The greatest and noblest project of Dr. Salzmann was one which he could

not even begin to carry into execution—that of founding a university, a

new _Fulda_, for the Germans of America. We do not think that such an

institution could or should remain permanently an exclusively German

university. We desire, nevertheless, to see this grand idea carried out,

as a special work of our Catholics of German origin and language, under

the direction of a _corps_ of learned German professors, and with

special reference to the education of youth who are of the same descent

or who wish to study the language and literature of Germany. Time and

the course of nature will eventually blend all our heterogeneous

elements together, but we do not believe in violent efforts to hurry on

the process. All that we can borrow from any European language or

literature, all the recruits we can gain from the nurseries of scholars

or population in the Old World, is so much added to our intellectual,

social, and political strength and breadth. Of course the English

language and literature, American history and institutions, ought to be

assiduously studied by the learned foreigners who are domesticated among

us, and taught to their pupils of a different mother-tongue. This may be

done without abdicating the advantage which they possess, and which

others must acquire at the cost of great labor, by being born heirs to

the inheritance of their own immediate ancestors.

The great practical question of the moment is that of Catholic

education. The advocates of compulsory secular education are the enemies

of religion, of their country, and of true culture. The seminaries,

colleges, and schools where Catholic priests, youths, and children are

trained in sound religious knowledge, morality, and science are the

fortresses and the centres of real civilization. Whoever does a great

work in the cause of Catholic education is a benefactor to the church

and the country. Such a noble and meritorious man was Dr. Salzmann, a

priest powerful in word and work, a model for the young ecclesiastics of

the Salesianum to imitate, an encouraging example for all who are

laboring to found and perfect similar institutions. The diocese of

Milwaukee was a poor and feeble little bishopric when the venerable Dr.

Henni was consecrated in 1844. Now it is a metropolitan see, with above

190,000 Catholics in its diocesan limits, above 180 priests, several

flourishing institutions for the higher education of both sexes, and

schools in almost every parish. The Salesianum, where the first rector,

Dr. Heiss, was professor of Greek, mathematics, physics, philosophy, and

moral theology, numbers thirteen professors and two hundred and fifty

students. Surely, the prayers and labors of a good bishop, seconded by

those of able and zealous priests, can work wonders now as well as in

the best ages of the past. Indeed, works which a St. Francis of Sales

was unable to accomplish are now successfully performed within a short

time and with comparatively little difficulty. Assuredly, we cannot fail

to recognize a special benediction of God upon the church of the United

States.

THE CONSOLATION OF THE DEVOUT SOUL. By the Very Rev. Joseph

Frassinetti, Prior of Santa Sabina, in Genoa. Translated by

Georgiana Lady Chatterton. London: Burns & Oates. 1876. (For sale by

The Catholic Publication Society.)

The worth of a book ought to be estimated chiefly from its intrinsic

merits, yet, even without being acquainted with these, we may often

obtain a fair idea of its character by knowing something about the

author.

Father Frassinetti was an extraordinary man. He was born in the city of

Genoa on Dec. 15, 1803, and died there on the 3d of January, 1868.

Thirty-nine years of his life were spent in the priesthood, with an

unsullied reputation for piety and zeal, and a wide-spread fame as a

preacher, director of consciences, and writer on spiritual matters. A

uniform edition of his works, which are all in Italian, was published

shortly before his death in ten volumes, and dedicated to the late

Cardinal Patrizi, Vicar of Rome.

The first volume of his collected works contains _Il conforto dell’

Anima Divota_, of which we have the excellent translation before us. Its

author was not only a remarkably learned man, but also a singularly

pious man—one whom our Holy Father Pope Pius IX. called, in a certain

brief, a priest _spectatæ doctrinæ et virtutis_—and distinguished by the

rare faculty of being able to communicate his knowledge to others, and

of knowing how to lead others on to personal holiness. Nearly forty

years of his life were passed in leaching his fellow-men by word and

example how to love, serve, and honor God and save their souls. That

such a one should have written this little book on _The Consolation of

the Devout Soul_ is a sufficient guarantee of its usefulness and

doctrine. The work is divided into five chapters and an appendix, in

which the author successively defines what is meant by Christian

perfection, shows that it is not a thing too difficult to be acquired,

solves certain objections against facility of sanctification, explains

the beauty and utility of Christian perfection, points out the means of

arriving at this much-desired end, and concludes with a short treatise

on the holy fear of God. Several notes are added.

This translation bears the _imprimatur_ of the devout and learned Bishop

of Birmingham. We earnestly recommend it to the members of religious

orders, and to people who serve God in the world.

THE CODE POETICAL READER, for school and home use. With marginal

notes, and biographical notices of authors. By a Teacher. London:

Burns & Oates. 1877. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society.)

This Reader is made up of eighty short poems from British and American

authors. Each selection is accompanied by marginal notes and is headed

by a short biographical notice. The plan is excellent, the publishers’

work is well done, but the biographical notices are so brief as to be of

little value, and the marginal notes are nothing more than commonplace

definitions of difficult words. Perhaps it is hardly just to call the

words referred to difficult, since the majority of the poems are as

simple in diction as _Lord Ullin’s Daughter_. The fault may be

attributed partly to the marginal-note plan, since an absence of notes

would leave an unsightly page. Still, this is no excuse for careless

definitions: _unfriended_ is a poor substitute for _forlorn_;

_California_ is not _a mountainous country of North America on the

Pacific coast_; _Indian_ is a name given to the _aboriginal_ inhabitants

of America, not to the _ancient_ inhabitants; _pollution_ does not mean

_to corrupt_; concealing can hardly mean at once _hiding_ and _to keep

secret_. In the lines from _The Village Blacksmith_,

“Each morning sees some task begun,

Each evening sees its close,”

the word _close_ is defined _finished_. These are a few inaccuracies out

of many. The selections comprise some of the most exquisite short poems

in the language, there being few extracts and but one translation. Were

it not for the absence of selections from Catholic sources, this would

be a desirable class-book. Why Adelaide Procter, Aubrey de Vere, Gerald

Griffin, Davis, McGee, are excluded, and Bret Harte honored in two

places, is a mystery. Nor do other poets fare better. Caswall is not

mentioned; in truth, there is not one poem from a Catholic author.

Catholics are not the only persons who suffer from the editor’s

discrimination. Tennyson is excluded, while Rev. Charles Kingsley

contributes two pieces. Six selections come from Longfellow. These facts

show that it was not for want of space that Catholic poems find no room

in a text-book published by a Catholic firm. Nor was it merit alone that

prompted the editor in his selection. The book seems to have been

prepared for schools in which neither the name nor the sentiment of a

Catholic writer might enter. The system that excludes the grace and

purity of Adelaide Procter, the sweetness and vigor of De Vere, and the

perfect rhythm of Tennyson will bring forth bitter fruit, and those who

assist the projectors in their plans may expect to reap the usual

harvest of ingratitude, together with the unpleasant memory of having

closed their eyes to the merits of Catholic poets because of the

hostility of some so-called non sectarian school-board.

SUMMA SUMMÆ. Pars Prima—De Deo. Confecit ac edidit T. J. O’Mahony,

S.T.D., Philos. in Collegio OO.SS., Dublinii, Professor. Dublinii:

apud M. H. Gill et Fil.; Lond.: Burns et Oates; Paris: J. Lecoffre

et Soc. 1877.

This summary of the _Summa Theologica_ of St. Thomas is chiefly intended

as an aid to ecclesiastical students in the study of the great work of

the Angelic Doctor. The first part only is yet published. Dr. O’Mahony,

of All-Hallow’s College, its author, with great skill and painstaking,

has endeavored to make the order and arrangement of topics and divisions

in the _Summa_ more intelligible by means of a convenient

type-arrangement and distinctive headings, and to facilitate the

understanding of the text by an analytical abstract which contains many

literal quotations, followed by a synthetic synopsis of subjects. The

work seems to have been done intelligently and well, and its utility is

obvious to every student who has attempted to read even one page of the

_Summa_. It is neatly printed, and we trust may soon be completed.

WHY ARE WE ROMAN CATHOLICS? BECAUSE WE ARE REASONABLE MEN. By

Hermann Joseph Graf Fugger Glött, Priest of the Society of Jesus.

From the German. London: Burns & Oates. 1877. (For sale by The

Catholic Publication Society.)

A clear, solid, and short exposition of the Catholic faith, in view of

actual objections against its reasonableness. It would be well if there

were more works of this kind. The rational side of revealed truth needs

a various development to meet the many intellectual demands of our age.

Besides, there are many sincere persons in Protestant communities who

are disposed to be Christians, but are in suspense because of the

inconsistency of Protestantism with reason. These need only the

obstacles to faith to be removed for them to become Catholics. For such

this short treatise will be of special service. It should be also read

by Catholics, as they ought to be prepared when asked to know how “to

give a reason for the hope that is in them.” The author shows a familiar

knowledge of the anti-Christian writers of our day, is free from all

bitterness, and we hope to hear from his pen in this field again. The

translation reads as if written in English.

CARTE ECCLESIASTIQUE DES ETATS-UNIS DE L’AMERIQUE. LYONS. 1877.

A few copies of this chart have been sent to this country, and we have

received one through the courtesy of Father Perron, of Woodstock

College. It is a handsome, well-executed, and, so far as we have

discovered, correct map of the provinces and bishoprics of the United

States. Such a map is convenient and valuable. We think it would be

improved by making each of the provinces of one distinct color, and

marking the dioceses by broad colored lines, and the States by similar

black lines. The titles of the provinces and dioceses might also be

printed in large letters, and the sees receive more conspicuous signs.

The chart is published by the Society of Catholic Missions, 6 Rue

d’Auvergne, à Lyon. Directeur, M. l’Abbé Stanislas Laverrière. All the

profits are given to the missions. We suggest to our Catholic publishers

to send for copies and keep them on hand for sale.

HEROIC WOMEN OF THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH. By the Rev. Bernard

O’Reilly, D.D. With art illustrations. New York: J. B. Ford & Co.

1877.

We can do no more now than call the attention of our readers to this

most beautiful work—beautiful in every sense—of which we have received

advance sheets. The author’s name needs no introduction to Catholic

readers. We reserve for a future date a fuller notice of a

well-conceived and admirably executed work, one too of great practical

utility. Father O’Reilly’s statement in the preface, that “the

publishers have spared neither labor nor expense to make this book most

beautiful in form,” is obviously true at the first glance.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXV., No. 147.—JUNE, 1877.

THE PAPAL JUBILEE.

SONNETS BY AUBREY DE VERE.

I.

THE GREAT PILGRIMAGE.

What beam is that, guiding once more from far

Earth’s Elders Rome-ward over sea and land?

What Sanctity, serene as Bethlehem’s star,

From East and West leads on each pilgrim band?

God’s light it is—on an unsceptred Hand!

God’s promise, shining without let or bar,

O’er sleeping realms that yet may wake in war,

Forth from that Brow Discrowned whose high command

Freshens in splendor with the advancing night

Missioned to blot all godless crowns with gloom:—

Like fruits untimely from a tree in blight

Such crowns shall fall. Even now they know their doom!

Advance, pure hearts! Your instinct guides you right

The Bethlehem Crib, this day, is by Saint Peter’s tomb.

II.

THE JERUSALEM OF THE NEW LAW.

“The Tribes ascend.” Ten centuries and nine

Have well-nigh passed since first the earth’s green breast

Confessed, deep-graved, those feet that Christ confessed,—

Those feet which, then when earth was Palestine,

Circled her Salem new. Mankind was thine,

O Rome, that time. All nations sent their best

To waft thee offerings, and their faith attest:—

They love thee most who love thee in decline.

The noble seek thy courts. What gibbering crew

Snarls at their heels? The brood that fears and hates;—

Prescient Defeat in bonds, that jeers the brave:

Ascend, true hearts! Such tribute is your due!

In Rome’s old triumphs thus the car-bound slave

Scoffed, as he passed, of Fortune’s spite, and Fate’s.[42]

Footnote 42:

In the Roman triumphs a captive slave was bound to the car of the

conqueror, into whose ear his office was to whisper of fortune’s

instability.

III.

THE CONFESSOR PONTIFF.

Full fifty years are past since first that weight

Descended on his head which made more strong

His heart, his hands more swift to war with wrong—

His martyred Master’s dread Episcopate:

Full thirty years beside the Apostles’ Gate

He reigned, and reigns: he roamed, an exile, long:

Restored, he faced once more the apostate throng,

Unbowed in woes, in greatness unelate.

New Hierarchies he sped to realms remote:

Central, by Peter’s Tomb he raised his hands

Blessing his thousand bishops from all lands;

Confirmed their great decree. False kings he smote:—

How long, just God, shall Treason’s banner float

O’er faith’s chief shrine profaned by rebel bands?

POPE PIUS THE NINTH.[43]

Footnote 43:

_Pie IX.: sa vie, son Histoire, son Siècle._ Par J. M. Villefranche.

Lyons. 1876.

_Rome: its Ruler and its Institutions._ By John Francis Maguire, M.P.

New York. 1858.

_Italy in 1848._ By L. Mariotti. London. 1851.

_The Secret Societies of the European Revolution, 1776-1876._ By

Thomas Frost. 2 vols. 8vo. London. 1876.

The whole Catholic world prepares to celebrate on the 3d of June of this

year the fiftieth anniversary of an episcopate which has no parallel in

the history of the church. Our Holy Father Pius IX. has surpassed most

of his predecessors in the importance of his labors, and has far

exceeded them all in the length of his pontificate. He was young when he

reached the dignity of bishop, but Leo XII., to whom he owed his

promotion, had already discerned the beauty of his character.

Sinigaglia, where he was born, on the 13th of May, 1792; Volterra, where

he passed six years at college; Rome, where he studied theology, abound

with stories of the sweet and sunny disposition, the fervent piety, and

the burning zeal which illustrated even his tenderest years. He was six

years of age when the venerable Pius VI. was dragged away into

captivity, and the biographers of Pius IX. speak of the excitement which

stirred his boyish heart, and the prayers which he poured out night and

morning at his mother’s knee for the outraged church. His earliest

recollections of the Papacy were a fit preparation for what he was to

undergo in after-life. The Holy Father appeared to his young eyes, not

as the crowned pontiff, but as the suffering and heroic confessor. He

saw Pius VII. following Pius VI. into banishment. He saw the last inch

of territory taken from the Holy See. One of his uncles, a canon of St.

Peter’s, was driven from Rome on account of his fidelity to the pope;

and another uncle, who was Bishop of Pesaro, was thrown into prison for

the same cause. He had finished his course at college and was living at

home when Pius VII. returned from exile, and he was presented to the

pontiff as he passed through Sinigaglia on the road to Rome. The Mastai

family were distantly related to Pius VII., and the pope took an

interest in his kinsman. But there was an obstacle which seemed likely

to defeat the young Mastai’s desire to enter holy orders. He was subject

to fits of epilepsy. The physicians gave him no hope of a cure. About

the time of the pope’s return, however, the violence of the disorder

began to abate, and his health was soon so far restored that he was

encouraged to continue his studies for the church. He always ascribed

his relief to the protection of the Blessed Virgin. In 1819 he was

ordained priest by special dispensation, and appointed to the humble

duty of serving the asylum for poor children established in the Via

Giulia in Rome by a pious mason named Giovanni Borgi. It was called the

Asylum Tata Giovanni, because “Tata Giovanni”—or Papa John—was the name

which the lads used to give their protector. The Abbate Mastai had been

a good friend and helper of Papa John, and was glad of the privilege of

continuing his work now that the benevolent old man had gone to his

reward. He occupied a little chamber in the asylum. He ate at the table

with the boys. He spent all his income in their service. He kept his

regard for them long after they had grown up, and even as Pope he

remembered the names of his pupils and followed their fortunes with a

tender interest. It has often been said that Pius IX. never forgot

anybody.

The first employment which brought him into public notice was a mission

to the New World. Some of the clergy of the South American states had

petitioned the Holy See to fill their long-vacant bishoprics. Many years

had passed since the close of their war of independence with Spain, but

the mother-country still asserted the authority which she no longer

attempted to enforce, and claimed the right of presentation to sees long

withdrawn from her jurisdiction. The church in South America remained,

consequently, in lamentable confusion until the Sovereign Pontiff

resolved to re-establish order by the exercise of his prerogative,

without government interference from either side; and the embassy of

which we speak was despatched in consequence. Monsignore Muzi, with the

title of vicar-apostolic, was at the head of it, and the Abbate Mastai

was appointed adjunct.[44] Before the expedition sailed Pope Pius VII.

died, but Leo XII. confirmed the selections made by his predecessor;

and, indeed, the choice of the Abbate Mastai had been made originally by

his advice. On the voyage the ship was driven by stress of weather into

the Spanish port of Palma, in the island of Majorca. The governor threw

the embassy into prison and kept them for some days in seclusion, on the

ground that the country to which they were bound was in rebellion

against the Spanish crown. “Then,” said the Pope, in telling this

adventure nearly half a century afterward, “I realized the necessity of

the papal independence. They sent me a ration of food every day from the

ship, but I was allowed neither letters nor papers. I was initiated on

this occasion, however, into the little stratagems of solitary

prisoners; for we hid our correspondence in loaves of bread.” The

embassy got away at last and spent two years of fatigue and danger in

South America, visiting the missions of Chili, Peru, and Colombia,

traversing the awful passes of the Cordilleras, and crossing the

continent in bullock-carts—a journey which took them nearly two months.

Once, in going by sea from Valparaiso to Callao, their vessel, caught

near the coast in a gale, was driving upon the rocks when a fisherman

put off in his boat, boarded them in the midst of the storm, and brought

them through intricate passages into the harbor of Arica. The next day

the Abbate Mastai visited the hut of this daring pilot, and left with

him a purse containing about four hundred dollars. After becoming Pope

he sent the man a second purse of equal value and his picture. The

fisherman was overwhelmed with gratitude. The first four hundred dollars

had proved the making of his fortune. He gave the second to the poor,

and placed the picture of the Pope in a little chapel which he had built

on a spot overlooking the sea.

Footnote 44:

For a full account of this mission see THE CATHOLIC WORLD for January,

1876.

The embassy returned to Rome in 1825, and the Abbate Mastai was

appointed canon of Santa Maria in Via Lata, a little church on the

Corso, with an oratory in which pious tradition relates that St. Paul

and St. Luke used to teach the faith to the first Christians of Rome. He

was also promoted to the prelacy and placed at the head of the great

Hospital of St. Michael. “The Hospital of St. Michael,” says one of the

latest of the biographers of Pius IX., “is a city in itself, and its

administration is a real government.” Founded two centuries ago by

Innocent X., it grew, by the additions of later pontiffs, to be one of

the greatest and grandest asylums in existence—a house of refuge for the

young, a retreat for the aged and infirm, a hospital for the sick, a

reformatory for Magdalens, a home for virtuous girls, and, besides all

that, a school of arts and industries. When Monsignore Mastai assumed

the presidency of this vast and complicated institution, every

department of it was in a deplorable state of disorganization. Nearly

all the earnings of the boys and girls in the industrial schools went

towards the support of the establishment, and yet there was an enormous

deficit in the revenues. Bankruptcy seemed at hand. The new president

took up his task with magnificent ardor and equally magnificent

discretion, with the enthusiasm of a reformer and the practical sagacity

of a man of business. In two years the disorder was at an end. The

expenses of the institution were brought within its income, yet its

charity was enlarged rather than restricted, and a large share of the

earnings of the boys was paid into a savings’ fund, to be returned to

them when they went out into the world. Monsignore Mastai had obtained

this remarkable result in part by his talent for business; but not

wholly by that, for when the work was done his own patrimony had

disappeared. “Of what use is money to a priest,” said he, “except to be

spent in the cause of charity?” So it happened that when Leo XII. called

him to the archbishopric of Spoleto in 1827 he had not money enough to

pay for his bulls. The last acre of his estate was sold for the

customary fees, and he entered Spoleto as penniless as the apostle whom

our Lord commanded to take the tax-money from the mouth of a fish.

The first years of his episcopate were passed as any one who had watched

the labors of his priesthood might have predicted that they would be. He

was rarely seen by the courtiers of the papal palace, but his people

knew him as the friend and father of the poor, and loved him for a

tenderness and generosity almost without bounds. He filled his diocese

with good works, founding seminaries and asylums, introducing charitable

orders, always setting a practical example of beneficence by attending

personally to the wants of the unfortunate. He spent in alms the last

copper in his purse, and sold the ornaments from his parlor for the poor

when his purse was empty. It was the golden time of his life—a time of

peace and consolation. The church in Italy just then was at rest. A long

period of political disturbance had been followed by comparative quiet.

Convents and pious schools were multiplied, and the saintly Archbishop

of Spoleto found himself in the midst of a devout clergy and a grateful

people. There was a short outbreak in the Romagna in 1831, premature and

easily suppressed, and it was then that the archbishop was brought for

the first time into contact with the spirit of revolution destined to

make such a bitter and memorable war upon him in later years. Among the

adventurers implicated in the movement were two scions of the Bonaparte

family. The elder brother died during the enterprise; the younger lived

to become emperor. There is a story that when Louis Napoleon fled from

the ruin of the revolt in the Romagna, he knocked one night at the door

of the Archbishop of Spoleto, and owed his safety to the charity of that

most charitable of men. It is a story which rests upon no very firm

authority, and yet, though often published, it stands uncontradicted. It

is certain, however, that in the last days of the insurrection the

archbishop did show his tenderness for the unfortunate in a signal

manner. Four thousand revolutionists, pursued by Austrian troops,

presented themselves before Spoleto. The archbishop went out to meet

them. He persuaded them, since their cause was lost, to lay down their

arms. He gave them several thousand crowns for their immediate needs. He

pledged his word that they should not be molested. Then he performed the

still more difficult task of inducing the Austrian commander to ratify

the promise. The pursuit was abandoned; the insurgents retired quietly

to their homes. Pope Gregory XVI., however, was not pleased with this

transaction, and the archbishop was called to Rome to defend himself. We

must presume that his explanation was satisfactory; for the next year he

was advanced to the see of Imola. This is only a suffragan see, but it

is more important in itself than the archbishopric of Spoleto, and is,

moreover, what is called a cardinalitial post—under ordinary

circumstances a step towards the higher dignity of the scarlet hat. It

was held by Pius VII. when he was Cardinal Chiaramonti. The promotion of

Bishop Mastai came in due course. His creation as cardinal was announced

in December, 1840, having been reserved _in petto_ since the previous

year, and he took his title from the church of SS. Peter and

Marcellinus. With his new dignity he adopted no new mode of life. Works

of charity and devotion still filled his days. The love and respect of

all classes of men still encompassed him. It is the best proof of the

tranquil and happy course of his episcopate that of the nineteen years

which he passed at Spoleto and Imola there is hardly an incident to be

related.

His whole life thus far seems to have been a providential preparation

for the two great works for which he was destined by Almighty God. On

the spiritual side of the church he was to bring about the consolidation

of Catholic dogma and the complete definition and development of the

authority of the church over the minds and hearts of her children. On

the secular side, after showing the perfect compatibility of the

temporal power with the needs of modern society, he was to guide the

church with fortitude and prudence, and give the Christian world a

shining example of constancy during the trying days that were to see

that power destroyed. What better training could he have had for this

double destiny than so many years of charitable labor and close

intercourse with God? He issued at last from his pious retirement with a

character enriched by the daily practice of virtue, a disposition

sweetened by the habit of self-sacrifice, a resolution strengthened by

reliance upon God, and a heavenly courage that was proof against the

threats and buffets of the world.

I.

We have spoken of the brief season of repose in Italian politics about

the time of our Holy Father’s elevation to the episcopate. It was,

indeed, only a transient gleam of sunlight in the midst of a tempestuous

era. We come now to a period of universal disturbance. This is not the

place to discuss the causes of the great revulsions of 1848. Probably

they were more complex and reached further back than the world generally

supposes. But whatever may have been the local provocations for revolt

in particular states, it is clear that, for more than a quarter of a

century before the date with which we are now occupied, the

revolutionary tendencies of all Europe had shown a unity of direction

which implied a single guiding impulse. It is not credible that a few

clubs of political enthusiasts, visionary young students, hare-brained

apothecaries, and metaphysical breeches-makers should be able by the

fire of their own genius to set a continent in flames. The revolutionary

propaganda of 1830-1848 found in every country of Europe a combustible

population only waiting for the spark. Some states were rotten with

social and moral disorders of long standing; some, like Poland, were

writhing under an oppression which moved the sympathies of the whole

world; some fretted under the restrictions of antiquated forms of

government, unsuited to the wants of an expanding society. Thus the

generous and patriotic were easily hurried into enterprises whose true

purpose they were far from suspecting. The central influence which

vitalized and directed all the scattered tendencies towards revolt was

the conspiracy of the secret societies. “In the attempt to conduct the

government of the world,” said the British prime minister last autumn,

in his address at Aylesbury, “there are new elements to be considered

which our predecessors had not to deal with. We have not only to deal

with emperors, princes, and ministers, but there are the secret

societies—an element which we must take into consideration, which at the

last moment may baffle all our arrangements, which have their agents

everywhere, which countenance assassination, and which, if necessary,

could produce a massacre.” Lord Beaconsfield’s statement was a very mild

one. The secret societies had become, at the time of which we write, the

most formidable force in European politics. There was not a corner of

the Continent in which their power was not felt. Intimately allied with

Freemasonry, their origin dates back to a remote, unknown time. They

were already strong in the eighteenth century, and their share in the

great French Revolution is well understood. They became formidable in

the Illuminism of Weishaupt in Germany a hundred years ago. They

appeared in the Tugendbund, which had so large a share in the overthrow

of the governments imposed upon the German states by Napoleon I. They

were busy in Russia, in Greece, in Ireland, in Spain, and even in the

Swiss Republic; in Italy they have never been idle since the first

appearance of the Carbonari at the beginning of the century; in France

they are the only power which seems to be permanent. As early as 1821

the Italian revolutionist, Pepe, gave Carbonarism an international

character by establishing in Spain a secret association of the “advanced

political reformers of all the European states”; and in 1834 Mazzini

made a much more effective union of the revolutionary elements when,

with the aid of Italian, Polish, and German refugees, he founded at

Berne the society of Young Europe. The organization of Young Germany,

Young Poland, and Young Switzerland dates from the same time and place,

and Switzerland became the centre of all the agitations of the

Continent. Young Italy had been grafted upon Carbonarism by Mazzini as

early as 1831.

Many of these associations, as we have already intimated, professed an

excellent object. They would have been comparatively harmless, if they

had not attracted and deceived the good. The Tugendbund, for instance,

originally aimed at the deliverance of Germany from a foreign yoke;

Young Poland captivated the noble and the ardent; even the Carbonari had

an alluring watchword in the Unity and Independence of Italy. But there

was always an ulterior purpose, revealed only to the initiated. That

purpose was one and unchanging, and it was the bond which united all the

leaders of the vast conspiracy from the Irish Sea to the Grecian

Archipelago, from Gibraltar to Nova Zembla. It was the establishment

everywhere of an atheistic democracy; or rather the destruction

simultaneously of all religion, all government, and all social bonds.

Kings and priests were equally hateful to the “Illuminated.” There was

to be no recognition of God in their republic. It was hostile not only

to the Catholic Church as an organization, but to Christianity as a

moral influence. The Illuminati were founded in the midst of the Masonic

lodges of Bavaria; they passed thence into Austria, Saxony, Holland,

Italy, and Switzerland; they were carried to Paris by Mirabeau, who was

initiated in Germany; they were united with the Freemasons all over

France. Recognized as the parents of the later societies, they sounded

as early as 1777 the key-note of the whole complex movement. Findel, the

Masonic historian of Freemasonry, declares that “the most decisive

agent” in giving the order a political and anti-religious character was

“that intellectual movement known under the name of English deism, which

boldly rejected all revelation and all religious dogmas, and under the

victorious banner of reason and criticism broke down all barriers in its

path.” But Weishaupt found still too much “political and religious

prejudice” remaining in the Freemasons, and consequently devised a

system which, as he expressed it, would “attract Christians of every

communion and gradually free them from all religious prejudices.” The

“illumination” of the brethren was to be accomplished by a course of

gradual education in which Christianity was carefully ignored. It was

only in the higher degrees that the initiated were taught that the fall

of man meant nothing but the subjection of the individual to civil

society; that “illumination” consisted in getting rid of all

governments; and that “the secret associations were gradually and

silently to possess themselves of the government of the states, making

use for this purpose of the means which the wicked use for attaining

their base ends.” We quote this from the discourse read at initiation

into one of the higher degrees, and discovered when the papers of the

fraternity were seized by the Elector of Bavaria in 1785. The same

document continues: “Princes and priests are in particular the wicked

whose hands we must tie up by means of these associations, if we cannot

wipe them out altogether.” Patriotism was defined as a narrow-minded

prejudice; and, finally, the illuminated man was taught that everything

is material, that religion has no foundation, that all nations must be

brought back, either by peaceable means or by force, to their pristine

condition of unrestricted liberty, for “all subordination must vanish

from the face of the earth.” The ceremonies of initiation into the

lodges of the Carbonari remind us so strongly of this explanation of the

principles of Illuminism that it is impossible to resist the conclusion

that the two associations are closely connected. The neophyte was taught

the same doctrine in both: that man had everywhere fallen into the hands

of oppressors, whose authority it was the mission of the enlightened to

cast off. Here, however, as in the earlier society, the pagan character

of the proposed new life was only revealed by degrees to those who were

prepared for it. The conspirators seem to have accommodated their system

of education to the peculiarities of national training and disposition.

For example, they humored the religious tendencies of the Italians by

retaining the name of God and the image of the crucifix in the

ceremonial of the lower degrees, and even published a forged bull, in

the name of Pope Pius VII., approving the Carbonari; while in the

training of Young Germany just a contrary course was adopted. “We are

obliged to treat new-comers very cautiously,” says a report from a

propagandist committee established among the Germans in Switzerland, “to

bring them step by step into the right road, and the principal thing in

this respect is to show them that religion is nothing but a pile of

rubbish.” Indeed, the rampant atheism of the secret societies of

Germany, and also of France, has always been notorious. Of the still

more horrible manifestations of impiety to which they were carried in

Italy we hesitate to speak, lest we be suspected of sensational

exaggerations. All that we have said thus far of the principles and

practices of the Masons, Illuminati, and Carbonari is quoted from their

own books and papers, and may be found in the work of their admirer and

apologist, Thomas Frost, the title of which we have placed at the head

of this article. For a more startling picture of their inner mysteries

we refer the reader to Father Bresciani,[45] who lived in Rome in 1848

and had direct testimony of horrors which almost defy belief. Mr. Frost,

however, gives a glimpse of the worse than pagan spirit of Carbonarism

when he describes the initiation into the second degree—a ceremony

wherein the candidate, crowned with thorns and bearing a cross,

personated our divine Lord, and knelt to ask pardon of Pilate, Caiphas,

and Herod, represented by the grand master and two assistants, the

pardon being granted at the intercession of the assembled Carbonari! In

all the societies an abstract morality was taught which was not the

morality of Jesus Christ, and laws were laid down at variance with the

laws of the state. Assassination was one of the chief duties which the

fraternity enjoined upon its votaries. The initiated fancied that they

emancipated themselves from all subordination; but they bound themselves

by the most awful penalties to murder any one, even friend or brother,

who might be pointed out for death by some unseen, unknown, and shadowy

authority.

Footnote 45:

_The Jew of Verona._ English translation, 2 vols. 12mo. Baltimore.

1854.

When Pope Gregory XVI. came to the throne the conspiracies of ten years

were just ripening. He was assailed in the very first month of his

pontificate by the rising in the Romagna, and he spent the fifteen years

of his reign in a struggle to keep down the evil spirit whose apparition

then alarmed him. All Europe during these fifteen years was a volcano

sending forth the deep mutterings and sulphurous vapors which presage an

eruption. France was never at peace from the overthrow of Charles X. in

1830 till after the re-establishment of the empire—if even she is at

peace yet. Every capital in Germany was in nightly danger of the dagger,

the torch, and the barricade. Switzerland, though a free republic, was

no less severely tormented by conspiracies than the monarchical

countries, and after several years of contention her secret societies

took arms in 1844 to compel the Catholic cantons, against the

constitution of the confederation, to expel the Jesuits. In Poland, at

the very moment when the nobles were preparing a revolt against the

Austrian yoke, a socialistic and agrarian rising of the peasants against

the nobles filled Galicia with massacres of incredible barbarity. In

Italy the Carbonari negotiated for a while with the Duke of Modena, by

whose aid they proposed to expel the Austrians from Lombardy and Venice,

and unite the states of the north and centre under one sovereign—of

course with the further object, held in reserve, of getting rid of the

Duke of Modena as soon as they had no further use for him: a scheme

almost exactly like that which Young Italy tried a few years later with

Charles Albert of Sardinia. Defeated in this project and crushed in

attempts at insurrection, they worked for some time in secret, but they

worked with furious energy. The doctrines of Illumination were carried

into every corner of the peninsula. A score of local secret associations

came into existence, adding to the wickedness of the parent society some

peculiar brutality of their own. Ancona had its “Society of Death,”

Sinigaglia its “Infernal Association,” Leghorn its “Society of Slayers,”

Faenza its “Band of Stabbers.”

Between 1831 and 1840, however, the policy of the Italian revolutionists

was greatly modified. Mazzini established Young Italy under the

conviction that the old methods of conspiracy must fail. Instead of

wasting their strength in vain efforts to overturn the Italian princes

singly, he urged the brethren to concentrate their energies upon a

movement for the expulsion of the Austrians and a consolidation of all

the Italian states. The fate of pope, and kings, and princes could be

settled afterwards. “All questions as to forms of internal policy,” he

wrote, “can be put off till the close of the war of independence.” Italy

and independence! This was a programme, not for the secret societies

alone, but for the whole peninsula. It captivated the generous, the

impulsive, the ardent, the ambitious. It brought to the same work

poetry, patriotism, and religion, the pistol, the dagger, and the

poisoned cup. What was to be done with Italy, when it was united and rid

of the Austrians, was one of the secrets of the initiated never

explained to the common people; but remarkable illustrations of the

inner character of this movement were found in 1844 among certain papers

seized by the police in Rome. “Our watchword,” wrote one of the leaders,

“must be Religion, Union, Independence. As for the King of Sardinia, we

should seek some favorable opportunity to poignard him. I recommend the

same course to be pursued in regard to the King of Naples. The Lombards

may second our efforts by poison, or by insurrection, under the form of

little 'Sicilian Vespers’ against the Germans. Functionaries or private

citizens who show a hostile spirit must be put to death. Let them be

arrested quietly during the night, and the report be circulated that

they have been exiled or sent to prison, or have absconded.” Mazzini

himself a little later, in an address to Young Italy, gave a significant

explanation of his idea. “In your country,” said he, “regeneration must

come through the princes. Get them on your side. Attack their vanity.

Let them march at the head, if they will, so long as they march your

way. Few will go to the end. If they make concessions, praise them and

insist upon something further. The essential thing is not to let them

know what the goal of the revolution is. They must never see more than

one step at a time.” And he urged also the importance of “managing” the

clergy. “Its habits and hierarchy make it the imp of authority—that is

to say, of despotism”; but the people believe in it, and we must make

its influence of use. With the Jesuits, however, he proclaimed war to

the knife. None of the socialists and infidels were willing to make any

terms with the sons of St. Ignatius.

In the prosecution of this new scheme of revolution the conspirators

obtained invaluable help from a most unexpected ally. The erring genius

of the unfortunate Abbate Gioberti did more for them than the

machinations of the lodges. Carried away by visions of a new Italy and a

new Catholicism, he forgot the divine mission of the church in

speculations as to what she might accomplish in purely secular

enterprises. His great error was in thinking of religion as an agent of

civilization rather than an instrumentality for saving souls, and thus

he was led into the blunder of attempting to unite God and the world in

an equal partnership. He conceived the idea of an Italian federation

with the King of Sardinia as military head and the Pope as spiritual

president—a sort of dual empire like that of Japan, with a tycoon at

Turin, a mikado at the Vatican. But the clergy were to abdicate their

dominion over the minds of men, and bend their energies to effecting an

alliance of religion with a material progress that in his theory had

outstripped the church and become for ever incompatible with

ecclesiastical tutelage. He wished the priests to put themselves at the

head of the new social movements, and, hand in hand with the political

agitators, to lead Italy to a material glory such as no nation on earth

had ever seen. His book, _Del Primato_, was welcomed with unparalleled

enthusiasm. The charm of a brilliant style, the force of an original,

cultivated, and poetic mind, the glamour of a philosophy which seemed to

meet all the wants of an exciting and uneasy time, turned the heads of

the whole nation. Gioberti, Cesare Balbo, Massimo d’Azeglio, were the

creators of a new literature, and all Italy read them with flashing eyes

and quickening pulse. Theirs was a reform which seized upon the fancy of

good and bad alike, and hurried into a common delusion the heedless

Christian and the veteran Carbonaro, the young, the imaginative, the

adventurous, and the artful. Mazzini, who afterwards became one of

Gioberti’s bitterest enemies, was too shrewd to undervalue this

influence. He sought an interview with Gioberti in Paris; he offered

terms of co-operation; he even went through the form of renouncing what

he styled his own “more narrow views,” and proposed a National

Association which, adjourning all questions of forms and spirit of

government, faith or scepticism, God or the devil, should unite Italy in

the single purpose of creating an Italian nation. Different as the aims

of the two men were—for Gioberti included even the Austrian government

of Lombardy and Venice in his union—they embraced each other for the

moment. Together they swept the peninsula. Every city from Palermo to

Milan was aflame with the new ideas. The soberest patriots lost their

composure, and many of the clergy began to dream wild dreams of

political change, and to see visions of reformed conspirators kneeling

at the feet of a democratic pope. We look back upon those days from the

vantage-ground of experience, and we wonder that men should have been so

deceived. But 1848 had not then given the lie to the professions of

1846. Devout Italians at that time did not see, as we do, that the

secret societies which assailed the church on one side of the Alps with

fire and sword could not be sincere in offering to place it in a new

position of power and glory on the other, nor did they realize the

extent of the conspiracy to overwhelm religion, government, and social

order throughout Europe in one general ruin.

That conspiracy was more formidable in Italy than anywhere else, and it

was more formidable not only because it was better organized, but

because it involved so many men of blameless character and offered to

satisfy a lofty national aspiration. During the last years of Pope

Gregory XVI. an explosion seemed inevitable. Probably nothing kept it

back except the age and infirmities of the venerable pontiff; the

leaders preferred to wait for his death. He died on the 1st of June,

1846. The whole peninsula was instantly in commotion, and the symptoms

of violence in Rome were so alarming that people doubted the possibility

of an election. Austria, as the power most directly interested in the

secular politics of the Holy See, was understood to demand a continuance

of the restrictive policy of Gregory; France, on the contrary, was said

to desire a moderately liberal pope. To avoid pressure upon the

conclave, as well as to forestall an outbreak, the Italian cardinals

resolved to begin their deliberations at once and finish them quickly.

Without waiting for their distant colleagues, they entered the Quirinal

on the 14th, the doors were closed, the guards were set, and the

balloting began. Two ballots are taken in the conclave every day. The

persons whom public opinion selected as most likely to command the

necessary thirty-four votes were Cardinals Gizzi and Lambruschini. The

modest and retiring Cardinal Mastai seems to have been little known by

the outside world, though his merit was no secret to the Sacred College.

He was appointed scrutator, to open and read the ballots. At the first

session of the conclave his name was proposed by Cardinal Altieri,

Prince-Bishop of Albano, and the first scrutiny showed that he united a

large party of the cardinals. On the second ballot he gained a little.

On the third his vote was twenty-seven—only seven less than a majority.

He retired to his cell and spent the whole time in prayer till the

evening meeting. He came to the performance of his functions pale and

agitated. When the ballots were taken from the chalice in which they had

been collected, he read his own name on the first, on the second, on the

third, on every paper up to the eighteenth. He could not go on; he

begged the conclave to commit the rest of the task to another. But to

change the scrutator in the midst of the vote would invalidate the

election. The cardinals gathered around him; for some time he sat

terrified and almost insensible, while streams of tears flowed down his

cheeks. On the completion of the count it was found that he had the

suffrages of thirty-six out of the fifty-four cardinals present. As the

whole assembly rose to confirm the choice by unanimous acclamation, the

Pope-elect fell upon his knees, and profound silence reigned in the

Pauline Chapel while he communed with Almighty God.

It was on the following day, June 18, that, according to custom, the

bricked-up window in the front of the Quirinal Palace was broken open,

and the cardinals came out upon the balcony to announce to the waiting

multitude the choice of a new pope. It is said that men turned to one

another in surprise when they heard the name, and asked who this

Cardinal Mastai could be. But when his beautiful and benignant face

appeared among the throng, and his hand was raised in that gesture of

benediction which all who have seen him will for ever associate with his

memory, he won the love and admiration of the Roman people; and the true

Romans have loved him ever since.

The story of his first days in the pontificate reads like a charming

romance. He called the steward of the palace and said to him: “When I

was bishop I spent for my personal expenses a crown a day; when I was

cardinal I spent a crown and a half; and now that I am Pope you must not

go beyond two crowns.” He went about the city alone to search out abuses

and to look into the condition of the poor. He presented himself without

warning at public institutions. He knocked at the doors of religious

houses at night. He startled the congregation at St. Andrea del Valle by

appearing unannounced in the pulpit to preach against blasphemy. He

delighted children by visiting the schools. He talked freely with the

humble whom he met in the streets and on the country roads. He gave

lavishly to the needy. A poor market-gardener lost his horse and walked

boldly into the palace to ask the Pope if he could not spare an old one

from the Quirinal stables. A secretary found the man on the stairs and

took his message to the Holy Father. “Yes,” was the Pope’s reply; “and

give him this money, too. He must be very poor, or he never would come

to the Quirinal to get a horse.”

But Pius IX. was not ignorant of the dangers which surrounded his

throne. He chose his course promptly. It may be doubted whether stern

measures of repression could have accomplished any good in the

excitement of that time, but at any rate he had no taste for them. He

favored the idea of a national confederation under the presidency of the

Pope, wishing to accomplish it by a friendly alliance of the existing

governments, not by war and revolution. For the rest, he looked forward

to a reform in the administration of his states, and the introduction of

liberal and popular institutions as fast as the old forms could be

safely changed, and he purposed to rule by kindness, generosity, and

confidence. Yet, as we shall see, he did not lack firmness when firmness

was needed. One of his first acts was to declare an amnesty for

political offences, and a characteristic anecdote is told of him in

connection with it. He called a council of his principal advisers and

asked their votes upon the proposed measure of mercy. To his chagrin, a

majority of the balls voted were black. He took off his white cap and

placed it over them; “Now,” said he, “they are all white.” The prisons

were opened. The exiles returned. One thousand six hundred persons were

restored to freedom and friends. Rome was in a tumult of joy. The

populace thronged about the pontiff whenever he went abroad, and waited

long hours before the palace windows to get his blessing. On the feast

of St. Peter’s Chains a great number of the pardoned received communion

from the Holy Father's hands, and the occasion was celebrated with

lively demonstrations. Nor was the Pope satisfied with an easy act of

clemency. He made a close personal study of the administration. A

multitude of petty abuses were swept away. The taxes were reduced. The

liberty of the press was enlarged. Industries were fostered; railways

were planned. The Jews were relieved of burdensome and humiliating

restrictions. Then the old municipal privileges of Rome were restored,

and a long stride ahead was made by the formation of a lay consulta of

state and the popular representation of the provinces in the central

government.

Nothing could surpass the enthusiasm of the people at this dawn of a new

political era. It was almost a continuous holiday in Rome, with gay

processions by day and torch-light parades by night, public banquets in

the vineyards and gardens, triumphal arches spanning the streets, the

papal colors fluttering from every window and decorating every breast.

Because those colors were white and yellow, it became a point of honor

with delighted Romans to breakfast every morning on boiled eggs. Nor was

it only Italy which raised the chorus of applause. All over the world

the Papacy shone with a glory which it had hardly displayed since Leo

XII. The Protestants of New York held a monster meeting of felicitation

at the Broadway Tabernacle, where cordial letters were read from

ex-President Van Buren and Vice-President Dallas, and an enthusiastic

address to the Pope, prepared by Horace Greeley, was adopted by

acclamation. The British government offered its congratulations. The

French ministry, led by M. Guizot, rivalled the French opposition, led

by M. Thiers, in resolutions and speeches of encouragement. Mazzini,

true to the policy already explained, addressed to the Holy Father a

letter of ostensible sympathy and praise. Such halcyon days might well

have filled the most wary with a dangerous confidence.

The Pope was not deceived. He knew that under this outward show of peace

the conspiracy was active. The first attempt of the revolutionary party

was to separate him from the cardinals. Three weeks after the amnesty,

as he drove under one of the arches erected in his honor, the mob

stopped some of the prelates of his suite and refused to let them pass.

Certain demonstrations at the popular out-of-door repasts became so

significant that the gatherings had to be forbidden. Before the end of

the year the cry of “Viva Pio Nono!” changed to “Viva Pio Nono Solo!”

and mingled with shouts of “Down with the Jesuits!” and “Death to the

retrograders!” The next summer Rome was thrown into a fever of rage by

an invention so outrageous and yet so ridiculous that one reads of it

with amazement. It was alleged that Cardinal Lambruschini, the Austrian

government, and the General of the Jesuits had organized a plot to fall

upon the populace on the anniversary of the amnesty, and in the midst of

the massacre to get possession of the Pope and put a stop to his

liberalism. The _fête_ appointed for the anniversary was given up, and

the excitement enabled the revolutionists to depose the old police and

throw the city into the arms of the civic guard, of which they were

really the directing force. On New Year’s day, 1848, the Pope was

molested in the street by a disorderly mob, shouting menaces against

“reactionists” and “Jesuits.” The violence of the radical faction

increased; their demeanor became more and more insulting; the danger of

riot grew imminent; the civil guard showed plain symptoms of disloyalty.

Yet all this while the Holy Father persevered in his reforms. He took no

step backward. He withdrew no concession. The measure of popular liberty

was constantly enlarging, the administration becoming more thoroughly

representative. If it was “progress” that the agitators wanted, what was

this?

We cannot understand the history of this strange time without bearing

in mind that the danger arose, not from anything the Pope had done or

failed to do, but from the steady and stealthy advance of the pagan

conspiracy. Rome, under the mild rule of Pius IX., became the resort

of all the chief revolutionists of the Continent, and it is hardly too

much to say that the particular house in Rome where they met and

plotted with the most comfort was the British embassy. Palmerston’s

policy was always to encourage radical movements on the Continent.

When he sent Lord Minto, therefore, as a special envoy to Italy, the

parlors of that nobleman were instantly thronged by the Carbonari. In

this diplomatic sanctuary gathered a strange company of princes and

demagogues—Ciceruacchio, the orator of the rabble; Prince Charles

Bonaparte, the radical in purple; Sterbini, the poet, physician, and

journalist; Tofanelli, the tavern-keeper; Materazzi, patriot and

joiner; Galetti, the grocer, who became Minister of Police in one of

the later democratic cabinets.

A letter of Mazzini’s, written in 1847, taught Young Italy that the time

for action was close at hand; it was useless to count upon the Pope;

their best policy was to inflame the popular hatred of Austria; then

provoke Austria to attack them; and in the heat of war to accomplish the

rest. But at this critical time Austria herself committed an act which

hastened the explosion. Alarmed at the aspect of affairs in Central

Italy, she marched a body of troops into the papal territory. The treaty

of 1815 gave her the right to place a garrison in the citadel of

Ferrara; she went further and occupied the town; and although the

spirited protest of the Pope caused her to withdraw after some delay,

the occasion which the secret societies desired had been given, and a

cry for war and independence resounded from the Gulf of Genoa to the Bay

of Naples. We know but imperfectly the hidden springs of action of that

year of revolutions; but, as if by concert, the insurrection flashed up

almost simultaneously all over the Continent. The Milanese flew to arms.

The revolt broke out in Vienna. Barricades arose at Berlin. The Republic

was proclaimed in Paris. Naples and Tuscany were menaced. The

municipality of Rome waited upon the Pope and demanded a constitution.

He consented to give it. “I would have preferred,” said he, “to watch

for a while the result of the reforms already instituted; but other

Italian princes have granted constitutions, and I will not show less

confidence in my subjects than they have had in theirs.” At the same

time the ministry was changed. Cardinal Antonelli, whose management of

the finances had made him very popular, became Secretary of State, and

three of the most moderate of the liberals—Minghetti, Galetti, and

Sturbinetti—entered the cabinet. It is characteristic of the spirit of

the revolution that the first effect of these concessions was to

stimulate a fresh attack upon the church, disorders in Rome, and an

assault upon the Gesù. The Jesuits were forced to close their

establishment, some taking flight, others finding shelter in private

houses. The constitution was proclaimed in March. It provided for a

Senate and a House of Deputies—the senators to be appointed for life,

the deputies to be elected by the taxpayers of Rome and the provinces.

This parliament was not to meddle with ecclesiastical affairs, but in

other matters it had the usual powers of legislation.

Meantime, the war of independence in the north of Italy was in the full

tide of success. Young Italy believed it had found a leader in Charles

Albert of Sardinia. The Austrians were driven from Milan. The republic

lived again in Venice. The Pope sent 17,000 men to protect his

frontiers, with strict orders not to cross them. At once the

conspirators spread the report that he had declared war against Austria.

They called the people together in the Colosseum to ratify the new

crusade, and there the Barnabite monk, Gavazzi, masquerading in the

character of a new Peter the Hermit and brandishing a tricolored cross,

made his first bid for notoriety. There were only 7,000 regular troops

in the papal expedition; the rest were motley volunteers—the flower of

the nobility and the dregs of the wine-shop, the most gallant lads of

Rome and the scum of all the political clubs of the Continent. They

hurried through the Romagna, gutting taverns and hunting Jesuits by the

way, and when they reached Bologna their general (the Piedmontese,

Durando) announced that the Austrians were making war upon our Lord, and

that the soldiers of the Pope would give them battle with the cry, “God

wills it!” It was afterwards discovered that this direct defiance of the

Pope’s commands, this open act of hostility against a power with which

the states of the church were at peace, was in accordance with secret

instructions from the Pope’s radical Minister of War. While the

sovereign ordered his troops to remain strictly on the defensive within

their own boundaries, the ministers told Durando to cross over into

Lombardy and place himself at the disposal of Charles Albert; and

Durando prepared to obey them. It was impossible for the Holy Father to

remain silent under such an outrage. He repudiated Durando’s order of

the day in the official press, and he spoke more fully in an allocution:

“We shall not make war upon Austria; we embrace all countries, all

nations, with an equal paternal love.” And he took occasion at the same

time to denounce the project of destroying all the governments of the

peninsula in order to build out of their ruins one Italian republic with

the Pope at the head of it. He was no doubt prepared for the explosion

of wrath which followed. But the revolution was not to be ignored any

longer. For some time ministers had been in the habit of counterfeiting

his assent to measures of which he disapproved; if the army was to make

war without his consent, his reign was at an end. Rome was in a tempest.

The cry of “Treason!” rang through the streets. Ciceruacchio proposed to

kill all the priests. The civic guards flew to arms, posted soldiers at

the doors of the cardinals, and refused to recognize the Pope’s orders.

A new and more radical ministry, led by Count Mamiani, came into office

on the 3d of May, and on the same day the Holy Father wrote a touching

letter to the Emperor of Austria—a plea for peace and Italian

independence: “We exhort your majesty with the most paternal affection

to withdraw from a contest which cannot reconquer for the empire the

hearts of the Lombards and Venetians. There is no grandeur in a

domination which rests only on the sword.”

The new ministry insisted at once upon war, but here it found the

determination of the Pope unalterable. There seems to have been an

attempt, of which the ministers themselves were possibly innocent, to

precipitate hostilities by rousing an uncontrollable popular impulse.

One day a courier, breathless and dusty, rode through the Corso

announcing a great victory of Charles Albert over the Austrians. The

city was illuminated; there was talk of forcing the clergy to chant _Te

Deum_ in the churches. But the next day it was discovered that the

messenger, who entered Rome as if from Lombardy by the Porta del Popolo,

had left the city only an hour before by the Porta Angelica, gathering

all the stains of travel in an easy ride along the walls, and had been

paid three dollars for the performance. Charles Albert had been signally

defeated.

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:

Footnote 46:

Villefranche.

“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.

Footnote 47:

When the Pope launched a bull of excommunication against the

spoliators of his territory, Napoleon forbade its publication in

France. He allowed the official and radical journals, however, to

publish a forged bull, and to ridicule and denounce at pleasure the

extravagant language which it imputed to the Holy Father. The bishops

tried to expose the forgery, but the press was closed to them.

We are near the end. A fortnight after Sedan the Piedmontese army,

60,000 strong, appeared before the walls of Rome to seize the last of

the temporal possessions of the Holy See. Defence was impossible. The

pontiff instructed his little army to resist only until a breach had

been made in the walls. Then he went to pray in the venerable Lateran

basilica, the mother-church of Christendom. He visited the neighboring

chapel of the Scala Santa, and made on his knees the painful ascent of

the twenty-eight marble steps from the judgment-hall of Pilate which our

Saviour’s blessed feet had pressed. In the little chapel at the top he

implored the pity and protection of Almighty God for the afflicted

church. Then, followed by the acclamations of a crowd of affectionate

subjects, and blessing them as he went, he entered the Vatican, and Rome

has never seen him since.

The troops of Victor Emanuel made themselves masters of Rome the next

day, September 20, 1870. The king followed them in time and established

his court in the Quirinal. And since then, in Rome as in the rest of

Italy, the pagan revolution has gone steadily forward to the suppression

of Christian education, of monastic and charitable orders, and, as far

as possible, of all divine worship. When Garibaldi rode on horseback

into the church of Monte Rotondo and ordered his prisoners to cover

their heads, which they had bared out of respect to the sacred place, he

only gave emphasis to the sentiment which pervades the whole movement.

The convents are empty; the churches are desolate; libraries are

scattered; great seminaries of theology are broken up; Christian

education has been driven from the school-room; there are hundreds of

priests who go hungry and in rags; there are nuns in Rome whose whole

income is three cents a day; the bishops have been robbed of everything

and live on the charity of the Pope; pious processions are prohibited;

members of religious orders who survive the suppression of their houses

are forbidden to receive novices; the father-general of the Jesuits is

an exile from Rome, and his nearest representative lives as a private

lay person in hired lodgings. Today a bill is pending in the Italian

parliament, and has already passed one branch of it, to punish bishops,

priests, religious writers, and journalists for what is styled

“disturbing the public conscience” and the “peace of families.” The

Italian government has pretended to guarantee the freedom and

independence of the Sovereign Pontiff in the exercise of all his

spiritual functions, but now it proposes to prevent the publication of

his encyclicals and allocutions; to condemn him not only to perpetual

imprisonment, but to perpetual silence; to prosecute the bishops if they

transmit his instructions to the faithful, and the priests if they

preach against any heresy sanctioned by the state. To censure, by speech

or writing, any law or institution approved by the civil authority is to

be treated as a felony calculated to “disturb consciences.” Our divine

Lord passed the whole period of his ministry on earth in disturbing

consciences; the history of Christianity, the labors of missionaries and

reformers, are nothing else than a record of the disturbance of

consciences. But the pagan revolution has no toleration for

Christianity. Close the confessionals, tear down the pulpits, burn the

Bibles, break the tables of the law; the sleeping conscience of Italy

must not be disturbed.

Thus the conspiracy of the kings has moved on towards the subjugation of

the church. The secret societies are only using the kingdom of Italy and

the despotic empire of Germany for the accomplishment of their

anti-religious purpose, and when that is done the kings, in their turn,

will be the victims of the deep-laid and long-cherished plot for the

abolition of “subordination” and worship. Let nobody imagine that they

are inactive or that they are satisfied with national unity. Mazzini

never pretended that their work was done when a king was set up in the

Pope’s palace. He died conspiring against Victor Emanuel and urging

Italy to press on to “the goal of the revolution.” Nor did his projects

die with him. The anniversary of his death was celebrated last March by

democratic demonstrations all over Italy which the government was

helpless to suppress. “A funeral march, a national hymn, and a few

short, earnest words from some well-known and esteemed local republicans

and _capi-popolo_,” says an English liberal journal, “declaring the

commemorative ceremony to be not merely a token of remembrance, but 'a

_promise_,’ was all that took place; but the fact that these things did

take place on the same day throughout the whole of Italy is one of great

significance. In many instances the authorities did their best

previously, by warnings and even by threats, to prevent these

demonstrations, but we have heard of no case in which they ventured upon

any attempt to put them down by force.”[48] The flags which the

associations carried were “free from the stain,” to use the popular

phrase—that is to say, they did not show the arms of Savoy; and the

letters read and addresses delivered spoke openly of a “time for action”

which was yet to come. And while the clubs were thus parading and

declaiming the following circular was distributed among the rank and

file of the Italian army:

Footnote 48:

_The Examiner_ (London), March 31, 1877.

“Free citizens! Brother Carbonari! Every sect, every family, every

individual is free to investigate, as best he may, the road which

leads to heaven; but it belongs to the Carboneria to indicate and

open up the way to the kingdom of liberty, to the triumph of

justice, to social amelioration upon earth. The Carboneria, in its

principles, in its development, and in the means which it proposes

to employ for its purpose—_i.e._, for the amelioration, economic and

moral, of mankind, for the diffusion of liberty, and for the perfect

equalization of society—is the one association which can boast of

the right of nature and the most perfect justice. All other

associations, because based on privilege and ambition, either miss

their aim or become useless. Persuaded of this, the apostles of our

principle have devoted themselves to propagating and defending it

with ardor, defying dangers, condemnations, and calumnies of the

most deadly kind. Many were the acquisitions which our association

made in a short time in every branch of social science, in the arts,

and in commerce, and now all our aspirations are turned towards you

who compose the army—the material force of nations. Soldiers!

remember that you are sons of the people, free citizens, and at the

same time the obstacle to the common weal and the hope of all. Do

you wish to serve tyranny, privilege—in a word, the oppressors?

Remember that you are sons of the people; that force alone dragged

you from the bosom of your desolated families; that, slaves of a

stern discipline, you are forced to shoot down the oppressed, to

protect the oppressors; and do not forget that to-morrow, wounded

and crippled, you will return to the ranks of the people whom you

charged with the bayonet, and that in your turn you will then be

charged and oppressed. Remember that before being slaves you were

free, and that before serving the despot you were citizens. The

Carboneria expects you among its ranks; come and range yourselves by

the side of thousands of other brave ones, officers and graduates,

who do not disdain to stake everything to preserve themselves true

sons of the people, generous citizens of our common country.”

II.

We have endeavored to follow thus far the progress of that general

revolt of the world against the divine authority which has marked the

pontificate of Pius IX. and embraces the Holy Father’s heroic life of

constancy and suffering. But simultaneously there has gone on a contrary

movement—a clearer development and consolidation of the authority of

God’s church over the minds of the faithful; and herein we trace his

glorious life of triumphant action. For his attitude towards the

revolution has not been one of mere passive resistance. He has fought a

stout fight for the imperilled truth. It is a time of corruption and

unbelief, when the world is lifted up with satanic pride to defy Heaven,

and society is sacrificing all the guarantees of order, and even the

elect are sorely tempted. History will record that the great mission of

Pope Pius IX. was to expose the fallacies and illusions of these evil

days, to stamp every error as it arose with the reprobation of the

infallible judge, and, after empires, and kingdoms, and republics have

been racked by a century of the pagan revolt, to prepare again the

foundations of Christian civilization. “God has laid on me,” said he to

the great assembly of bishops in 1867, “the duty to declare the truths

on which Christian society is based, and to condemn the errors which

undermine its foundations. And I have not been silent. In the Encyclical

of 1864, and in that which is called the Syllabus, I declared to the

world the dangers which threaten society and I condemned the falsehoods

which assail its life. To you, venerable brethren, I now appeal to

assist me in this conflict with error. On you I rely for support. I am

aged and alone, praying on the mountain, and you, the bishops of the

church, are come to hold up my arms.” “There is perhaps hardly any

pontiff,” says Cardinal Manning, “who has governed the church with more

frequent exercises of supreme authority than Pius IX.”; and surely there

is something magnificent in the courage with which he has met every

attack of the world by a new and bolder assertion of the everlasting

truths against which the world is in arms. There is not a characteristic

heresy of the time for which we Catholics cannot find in the utterances

of this great pontiff a complete antidote; there is not a loss inflicted

upon the church by her enemies for which we cannot trace a compensation

in some clearer recognition of her spiritual power, some sublime

restatement of her sovereign authority. Our Holy Father has healed

divisions, abolished national and doctrinal parties within the pale of

the church, and displayed to the universe the household of Christ one

not only in the bonds of faith, but in unity of sympathies. Four times

he has summoned the bishops to meet him at the tomb of the apostle. In

1854 more than two hundred bishops and cardinals assembled for the

definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception—an act which,

besides its importance in a doctrinal sense, had a special significance

as illustrating the supreme authority of the see of Peter. In 1862, just

after the first spoliation of the temporalities of the Papacy by Victor

Emanuel, two hundred and sixty-five bishops assembled in Rome for the

canonization of the martyrs of Japan, and their meeting, both for the

circumstances under which it was summoned and the strong terms in which

the prelates expressed their union with the Holy See and their absolute

submission to its teachings, made a profound impression throughout

Christendom. Five years later the revolution had made immense progress;

yet in the midst of political disturbance the world not only saw five

hundred bishops gather at Rome to celebrate the centenary of St. Peter’s

martyrdom, and again to testify their devotion to Peter’s successor, but

it heard the announcement of a general council, the first in three

hundred years, called at a time when to the unaided human eye the papal

throne seemed tottering to its fall. Here was an inspiring example of

faith and Christian courage!

Cardinal Manning’s admirable sketch of the history of the Vatican

Council,[49] now in course of publication, shows the reasons for calling

that grand assembly, and the reasons especially for the definition of

infallibility, its supreme and most glorious achievement; and it brings

out in clear light the fact that it was with Pius himself that the idea

of the council originated. If it could ever be said that a general

council was the work of one man, the Council of the Vatican might be

called the crowning work of the long life of Pius IX.—one which alone

would place him among the most illustrious of all the Roman pontiffs,

and make his reign a remarkable era in the history of the Catholic

Church. The circumstances of the time which give such immense importance

to the convocation of this council are summarized in the opinions of the

cardinals to whom the Pope submitted the question as early as 1864, and

we find an excellent synopsis of them in the papers by Cardinal Manning

already cited. “The special character of the age,” say their eminences,

“is the tendency of a dominant party of men to destroy all the ancient

Christian institutions, the life of which consists in a supernatural

principle, and to erect upon their ruins and with their remains a new

order founded on natural reason alone.... From these principles follows

the exclusion of the church and of revelation from the sphere of civil

society and of science; and, further, from this withdrawal of civil

society and of science from the authority of revelation spring the

naturalism, rationalism, pantheism, socialism, communism of these times.

From these speculative errors flows in practice the modern revolutionary

liberalism which consists in the supremacy of the state over the

spiritual jurisdiction of the church, over education, marriage,

consecrated property, and the temporal power of the head of the church.”

These and a multitude of other prevalent errors Pius IX. had condemned

in the Syllabus and Encyclical which Cardinal Manning elsewhere refers

to as “among the greatest acts of this pontificate,” summing up the

declarations of many years, and giving them “a new promulgation and a

sensible accession of power over the minds not only of the faithful, but

even of opponents, by the concentrated force and weight of their

application.”[50] But it was expedient that the declaration should be

published again with the united voice of the whole episcopate joined to

its head. Thus the council was almost unanimously approved as a

sovereign remedy for the disorders of the time, an encouragement for the

faithful, a cure for dissensions, an antidote for evil tendencies within

the church, an impulse to the new and nobler life which even amid the

political and social confusion had already begun to spring up among the

Catholic peoples. And so, even while the pagan revolution was preparing

its last assault upon the pontifical throne, an astonished world

witnessed this most majestic demonstration of the authority, the unity,

and the power of the church, and the whole body of the faithful were

filled with courage and fresh enthusiasm. Driven from his capital,

robbed, and insulted, the captive of the Vatican, whose voice rings out

clear and firm above the din of the century, whose strong arm sustains,

whose saintly example inspires, is yet victor over the world in the

council and the Syllabus.

Footnote 49:

_The Nineteenth Century_ (London), March and April, 1877.

Footnote 50:

_Petri Privilegium._ London. 1871.

It would be pleasant, if space allowed, to follow the course of his

beautiful private life. It is a model of devotion and simplicity. In his

great palace he occupies only a plain bed-chamber with a bare stone

floor, and a working-cabinet with little furniture except a table and

two chairs. He rises, summer and winter, at half-past five. He says

Mass, and hears a second Mass of thanksgiving; or if sickness prevents

him from celebrating the Holy Sacrifice, he does not fail to receive

communion. His hours of work are long and regular. His fare is plain,

even to meagreness. Every day he takes exercise in the Vatican gardens,

and one of his favorite resorts is a beautiful alley of orange-trees,

where the pigeons come to feed from his hand. One day he was discovered

with three cardinals, playing “hide and seek” in the gardens with a

little boy. Yet with all his gentleness he has a keen and caustic wit.

The author of a pious biography sent his book to the Pope for approval.

The pontiff read till he came to these words: “Our saint triumphed over

all temptations, but there was one snare which he could not escape: he

married”; and then he threw the book from him. “What!” said he, “shall

it be written that the church has six sacraments and one snare?” Of a

Catholic diplomatist whose conduct and professions were at variance he

said: “I do not like these accommodating consciences. If that man’s

master should order him to put me in jail, he would come on his knees to

tell me I must go, and his wife would work me a pair of slippers.”

During the French occupation of Rome a certain French colonel was guilty

of so gross an offence to the Pope’s authority that the Holy Father

demanded his recall. Before his departure he had the effrontery to

present himself at the Vatican and ask for a number of small favors,

ending with a request for the Pope’s autograph. The Pontiff wrote on a

card the words which our Lord addressed to Judas in the garden, “_Amice,

ad quid venisti?_” (“Friend, wherefore hast thou come hither?”), and the

colonel, who did not understand Latin, showed it to all his friends as a

testimonial of the Pope’s regard, until somebody unkindly supplied him

with the translation. It is the etiquette of the Vatican that carriages

with only one horse must not enter the inner court. This rule was

enforced one day in 1867 against the Prussian ambassador, Count von

Arnim, and Bismarck, for purposes of his own, endeavored to make a

diplomatic scandal of the transaction, instructing the ambassador to

close the legation and quit Rome instantly unless he was allowed to

drive with one horse to the very foot of the papal staircase. But

Bismarck was no match for Pius IX. The Pope caused Cardinal Antonelli to

write that “His Holiness, taking compassion on the difficulties of the

diplomatic body, would in future allow the representatives of the great

powers to approach his presence with one quadruped _of any sort_”—avec

_un quadrupède quelconque_. It is believed that the Prussian minister

never availed himself of this permission in its full extent.

The newspapers bring us bad news from time to time of the Pope’s health.

Let us not be alarmed. He comes of a long-lived family. His grandfather

died at ninety-three, his father at eighty-three, his mother at

eighty-eight, his eldest brother at ninety. “I am in the hands of God,”

he said to an English gentleman; “I shall bless my hour when it comes.

But, my son, when I take up certain newspapers nowadays, and do not find

in them an account of my last illness and my end, it always seems to me

as if the editors had forgotten something.”

A VISION OF THE COLOSSEUM, A.D. 1873

O God, the heathens are come into thy inheritance, they have defiled

thy holy temple: they have made Jerusalem as a place to keep

fruit.—_Ps._ lxxviii.

I had been idly reading, through the quiet afternoon,

A poet’s passionate verses, falling softly into tune

Of even, measured rhythm, and of fine, melodious words,

Rippling along with easy grace like careless song of birds;

Now warblings, half unconscious, like the happy songster’s trill

Poured from some wind-swayed bough when all the woods are still;

Now shriller notes that rose above harsh, grating sounds of war,

Loud clarion-notes, above the drums, proclaiming peace afar—

Loud pæan sounds triumphant that Italy was free,

United, and one mighty realm from smiling sea to sea;

From Sicily’s smoke-crowned peak to Savoy’s Alpine chain

One flag met every rambling breeze that breathed o’er hill and

plain;

And haughty Rome, in truth, the Cæsar’s city now once more,

The perilous reign of Peter passed for ever safely o’er.

“_Io!_ _triumphe!_ onward! All ye guarding eagles, come!

And with its ancient glory fill your old imperial home.”

I, sighing, closed the volume. Ah! for me how sadly dim

The poet’s glowing setting of pale Freedom’s Roman hymn,

Whose music, as I heard it, only direst discord made.

The martial beat of rattling drum, the trumpet’s mellowing shade,

Hid all the sweeter utterance of a happy people’s voice

Or sound of pealing church-bells bidding kindly skies rejoice.

I heard above the loudest note the dull, persistent sound

Of forging iron fetters—even riveted while crowned,

Sweet Freedom saw, indignant, built her frail and crumbling throne

Of consecrated marble newly stolen, stone by stone.

“_Io!_ _triumphe!_ onward! But the shouting could not drown

The psalm of homeless friars, weary exiles, marching down,

Chapel and cell denied them; for of these the state has need.

And from the cross’s folly must St. Francis’ sons be freed!

I heard in plaintive chorus nuns sad _Miserere_ sing,

As ceased for them for ever their old convent’s sheltering—

Let them seek aid from Him on high whose faithful sheep they are;

The horses of the hero-king seek not their help so far!

I heard, above th’ exultant fife, the loud-voiced auctioneer

Strike down the church’s garment 'mid the idle jest and jeer

Of souls that trembled not to see the sacred chalice borne

By hands that would have helped of old to press the twisted thorn,

Who would for thirty pieces once their loving Lord have sold—

Why not his spouse’s raiment for twice that, glittering gold?

I heard the heavy rustle of quaint, figured tapestry

By pious fingers cunning wrought in days of chivalry.

Loud chimed the strangers’ clanking coin that paid the moneyed

worth,

But faint the modern anthem’s notes proclaiming Freedom’s birth!

Of wandering peoples, too, I heard the tired and restless tread,

Their little harvest grown too scant for even daily bread,

Fair Freedom’s added burden grown too heavy to be borne;

While Italy, sad-hearted, watched her children sail forlorn

To seek across the western sea the life she could not give;

For her cannon must be cast, and a nation she must live.

A nation crowned! Ah! royal state is very heavy dole;

All too quick the world’s pulse beats to heed plaint of weary soul.

Still with triumphant pæans did the poet’s verses ring:

“Shout, Italy, our Italy! all-joyous anthems sing!

Clang out, sad-voiced Roman bells! hail Piedmont’s Victor,—king!”

“_Miserere, miserere_,”

Sounded church and convent steeple;

“In thy mercy spare us, Saviour,

Leading back thy erring people.”

And as the clanging belfries trembled strangely with the sound,

The _Miserere_ drifting to the peoples gathered round,

Methought the quiet afternoon had faded from my sight,

And I, beneath a Roman sky, alone with deepening night,

Stood in the Colosseum’s shade, with many a wondering thought,

No touch of moonlight falling on the walls the Romans wrought;

The calm stars, gazing earthward, seemed to give nor light nor

shade;

No torches’ fitful splendor through the lonely arches played;

And, even as the shade was deep, so deep the silence fell,

So calm the night it scarce could wake the wind-harp’s sighing

swell;

No beaded _aves_ drifted from cowled pilgrims of the cross,

No murmur of atoning prayers pleading the nations’ loss;

No tourists’ idle laughter broke the silence of the scene,

While the shrouding arches sheltered my thoughts of what had been.

Years, centuries had vanished as my wingèd thoughts flew fast

To days when Rome imperial o’er the world her robe had cast;

O’er the wild, barbarian legions I saw her eagles shine,

While her nobles quaffed Greek learning in draughts of Grecian wine—

Expounding, too, with easy art, the Christians’ foolish faith:

How traitorous to Cæsar’s state was every Christian breath.

And then I saw the glitter of their perfumed robes no more,

As gleaming wings of seraphs stroked my eyelids softly o’er.

Then I heard the sweet intoning of the Christians’ matin psalm,

And I saw them lowly kneeling before the mystic Lamb:

Maid patrician bent in prayer with the dark slave of the East,

Egypt’s sage, Juda’s captive, meeting at the angels’ feast.

Before that holy altar all one sacred likeness wear—

His who, on the cross outstretched, all our sin and weakness bare:

Subtle Greek before the cross laying down his pride of art;

Falling meekly peace divine on some savage Scythian heart;

Hapless Jew, haughty Northman, Roman proud, and cowering slave,

Bound together by the blood of Him who died all men to save;

One by the bond of suffering, one in the voice of prayer

That rose with solemn sweetness through the catacombs’ dull air:

“_Miserere, miserere_,”

Rose the sad and earnest pleading;

“In thy mercy spare us, Saviour,

Unto thee the nations leading.”

Lo! as entranced I listened, there mingled with the song

A sound as if of many steps passing the streets along,

And the ancient Roman arches 'neath which I dreaming stood

Grew peopled with the city’s fierce and restless multitude.

What noble game should fitly while the idle hours away,

What gracious pastime fill with joy the Roman holiday?

Should some strong-limbed barbarian lay his life down in its

strength,

That the day for Roman matrons should have less of weary length?

Nay, daintier sight the maiden tells, binding her mistress’ zone:

To-day, by Cæsar’s lions, Christian maid shall be o’erthrown!

Within the dread arena pale and firm the martyr stood—

A strange and dazzling sight she seemed amid the soldiers rude;

So slight the little, childish form, so young the radiant face,

Whence streams of holy glory flooded all the pagan place;

The happy lips half-parted with a love that fain would speak,

And the eyes to heaven uplifted beneath the forehead meek—

The eyes whence earth had vanished, heaven’s shadow resting there,

The glimmer of its shining falling softly on her hair.

Ah! happy maid, that, listening, heard above the tumult wild

The loved voice of the Father calling home his little child;

The voice of the Belovèd bidding sweet his loved one come:

“Arise, my Dove, my Beautiful”—it sounded o’er the hum

Of wondering crowds who could not guess whence came the martyr’s

strength,

Her heart with joy nigh breaking that it should rest at length

On His whose love had bought it with a price exceeding far

The spoils of all the nations gracing Cæsar’s triumph-car.

One little grain of incense still might save the martyr’s life,

But one little breath for Cæsar still win release from strife—

Unto Cæsar what is Cæsar’s, to God the life he gave;

Less duty could she offer Him who died that life to save?

And then the vision faded, and once more I stood alone

Where thought of sainted martyrs seemed to consecrate each stone,

And stars as calmly watching o’er as once in days bygone

When Cæsar’s dearest pastime won his slaves a deathless crown.