Italy, was given a remarkable impetus by the election at about the
same time as its appearance of a new Pope. Pius IX., elected to the
papal chair in June, 1846, seemed the very man to bring about the
realization of Gioberti's hopes. As Cardinal Mastai Ferreti he had been
immensely popular, and he was known as a man of great amiability, keenly
interested in new ideas, and ardent in the cause of Italian unity of
action. His first act was to proclaim a general amnesty for political
offenses, by which thousands of prisoners who had spent years in Roman
prisons, or abroad in exile, many ignorant of the charges brought
against them, were allowed to return to family and friends. He visited
the poor and superintended the relief of the sick, even working among
the Jewish quarters of Rome. He favored the construction of railroads,
modified the restrictions of the press, and organized an advisory
council of leading citizens. Small wonder that a world which had been
used to the infinitely narrow-minded reactionaries Leo XII. and Gregory
XVI. hailed Pius IX. as the regenerator of both church and state.
To a large degree Pius and Gioberti had both felt the same enthusiasms,
and believed in the same principles, the cardinal one being that society
was to be reformed by the Roman Church, and the government of society
vested in the Church as a court of highest appeal. Different desires led
the two men to this conclusion, Gioberti hoping that reform would come
by means of concessions by arbitrary powers to the rights of the people,
and the Pope believing that humanizing the form of church government
would strengthen its actual power and increase the devotion of all
nations to the Holy See. History proved that neither Gioberti nor Pius
IX. was correct, but the seeming coincidence of their views increased
the power of each. Gioberti gained the support of the liberal element
in the Church, and the Pope gained the adhesion of intellectual men
throughout Italy.
The new Pope had read Gioberti's political writings, and had been deeply
influenced by them. The "Primato," issued at Brussels in 1842, had been
prohibited in all the Italian states except Piedmont, and this fact
added immensely to its weight with patriots. Charles Albert read it
and admired it greatly; with the advent of Pius, he as well as men so
diverse as Mazzini, Garibaldi, and D'Azeglio, looked for regeneration.
Under the influence of this new spirit Charles Albert declared an
amnesty for all exiles in 1846, and the philosopher-priest, after
thirteen years of exile, was free to return home.
Long exile had somewhat crushed the ardent nature of the churchman,
and he waited in Brussels until he was assured by friends that his
return to Turin would be popular. Learning that his works, especially
the "Primato" and the "Gesuita Moderno," had made him a hero in the
eyes of patriots, he finally returned to Turin in 1848. His entrance
into the capital on April 29 of that year was the occasion for the
greatest outburst of enthusiasm, a welcome intensified by the thought
that this man had been banished for no other cause than the resentment
of the hated Jesuits. The city was decorated and illuminated in his
honor, deputations waited upon him, the King appointed him a Senator,
but, as he had been elected as deputy by both Turin and Genoa to the
Assembly of Representatives now to meet for the first time under the new
constitution, he chose to sit in the lower house for Turin.
Invitations now poured in upon him from other cities, and before the
Assembly met he made a tour of the states, commencing with Milan, and
finally reaching Rome. He had three interviews with the Pope, and these
meetings led him still further to believe that Pius was the man who
should put his political philosophy into practice. He found the Romans,
who of all Italians had most cause to hate the Jesuits, overjoyed with
his work describing the modern abuses of that order, and anxious at
all hazards that their new Pontiff should follow the new spirit of
liberality.
While he was traveling and speaking publicly to all the peoples the
Assembly met in Turin, and elected him its president. Count Balbo was
Prime Minister, and in the same Parliament sat many of the younger
element, including Cavour, and a large liberal section headed by
D'Azeglio.
Meanwhile there had occurred the memorable battle-days of 1848, when
the February revolution in Paris set fire to the tinder that had been
preparing throughout Europe. The Milanese arose and drove out the
Austrian garrison, Venice proclaimed the republic under Daniel Manin,
and the cry of "a free Italy" rang from the Alps to Sicily. Pius IX.,
who had already made serious protest to Austria when in the preceding
year that Power had garrisoned Ferrara, prepared to place himself
actively at the head of the national movement, and in Piedmont Charles
Albert took the field and went to the aid of Lombardy. At the close
of 1848 Count Balbo resigned, and a new ministry was formed, in which
Gioberti held a seat.
Unfortunately Pius IX. lacked the courage of his convictions, and
when he heard that the Austrians were winning back their lost fields
in Lombardy, his desire to send his troops to the aid of Piedmont
cooled. The conservative elements about him gained his ear, and he
replaced Mamiani, his Prime Minister, a man who wished him to give
Rome a constitution, with Count Rossi, the French Ambassador, a man of
great ability, but ultra conservative. In November, 1848, Rossi was
assassinated, and shortly afterward the violence of the demands of the
people convinced Pius that his best course was temporary flight. Acting
upon this impulse on November 24, 1848, he escaped from Rome to Gaeta.
Italy was beginning to see to what manner of man it had looked for
deliverance.
From Gaeta the self-exiled Pontiff issued a formal protest against
the violence to which he stated his people had subjected him, and by
which means alone his latest enactments had been extorted from him, and
declared all measures passed in Rome during his absence null and void.
In Rome the brief Republic of Mazzini held sway, and at Gaeta France and
Austria sought to cheer the Pope. Charles Albert, his hope of Papal aid
fading rapidly, attempted for a few months to stem the tide of French
and Austrian influence over Pius. He tried to effect a reconciliation
between the Holy Father and the Romans, and Gioberti wrote to the Pope,
saying: "I hope the Court of Gaeta is about to return to sentiments
more evangelical, more worthy of Pius IX. I am sorry to have to say
that the Court of Gaeta, repudiating the doctrine of conciliation, and
adopting that of vengeance and blood, does not seem to know that it
is repudiating the maxims of Christ, and putting in their stead those
of Mahomet." In addition Gioberti did his best to gain the Pope's
concurrence in a plan for the formation of an Italian federation of
princes, but without success. The bolt was shot, Pius had had his day
as popular idol, and having proven that Italy had nothing to hope
politically from the Pope, quickly retroceded to the plane of the
Bourbon Princes and Grand Dukes. To Gioberti, who had hoped so much
from the spiritual and temporal power of Rome, the disillusionment was
terrific.
That he was a theorist rather than a practical statesman he now showed
conclusively by advocating as minister at Turin that Piedmont should
anticipate the inevitable restoration of the rulers of central Italy
by the governments of Austria and France by restoring them itself. Had
this plan been adopted the House of Savoy would have been irretrievably
ruined in the eyes of patriotic Italy, and the country left without any
champion of freedom. Fortunately his proposal met with small favor.
The battle of Novara ended the struggles of Charles Albert, and Victor
Emmanuel, a man of sterner make, came into control. A new ministry was
formed for the new King by General Delaunay, who included Gioberti again
in the cabinet, although he held no portfolio. He was not in touch,
however, with the new elements of government, he could not appreciate a
statecraft that was in essence radical, and after several disagreements
he was appointed on a nominal mission to Paris, which in reality removed
him from any part in the government at Turin. His best work had been
done in the service of Charles Albert, he was not in touch with the
coming policies of the adroit Cavour.
The stirring years of 1848 and 1849 passed, the dream of the Pope's
leadership vanished, and the yoke of the foreigner seemed to have
settled as heavily as ever upon the states of Italy. Again exiles
gathered in London and Paris, Mazzini returned to his English
fogs, and we find Gioberti the confidant in Paris of many banished
fellow-countrymen. The Marquis Pallavicino, friend of Manin and many
other patriots, became his bosom friend. He was offered a pension by
his government, but declined it, and devoted himself to writing. In
1851 he published his great work, the "Rinnovamento Civile d'Italia,"
in which he pointed out the mistakes made by Italians in 1848 and 1849,
acknowledged his own blunders in political sagacity, and designated
Piedmont as the leader of a great national movement, which should
ultimately end in a regenerated Italy, with its capital in a lay and
constitutional Rome. He had met and talked with Cavour in Paris during
the preparation of this book, and he had had the perspicacity to predict
that Cavour was the man who should unite his land. The statesman
was half amused, half impressed by Gioberti's words, he had always
considered him a man who just failed of being a great statesman because
he was a visionary, but he was profoundly impressed by the grasp and
depth of his new work.
The "Rinnovamento" was indeed true prophecy, the philosopher had at
last seen the futility of a political confederation of peoples under a
religious head, he realized that Princes supported by foreign Powers
would never unite for any common end. "Except the young sovereign
who rules Piedmont," he says in the "Rinnovamento," "I see no one in
Italy who could undertake our emancipation. Instead of imitating Pius,
Ferdinand, and Leopold, who violated their sworn compacts, he maintains
his with religious observance--vulgar praise in other times, but to-day
not small, being contrary to example." Victor Emmanuel, reading the
book, was as much impressed by it as Cavour had been, and time and again
repeated, "I will do what Gioberti says."
Pius IX., still amiable, still suave, was kept in Rome by French arms,
and was solely occupied in proving his own insufficiency as a temporal
ruler of any sort whatever. He had retracted all his liberal acts,
made friends with all his old foes, and placed entire charge of state
affairs in the hands of that most unsavory of men, Cardinal Antonelli.
Under him the Jesuits resumed their former activity, and soon had closed
completely about the Pope. Then it was that the works of Gioberti, the
"Primato" and the "Prolegomeni," which had once so greatly delighted the
Pope, were placed upon the Index Expurgatorius and publicly condemned
by the Church. The action had no other effect than to amuse the
world; Italy and all friends of Italy had read and pondered the great
treatises, and drawn their own conclusions from them irrespective of the
wishes of the Roman See.
Gioberti died in Paris October 16, 1852, just as the new era in Italian
affairs which he had predicted in his last book was actually commencing
with the advent of Cavour as Prime Minister of Piedmont.
When we review Gioberti's work we find that it was chiefly important as
a stimulus to Italian patriotic thought, as a threshing out of theories
and principles in preparation for a true realization of national needs
and hopes. That the philosophy, in so far as it was political, of his
"Primato" failed to prove true when attempted in practice, and must
inevitably so have failed as we see now, did not affect his influence
over his own generation. That influence was one which contrasted
sharply with Mazzini's, Gioberti always preaching orderly organization,
Mazzini daring attempts of many sorts, both alike in the ardor of their
enthusiasm.
While Mazzini appealed to the mass, Gioberti appealed to the scholars,
the clergy, the thinking classes, and his appeal was patriotic as well
as intellectual. In his "Primato" he stirs his countrymen to consider
their country's place among the nations. "While to the north," he says,
"there is a people numbering only twenty-four millions who rule the
sea, make Europe tremble, own India, vanquish China and occupy the best
parts of Asia, Africa, America and Oceania, what great things have we
Italians done? What are our manual and intellectual exploits? Where
are our fleets and our colonies? What rank do our legates hold; what
force do they wield; what wise or authoritative influence do they exert
in foreign courts? What weight attaches to the Italian name in the
balance of European power? Foreigners, indeed, know and still visit our
country, but only for the purpose of enjoying the changeless beauty of
our skies and of looking upon the ruins of our past. But what profits
it to speak of glory, riches, and power? Can Italy say she has a place
in the world? Can she boast of a life of her own and of a political
autonomy, when she is awed by the first insolent and ambitious upstart
who tramples her under foot and galls her with his yoke? Who is there
who shudders not when he reflects that, disunited as we are, we must be
the prey of any assailant whatever, and that we owe even that wretched
fraction of independence which charters and protocols still allow us to
the compassion of our neighbors?" Then he concludes, "Although all this
has come upon us through our own fault; nevertheless, by the exercise
of a little strength of will and determination, without upheavals or
revolutions and without perpetrating injustice, we can still be one of
the first races in the world."
With consummate skill he arranged a national program in which the Pope,
the Princes, the people, even Austria, should have a part, and it was
scarcely to be wondered that inasmuch as each interest was flattered
each thought well of the program. The clergy were no less delighted with
the eloquence of one of their own number than with his teaching that
religion and patriotism should go hand in hand, those high in power felt
that their power would be left them under his theory, and the people
were stirred by his eloquence and dreams of what Italy should become. As
a result there arose what was known as the "Neo-Guelph" party, which,
harking back to the Middle Ages, sought to place the Pope at the head of
the national movement. And, by a beautiful coincidence of history, just
at that moment a new Pontiff, one of that clergy which had so greatly
admired Gioberti's writings, ascended St. Peter's throne. In these facts
you have the cause of Gioberti's commanding position in the early years
of the great struggle.
Unfortunately Gioberti's theories were dreams, not even so practical
as the aspirations of Mazzini's "Young Italy." He had failed utterly
to grasp the need of absolute administrative concentration and did not
accurately estimate the jealousies and prides of the petty Princes and
the churchmen. He believed that those forces which had so long destroyed
Italian unity could be made to unite to restore it, he believed that the
Roman Church could exercise a wise temporal authority. He looked back to
the Middle Ages, and spoke with some of Savonarola's words. He appealed
to his people's ancient love of art and letters, to the glories of the
mediæval cities, to the world-wide authority of Rome and St. Peter's.
The appeal stirred the imagination of the intellectual classes, and
drew the attention of other countries to the fallen estate of Italy.
Beyond that it could not be effective; the needs of State and Church, of
Princes and people, had grown too unalterably opposed. Mazzini was far
nearer right, a truer teacher, a surer guide.
The time came when Gioberti recognized that Italy's salvation lay in
the strong hand, and this he acknowledged in his last book. It is the
truest of all his political philosophies because he had then understood
that the future belonged to men of such abilities as were possessed by
Cavour and Victor Emmanuel, and to a well-knit nation rather than to a
confraternity of ill-assorted states.
Yet for all its fallacies Gioberti's "Primato" woke intellectual Italy
from a sleep which had lasted centuries, and made it consider the
problem of its regeneration.
[Illustration: MANIN]
MANIN, THE "FATHER OF VENICE"
The story of Venetian glory seemed closed with the last years of the
Eighteenth Century. The proud Queen of the Adriatic had seen her jewels
stolen one by one, and had finally become the toy of wanton powers.
Venice was no longer self-reliant, no longer coldly virtuous, her
grandeur had sunk into a memory, her civic honor been bedimmed by gross
corruption. "Venice was," said the world, and France, parceling out the
conquests of the young Napoleon, handed Venetia and the City of the
Doges to Austria. There was no opportunity for self-defense, Napoleon
had removed all military stores and confiscated the Venetian fleet, the
citizens buried the lion-banners of Saint Mark beneath their churches,
and silently watched the Austrians enter. The last Doge, aged and bent
with years, fell senseless as he opened his lips to swear allegiance to
the House of Hapsburg. Europe considered the fate of Venice sealed.
Napoleon came and went, and men as well as maps experienced gigantic
changes, but still Venice slept. She had become a part of the Austrian
Empire, a new generation grew up who had never known Venice free, who
only learned their city's history by stealth. Among this new generation
was Daniel Manin, son of a Jew who had embraced Christianity and who
had adopted the surname of his noble patron the last Doge, according to
Venetian custom. So it happened that the last free ruler of Venice and
the man who was to raise her from sleep bore the same name. There was
also transmitted to the boy the ancient hate of Austria.
Born in 1804 Daniel Manin early showed a strong love of learning, which
was eagerly tended by his father, a lawyer of some note. The father
taught his son the history of his city, he brought him up to see the
unjust practices of Napoleon and of Austria, he kindled in him the
passion for liberty. The boy studied jurisprudence and the growth of
Venetian dialects, at fifteen he translated the apocryphal book of
Enoch from the Hebrew, at seventeen he became a Doctor of Laws, and
had translated Pothier's great French work on Roman law before he was
twenty-one. The year he came of age he married, and a little later
settled in the small town of Maestra, which lies at the entrance to the
Lagoons, and started to practise his profession of advocate, which under
Austrian rule allowed him only to act in civil cases, and then merely
in a consulting capacity and never as a pleader in the courts.
Even in early youth his health was poor; although his mind was unusually
active and well-balanced he was subject to frequent visitations of
great physical weariness which at times made it impossible for him to
accomplish anything. Later in life he wrote, "The act of living, in a
healthy person, considered in itself, ought to be a pleasure; but to me
from my very childhood, it has always been a painful effort. I always
feel weary." He was frequently morbid just at the time when his growing
family required all his energy for support.
In person the young lawyer was rather striking, not tall, but spare,
with unusually animated blue eyes, thick chestnut hair, and features
full of changing expression, quick to show the temper of his mind. For
all his underlying weariness and continued depression he often appeared
gay and cheerful on the surface; it was his nature to be unselfish, and
to turn a brave face towards the world.
Working as an advocate Manin gave up his spare hours to studying
Venetian _patois_ and to planning how in time his city might loosen
the bonds of Austrian tyranny. As early as 1830, when he was only
twenty-six, he joined with three close friends in a plot to seize the
Venetian arsenal, and drew up a proclamation intended to excite the
citizens. The movement throughout northern Italy on which the friends
relied failed to materialize, and the plan fell through. Fortunately the
authors of the proclamation were not discovered, and Manin was permitted
to continue his profession. He did not believe in secret societies, and
would not join them; he devoted himself to studying Austria's colonial
weaknesses.
The first step which brought him seriously to the notice of the
government was his work on behalf of the Italian bankers who were
associated with some Germans in building a railway between Venice and
Milan. There had been a disagreement as to the route of the railway, and
the Austrian viceroy had sided with the Germans. Manin was engaged to
represent the Italian bankers, and conducted his side of the case with
great skill. The Austrian government finally concluded the matter by
arbitrarily dissolving the Italian Railways Association. The case had
however shown Manin a possible mode of attacking the foreign despotism,
finding flaws in its laws and concentrating on such weaknesses until
eventually its whole fabric was loosened. He did not believe that
any sudden local revolution could succeed, he saw only the loss of
valuable lives thereby, but he did believe that the way for some later
far-sweeping rising might be paved by consecutive breaches in the
enemy's legal walls. This opinion was the result of his evenly-balanced,
deliberate judgment; he could at times, as he was to show later, throw
himself passionately into a cause, without regard to consequences, but
his nature was not that of the ardent revolutionary; he relied on cool,
sober judgments, and was not readily led from them by illusions. In his
notes we find him writing, "Against disorder I feel a repulsion not
only of reason but of instinct, the same as I feel against everything
contrary to the laws of harmony, a deformed face, a discordant sound."
His advocacy of the Italian bankers brought Manin before the Venetian
public, he was recognized as an able speaker with a deep knowledge
of law. He spoke before the Venetian Athenæum on the obligation of
thinkers to inspire and stimulate men of action. The subject gave him
a chance to draw attention to the present lethargy of Venice and to
urge consideration of new ideas affecting trade and commerce. He hoped
to unite northern Italians through the new principle of free trade.
Fortunately Cobden, the great English advocate of free trade, was
traveling in Italy; he visited Venice and met Manin and some of the
other Venetian leaders of opinion just as he had met Cavour at Turin
and Massimo d'Azeglio at Genoa.
Various small events gave the lawyer a chance to speak publicly to his
fellow-citizens. At the Scientific Congress which met in September,
1847, he was appointed a commissioner to investigate the charitable
institutions of Venice, and in doing this work he came upon the case
of a poor infirm workman who had placed a placard upon a public wall
complaining that the government had left him to starve, and for which
action had been placed in a lunatic asylum. Manin reported the case
and wrote, "The physicians acknowledge the man is sane; but they dare
not set him at liberty, fearing it would be contrary to the views of
the police and government. For my part, I have a better opinion of the
government and the police. I do not admit that they create madmen by
decrees. If Padovini is culpable there are the laws." Count Palffy,
the Governor, was very much vexed. "We must release Padovini from the
madhouse," he said, "and put Manin in his place."
About the same time Count Jablonski, a relation of the Venetian
Governor, wrote a paper urging the Italians to become resigned. In reply
Manin set down his thoughts in a page which seems to sum up his whole
purpose, a wonderful expression of his philosophy. It was not published
at that time, but was later found among his papers. It read:
"It is the fashion to preach resignation.
"I distinguish two kinds of resignation; the one virtuous and manly; the
other cowardly, and worthy only of fools.
"The strong man, when overcome by misfortune, seeks the means of
remedying it. Does he find any? In spite of difficulties, he applies
himself to the task, excited, cheerful, and vigorous, full of energy and
pertinacity. It is only when he is certain that no remedy exists, that
he becomes resigned. This is manly resignation.
"The coward, when misfortune overtakes him, allows himself to be cast
down, and seeks no means of remedying it. However spontaneous and easy
relief may present itself to his mind, he attempts nothing, he wishes
neither to trouble nor expose himself--he is resigned: this is the
resignation of the fool.