Injudicious policy of the Government at the
Restoration—Non-fulfilment of the _Motu proprio_ of Pius
VII.—Disappointment of the pontifical subjects—Inability
of Cardinals Consalvi and Guerrieri to contend against
the narrow views of their colleagues—Reasons of Austria's
animosity against the former—Guerrieri's projected
reforms bring about his fall—The constitutional movement
of 1820-21—Its effect in the Papal States—Abuse of
Consalvi's instructions—Extreme political rigour under Leo
XII.—Distracted condition of the country—The _Sanfedisti_
rising of 1831—First Austrian armed intervention in
Romagna—Conferences at Rome—Mr. Seymour's protest—Fresh
disturbances in the Legations—the Austrians again occupy
Bologna—The French land at Ancona—The reign of Gregory XVI.
The Italian princes summoned back from exile or captivity, by the
downfall of Napoleon, to the exercise of sovereignty, bad, all of
them, learnt a little from adversity. Upon none, however, had its
lessons been so completely thrown away, as the Pope,—or, to speak more
correctly, the Papacy.
From the first resumption of its functions, the aim of the Roman
Government seems to have been to blot out all traces of the enlightened
and vigorous administration of the French; not by continuing whatever
they had introduced of good, or improving on whatever they had left
imperfect, but by forcibly reviving the usages of an almost obsolete
generation. It was seriously deemed possible, by the most puerile
restrictions, the most inquisitorial surveillance, to compel men
to recede a quarter of a century, and return submissively to the
stagnation which characterized Italy before the Revolution—a period
when literature, art, morals, were all at their lowest ebb, and the
test of a good citizen was to be regular at his barber's, spotless in
his ruffles, and assiduous as a cicisbee.
At the restoration of Pius VII., promises had been held out of a
thorough revision of the Legislature; but before long the publication
of a civil and criminal code, based upon by-gone institutions and
totally opposed to the requirements of the age, coupled with the
augmenting influence of the clergy, opened the way for a weary
succession of evils. It soon became apparent that neither the
moderation of the pontiff, nor the good intentions and activity of one
or two amongst the cardinals could counterbalance the hostility of the
vast majority of the Sacred College to aught connected with reform.
Victims of one revolution, they fancied any innovation on time-hallowed
observances would infallibly precipitate them into a second.
Consalvi and Guerrieri, the one Prime Minister, the other
Cardinal-Treasurer, stood alone in their endeavours to remedy the most
crying abuses. Unsupported as they were, for a few years at least they
kept up a semblance of decency and justice. With their disgrace every
vestige of common sense departed from the councils of the Vatican.
Italians always date the commencement of their worst times from
the triumph of the Austrian intrigues which brought about Cardinal
Consalvi's downfall. Metternich had never forgiven his energetic
protest at the Congress of Vienna against the occupation of the
citadels of Ferrara and Commacchio in the papal territory. Though the
protest remains a dead letter, and both received Austrian garrisons,
the independence of spirit, the impatience of foreign control, which
he had revealed, were little in accordance with imperial policy; and,
conjoined to his successful opposition to designs upon Ancona in 1821,
stamped him as too _national_ for Austria to tolerate in the Church
Cabinet. Immediately upon the decease of his firm friend Pius VII.,
Consalvi was displaced; and Cardinal Albani, of avowedly absolutist
principles, succeeded him in the direction of affairs.
Guerrieri was the victim of his devotion to political economy, and his
projected financial reforms. Amongst these was a thorough revision of
the land-tax, to effect which he sent for experienced engineers from
abroad. But Albani would not suffer him to carry out this much-needed
undertaking. When interrogated as to the motive of this hostility,
he is said to have replied: “My large estates in the Marche are not
probably assessed at more than at third of their value. I do not choose
to treble the tax at my expense.”
The years 1820-21 were equally memorable and disastrous for the whole
of Italy. Revolutions broke out in Naples and Piedmont, of which
the object was to obtain a Constitution. But neither Ferdinand of
Bourbon, nor Charles Felix of Savoy, were reformers. Both monarchs had
recourse to arms; the one solicited, the other accepted, the assistance
of Austria, who, dreading nothing so much as the establishment
of representative institutions in Italy, eagerly seized on this
opportunity for intervention. Naples Was guarded for six years by the
Imperial troops;—the Piedmontese sustained what they still remember
as the indignity of a six months' occupation of the citadel of
Alessandria.
Though the Roman States had taken no part in these disturbances, it was
apparent that a dangerous amount of sympathy for their purpose existed
in the population. The absolutist party urged stringent measures
of precaution; and Austria was desirous of throwing a garrison into
Ancona. By diplomatic address Consalvi eluded compliance with this
proffer; but, to clear himself from the imputation of inability or
disinclination to make head against the liberals, took a step which
entailed consequences he was the first to deplore. He wrote to the
four legates of the Romagne, authorizing them to send temporarily
out of the country a certain number of individuals suspected to be
members of the Carbonari, Freemasons, and other secret revolutionary
societies. The cardinal-legates used this faculty with indiscriminating
rigour; and drew upon themselves the prime minister's grave rebuke.
Shocked at finding the arrests considerably exceeded one hundred,
Consalvi declared that the pope would pass for the most relentless
of persecutors, deprecated the abuse of force and of justice which
had been employed, and gave orders to desist from any further
proceedings.[9]
But this act had been as the letting in of waters. The proscriptions
which Consalvi lamented as being so large, were insignificant to those
that desolated the Romagne two years later under the blind intolerance
of Leo XII., and Albani, when he himself had been thrust from office.
Five hundred and eight persons were accused of high treason by the
tribunals presided over by the fanatical Cardinal Rivarola. Of these
offenders, a hundred and twenty-one, belonging to the upper classes of
society, were exiled into Tuscany. But ere long the Government became
apprehensive that they would conspire afresh if left at large. They
were, therefore, summoned back to their own residences. With a fatal
reliance on the good intentions of their sovereign, into which no Roman
subject will ever again be betrayed, they obeyed the command. Scarcely
had they entered the country when they were seized, imprisoned, and,
after a protracted trial, condemned. Seven were beheaded, forty-five
sent to the galleys, and the remainder imprisoned in State fortresses.
The hatred generated by this violation of humanity and good faith,
hopelessly widened the breach between the people and their rulers.
Political assassinations and conspiracies grew more and more frequent,
and these in their turn led to fresh arrests and fresh severities.
But it is with political as in religious persecutions; the secret
societies, which had not comprised more than two thousand members
before 1824, rapidly acquired a vast number of proselytes.
The organization of the _Sanfedisti_ by the Government introduced
another element of discord, terror, and oppression. This association,
intended as a counterpoise to those of the liberals, required of its
adepts the utmost mystery and devotion; they were bound together by the
most solemn oath for the defence of the holy Roman Apostolic faith,
and the temporal authority of the Pope. No family tie, no impulse of
compassion, neither “the tears of women, nor the cries of children,”
were to stand in the way of its fulfilment. So long as they were
faithful to the material obligations of this pledge, the _Sanfedisti_
enjoyed almost complete immunity for any amount of crime, and their
services were requited with a liberality which attracted many to their
ranks. The spy and the informer plied thriving trades, and no class of
society was secure from their baneful presence.
In 1831 the smouldering embers again kindled into flame. The
revolutions of France and Belgium revived the desire of the Italians
for emancipation. Risings took place in Piedmont, Modena, Parma, the
Romagne, and Marche. But this time the insurgents were less moderate in
their aims. The tyranny of the last ten years had borne its accustomed
fruit, and a large leaven of republicanism was now mingled with what
had been the constitutional party of '21. In the papal provinces,
however, the malcontents demanded little beyond the accomplishment of
the reforms promised by Pius VII. But Gregory XVI., the newly-elected
Pope, at once turned to Austria, and three large bodies of imperial
troops speedily restored these importunate subjects to his authority.
Subdued, but not convinced, the Romagnuoli addressed such indignant
remonstrances to France, whose support they had been led to anticipate
before the commencement of the struggle, as aroused that Power to seek
some mitigation of their sufferings. A Conference was proposed to be
held in Rome, at which the representatives of France, England, Russia,
Austria, and Prussia were to deliberate on the means of bringing about
an amicable settlement of the differences between the Pope and his
people.
They were not long in discerning the main defects of the Roman
administration, and in their memorandum of 10th May, 1831, pointed
out the appropriate remedies. These embraced the secularization of
many of the chief offices under Government, and in the courts of law,
hitherto an ecclesiastical monopoly; the complete revision of the
civil and criminal code; the nomination of municipal councils by their
respective communes, instead of by the State; the selection from these
of a deliberative body for each province, to protect local interests;
lastly, these provincial assemblies to furnish the members of a
_Consulta_, which was to have its seat at Rome, regulate the public
debt, and have a voice in the general management of affairs.
These suggestions, it is scarcely necessary to say, were not carried
out. It is universally believed that, though ostensibly favouring their
adoption, Austria, and Russia also, secretly backed the Papal Court
in evading all compliance. Gregory XVI., a native of Belluno, was an
Austrian subject by birth, and showed himself throughout his career a
steady partisan of the House of Hapsburg. He began his reign with the
promise that a _new era_ was about to open;[10] but how little was done
towards its realization may be gathered from the protest of Mr Seymour,
the English minister, on withdrawing from the conferences.
“More than fourteen months,” he says, “have elapsed since the
memorandum was given in, and not one of the recommendations it contains
has been fully adopted by the Papal Government. For even the edicts
which have either been prepared or published, and which profess to
carry some of those recommendations into effect, differ essentially
from the measures recommended in the memorandum. The consequence of
this state of things has been that which it was natural to expect. The
Papal Government having taken no effectual steps to remedy the defects
which had created the discontent, that discontent has been increased
by the disappointment of hopes which the negotiations at Rome were
calculated to excite: and thus, after the Five Powers have for more
than a year been occupied in endeavouring to restore tranquillity to
the Roman State, the prospect of voluntary obedience by the population
to the authority of the Sovereign, seems not to be nearer than it was
when the negotiations first commenced.
“The court of Rome appears to rely upon the temporary presence of
foreign troops, and upon the expected service of an auxiliary Swiss
force, for the maintenance of order in its territories. But foreign
occupation cannot be indefinitely prolonged; and it is not likely
that any Swiss force of such an amount as could be maintained by the
financial means of the Roman Government could be capable of suppressing
the discontent of a whole population; and even if tranquillity could be
restored by such means, it could not be considered to be permanently
re-established, nor would such a condition of things be the kind
of pacification the British Government intended to be a party in
endeavouring to bring about.”...
The concluding sentence is prophetic:—“The British Government foresees
that if the present system is persevered in, fresh disturbances
must be expected to take place in the Papal States, of a character
progressively more and more serious, and that out of those disturbances
may spring complications dangerous to the peace of Europe.”[11]
The English minister needed but to have appealed to the events
which had transpired during his stay in Rome to give weight to his
assertions. The Austrian troops had scarcely been withdrawn when
the Romagne began to demand the unreserved accomplishment of the
promised reforms. Meetings were held in their principal towns, the
representatives of the Five Powers were memorialized, and deputations
sent to the Pope. But in vain. After a few months of growing irritation
and suspicion, the tri-coloured flag was raised in several towns of the
four Legations and the Marches. Upon this, the pontifical troops, who
had been collecting in the vicinity for some time previous, attacked
Forli and Cesena, while Austria a second time poured an army across the
Po for the reduction of the country.
Ancona soon afterwards (February, 1832) received a French garrison.
Jealous of the position assumed by Austria in Italy, this measure was
resolved upon by France to counterbalance that ascendancy. This joint
military occupation of the two nations lasted until the end of 1838.
The tears shed by the Anconitans on the departure of the French were
significant of their forebodings for the future. Evil indeed must be
the condition of a people who prefer foreign occupation to their own
sovereign's rule.
The period that followed, until the death of Gregory XVI., was, indeed,
dark. The clergy, ignorant, grasping, and corrupt, monopolized almost
every channel to emolument or advancement. Ministers, judges, heads of
colleges, directors of hospitals, governors of towns—all were prelates;
a few, indeed, had not received the tonsure, and were free to marry,
on giving up their appointments; but the cases in which the advantages
accruing from celibacy and the clerical habit were renounced, are of
rare occurrence.[12] The introduction of railways, evening schools for
the working-classes, and scientific congresses, were all systematically
opposed. Ruinous loans were contracted, and unjust monopolies conceded,
to defray the expenses of the Swiss mercenaries, and the army of
spies and police agents necessary to keep the population in check.
Notwithstanding these precautions, and the utter hopelessness of
any effort so long as Austria was on the frontier, ready to pour in
her troops when needed, conspiracies were frequently breaking out,
which gave a colour to the increasing blind, fanatical severity of
the Government, only bent on retaining its grasp for the moment,
without a thought on the heritage of hatred and ruin stored up for
its successors. In 1843, partial insurrectionary movements in the
Romagne were punished as in the days of Cardinal Rivarola. Military
commissions were instituted, and in Bologna seven _popolani_, leaders
of the populace, who for the first time were found joined with the
more intellectual classes in opposition to the Government, were
executed, and many more imprisoned. The chief conspirators having
escaped, vengeance was thus wreaked on their subordinates. At Ravenna,
the five chiefs of the movement, amongst whom was Farini, since so
celebrated, also succeeded in eluding arrest; but the commission was
relentless in its inquisition after those on whom a shadow of suspicion
could be fastened. The most barbarous measures were pursued to extort
confession; solitary confinement, intimidation, false intelligence,
even to the terror of impending death. Thirty-six condemnations to the
galleys crowned this investigation. Again in 1845, at Rimini, fresh
disturbances broke out, of which the aim was no republican Utopia, but
simply to demand moderate reforms. The noble manifesto addressed by the
insurgents to the peoples of Europe, seconded by a vigorous exposition
of their wrongs from the pen of Massimo d'Azeglio, struck powerfully,
it is said, upon Cardinal Mastai, shortly afterwards named Pope. But
the advisers of Gregory XVI. dealt with this movement as with those
that had preceded it. Arrests were made all over the country, and gloom
and apprehension filled every heart.
The highways swarmed with robbers and murderers, while the prisons
were tenanted by honest men, arrested as political delinquents, often
ignorant of the offences laid to their charge, and detained for years
without a trial. Commerce languished; bribery and fraud were rife
in every department. Religion had never been in such low estimation,
yet conformity to its most solemn practices was enforced under severe
penalties. Language fails me to describe the misery, the idleness,
the decay, which were the characteristics, at that time, both of the
Romagne and the Marche; and which, unhappily, continue to be applicable
to the latter.
This picture will, I know, be considered exaggerated by those who have
not inhabited these provinces. The appearance of Rome may be cited in
contradiction to my statements. But Rome cannot be taken as a criterion
of the Roman States. It is a cosmopolite city, resorted to by strangers
from all parts of the world, animated and enriched by their presence.
Take away the artists' studios, the shops of the dealers in mosaic and
cameos, statuettes and sarcophagi,—and those who purchase them,—and
grass would be growing in the streets of Rome, as it did six months ago
in the half-depopulated cities of the Legations.
The Cavaliere Baratelli of Ferrara, who was assassinated in
1847, acquired an unenviable notoriety amongst his countrymen as
the head of the _Società Ferdinandea_, a secret society in the
Roman States, of which the scope was to promote the ascendancy of
Austria and the spread of its principles. The Marquis Gualterio
thus sketches his biography:—“Baratelli was a man on whom the
Imperial Government could securely count. His parents, belonging
to Migliarino, in the province of Ferrara, lived upon alms; and in
his childhood he shared their misery, going to beg his daily food
from families whom he afterwards brought to ruin. In one of these
houses an interest was excited in behalf of the little mendicant,
which led to his removal to Ferrara, where he was educated.
In the political turmoil of 1796, he made himself remarkable
for his ultra-revolutionary opinions, and was named one of the
Commissioners of the Cisalpine Republic. He was one of a committee
charged with levying a tax _on the opinion of the aristocrats_;
and through bribes or intimidation laid the foundation of a large
fortune. His private life was most scandalous; he tricked a woman
of some wealth, whom he had seduced from her husband's protection,
into making over to him the whole of her property, and then left
her to die in utter destitution. For this transaction no lodge of
Freemasons would receive him as a member, neither could he obtain
employment under the 'Regno d'Italia.' In 1815 he entered into
the service of Austria as a spy, and was commissary of police,
under General Nugent, at Parma, where, amongst other misdeeds, the
robbery of several valuable works from the public and a conventual
library was universally laid to his charge. In 1821 he accompanied
the Austrians to Naples with the same appointment, which he
exercised with the most flagrant defiance of justice; liberating
those prisoners who bid sufficiently high to satisfy his rapacity,
and cruelly oppressing such as could not, or would not, purchase
their enlargement. Under these circumstances 25,000 dollars were
very soon remitted to Ferrara. The Neapolitan Government, having
dishonest officials enough amongst its own subjects, complained of
his practices, and demanded his removal; but this Austria would
not permit, without the promise of an indemnity for Baratelli
of 20,000 ducats. Not satisfied with this provision, his patrons
insisted on the Pope's nominating him Administrator of Comacchio,
with a salary of a hundred dollars a month; a perfect sinecure,
inasmuch as he simply drew his pay, and never went to Comacchio.
In 1831 he again filled an important situation as Papal Commissary
at Bologna; but here his exclusive devotion to the Imperial
Government, in his capacity of chief of the _Ferdinandea_, which
aimed at no less than the gradual preparation of the Pontifical
States for absorption into the Austrian empire, roused the
suspicions of the authorities at Rome, and he was desired to quit
the country. But the protection of Austria enabled him to evade
this order. The Papal Government was constrained to present him
with 20,000 dollars, as an acknowledgment of his services; and his
exile never existed but in name. He announced that he chose Modena
for his residence, but never quitted Ferrara, where he remained,
under the safe-guard of the Austrian garrison, to serve the police
of the Vienna Cabinet.”
Continuing its favours beyond the grave, the character of
Baratelli was painted in flattering colours by the Imperial
Government to Lord Ponsonby, who describes him as follows:—
_Extract from a despatch from Lord Ponsonby to Lord Palmerston._
VIENNA, 28th June, 1847.
“Baratelli was a landed proprietor in easy circumstances in the
Legation of Ferrara; and during the period of the conquests of the
French in Italy, their great adversary.
“When in 1813 Austria declared war against Napoleon, the Austrian
armies advanced rapidly beyond the Alps, and Baratelli formed
friendly relations with General Count Nugent.
“Baratelli always remained faithful to his principles of public
order. In the revolutionary movements in the States of the Church,
he always took the side of constituted authority, and was in
consequence even persecuted by the Carbonaro party.
“Baron Baratelli was in communication with the Austrian
authorities, &c.”
See “Rivolgimenti Italiani,” by the Marquis Gualterio, vol. I.,
chap. x. Also “Gli Interventi dell' Austria nello Stato Romano,”
by the same author.