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declarants protest against the aid given to the inhabitants of the Legations; against the attempt to compromise the Pope's spiritual power, by limiting his temporal sovereignty; and against the assumption by any state, sovereign, or Congress, of a right to dispose of the states of the Holy Father, "or to impose upon him any conditions against his own will, being persuaded that both justice and expediency dictate, that any changes in the laws or administration of his dominion, should be left to his own unfettered judgment and unquestioned benevolence;" and the document is closed by an intimation of the determination of the declarants "to resist and resent, in the spirit of the constitution, any such course on the part of the responsible advisers of the Crown, to whatever party in the state they may belong."

It will thus be seen that the Catholic Laity of Great Britain propose nothing less than to hand over the unfortunate inhabitants of the Legations, bound hand and foot, to the tender mercies of the Pope and his all-powerful and vindictive minister, Cardinal Antonelli, and that, too, without imposing any conditions whatever upon his Holiness. It is surely somewhat strange to hear natives of free Great Britain-who have no experience of the temporal government of the Pope, and the majority of whom are ignorant of the habits, language, and necessities of the Italian nation-thus give the lie direct to the cry of tyranny and misrule which has long gone up from the oppressed population of the Legations, who have been born and bred under the Papal yoke, and who have endured it until longer endurance would have been a cowardice and a crime. Surely, they cannot expect their mere assertions to be believed-and they offer not an iota of proof-in opposition to the concuring testimony of the best writers of France, Germany, and Italy. Never was rebellion more thoroughly the result of a unanimous and deep-seated national feeling, than that of the Legations against the Papal yoke; and we undertake to show, in the succeeding pages of this article, that, so far from that rebellion being "unjustifiable," it was called forth and most amply justified by the perfidy, cruelty, and oppression of the various Popes, who have successively occupied the Holy See, since the return of Pius VII. on the fall of Napoleon, by their inveterate opposition to intellectual and social improvement, and their obstinate refusal of necessary reforms.

In his famous book on the Roman Question, M. About tells us that there is the material for a magnificent nation in that division of the Papal States lying between the Apennines and the Adriatic. The middle classes, which form the strength of every well constituted state, are richer and more numerous, better educated and less superstitious, than their countrymen on the Mediterranean side

VOL. III.

D

of the mountains. They work hard, they think for themselves, and have made repeated and desperate efforts to shake off the yoke of priestly despotism. "I have never," he says, "conversed with a bourgeois of the Legations, without rubbing my hands, and saying to myself, There is an Italian nation!" This people, so full of energy and courage, have at length succeeded in emancipating themselves from the thraldom under which they have writhed and groaned for forty-five years. They are now free, both from the tyranny of Papal Legates, and from the oppression of Austrian garrisons-the two great curses which have hitherto paralyzed their industry and enterprize, and exhausted the resources of their fertile and beautiful country. But there are many who blame the inhabitants of the Legations for throwing off the papal yoke, and who would gladly see them forced back under that priestly rule, which is of all governments the most absolute, the most stationary, and the most opposed to enlightenment and liberty. It may, therefore, be worth while briefly to point out how the Popes, from the time of the restoration of Pius VII. down to our own days,-a period of more than forty years,-have systematically violated the conditions under which the Legations originally submitted to their government, by destroying the municipal liberties they were bound to respect; by opposing everything like local government in the various towns; by resisting all improvements in judicial procedure; by neglecting public works; by excessive taxation to supply priestly luxury at Rome; and by innumerable instances of cruelty and oppression.

If ever there was a favourable opportunity for a Pope to acquire popularity, it was that enjoyed by Pius VII., when— after the overthrow of the great Napoleon-he re-entered Rome, surrounded by the double halo of sanctity and misfortune, and greeted by the acclamations of the people, as at once the head of the church and the national prince. He began well; promising and carrying out several important reforms, in which he was ably seconded by his prime minister, Cardinal Consalvi, who obliged the tribunals to state the grounds of their decisions, and substituted the Italian for the Latin language, in order that litigants might learn the position and follow the progress of their lawsuits. But a reforming Pope, like a good Emperor of Russia, is an accident, and a rare one; and, on the accession of Leo XII., in 1822, the scene was quickly changed. Consalvi was removed from the ministry, ecclesiastical jurisdiction was extended over affairs purely civil, the commission for vaccination was abolished in Rome, the right of asylum was restored, and the Latin language replaced the Italian in the courts of law. An Austrian envoy at

Rome thus describes to the government at Vienna the condition of Rome, and of the pontifical states under this rule of the Pope :* "I can assure you that Rome is at present, as to spiritual matters, the focus of demoralization; as to temporal, that of disorder. The inhabitants, proud and intractable, are given to superstition rather than to true religion. In the government of the cardinals, prelates, and priests, policy is a continual exhibition of Pharisaism and Machiavelism; the social economy is in humiliating disorder. The contracts entered into by the Government inspire no confidence, because, once agreed upon, if they find any advantage to be gained by annulling them, they annul them by a pontifical decree, or change their conditions, to the great loss of the contractors. It is impossible to describe how ill the finances are conducted; the faithlessness and want of skill in the ministers make considerable voids in the treasury. In all the Pontifical States justice is openly sold. In Romagna, brigandage is constant. Decidedly, Babylon is the name that suits Rome. The pope commands, the cardinals command, the prelates command; all is to be obtained for gold, and without gold you need hope for nothing. Fully two-thirds of the priestly caste at Rome consist of hypocrites and Simoniacs; the preachers are for the most part indifferent or atheists. The people are overwhelmed with religious ceremonies, in order to reanimate their zeal; but the Romans, who go to the churches on account of the scarcity of theatres and public spectacles, are no sooner out of them than they forget that they are Christians, and have no other thought but to curse the religious regulations of the pope, the inquisition, and the monks." The same observer-a Roman Catholic, be it remembered, and an Austrian-thus narrates the conduct of Cardinal Palotta, the governor of the Legations under Leo XII. "Nothing equals the extravagant, arbitrary, and tyrannical measures adopted by the cardinal, the programme of which, besides, manifests ideas subversive of every principle of public administration. This personage has commenced his mission by listening to the most infamous men, who have received, among other rewards for their denunciations, the promise of being made his chevaliers d'honneur. He has everywhere imprisoned peaceful and respectable citizens, on the very slightest grounds of suspicion; he has condemned the small community of Piperno to an excessive fine, because it had not resisted the brigands who had killed the

See "L'Autriche dans la Confédération Italienne, Histoire de la diplomatie et de la police de la cour de Vienne, dans les Etats du Pape depuis 1815, d'après des documents nouveaux et les pièces diplomatiques," par Eugène Rendu: Paris, 1859.

syndic and desecrated the church; on the other hand, he has cashiered an officer who, in his zeal, had endeavoured, contrary to the orders of the cardinal, to discover and arrest some malefactors. To give a proof of his omnipotence, he has banished from the town the daughters of his landlord, because, being fond of music, they occasionally disturbed his repose. During all this time, the brigands are sacking the country, and carrying off young children in order to compel their families to ransom them. Such is the exasperation against Cardinal Palotta, that there is great fear of a general rising against the Government."

It must be kept in mind, while reading this narration, that the Legations were in a very different position from the patrimony of St. Peter on the Mediterranean side of the Apennines. They had submitted to the Holy See, at various times, and under special treaties, which the Pope was bound to observe as the condition of their obedience; and if he broke through his part of the contract by violating the liberties secured to the Legations by the provisions of these treaties, they on their side, were fully entitled to throw off the authority so grossly abused, and reclaim the freedom they had conditionally surrendered. Bologna, for example, one of the most important towns in the Legations, was governed, down to 1798,† in conformity with treaties entered into, in 1447, with Pope Nicholas V., which contain the following articles :-"That the magistrates should administer the government of the town according to the ancient laws; that the Legate should treat all the affairs of government in concert with the said magistrates; that the public revenues should be poured into the municipal treasury, and employed for the benefit of the province; that the town and the province should levy as many soldiers as they should think fit, who should take the oath to the magistrates and the Legate; and that the magistrates should send plenipotentiaries to the Supreme Pontiff, even without the consent of the Legate." The towns of Ferrara and Ravenna also possess similar conventions, guaranteeing a large measure of freedom and self-government. Leo XII., however, paid no regard to the rights thus solemnly secured by treaties; and his agents in the Legations-that Palotta whom we have already mentioned and Rivarola-ruled these unhappy countries with a rod of iron. In August, 1825, the latter, then

See the Project for the Organization of the Legations, drawn up by Count Aldini, Secretary of State, resident in Paris, for the kingdom of Italy." It was drawn up at the request of Prince Talleyrand and Prince Metternich, and was presented to them during the sitting of the Congress of Vienna,

The Legations were conquered by Buonaparte in 1797, and were ceded to the French Republic by the treaty of Tolentino.

Legate of Ravenna, sentenced 508 individuals,-7 to death, 13 to perpetual imprisonment and hard labour, 16 to the same punishment for twenty years, 4 for fifteen years, 16 for ten years, 3 for seven years, and so on. Two hundred were placed under surveillance, and subjected to the precetto politico of the first order.. Those subjected to this preceto are bound not to quit the place of residence assigned them, to retire to their houses at nightfall, to present themselves every fortnight before the inspector of police, to prove to the satisfaction of the police that they have confessed once a month, and, for three days in every year, to go through certain spiritual exercises in a convent pointed out by the bishop. During the pontificates of Pius VIII. and Gregory XVI., the same system of injustice and tyranny was pursued in the Legations, and the discontent and misery of the inhabitants more than once broke out in partial disturbances, which were promptly and bloodily repressed, either by the papal soldiers or by Austrian troops who came to their assistance. In 1831, the Austrians occupied Romagna for five months; and, in 1832 and subsequently, for seven years, exhausting the resources of the country, and oppressing, torturing, and murdering the inhabitants. Military commissions superseded the courts of justice, and exceptional tribunals sat permanently, not to administer law, but as instruments of the vengeance of a foreign despotism. In 1831, the melancholy state of the Legations excited the attention and compassion of Europe; and, on the 10th May of that year, the representatives of the five great Powers addressed a memorandum to the Papal Government, strongly insisting upon the necessity of reform, and advising that concessions should be made, not only to the provinces in a state of disaffection, but to those also which had remained quiet. They further suggested the propriety of admitting laymen to administrative and judicial offices, of reforming the courts of judicature and the management of the finances, and of allowing the people to elect municipal councils, who should nominate provincial councils, by whom, in their turn, a supreme court should be elected, having its seat at Rome, and charged with the administration of the civil; military, and financial affairs of the whole country. In spite of this remonstrance, however, the Papal Government remained-as it has ever been-incapable of improvement; resolved to stifle every manifestation of liberalism, and blindly determined to grant no reforms. In 1832, in reply to a deputation of citizens of the Legations, who had come to Rome

The second paragraph of the eloquent Manifesto, addressed, in 1845, by the inhabitants of the Roman States, to the Princes and Nations of Europe, contains a graphic description of their sufferings at this time.

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