THE POPE LIBERATOR
1844-1847
Events leading to the Election of Pius IX.--The Petty Princes--Charles
Albert, Leopold and Ferdinand.
The day is drawing near when the century which witnessed the
liberation of Italy will have passed away. Already a generation has
grown up which can but faintly realise the passionate hopes and fears
with which the steps that led through defeat to the ultimate victory
were watched, not only by Italians, but by thousands who had never set
foot in Italy. Never did a series of political events evoke a sympathy
so wide and so disinterested, and it may be foretold with confidence
that it never will again. Italy rising from the grave was the living
romance of myriads of young hearts that were lifted from the common
level of trivial interests and selfish ends, from the routine of work
or pleasure, both deadening without some diviner spark, by a sustained
enthusiasm that can hardly be imagined now. There were, indeed, some
who asked what was all this to them? What were the 'extraneous
Austrian Emperor,' or the 'old chimera of a Pope' (Carlyle's
designations) to the British taxpayer? Some there were in England who
were deeply attached still to the 'Great Hinge on which Europe
depended,' and even to the most clement Spanish Bourbons of Naples,
about whom strangely beautiful things are to be read in old numbers of
the _Quarterly Review_. But on the whole, English men and women--in
mind half Italian, whether they will it or not, from the day they
begin to read their own literature from Chaucer to Shakespeare, from
Shakespeare to Shelley, from Shelley to Rossetti and Swinburne--were
united at that time in warmth of feeling towards struggling Italy as
they have been united in no political sentiment relating to another
nation, and in few concerning their own country.
It would be vain to expect that the record of Italian vicissitudes
during the years when the fate of Italy hung in the balance can awake
or renew the spellbound interest caused by the events themselves. The
reader of recent history is like the novel reader who begins at the
last chapter--he is too familiar with how it all ended to be keenly
affected by the development of the plot. Yet it is plain that we are
in a better position to appreciate the process of development than was
the case when the issue remained uncertain. We can estimate more
accurately the difficulties which stood in the way, and judge more
impartially the means that were taken to remove them. One outcome of
this fuller knowledge is the conviction that patriotism was the
monopoly of no single Italian party. The leaders, and still more their
henchmen, were in the habit of saying very hard things about each
other. It was natural and unavoidable; but there is no excuse now for
failing to recognise that there were pure and devoted patriots on the
one side as well as on the other--men whose only desire was the
salvation of Italy, to effect which no sacrifice seemed too great. Nor
were their labours unfruitful, for there was work for all of them to
do; and the very diversity of opinion, though unfortunate under some
aspects, was not so under all. If no one had raised the question of
unity before all things, Italy might be still a geographical
expression. If no one had tried to wring concessions from the old
governments, their inherent and irremediable vices would never have
been proved; and though they might have been overturned, they would
have left behind a lasting possibility of ignorant reaction.
The Great Powers had presented to the Court of Rome in 1831 a
memorandum, in which various moderate reforms and improvements were
proposed as urgently necessary to put an end to the intolerable abuses
which were rife in the states of the Church, and, most of all, in
Romagna. The abolition of the tribunal of the Holy Office, the
institution of a Council of State, lay education, and the
secularisation of the administration were among the measures
recommended. In 1845 a certain Pietro Renzi collected a body of
spirited young men at San Marino, and made a dash on Rimini, where he
disarmed the small garrison. The other towns were not prepared, and
Renzi and his companions were obliged to retire into Tuscany; but the
revolution, partial as it had been, raised discussion in consequence
of the manifesto issued by its promoters, in which a demand was made
for the identical reforms vainly advocated by European diplomacy
fourteen years before. If these were granted, the insurgents engaged
to lay down their arms. The manifesto was written by Luigi Carlo
Farini, who was destined to play a large part in future affairs. It
proved to Europe that even the most conservative elements in the
nation were driven to revolution by the sheer hopelessness of the
dead-lock which the Italian rulers sought by every means to prolong.
Massimo d'Azeglio, who was then known only as a painter of talent and
a writer of historical novels, first made his mark as a politician by
the pamphlet entitled _Gli ultimi casi di Romagna_, in which his
arguments derived force from the fact that, when travelling in the
district, he had done all in his power to induce the Liberals to keep
within the bounds of legality. But he confessed that, when someone
says: 'I suffer too much,' it is an unsatisfactory answer to retort:
'You have not suffered enough.' Massimo d'Azeglio had lived for many
years an artist's life in Rome and the country round, where his
aristocratic birth and handsome face made him popular with all
classes. The transparent integrity of his nature overcame the
diffidence usually inspired by strangers among a somewhat suspicious
people, and he got to know more thoroughly than any other North
Italian the real aspirations of the Pope's subjects. He listened to
their complaints and their plans, and if they asked his advice, he
invariably replied: 'Let us speak clearly. What is it that you wish
and I with you? You wish to have done with priestly rule, and to send
the Teutons out of Italy? If you invite them to decamp, they will
probably say, "No, thank you!" Therefore you must use force; and where
is it to be had? If you have not got it, you must find somebody who
has. In Italy who has it, or, to speak more precisely, who has a
little of it? Piedmont, because it, at least, enjoys an independent
life, and possesses an army and a surplus in the treasury.' His
friends answered: 'What of Charles Albert, of 1821, of 1832?' Now,
there was no one who felt less trust in Charles Albert than Massimo
d'Azeglio; he admitted it with something like remorse in later years.
But he believed in his ambition, and he thought it madness to throw
away what he regarded as the sole chance of freeing Italy on account
of private doubts of the King of Sardinia's sincerity.
Charles Albert had reigned for fourteen years, and still the mystery
which surrounded his character formed as impenetrable a veil as ever.
The popular nickname of _Re Tentenna_ (King Waverer) seemed, in a
sense, accepted by him when he said to the Duke d'Aumale in 1843: 'I
am between the dagger of the Carbonari and the chocolate of the
Jesuits.' He chose, as bride for his eldest son, an Austrian princess,
who, however, had known no country but Italy. His internal policy was
not simply stationary, it was retrograde. If his consent was obtained
to some progressive measure, he withdrew it at the last moment, or
insisted on the introduction of modifications which nullified the
whole. His want of stability drove one of his ministers to jump out of
a window. In spite of the candid reference to the Jesuit's cup of
chocolate, he allowed the Society of Jesus to dictate its will in
Piedmont. Victor Amadeus, the first King of Sardinia, took public
education out of the hands of the Jesuits, after receiving the
following deathbed communication from one of the Order who was his own
confessor: 'Deeply sensible of your many favours, I can only show my
gratitude by a final piece of advice, but of such importance that
perhaps it may suffice to discharge my debt. Never have a Jesuit for
confessor. Do not ask me the grounds of this advice, I should not be
at liberty to tell them to you.' The lesson was forgotten now. Charles
Albert was not content to wear a hair-shirt himself; he would have
liked to see all his subjects furnished with the same garment. The
result was, that Piedmont was not a comfortable place for Liberals to
live in, nor a lively place for anyone. Yet there is hardly anything
more certain than that all this time the King was constantly dreaming
of turning the Austrians out of Italy. His government kept its
attention fixed on two points: the improvement of the army, and the
accumulation of a reserve fund to be available in case of war. Drill
and thrift, which made the German Empire out of Prussia, if they did
not lead straight to equally splendid results south of the Alps, were
still what rendered it possible for Piedmont to defy Austria when the
time came. In 1840, Charles Albert wrote to his Minister of War: 'It
is a fine thing to win twenty battles; as for me, I should be content
to win ten on behalf of a cause I know of, and to fall in the
tenth--then, indeed, I would die blessing the Lord.' A year or two
later, he unearthed and reassumed the ancient motto of the House of
Savoy: 'J'attends mon astre.' Nevertheless, to the outward world his
intentions remained enigmatical, and it was therefore with extreme
surprise that Massimo d'Azeglio (who, on his return from the Roman
states, asked permission to inform the King of the impressions made on
him by his travels) received the injunction to tell his Liberal
friends 'that when the occasion presented itself, his life, the life
of his sons, his treasure, and his army would all be spent for the
Italian cause.'
The fifteen years' pontificate of Gregory XVI. ended on the 1st June
of 1846. In spite of the care taken by those around him to keep the
aged pontiff in a fool's paradise with regard to the real state of his
dominions, a copy of _The Late Events in Romagna_ fell into his hands,
and considerably disturbed his peace of mind. He sent two prelates to
look into the condition of the congested provinces, and their tour,
though it resulted in nothing else, called forth new protests and
supplications from the inhabitants, of which the most noteworthy was
an address written by Count Aurelio Saffi, who was destined to pass
many honourable years of exile in England. This address attacked the
root of the evil in a passage which exposed the unbearable vexations
of a government based on espionage. The acknowledged power of an
irresponsible police was backed by the secret force of an army of
private spies and informers. The sentiment of legality was being
stamped out of the public conscience, and with it religion and
morality. 'Bishops have been heard to preach civil war--a crusade
against the Liberals; priests seem to mix themselves in wretched party
strife, egging on the mob to vent its worst passions. There is not a
Catholic country in which the really Christian priest is so rarely
found as in the States of the Church.'
If Gregory XVI. was not without reasons for disquietude in his last
hours, he could take comfort in the fact that he had succeeded in
keeping railways out of all parts of his dominions. Gas and suspension
bridges were also classed as works of the Evil One, and vigorously
tabooed. Among the Pope's subjects there was a young prelate who had
never been able to make out what there was subversive to theology in a
steam-engine, or why the safety of the Papal government should depend
on its opposing every form of material improvement, although in
discussing these subjects he generally ended by saying: 'After all I
am no politician, and I may be mistaken.' This prelate was Cardinal
Mastai-Ferretti, Bishop of Imola. Born in 1792 at Sinigaglia, of a
good though rather needy family, Count Giovanni Maria Mastai was
piously brought up by his mother, who dedicated him at an early age to
the Virgin, to whom she believed that she owed his recovery from an
illness which had been pronounced fatal. Roman Catholic writers
connect the promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception
with this incident of childhood. After entering the priesthood, young
Mastai devoted most of his energies to active charity, and remained,
as he said, 'no politician,' being singularly ignorant of the world
and of public affairs, though full of amiable wishes that everyone
should be happy. Some years spent in missionary work in South America
failed to enlarge his practical knowledge, the limits of which he was
the first to recognise--a fact that tended to make him all his life
the instrument, not of his own will, but of the wills of men whom he
honestly thought cleverer and more experienced than himself. His chief
friends in his Romagnol diocese, friends on the intimate basis of
social equality and common provincial interests, were sound patriots,
though not revolutionists, and the future Pio Nono involuntarily
adopted their ideas and sympathies. He saw with his eyes certain
abuses so glaring that they admitted of no two opinions, and these
helped to convince him of the truth of his friends' arguments in
favour of a completely new order of things. One such abuse was the
encouragement given by government to the Society of the Centurioni,
the latest evolution of the Calderai; the Centurions, recruited among
roughs and peasants, were set upon the respectable middle classes,
over which they tyrannised by secret accusations or open violence: it
was well understood that anyone called a Liberal, or Freemason, or
Carbonaro could be beaten or killed without inquiries being made.
The Bishop of Imola was frequently in the house of the Count and
Countess Pasolini, who kept their friend well supplied with the new
books on Italian affairs; thus he read not only D'Azeglio's _Cast di
Romagna_, but also Cesare Balbo's _Le Speranze d'Italia,_ which
propounded a plan for an Italian federation, and Gioberti's _Primato
morale e civile degli Italiani_, in which this plan was elaborately
developed. Gioberti indicated the Supreme Pontiff as the natural head
of the Italian Union, and the King of Sardinia as Italy's natural
deliverer from foreign domination. The eternal fitness of things, and
the history of many centuries, proved the Pope to be the proper
paramount civil authority in Italy, 'which is the capital of Europe,
because Rome is the religious metropolis of the world.' An ex-member
of 'Young Italy,' a Piedmontese by birth, a priest by ordination,
Gioberti's profession of faith was derived from these three sources,
and it attracted thousands of Italians by its apparent reconciliation
of the interests of the papacy, and of the Sardinian monarchy, with
the most advanced views of the newest school. History, to which
Gioberti appealed, might have told him that a reversal of the law of
gravity was as likely to happen as the performance by the papacy of
the mission he proposed to it; but men believe what they wish to
believe, and his work found, as has been said, thousands of admirers,
among whom none was more sincere than Cardinal Mastai. The day on
which Count Pasolini gave him a copy of _Il Primato_ he created that
great, and under some aspects pathetic illusion, the reforming Pope.
The Conclave opened on the 14th of June 1846. During the Bishop of
Imola's journey to Rome a white pigeon had perched several times on
his carriage. The story became known; people said the same thing had
occurred to a coming Pope on former occasions, and the augury was
accepted with joy and satisfaction. He was, in fact, elected after the
Conclave had lasted only two days, while the Conclave which elected
his predecessor lasted sixty-four. The brevity of that to which Pius
IX. owed the tiara was looked upon by the populace as something
miraculous, but it was the result of the well-considered determination
of the Italian Cardinals not to allow time for Austrian intrigues to
obtain the election of a Pope who would be ruled from Vienna. When the
new Pope appeared on the balcony of the Quirinal to give his first
benediction, the people, carried away by his youthful yet majestic
bearing, and by the hopes which already centred in him, broke into
frantic cries of: 'We have a Pope! He loves us! He is our Father!' If
they had cried: 'We have a new heaven and a new earth,' they would but
have expressed the delirium which, starting from Rome, spread
throughout Italy.
On the night of the 6th of December 1846, the whole line of the
Apennines from Liguria to Calabria was illuminated. A hundred years
before, a stone thrown by the child Balilla had given the signal for
the expulsion of the Austrians from Genoa: this was the memory
flashed from height to height by countless beacons, but while
celebrating the past, they were the fiery heralds of a greater
revolution.
The upheaval of Europe did not become a fact, however, for another
year. Meantime, the Roman States attracted more attention than any
other part of the peninsula, from the curiosity awakened by the
progress of the experiment of which they were the scene. It is not
doubtful that at the first moment Pius IX. was under the impression
that the problem he had taken in hand was eminently simple. A little
goodwill on the part of everybody, an amnesty to heal old sores, and a
few administrative reforms, ought, he thought, to set everything
right. Such was not the opinion of intelligent onlookers who were
students of politics--especially if they were foreigners, and could
therefore keep their heads moderately cool in the prevailing
excitement. The wave of a wand may seem to effect marvels, but long
and silent causes prepare the way for each event. Now what had been
going on for years in the Roman States was not the process of gradual
growth, but the process of rapid disintegration. The Temporal Power of
the Popes had died without anyone noticing it, and there was nothing
left but a body in the course of dissolution. Every foreigner in Rome
during the reign of Gregory XVI. bore witness that his government
depended for its existence absolutely on the Swiss Guards. In 1845,
Count Rossi told Guizot that without the Swiss regiments the
government in the Legations and the Marches 'would be overthrown in
the twinkling of an eye.' The British agent in Rome, writing during
the Conclave, bore this out by the statement, which applied not to one
portion of the Roman states, but to all, that 'the government could
not stand without the protection of Austria and the immediate
presence of the Swiss.' On the accession of Pius IX., the props, such
as they were, which had prevented an earlier collapse of the Temporal
Power, were either removed or rendered useless. The Swiss might as
well have been disbanded at once as retained merely to be a bone of
contention between the new government and the people, since it was
understood that a vigorous use of their services would never be
resorted to; while Austrian protection was transferred from the Pope
to the disaffected party in the Church, which consisted in a large
proportion of the cardinals and of the inferior clergy who were afraid
that, with the reform of abuses, they would lose their influence over
the lower class of their flocks. The English diplomatic agents in
Italy also firmly believed that Austria coupled with her support of
the ultramontane malcontents the direct encouragement of the
disorderly elements of the population. To resist all these contrary
forces, Pius IX. had only a popularity which, though for the time
immense, was founded almost completely on imagination. 'It was,' said
Mr Petre, 'the name and known views of Pius, rather than his acts,
which aroused so much interest.' If for 'known views' be substituted
'supposed views,' the remark exactly describes the situation.
Popularity is very well, but a government cannot long subsist on the
single fact of the popularity of the sovereign. When the Roman mob
began to cry: 'Viva Pio Nono _solo_,' the fate of the experiment was
sealed. Real control slipped from the hands that nominally wielded it.
'The influence,' Mr Petre wrote to Sir George Hamilton, 'of one
individual of the lower class, Angelo Brunetti, hardly known but by
his nickname of Ciceruacchio, has for the last month kept the peace of
the city more than any power possessed by the authorities, from the
command which he exerts over the populace.' It was Ciceruacchio who
preserved order when in July 1847 the air was full of rumours of a
vast reactionary plot, which aimed at carrying off the Pope, and
putting things back as they were under Gregory. That such a plot was
ever conceived, or, at anyrate, that it received the sanction of the
high personages whose names were mentioned in connection with it, is
generally doubted now; but it was believed in by many of the
representatives of foreign Powers then in Italy. The public mind in
Rome was violently disturbed. Austria made the excitement the excuse
for occupying the town of Ferrara, where, by the accepted
interpretation of the Treaty of Vienna, she had only the right to
garrison the fortress. This aggression called forth a strong
remonstrance from the Pope's Secretary of State, Cardinal Ferretti;
and though a compromise was arrived at through the mediation of Lord
Palmerston, the feeling against Austria grew more and more exasperated
in the Roman states, and the Pope consented, not, it seemed, much
against the grain, to preparations being taken in hand with a view to
the possible eventuality of war.
At this date the Italian question was better apprehended at Vienna
than in any other part of Europe. A man of Prince Metternich's talents
does not devote a long life to statecraft without learning to
distinguish the real drift of political currents. While Lord
Palmerston still felt sure that reforms, and nothing but reforms, were
what Italy wanted, Prince Metternich saw that two real forces were at
work from the Alps to the Straits of Messina, and two only: desire for
union, hatred of Austria. Nor was it his fault if the English Cabinet
or the rest of the world remained unenlightened. Besides enlarging on
this truth in frequent diplomatic communications, he caused it to be
continually dwelt upon in the Vienna _Observer_, the organ of the
Austrian Government, which printed illustrative quotations from the
writings of Mazzini, of whom it said that 'he has the one merit of
despising hypocrisy, and proceeding firmly and directly to his true
end. Persons who are versed in history will know that this is exactly
the same end as that at which Arnold of Brescia and Cola di Rienzi
formerly aimed. The only difference is, that the revolutionary dream
has in the course of centuries gained in self-reliance and
confidence.' It may truly be affirmed after this that Metternich 'had
the one merit of despising hypocrisy.' Exactly the same end as Arnold
of Brescia and Cola di Rienzi--who better could have described the
scheme of Italian redemption?
In the course of the summer of 1847, the Prince said more than once to
the British Ambassador: 'The Emperor is determined not to lose his
Italian dominions.' It was no idle boast, the speaker felt confident,
that the troops in Lombardy and Venetia could keep those provinces
from taking an active part in the 'revolution' which he declared to be
already complete over all central Italy, though the word revolution
had never yet been mentioned. Nor was it only in the Austrian army
that he trusted; Metternich was persuaded that neither in Lombardy nor
in Venetia was there any fear of a really popular and, therefore,
formidable movement. He believed that Austria's only enemy was the
aristocracy. He even threw out hints that if the Austrian Government
condescended to do so, it could raise a social or peasants' war of the
country people against their masters. This is the policy which has
been elaborately followed by the Russians in Poland. The Austrians
pointed to their virtue in not resorting to it; but some tentative
experiments in such a direction had not given results of a kind to
encourage them to go on. The Italian peasant, though ignorant, had a
far quicker innate intelligence than his unfortunate Polish brother.
He did not dislike his masters, who treated him at least with easy
familiarity, and he detested foreigners--those foreigners, no matter
of what nation, who for two thousand years had brought the everlasting
curse of war upon his fields. The conscription, which carried off his
sons for eight years into distant lands, of which he could not
pronounce the name, was alone enough to alienate him from the Austrian
Government. In hoping to find a friend in the Italian peasant,
Metternich reckoned without his host. On the other hand, he was
strictly correct in his estimate of the patriotism of the aristocracy.
The fact always seemed to the Prince a violation of eternal laws.
According to him, the fore-ordained disaffected in every country were
drawn from the middle classes. What business had noblemen with ancient
names and fine estates to prefer Spielberg to their beautiful palaces
and fairy-like villas on the Lombard lakes? Was it on purpose to spite
the best of governments, and the one most favourable to the
aristocratic principle, which had always held out paternal hands to
them? Could anything be imagined more aggravating?
This feature in Italian liberation has been kept mostly in the
background. Democratic chroniclers were satisfied to ignore it, and to
the men themselves their enormous sacrifices seemed so natural that
they were very willing to let them pass out of mind. It is in the
works of those who, while sympathising with Italy, are not Italians,
that the best record of it is to be found; nowhere better than in a
recent book by a French writer, M. Paul Bourget, in which occurs the
following just and eloquent tribute: 'We must say in praise of the
aristocracy on this side of the Alps that the best soldiers of
independence were nobles. If Italy owes the final success to the
superior capabilities of Victor Emmanuel and Cavour, and to the
agitating power of the General of the Thousand, it is well not to
forget the struggles sustained for years by gentlemen whose example
did so much to raise partisans among the humble. These aristocrats,
passionate for liberty, have (like our own of the eighteenth century)
done more for the people than the people itself. The veritable history
of this _Risorgimento_ would be in great part that of the Italian
nobility in which the heroic blood of feudal chiefs revolted against
the oppressions and, above all, the perpetual humiliation, born of the
presence of the stranger.'
When Prince Metternich looked beyond the borders of those provinces
which he said that his Sovereign did not intend to lose, he saw sooner
than most people that a ball was set rolling which would not stop half
way down the hill. The one element in the situation which came as a
surprise to him, was that introduced by Pius IX. 'A liberal Pope is an
impossible being!' he exclaimed. Nevertheless this impossible being was
a reality which had to be dealt with. He hoped all along, however, that
Pius would fall a victim to the Frankenstein he had called into
existence, and his only real anxiety lay where it had always lain--on
the side of Piedmont. 'Charles Albert ought to let us know,' he wrote to
the Austrian Minister at Turin, 'whether his reign has been only a mask
under which was hidden the Prince of Carignano, who ascended the throne
through the order of succession re-established in his favour by the
Emperor Francis.' Considering all things, the endeavour to make it
appear that the King was indebted for his crown to Austria was somewhat
venturesome. Charles Albert, Metternich went on to say, had to choose
between two systems, the system now in force, or 'the crassest
revolution.' He wrote again: 'The King is sliding back upon the path
which he enters for the second time in his life, _and which he will
never really quit_.' Words of a bitter enemy, but juster than the
'Esecrato o Carignano,' hurled for a quarter of a century at Charles
Albert by those who only saw in him a traitor.
The constant invocation of the revolutionary spectre by the Austrian
statesman convinced the King that the wish was father to the thought,
and, afraid of introducing the thin end of the wedge, he showed
himself more than ever averse to reforming the antiquated machinery of
the Sardinian Government. Instead of being the first of Italian
princes to yield to popular demands, he was almost the last. He
believed that the question of nationality, of independence, could be
separated from the question of free institutions. Of all the
chimerical ideas then afloat, this was the most chimerical. Even the
example of the Pope, for whom Charles Albert felt a romantic devotion,
was not enough to induce him to open the road to reforms. The person
who seems first to have impressed him with their absolute necessity
was Lord Minto, whose visit to Turin, in October 1847, coincided with
the dismissal of Count della Margherita, the minister most closely
associated with the absolutist and Jesuitical _régime_. Lord Minto was
sent to Italy to encourage in the ways of political virtue those
Italian princes who were not entirely incorrigible. His mission
excited exaggerated hopes on the part of the Liberals, and exaggerated
wrath in the retrograde party--both failing to understand its
limitations. The hopes died a natural death, but long afterwards,
reactionary writers attributed all the 'troubles' in Italy to this
estimable British diplomatist. What is not doubtful is, that,
accustomed as they were to being lectured and bullied by foreign
courts, the Italians derived the greatest encouragement from the
openly expressed sympathy of well-known English visitors, whether they
came in an official capacity like Lord Minto, or unofficially like Mr
Cobden, who travelled as a missionary of Free Trade, and was received
with rapture--with which, it is to be feared, Free Trade had little to
do--by the leading Liberals in Italy: Massimo d'Azeglio at Genoa,
Mancini at Naples Cavour and Scialoja at Turin, Minghetti at Bologna,
Ridolfi at Florence, and Manin and Tommaseo at Venice.
Towards the end of 1847, there was a curious shuffling of the cards in
the small states of Lucca and Parma, resulting in much irritation,
which, in an atmosphere so charged with revolutionary electricity, was
not without importance. The dissolute Bourbon prince who reigned in
Lucca, Charles Ludovico, had but one desire, which was to increase his
civil list. He hit upon an English jockey named Ward, who came to
Italy in the service of a German count, and this person he made his
Chancellor of the Exchequer. By various luminous strokes, Ward
furthered his Sovereign's object without much increasing the taxation,
and when matters began to grow complicated, and here, too, a cry was
raised for a Constitution (which had been solemnly guaranteed to the
people of Lucca at the Congress of Vienna, but had never been heard of
since), he proposed the sale of the Duchy off-hand to Tuscany, with
which it would, in any case, be united, when, on the death of the
ex-Empress Marie-Louise, the Duchy of Parma devolved on the Duke of
Lucca. At the same time, by a prior agreement, a district of Tuscany
called the Lunigiana was consigned, one-half to the Duchess of Parma,
and the other to the Duke of Modena. The indignation of the
population, which was made, by force, subject to the Duke of Modena,
was intense, and the whole transaction of handing about Italians to
suit the pleasure of princes, or to obey the articles of forgotten
treaties, reminded the least sensitive of the everyday opprobrium of
their lot.
The bargain with Tuscany had been struck only eight days when
Marie-Louise died--unlamented, since the latter years of her reign
formed a sad contrast to the earlier. Marie-Louise had not a bad
disposition, but she always let her husband of the hour govern as he
chose; of the four or five of these husbands, the last two, and
particularly the hated Count de Bombelles, undid all the good done by
their more humane predecessors. The Parmese petitioned their new Duke
to send the man away, and to grant them some measure of freedom. The
answer he gave was the confirmation of Bombelles in all his honours,
and the conclusion of a treaty with Austria, securing the assistance
of her arms. A military force had been sent to Parma to escort the
body of the late Duchess to Vienna; but on the principle that the
living are of more consequence than the dead, it remained there to
protect the new Duke from his subjects. Marie-Louise and her lovers,
Charles Ludovico and his jockey-minister, are instructive
illustrations of the scandalous point things had reached in the small
states of Italy.
There was, indeed, one state in which, though the dynasty was
Austrian, the government was conducted without ferocity and without
scandal. This was Tuscany. The branch of the Hapsburg-Lorraine family
established in Tuscany produced a series of rulers who, if they
exhibited no magnificent qualities, were respectable as individuals,
and mild as rulers. Giusti dubbed Leopold II. 'the Tuscan Morpheus,
crowned with poppies and lettuce leaves,' and the clear intelligence
of Ricasoli was angered by the languid, let-be policy of the
Grand-Ducal government, but, compared with the other populations of
Italy, the Tuscans might well deem themselves fortunate. Only on one
occasion had the Grand Duke given up a fugitive from the more favoured
provinces, and the presence of distinguished exiles lent brilliancy to
his capital. Leopold II. hesitated between the desire to please his
subjects and the fear of his Viennese relations, who sent him through
Metternich the ominous reminder, 'that the Italian Governments had
only subsisted for the last ten years by the support they received
from Austria'--an assertion at which Charles Albert took umbrage, but
he was curtly told that he was not intended. In spite of his fears,
however, the Grand Duke instituted a National Guard on the 4th of
September, which was correctly judged the augury of further
concessions. In August, the Austrian Minister had distinctly
threatened to occupy Tuscany, or any other of the Italian duchies
where a National Guard was granted; its institution was therefore
interpreted as a decisive act of rebellion against the Imperial
dictatorship. The red, white and green tricolor, not yet permitted in
Piedmont, floated already from all the towers of the city on the Arno.
Where there were no signs of improvement was in the government of the
Two Sicilies. King Ferdinand undertook a journey through several parts
of the country, but as Lord Napier, the British Minister, expressed
it: 'Exactly where the grace of the royal countenance was principally
conferred, the rebels sprung up most thickly.' A revolution was
planned to break out in all the cities of the kingdom, but the project
only took effect at Messina and at Reggio, and in both places the
movement was stifled with prompt and barbarous severity. When the
leader of the Calabrian attempt, Domenico Romeo, a landed proprietor,
was caught on the heights of Aspromonte, his captors, after cutting
off his head, carried it to his young nephew, whom they ordered to
take it to Reggio with the cry of 'Long live the King.' The youth
refused, and was immediately killed. In the capital, Carlo Poerio and
many patriots were thrown into prison on suspicion. Settembrini had
just time to escape to Malta.
The year 1847 closed amid outward appearances of quiet.