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people are beginning to open their eyes, and in their better knowledge, far more than in garrisons or police, will be found the guarantee for future tranquillity. It is indeed a fortunate circumstance for France that, however unwarrantable may have been the grasp of power by its present ruler, he still acts on the conviction that he can best retain it by providing for all the material wants of his time, and thus bestowing upon the nation, along with the great blessing of internal tranquillity, some compensation for the honest pride and political activity which despotism crushes, for the public torpor and the national degradation which it necessarily inflicts.

ART. VI.-The Roman State, from 1815 to 1850. By Luigi Carlo Farini. Translated from the Italian, by the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. for the University of Oxford. 4 vols. London, 1850-4.

HERE was a period when churchmen ruled the first king

doms of Europe-when England had its Wolsey, France its Richelieu and Mazarin, Spain its Ximenes and Alberoni. They were more frequently great statesmen than good men, but their successors are too often neither one nor the other.

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'The cause of Italy,' said Count Cavour, has been carried before the tribunal of public opinion.' Public opinion has not been indifferent to the call, and the more it is enlightened upon the abuses which prevail throughout that beautiful land, the speedier must be the downfall of a system which is a disgrace to the age. Of all bad Governments, that of the Pope is generally acknowledged to be the worst. After reigning for centuries over a favoured territory, teaching and moulding at its will a race richly endowed with physical and intellectual gifts, the result is that two foreign armies are required to repress the just irritation of the people towards its rulers. Far from desiring to effect improvements, the endeavour of the Pontiff is to retard all progress, and shut out every ray of light which could relieve the mediaval darkness in which the Papacy had its being. Where some purely civil change is strongly insisted on by the public voice, a direct refusal may not be given, but means are sure to be found to render the concession abortive. Permission to construct railways was delayed as long as delay was possible, and, when a tardy and reluctant consent had been extorted, the obstructions put in the way of the projectors prevented more than a few miles

from

from being completed. The imperative demands of a foreign potentate have met with more success, but the only railroads in course of construction are those which are required by the Austrian army of occupation.

When a good law chances to be passed with the honest concurrence of the Pope, it is either revoked or remains a dead letter if it interferes with the interests of any dominant class. The custom-duties being excessive, Pius VII. announced, on his accession to the chair of St. Peter, the intention to frame a new tariff. The scheme was prepared. The contrabandists, who saw that their occupation would be gone if the duties were lowered, took the alarm. They applied to the subordinates in the Ministry of Finance, and so cogent were their arguments, that, in spite of the entreaties of magistrates, and merchants, the reform was abandoned. Some slight improvement has since been effected, but it is too trivial to afford substantial relief. The standing laws themselves are constantly superseded to the outrage of justice. Prince Buoncompagni of Rome bought a palace from a brother Prince for 8000l., but the property was found to be overburdened with mortgages, and the buyer refused to complete the purchase. The seller had recourse to the Pope, and petitioned that the mortgages might be cancelled, and, without the least regard to the unfortunate creditors, the prayer was granted. This pernicious laxity does not prevent a no less pernicious inflexibility. A mistake occurred in the reprint of a code of laws by which the greater punishment was accidentally allotted to the lesser crime, and vice versa. A provincial judge, who tried a case under the former statute, detected the error, and interceded for the prisoner. The Government which affects to claim infallibility for the Pope in temporal as well as in spiritual matters, alleged that it was impossible to acknowledge itself wrong, and the man was sentenced to be imprisoned for life.

No single instance, perhaps, will give a stronger proof of the complete disregard by the Papal Government of all that is considered law and justice in other countries than the conduct of Cardinal Consalvi in 1821. He was a wise and enlightened man, who truly desired the improvement of his country, and who, as a necessary consequence, was vehemently opposed to Austrian influence in Italy, which labours to keep every portion. of the country in the abased condition of Lombardy. On this account he was obnoxious in turn to the cabinet of Vienna, which had just then accused the Papal court of weakness for not putting a stop to some alleged disorders in Romagna. The Cardinal had no choice but to yield to the policy of his enemies,

or

or to endanger his power, and we have the confession, under his own hand that, when it suited his ambition and convenience, he could throw aside even the shadow of the forms of law :

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'In order to change this state of things,' he writes to Cardinal Sanseverino, Legate at Bologna, his Holiness says that he can find no other means than that of taking the notoriety and wickedness of their deeds as the rule for banishing persons from the state under pain of immediate imprisonment should they return, or refuse to go away; so many must be seized in Forli, others in Cesena. The example of this prompt and energetic measure, applied in two or three places to sufficient numbers to produce an effect and awe factious persons, will save the honour of Government and prevent foreign occupation.'

A month after, he was shocked at the consequences of his own orders :

The fact is, Most Eminent, that, between the two legations, the number of persons arrested and expelled is much above a hundred. Neither at Milan, nor in Piedmont, nor in Naples, have things been carried so far, and we shall have to listen to what will be said by the English, French, and German (not Austrian) papers of this so-called Massacre of the Innocents, as your Excellency informs me, and which will cause the Pope to be called the most furious of persecutors.'

If these are the acts of the enlightened, what is likely to be the conduct of the bigots to misrule and oppression? The abuses are the natural fruit of a Government which is entirely absolute. Its head is infallible, its ministers are irresponsible, the people are without power, and are totally unrepresented. The sole motive to which it is accessible is the motive of fear, but the faintest hope of successful resistance causes tyranny to prevail over prudence. The revolution of 1831 occasioned considerable alarm, and the great powers of Europe seized the opportunity to recommend the reforms imperatively required. Though England had no regular ambassador in Rome, Sir Hamilton Seymour, then our envoy at Florence, was sent on the occasion, and united with the ambassadors of France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia in preparing the famous Memorandum of the 10th of May, 1831:

'More than fourteen months have now elapsed since the Memorandum was given in,' wrote Sir H. Seymour to the French ambassador, on leaving Rome, and not one of the recommendations which it contains has been fully adopted and carried into execution by the Papal Government; for even the edicts, which have been either prepared or published, and which profess to carry some of these 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

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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 to which the British Government intended to be a party. The British Government foresees, if the present system is persevered in, that fresh disturbance must be expected to take place in the Papal State, of a character progressively more and more serious, and that out of these may spring complications dangerous to the peace of Europe.'

Never was a prophecy more fully realized; but the same fate awaits every suggestion of change, however imperatively required or strongly supported, until some irresistible compulsion arises which Papal power cannot withstand or Papal chicanery evade. Never did the States of the Church groan under a more grievous tyranny than from 1831 to 1847; and the government had reached the acme of corruption and oppression at the death of Gregory XVI. Crowds of fugitives sought shelter in Tuscany, whose government was then true to the humane and liberal policy of Leopold and Joseph, and firmly resisted all intreaties of foreign powers to give up refugees to their respective sovereigns. This refusal prompted a characteristic manœuvre on the part of the papal authorities. Filippo Violi was one of many who fled to Tuscany to avoid persecution. The Roman court demanded that the Grand Duke should surrender him, as a smuggler, in compliance with the treaty of extradition for non-political offences. He was delivered accordingly to the Papal Government, which instantly put him on his. trial before a military tribunal for treasonable acts, and he was condemned to fifteen years' imprisonment in irons. The Grand Duke was indignant at the infamous fraud; but what can be thought of the ruler who perpetrated it—a ruler whose special style is His Holiness?' The dawn of the reign of Pius IX. opened with the promise of a brighter day, but it

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instantly

instantly became overcast, and the former grinding and vindictive tyranny was installed. The so-called reforms have been entirely illusory and have produced no practical change.

If the Pope, indeed, had the best intentions, he would be worsted in the effort to effect a reform. Although approached with humility, and apparently obeyed as the vicegerent of Heaven, his influence is much less than might be imagined. He is ruled by the colleagues who placed him on his throne. He fears them, for he remembers fatal antecedents in the brief reigns of his predecessors, such as Sixtus V. and Clement XIV., who dared to act in opposition to the will of the Sacred College. There may be occasional acts of independence, but for the most part he is in the hands of a clique of Cardinals, who never fail to act in concert in all that concerns the power of their order. The laws that are published in his name have rarely received his signature, and it has actually occurred that two magistrates have put forth two contradictory edicts on the same subject both purporting to proceed from the same supreme source. Without any cause assigned, without even alleging the permission of the Pope, the Cardinals abrogate existing regulations and establish new ones. The criminal code of Bologna is the work of a Cardinal who promulgated it by his private authority. The two members of the sacred college who fill the posts of Chancellor and Datario' have it in their power,' writes the Cardinal de Luca, as one of the attributes of their offices, to publish, or to add to, or to take from the edicts of the Pope without informing him what they do.' The manner in which others can sometimes venture to overrule his decisions appears in such instances as that of Gallozzi, who obtained from Pius VIII. a favourable decree in a case which involved his entire fortune. He presented it to the Secretary of State who tore it to pieces in his presence. The poor man went home and

blew out his brains.

No Pontiff ever lived who was more completely under the rule of those about him than the late Gregory XVI. In spite of the care which was taken to provide him with every luxury that could make existence agreeable, and to keep him from all knowledge of the affairs of his kingdom, he lived in continual fear of conspiracies and rebellions. The return of an exile seemed to his terrified fancy like the escape of a tiger. The wish to see for himself the condition of the country, led to a determination in 1841 to visit the various towns in his dominions, excluding the Legations. Care was taken to render the journey nugatory for its purpose. He was received with preconcerted rejoicings wherever he went; he blessed monasteries and monks, and was conducted to visit the antiquities, churches, and galleries on his way; but the

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