Mrs. G. Gretton

Injudicious policy of the Government at the Restoration—Non-fulfilment of the Motu proprio of Pius VII.—Disappointment of the pontifical subjects—Inability of Cardinals Consalvi and Guerrieri to contend against the narrow views of their colleagues—Reasons of Austria's animosity against the former—Guerrieri's projected reforms bring about his fall—The constitutional movement of 1820-21—Its effect in the Papal States—Abuse of Consalvi's instructions—Extreme political rigour under Leo XII.—Distracted condition of the country—The Sanfedisti rising of 1831—First Austrian armed intervention in Romagna—Conferences at Rome—Mr. Seymour's protest—Fresh disturbances in the Legations—the Austrians again occupy Bologna—The French land at Ancona—The reign of Gregory XVI.

The Italian princes summoned back from exile or captivity, by the downfall of Napoleon, to the exercise of sovereignty, bad, all of them, learnt a little from adversity. Upon none, however, had its lessons been so completely thrown away, as the Pope,—or, to speak more correctly, the Papacy.

From the first resumption of its functions, the aim of the Roman Government seems to have been to blot out all traces of the enlightened and vigorous administration of the French; not by continuing whatever they had introduced of good, or improving on whatever they had left imperfect, but by forcibly reviving the usages of an almost obsolete generation. It was seriously deemed possible, by the most puerile restrictions, the most inquisitorial surveillance, to compel men to recede a quarter of a century, and return submissively to the stagnation which characterized Italy before the Revolution—a period when literature, art, morals, were all at their lowest ebb, and the test of a good citizen was to be regular at his barber's, spotless in his ruffles, and assiduous as a cicisbee.

At the restoration of Pius VII., promises had been held out of a thorough revision of the Legislature; but before long the publication of a civil and criminal code, based upon by-gone institutions and totally opposed to the requirements of the age, coupled with the augmenting influence of the clergy, opened the way for a weary succession of evils. It soon became apparent that neither the moderation of the pontiff, nor the good intentions and activity of one or two amongst the cardinals could counterbalance the hostility of the vast majority of the Sacred College to aught connected with reform. Victims of one revolution, they fancied any innovation on time-hallowed observances would infallibly precipitate them into a second.

Consalvi and Guerrieri, the one Prime Minister, the other Cardinal-Treasurer, stood alone in their endeavours to remedy the most crying abuses. Unsupported as they were, for a few years at least they kept up a semblance of decency and justice. With their disgrace every vestige of common sense departed from the councils of the Vatican. Italians always date the commencement of their worst times from the triumph of the Austrian intrigues which brought about Cardinal Consalvi's downfall. Metternich had never forgiven his energetic protest at the Congress of Vienna against the occupation of the citadels of Ferrara and Commacchio in the papal territory. Though the protest remains a dead letter, and both received Austrian garrisons, the independence of spirit, the impatience of foreign control, which he had revealed, were little in accordance with imperial policy; and, conjoined to his successful opposition to designs upon Ancona in 1821, stamped him as too national for Austria to tolerate in the Church Cabinet. Immediately upon the decease of his firm friend Pius VII., Consalvi was displaced; and Cardinal Albani, of avowedly absolutist principles, succeeded him in the direction of affairs.

Guerrieri was the victim of his devotion to political economy, and his projected financial reforms. Amongst these was a thorough revision of the land-tax, to effect which he sent for experienced engineers from abroad. But Albani would not suffer him to carry out this much-needed undertaking. When interrogated as to the motive of this hostility, he is said to have replied: “My large estates in the Marche are not probably assessed at more than at third of their value. I do not choose to treble the tax at my expense.”

The years 1820-21 were equally memorable and disastrous for the whole of Italy. Revolutions broke out in Naples and Piedmont, of which the object was to obtain a Constitution. But neither Ferdinand of Bourbon, nor Charles Felix of Savoy, were reformers. Both monarchs had recourse to arms; the one solicited, the other accepted, the assistance of Austria, who, dreading nothing so much as the establishment of representative institutions in Italy, eagerly seized on this opportunity for intervention. Naples Was guarded for six years by the Imperial troops;—the Piedmontese sustained what they still remember as the indignity of a six months' occupation of the citadel of Alessandria.

Though the Roman States had taken no part in these disturbances, it was apparent that a dangerous amount of sympathy for their purpose existed in the population. The absolutist party urged stringent measures of precaution; and Austria was desirous of throwing a garrison into Ancona. By diplomatic address Consalvi eluded compliance with this proffer; but, to clear himself from the imputation of inability or disinclination to make head against the liberals, took a step which entailed consequences he was the first to deplore. He wrote to the four legates of the Romagne, authorizing them to send temporarily out of the country a certain number of individuals suspected to be members of the Carbonari, Freemasons, and other secret revolutionary societies. The cardinal-legates used this faculty with indiscriminating rigour; and drew upon themselves the prime minister's grave rebuke. Shocked at finding the arrests considerably exceeded one hundred, Consalvi declared that the pope would pass for the most relentless of persecutors, deprecated the abuse of force and of justice which had been employed, and gave orders to desist from any further proceedings.[9]

But this act had been as the letting in of waters. The proscriptions which Consalvi lamented as being so large, were insignificant to those that desolated the Romagne two years later under the blind intolerance of Leo XII., and Albani, when he himself had been thrust from office. Five hundred and eight persons were accused of high treason by the tribunals presided over by the fanatical Cardinal Rivarola. Of these offenders, a hundred and twenty-one, belonging to the upper classes of society, were exiled into Tuscany. But ere long the Government became apprehensive that they would conspire afresh if left at large. They were, therefore, summoned back to their own residences. With a fatal reliance on the good intentions of their sovereign, into which no Roman subject will ever again be betrayed, they obeyed the command. Scarcely had they entered the country when they were seized, imprisoned, and, after a protracted trial, condemned. Seven were beheaded, forty-five sent to the galleys, and the remainder imprisoned in State fortresses.

The hatred generated by this violation of humanity and good faith, hopelessly widened the breach between the people and their rulers. Political assassinations and conspiracies grew more and more frequent, and these in their turn led to fresh arrests and fresh severities. But it is with political as in religious persecutions; the secret societies, which had not comprised more than two thousand members before 1824, rapidly acquired a vast number of proselytes.

The organization of the Sanfedisti by the Government introduced another element of discord, terror, and oppression. This association, intended as a counterpoise to those of the liberals, required of its adepts the utmost mystery and devotion; they were bound together by the most solemn oath for the defence of the holy Roman Apostolic faith, and the temporal authority of the Pope. No family tie, no impulse of compassion, neither “the tears of women, nor the cries of children,” were to stand in the way of its fulfilment. So long as they were faithful to the material obligations of this pledge, the Sanfedisti enjoyed almost complete immunity for any amount of crime, and their services were requited with a liberality which attracted many to their ranks. The spy and the informer plied thriving trades, and no class of society was secure from their baneful presence.

In 1831 the smouldering embers again kindled into flame. The revolutions of France and Belgium revived the desire of the Italians for emancipation. Risings took place in Piedmont, Modena, Parma, the Romagne, and Marche. But this time the insurgents were less moderate in their aims. The tyranny of the last ten years had borne its accustomed fruit, and a large leaven of republicanism was now mingled with what had been the constitutional party of '21. In the papal provinces, however, the malcontents demanded little beyond the accomplishment of the reforms promised by Pius VII. But Gregory XVI., the newly-elected Pope, at once turned to Austria, and three large bodies of imperial troops speedily restored these importunate subjects to his authority.

Subdued, but not convinced, the Romagnuoli addressed such indignant remonstrances to France, whose support they had been led to anticipate before the commencement of the struggle, as aroused that Power to seek some mitigation of their sufferings. A Conference was proposed to be held in Rome, at which the representatives of France, England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia were to deliberate on the means of bringing about an amicable settlement of the differences between the Pope and his people.

They were not long in discerning the main defects of the Roman administration, and in their memorandum of 10th May, 1831, pointed out the appropriate remedies. These embraced the secularization of many of the chief offices under Government, and in the courts of law, hitherto an ecclesiastical monopoly; the complete revision of the civil and criminal code; the nomination of municipal councils by their respective communes, instead of by the State; the selection from these of a deliberative body for each province, to protect local interests; lastly, these provincial assemblies to furnish the members of a Consulta, which was to have its seat at Rome, regulate the public debt, and have a voice in the general management of affairs.

These suggestions, it is scarcely necessary to say, were not carried out. It is universally believed that, though ostensibly favouring their adoption, Austria, and Russia also, secretly backed the Papal Court in evading all compliance. Gregory XVI., a native of Belluno, was an Austrian subject by birth, and showed himself throughout his career a steady partisan of the House of Hapsburg. He began his reign with the promise that a new era was about to open;[10] but how little was done towards its realization may be gathered from the protest of Mr Seymour, the English minister, on withdrawing from the conferences.

“More than fourteen months,” he says, “have elapsed since the memorandum was given in, and not one of the recommendations it contains has been fully adopted by the Papal Government. For even the edicts which have either been prepared or published, and which profess to carry some of those recommendations into effect, differ essentially from the measures recommended in the memorandum. The consequence of this state of things has been that which it was natural to expect. The Papal Government having taken no effectual steps to remedy the defects which had created the discontent, that discontent has been increased by the disappointment of hopes which the negotiations at Rome were calculated to excite: and thus, after the Five Powers have for more than a year been occupied in endeavouring to restore tranquillity to the Roman State, the prospect of voluntary obedience by the population to the authority of the Sovereign, seems not to be nearer than it was when the negotiations first commenced.

“The court of Rome appears to rely upon the temporary presence of foreign troops, and upon the expected service of an auxiliary Swiss force, for the maintenance of order in its territories. But foreign occupation cannot be indefinitely prolonged; and it is not likely that any Swiss force of such an amount as could be maintained by the financial means of the Roman Government could be capable of suppressing the discontent of a whole population; and even if tranquillity could be restored by such means, it could not be considered to be permanently re-established, nor would such a condition of things be the kind of pacification the British Government intended to be a party in endeavouring to bring about.”...

The concluding sentence is prophetic:—“The British Government foresees that if the present system is persevered in, fresh disturbances must be expected to take place in the Papal States, of a character progressively more and more serious, and that out of those disturbances may spring complications dangerous to the peace of Europe.”[11]

The English minister needed but to have appealed to the events which had transpired during his stay in Rome to give weight to his assertions. The Austrian troops had scarcely been withdrawn when the Romagne began to demand the unreserved accomplishment of the promised reforms. Meetings were held in their principal towns, the representatives of the Five Powers were memorialized, and deputations sent to the Pope. But in vain. After a few months of growing irritation and suspicion, the tri-coloured flag was raised in several towns of the four Legations and the Marches. Upon this, the pontifical troops, who had been collecting in the vicinity for some time previous, attacked Forli and Cesena, while Austria a second time poured an army across the Po for the reduction of the country.

Ancona soon afterwards (February, 1832) received a French garrison. Jealous of the position assumed by Austria in Italy, this measure was resolved upon by France to counterbalance that ascendancy. This joint military occupation of the two nations lasted until the end of 1838. The tears shed by the Anconitans on the departure of the French were significant of their forebodings for the future. Evil indeed must be the condition of a people who prefer foreign occupation to their own sovereign's rule.

The period that followed, until the death of Gregory XVI., was, indeed, dark. The clergy, ignorant, grasping, and corrupt, monopolized almost every channel to emolument or advancement. Ministers, judges, heads of colleges, directors of hospitals, governors of towns—all were prelates; a few, indeed, had not received the tonsure, and were free to marry, on giving up their appointments; but the cases in which the advantages accruing from celibacy and the clerical habit were renounced, are of rare occurrence.[12] The introduction of railways, evening schools for the working-classes, and scientific congresses, were all systematically opposed. Ruinous loans were contracted, and unjust monopolies conceded, to defray the expenses of the Swiss mercenaries, and the army of spies and police agents necessary to keep the population in check. Notwithstanding these precautions, and the utter hopelessness of any effort so long as Austria was on the frontier, ready to pour in her troops when needed, conspiracies were frequently breaking out, which gave a colour to the increasing blind, fanatical severity of the Government, only bent on retaining its grasp for the moment, without a thought on the heritage of hatred and ruin stored up for its successors. In 1843, partial insurrectionary movements in the Romagne were punished as in the days of Cardinal Rivarola. Military commissions were instituted, and in Bologna seven popolani, leaders of the populace, who for the first time were found joined with the more intellectual classes in opposition to the Government, were executed, and many more imprisoned. The chief conspirators having escaped, vengeance was thus wreaked on their subordinates. At Ravenna, the five chiefs of the movement, amongst whom was Farini, since so celebrated, also succeeded in eluding arrest; but the commission was relentless in its inquisition after those on whom a shadow of suspicion could be fastened. The most barbarous measures were pursued to extort confession; solitary confinement, intimidation, false intelligence, even to the terror of impending death. Thirty-six condemnations to the galleys crowned this investigation. Again in 1845, at Rimini, fresh disturbances broke out, of which the aim was no republican Utopia, but simply to demand moderate reforms. The noble manifesto addressed by the insurgents to the peoples of Europe, seconded by a vigorous exposition of their wrongs from the pen of Massimo d'Azeglio, struck powerfully, it is said, upon Cardinal Mastai, shortly afterwards named Pope. But the advisers of Gregory XVI. dealt with this movement as with those that had preceded it. Arrests were made all over the country, and gloom and apprehension filled every heart.

The highways swarmed with robbers and murderers, while the prisons were tenanted by honest men, arrested as political delinquents, often ignorant of the offences laid to their charge, and detained for years without a trial. Commerce languished; bribery and fraud were rife in every department. Religion had never been in such low estimation, yet conformity to its most solemn practices was enforced under severe penalties. Language fails me to describe the misery, the idleness, the decay, which were the characteristics, at that time, both of the Romagne and the Marche; and which, unhappily, continue to be applicable to the latter.

This picture will, I know, be considered exaggerated by those who have not inhabited these provinces. The appearance of Rome may be cited in contradiction to my statements. But Rome cannot be taken as a criterion of the Roman States. It is a cosmopolite city, resorted to by strangers from all parts of the world, animated and enriched by their presence. Take away the artists' studios, the shops of the dealers in mosaic and cameos, statuettes and sarcophagi,—and those who purchase them,—and grass would be growing in the streets of Rome, as it did six months ago in the half-depopulated cities of the Legations.