Mrs. G. Gretton

Rome subjugated by the French—Leniency of General Oudinot—Rigour of the Pope's Commissioners—Investigation into the opinions of Government employÉs—Disfavour of the Constitutionalists—The Pope's edict and second amnesty—He returns to his capital, April, 1850—Bitter disappointment of the Romans—Count Cavour's appeal to the Congress of Paris on their behalf—The Papal progress in 1857—Public feeling at the opening of 1859—Excitement in the Pontifical States at the outbreak of the war—The Austrians evacuate Bologna—Establishment of a Provisional Government—The revolt spreads through the Legations—Ancona loses the favourable moment—Declares itself too late—Approach of the Swiss troops from Perugia and Pesaro—Capitulates to General Allegrini—Arbitrary proceedings of General Kalbermatten—The Gonfaloniere—His mendacious addresses to the Pope—Misery of Ancona—Contrast presented by the Legations—Conclusion.

Contemporarily with the re-establishment of the pontifical authority by the Austrians in the Legations and Marche, the French, under General Oudinot, fulfilled their part of the compact, and brought the Eternal City into subjection. They were not prepared for the obstinate and spirited resistance they encountered. False reports of the anarchy prevailing in Rome had led Oudinot to anticipate that he would be hailed by the vast majority of the inhabitants as their deliverer from the licence of a demagogical faction; and no disappointment was ever more galling than that of the victor when he found himself regarded with aversion as the instrument of replacing a detested yoke upon an indignant population. It is but his due to state that he descended to no reprisals for the undisguised ill-will and contempt[17] with which he was received. Although the hostility of the Romans left him no alternative but to impose martial law, the greatest forbearance was shown in enforcing it; while all who had cause to dread the return of the Papal functionaries were at full liberty to depart.

It was not until a commission, composed of three cardinals, arrived from Gaeta with full powers to assume the government, that the reaction may be said to have commenced. Whoever had not shown himself a partisan of absolute government was at once treated as an enemy. To their utter astonishment the Constitutionalists were classed in the same category as the democrats, and soon had cause to deplore not having followed the example of all the persons connected with the short-lived Republic, who had timely quitted the country. A censorship or council was instituted to investigate the opinions of government officials of every class; but as every appointment made subsequently to the Pope's flight was cancelled as a preliminary, this inquiry limited itself to such persons as were in office before the commencement of disturbances. The result of this inquisitorial scrutiny was the loss of their situations to seven hundred moderati, and the sudden beggary of an almost equal number of families. As if this measure had not sufficiently eliminated the dangerous liberal element, persons who had been absent from public view ever since the death of Gregory XVI. were now invited forth from their hiding-places or from prison. Spies and perjurers in old times, they returned with alacrity to their former calling; confiscation, imprisonment, exile, the galleys, fell to the lot of those who had crossed their path. The universities were closed; the most stringent laws enacted on the Press; the Holy Office reinstated in full vigour.

The Constitution was withdrawn. Pius IX. was the first amongst the princes of Europe to set the example of revoking the franchises with so much solemnity accorded. Not that the statute was ever publicly annulled: it was through his famous motu proprio of the 12th September, 1849, which laid down a totally opposite system as the basis of his resumption of the government, that the Romans understood its doom was sealed. The institutions he now promised were to be such “as should bring no danger to our liberty, which we are obliged to maintain intact before the universal world.” In those words lies the clue to the Papal policy.

An amnesty was appended to this decree, but as it excluded from its provisions whoever had taken any share in public affairs since the assassination of Count Rossi, numbers of the most temperate politicians in the State, who had given their support to Mamiani during his efforts at an accommodation with the Pope, fared no better than the Mazzinians who had set all constituted authority at defiance. All were equally proscribed. The Romans, jesting, as is their wont, whether in pleasure or in bitterness, compared it to a register of condemnation rather than an instrument of pardon.

In April, 1850, Pius re-entered his dominions. The Romans had looked anxiously for this, and trusting in the benevolence of his character, imagined that he would at least put a stop to the cruelty and injustice exercised in his name. But the Pope who came back from Gaeta had nothing of the Pio Nono of four years back. As if in expiation of his previous errors, and to screen the Church from being again jeopardized by his weakness, he withdrew all attention from secular affairs, and henceforth lived only for the glory of religion. So little did he inform himself of the state of the country, that the few who could obtain his ear unobserved, declare that they found him perfectly ignorant of passing occurrences. Nothing was suffered to reach him save through the medium of his detested minister, Cardinal Antonelli,—his subjects' murmurings and prayers had no other expositor; while the same channel conveyed to them nought save harshness, intolerance, and vindictiveness, as tokens of their sovereign's existence.

When the Romans once thoroughly realized this change, with the extinction of their hopes departed every vestige of affection. Never was there a prince who fell from such a height of love, reverence, and admiration, to be regarded with such utter indifference.

In 1856, the evils which affected the Roman States were brought before Europe by Count Cavour, the Sardinian plenipotentiary at the Congress of Paris. He sketched their history since the restoration in 1815, and demonstrated the pressure Austria had always exercised upon the Papal Government, to whom a loophole was thus given for throwing on its powerful ally the odium of its past and actual rÉgime. As the first condition of the reforms the Pope should be invited to adopt, he insisted on the withdrawal of the two foreign armies in occupation of the country.

It being well understood that France only continued to garrison Rome as a check upon Austria, it was without any fear of opposition from the former that the Italian statesman dwelt on the crying necessity of this measure, and appealed to the deplorable situation of the Legations and Marche, where a state of siege and martial law had been subsisting for seven years, to evidence whether the system now in force was salutary in its results; while he wound up his representations by urging the constant danger which threatened the tranquillity of neighbouring States by the existence of such a focus of intrigue and discontent.

This movement on the part of the Sardinian Government was loudly protested against by the clerical party as pandering to the revolutionists; but it saved Italy from becoming once more the prey of socialists and red republicans. Convinced that their cause was in able hands, the people were induced to wait patiently a little longer, to desist from the plottings and insurrections which had only been fruitful in bloodshed and desolation, and give their infatuated rulers another and final chance of averting the day of reckoning which was rapidly approaching.

Even then, at the eleventh hour, a little judgment, a little generosity, might have propped the tottering edifice. In 1857, the announcement that the Pope was about to undertake a journey through his dominions awoke a hope of brighter days. The state of siege and martial law in Bologna and Ancona were removed; the beggars who peopled all the towns through which he passed were locked up; a good many buildings were whitewashed; and the municipal bodies (government nominees) presented congratulatory addresses. Other addresses, too, were prepared, couched in less flowery language, signed by many of the provincial nobility and landowners, in which an earnest appeal was made to their sovereign's justice and humanity. But these were not permitted to reach his hands. Cold and languid was the pontifical progress. Pius visited shrines and churches, but he unbarred no prisons, and left no thankful hearts behind him.

The memorable words of Victor Emmanuel on opening the Chambers at Turin in January, 1859,—“We are not insensible to the cry of anguish which reaches us from every part of Italy,”—were not spoken too soon. Without a public assurance of sympathy and protection to those suffering populations who, for three years, under increasing grievances, had waited for the result of Sardinia's interposition in their behalf, they could not any longer have been restrained from the wildest excesses of vengeance and despair. Without the firm trust in the RÉ galantuomo generated by his faithful observance of the Constitution in Piedmont, under difficulties of no ordinary kind, Mazzini would never have lost his influence in the Peninsula.

In the Roman States, where republicanism had been as it were enthroned, this altered tone of public feeling was the more remarkable. The priests who rail at the constitutional king as the instigator of the revolution in the Legations, should rather thank the magic influence of his name, and the exhortations of the noble and enlightened men he has rallied around him, for restraining the fiery and vindictive Romagnuoli from abusing their hour of triumph. Not a Codino in the country but anticipated, whenever the Austrian troops should be withdrawn, a repetition of the horrors of the first French revolution.

As the excitement which pervaded all North Italy last winter extended itself to the Papal States, the Austrians redoubled in vigilance and severity. While the French general in command at Rome winked at the enthusiasm of the inhabitants, and offered no opposition to the departure of the volunteers who flocked to Victor Emmanuel's standard, the Pope's allies on the other side of the Apennines strengthened their garrisons, re-established martial law, intercepted the volunteers as they stole towards the frontiers, and threw up fresh fortifications round the citadel at Ancona.

The Government, dependent for its very existence upon two Powers on the verge of open collision, was torn by anxiety. Its leanings were unequivocally Austrian; but these, to a certain extent, fear of the French compelled it to dissemble. When the war at length broke out at the end of April, and the invasion of Piedmont by the Austrians was responded to by the landing of a French army at Genoa to support Victor Emmanuel, the fever of expectation in both parties, liberal and absolutist, in the pontifical dominions, reached a maddening pitch.

The suspense was not of long duration. The battle of Magenta brought things to a crisis. On the 8th of June, Bologna first learned the rumours of the victory. The ferment was indescribable, and the people, intoxicated with joy, were with difficulty restrained from rising on the Austrians. Written handbills were actively circulated, admonishing them to prudence: “Be ready, but calm and disciplined,” was the burthen of these injunctions. Two days of torturing suspense followed; an embargo had been laid on all newspapers or bulletins from the seat of war, and the military and pontifical authorities spread a contradiction of the previous intelligence.

But the truth could not for ever be concealed, and when Gyulai's defeat was confirmed, the excitement rose almost beyond the control of the self-constituted chiefs of the national party,—men conspicuous in Bologna for intellect, birth, and local influence,—to whose sagacity, firmness, and moderation at that momentous period their countrymen owe an incalculable debt of gratitude. In spite of their endeavours to avoid any grounds of provocation, however, a conflict between the populace and military seemed imminent, when General Habermann telegraphed to head-quarters for instructions, and was ordered to evacuate the city.

In the dead of the night the dislodgment was effected; nor was it until the last Austrian soldier had defiled through the gates, that the restraint so wisely imposed permitted any public display of exultation. In a moment, the houses were all illuminated, and the people poured into the streets, scarce venturing to credit their wondrous deliverance. The Marquis Pepoli, Count Malvezzi, Count Tanari, Professor Montanari, and other influential Bolognese, meantime proceeded to the palace of the Cardinal Legate, and requested an audience. After a long conference, Cardinal Milesi was convinced of the unanimity of the aims of the liberal party, bent on placing themselves under the protection of Piedmont, and of the hopelessness of opposing them; accordingly, the papal arms were lowered from the gateway of the Palazzo Governativo, amid the frantic joy of a large concourse of by-standers, and at an early hour in the morning he took his departure from Bologna.

A provisional Government was now formed, until an answer could be received from Victor Emmanuel, to whom the dictatorship of the province was offered, pending the duration of the war. Besides the Marquis Pepoli, and others whom I have already named, Prince Hercolani, Prince Rinaldo Simonetti, and Count CÆsare Albicini, of the first nobility of the country, took part in the administration: a fact of itself sufficient to confute the absurd statements put forward in England at pro-papal meetings, of the movement in the Legations being confined to a few adventurers and Piedmontese agents.

Wisely eschewing all subordinate questions, as well as the discussion of eventualities, the Bolognese devoted themselves to the organization of a sufficient force to defend their frontiers, and with the financial provisions indispensable to this end. Every day brought encouraging intelligence. As the Austrians retreated from the Legations, the cities they left in their rear raised the Sardinian flag, and sent in their adherence to the central Government at Bologna. Up to La Cattolica, a village a few miles to the south of Rimini and the classic Rubicon, the insurrection received no check; but Pesaro, a town on the sea-coast of some importance, about forty miles from Ancona, was unable to declare itself. It was the head-quarters of some Swiss regiments, under General Kalbermatten, who were soon to do the Pope good service in the reduction of the Marche.

Ancona had its revolution of a few days, for which it is still doing penance in sackcloth and ashes. On the 12th of June, the Austrians abandoned the town, but the citadel was almost immediately occupied by some Papal troops, despatched from Macerata. A few hours only elapsed between the departure of the former and the arrival of their substitutes; but it was the Anconitans' want of energy in turning that interval to account which decided the fate of the Marche. They lacked the master-minds who directed the pronunciamento at Bologna, and who alone could have grasped the requirements of the situation. The oversight of not declaring themselves at once, and seizing upon the citadel, with the vast military stores left there by the Austrians, and its almost impregnable positions, was irreparable. Before finally committing themselves, they waited for tidings from Romagna, and lost the decisive moment.

It was not till two or three days after General Allegrini had occupied the fortress, that Ancona proclaimed the dictatorship of the King of Sardinia, and appointed a Junta, in which the nobility and middle classes were severally represented by Count Cresci, a wealthy landowner; Dr Benedetto Monti, an eminent physician; Signor Mariano Ploner, a merchant; and Signor Feoli, a lawyer: all men of mature age and unquestioned honour. Upon this the delegate retired from his post, and without a shot being fired, all emblems of the Pope's authority were effaced or removed. Allegrini's conduct in offering no interference during these proceedings, while a few shells from the heights in his possession would have made fearful havoc among the insurgents, subsequently earned him a court-martial, and the loss of his command. Meantime, two soldiers of a different stamp were ordered to deal with the rebellious city. The inhabitants had scarcely learned the fall of Perugia,[18] with all its horrible accompaniments, when they were terrified by the announcement that Colonel Schmidt, with the Swiss troops engaged in the assault, was advancing by forced marches upon them from one quarter, while General Kalbermatten was approaching from another.

Without arms, without leaders, resistance was clearly impossible; it was, therefore, decided to surrender to Allegrini, who assured them of better terms than Kalbermatten would be likely to concede, and connived at the evasion of thirty of the most compromised among the citizens, who escaped by sea before the entrance of the Swiss.

Dissatisfied with Allegrini's leniency, Kalbermatten had no scruple in setting aside the capitulation. He immediately imposed a fine of a hundred thousand dollars upon the town, enacted a number of stringent and inquisitorial regulations, enforced under heavy penalties,[19] and secured himself a zealous coadjutor in public affairs by conferring the office of gonfaloniere, or chief civil magistrate, on the Marquis D * * *, the man of all others most hateful and loathsome to the population. It is no exaggeration to say of this nobleman, that he has one of the most infamous reputations in a country, and amongst a party, where every species of vice is very efficiently represented. He was even too notorious to be made use of by the Government of Gregory XVI., notwithstanding his devotion to the Holy See, his very high rank, and considerable wealth. It remained for a Kalbermatten—like himself, too, in bad odour in the previous reign—to pass the last indignity upon the Anconitans, by placing him at their head. His very first measure after entering into office was a characteristic one. He sent a deputation from the municipality of Ancona, to impress on Pius IX. that recent events were the work of an evil-minded minority, and assuring him of the Anconitans' unbounded loyalty and contentment. The Roman Gazette, of course, hastened to proclaim this fact, but omitted some elucidations which rendered the announcement even more mendacious than the general run of its intelligence.

At that moment no municipal body existed in Ancona. The nobles and citizens who composed it had either fled the country or were in concealment, or declared themselves to be ill, or flatly refused to retain office under their new gonfaloniere. The deputation, lyingly reported to the world as embodying the sentiments of the town-council and civil authorities of this miserable city, was composed of two of the Pope's cousins, and an underling of the Neapolitan consulate.

General Kalbermatten, however, determined that the Marchese should not, on another occasion, be forced thus to extemporize a following. He imposed a fine of five dollars a day upon the sick or refractory members of the Municipio, which at last told so heavily upon their resources, that such as could not escape[20] into the free atmosphere of Romagna—professional men and merchants, whose families and avocations chained them to the spot—were compelled to give in. But in a few months the corporation was again fatally at issue with its chief.

His first essay at addresses had apparently been so gratifying, that in December the zealous gonfaloniere sent up a second to Rome, couched as before in the name of the whole Municipio, to be laid before the then expected Congress, protesting against any changes in the actual political rÉgime under which they had the happiness of living. Deep and irrepressible was the indignation of the Anconitans on discovering what he had had the audacity to affirm, for not one—no, not one—of the Anziani was cognizant of the proceeding; and with a spirit which can only be appreciated by those who understand their critical position, they simultaneously threw up office.

Since then I know not what expedient has been adopted to bring these contumacious subjects to obedience, for private letters from that centre of desolation are more eloquent in their silence than their details. This much I know positively, that none of the accounts which from time to time find their way into the “Times” or “Daily News” of the actual condition of Ancona, of the continual landing of Austrian recruits for the Papal army, of the stagnation of trade, and the despairing, sullen attitude of the population—are in anywise exaggerated.

It is sad to turn from the scene of so many pleasant associations, leaving it so wretched in the present, in such utter uncertainty for the future; but my limits are well nigh attained, and I should only be going over a thrice-told tale if I enumerated all the grievances which it shares in common with the other provinces still under Papal rule. These are forcibly condensed in the address lately presented to the Emperor of the French by the refugees from Ancona, Perugia, and, in fine, every other part of the Roman States not yet emancipated from the priestly yoke.—“A destructive blast has swept over the country. No responsibility in those who govern, no publicity in the administration, no safeguard before the tribunals, canon law above the civil code—these are the inevitable consequences of a Government at the head of which stands a prince, who, bound by religious ties, and declaring himself infallible, is free from all control. All modification of an essentially corrupt system would be fruitless. Principles may be corrected, persons may be changed, but the intrinsic nature of a thing admits neither of correction nor change. The clerical system is incompatible with the customs and civilization of the present day; to endeavour to mend it would be to galvanize a dead corpse.”

The Romagne stands out in bright relief against this gloomy background. A fierce ordeal had to be encountered when, close upon the rapture with which the population received Massimo d'Azeglio as Commissioner Extraordinary from Victor Emmanuel, came the unlooked for, palsying announcement of the Convention of Villafranca. But right nobly did they surmount the dangers that menaced them on every side. Though the soldier-statesman, the Bayard of politicians, whose writings, whose eloquence, whose example had so potently contributed to purify and exalt the national character, was compelled to withdraw from the post so recently assumed, they loved and trusted him and his royal master too implicitly to be false to his exhortations.

Hence it was that, abandoned to themselves at a conjuncture the most critical and perplexing, the Romagnuoli, so long noted for their turbulence and lawlessness, seemed suddenly to have acquired a ripeness of judgment and power of self-control worthy of a long apprenticeship to freedom. By the middle of July a body of 12,000 men were already equipped and on their way to La Cattolica, to ward off any attack of the pontifical troops; and before the end of August the elections had taken place for the National Assembly. The four Legations, containing about a million of inhabitants, returned one hundred and twenty-six deputies, the leading men in the country, whether in respect of rank, learning, or public estimation.

The assembly met in Bologna for a twofold purpose; first, to pass in solemn review the conduct of the late Government, and set forth the reasons for which the people cast off its authority; next, to vote the annexation to the constitutional monarchy of Sardinia. These acts accomplished, it separated, patiently waiting until the sanction of Europe should permit Victor Emmanuel to ratify their choice.

Meanwhile, though the suspense is long, and the tension of public feeling extreme, the calmness and confidence of the population have never wavered. There has been no retaliation for the excesses of Perugia, no reckoning sought for the fearful arrears of oppression which the publication of the late Government's state-papers have brought to light.

The highways were never so safe before; travellers now pass through the whole of Romagna without a shadow of apprehension.

Whatever be the fate in store for these provinces, no impartial mind can deny them, in common with the three other States of Central Italy, where an analogous line of conduct has been held, a just title to the respect and admiration of posterity.