time that Viscount Poli and Arthur Guillemin, a lieutenant of zouaves and a zealous crusader, sitting over a cup of coffee, saw five gentlemen enter the coffeehouse who were not Romans, but superintendents of a railway then being constructed. One of them laid on the table a nosegay, so arranged that the colours formed "the cockade of a king hostile to the Pontiff"—doubtless red and white camellias, forming, with their green leaves, the colours of Italy. Guillemin, who was in uniform, heard remarks which showed that the gentlemen knew what the flowers signified. He rose, seized the nosegay, dashed it to the ground, and trampled it to pieces. Then, as the others grumbled, he drew out his revolver, laid it by his side, and went on sipping his coffee, and chatting with the Viscount.[58]
The Civiltá was at this time publishing a series of articles on the massacre of St. Bartholomew's, sometimes calling it "the slaughter" and sometimes "the executions of Paris"; and calculating that there might have been some two thousand Protestants put to death in the capital, and, say, eight thousand in all France!