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selves; Lombardy and Venice were al lotted to Austria; and the rest of Italy was assigned to Austrian archdukes, the pope, and the Neapolitan Bourbons. The alliance which Madame Krudener suggested, and which Alexander of Russia succeeded in forming, apparently made it hopeless for any people to dispute the will of the absolute monarchs of Europe; and, though peace was occasionally disturbed by popular uprisings and the movements of armies, the map of Europe remained unaltered for nearly fifteen years. Four months before the great battle which enabled the statesmen of Europe to dictate the settlement of 1815, Giuseppe Pasolini dall' Onda was born at Ravenna. He died at the same town in December, 1876. He thus grew up to manhood at a period when Italy was only "a geographical expression;" he lived to see his country a great and united nation. The part which he was destined to take in giving freedom to his fellow-countrymen will not secure him any very prominent place in the history of the century. But, if he cannot be reckoned among his country's foremost men, he shared the views and enjoyed the close friendship of many of her leading statesmen. The friend both of Pio Nono and Antonelli, of Victor Emmanuel and of Cavour, he was at different periods entrusted with the confidence both of pope and king. His liberal opinions, his prudent conduct, and his undoubted honesty gave peculiar value to his counsels and his services.

Such was the man whose memoir, written by his son, and published a few years ago at Imola, has now been trans lated into English by Lady Dalhousie. We hope that it may find many readers in this country. The story of the struggle in which Italy won her freedom is well worth telling, and in this memoir the student will find much information not elsewhere procurable in our own language. We have occasionally, indeed, in reading the book, regretted that its author had not made his historical narrative a little more full. But perhaps this circumstance was inevitable. A work written for Italians, relating to modern Italian history, presumes, almost necessarily, an acquaintance with Italian politics which no ordinary Englishman can possess. Any one, however, who desires to supply the void which he may detect in Lady Dalhousie's volume, may turn with advantage to the other work whose title we have placed at the head of this article. The period which Mr. Probyn has selected

almost exactly corresponds with that which is covered by Count Pasolini's life. Though Mr. Probyn does not pretend to have compiled an exhaustive history, his work may safely be recommended as an honest and faithful narrative of a great national revolution, and we shall avail ourselves of his labors, as well as those of Lady Dalhousie, to illustrate one or two chapters of modern Italian history.

For more than thirty years after 1815, the arrangements made at Vienna were undisturbed in Italy. The risings which occurred in Naples and Piedmont in 1820, and in the Romagna and in Modena in 1830, were stamped out by Austrian intervention. Thenceforward, till 1846, revolution seemed hopeless. Austria had proved both her capacity and her will to maintain authority; and the union and freedom of Italy seemed equally unattainable. Arbitrary rulers, bent on stamping out revolution and reform, are apt to drive reformers and republicans into secret combinations. The Neapolitan rising of 1820 was both inspired and sustained by the Carbonari. Some years later a young Italian, "Joseph Mazzini by name, conceived the idea of a new association to be called Young Italy." Some English readers may have recently derived a new idea of Mazzini's character from the admirable letters which he addressed to Mrs. Carlyle in her hour of difficulty and distress. In Mr. Probyn's pages he is a “man of singularly pure and moral life," possessing "a marvellous power of personal at traction and influence." He desired to unite all Italians in the common object of making their country at once free, united, and republican. Many Italians were ready enough to join hands with Mazzini; but many others, though they shared some of his views, dissented from a portion of his teaching, and distrusted his detestable, and sometimes sanguinary, plots. Moderate reformers themselves, they had no desire to replace autocracy with anarchy; and they believed that all reasonable objects could be secured by milder measures than those which Mazzini was suggesting. Instead of a rising against authority and the establishment of an Italian republic, they advocated constitutional reforms and a federation of Italian States. These views were developed in the "Primato morale e civile degl' Italiani" by the Abate Vincenzo Gioberti; they were supported by Cesare Balbo in the "Speranze d' Italia;" and they were reasserted by Massimo d'Azeglio in his "Casi di Romagna.”

These and other works of the same tined soon afterwards to become Pio character were raising among educated Nono. The future pope had been a misItalians new ideas and new hopes of sionary in Chili; he enjoyed the reputaItalian unity. The future of Italy de- tion of possessing “liberal and moderate pended so these writers taught on opinions and a correct judgment," and he Piedmont and Rome. The former, the had no tolerance for the misgovernment best governed of Italian States, was the of the Papal States, or for the reactionary centre of Italian force; the latter, both in policy of the Vatican. its past and present history, was the centre of Italian faith. But, while the hopes of moderate reformers were fixed Rome, the condition of the papal government filled them with despair. Supported by the presence of Swiss troops and by the active encouragement of Austria, the pope was enabled to resist all change and to maintain all abuses.

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In Romagna [wrote D'Azeglio] a set of wretches are maintained, the lowest and worst characters. . . who howl out that they are devoted to religion, the Pope and his government. With this cry they claim exemption from all restraint, and think themselves authorized to commit every sort of violence against those who profess different opinions.

words] the captiousness of our Government in I cannot understand [to quote his own must needs breathe the air of the present cenliking to persecute the rising generation, who tury rather than that of the past. It would be so easy to gratify their aspirations and to win their love. . . . There is nothing contrary to theology, that I know of, in the advancement of science, industry, and art.

He had already read the "Casi di Romagna." Madame Pasolini lent him the "Speranze d'Italia." Count Pasolini gave him the "Primato morale e civile degl' Italiani," and enforced the moral of the work by adding that, whether Gioberti's proposition for a confederation of Laws [wrote Mr. Freeborn, the British conItalian States was the dream of a poet or sular agent at Rome] laws criminal and civil the prophecy of a sage, disorder in this require reform, and this reform is pressed upon world could be neither irremediable nor the Government by all classes of the people. eternal. Cardinal Ferretti listened and The administration is not good. The approved; he fancied “that he discerned finances are in a deplorable state. The in the dark and stormy present some dawnGovernment could not stand without the pro-ing of peace and light to come." He tection of Austria and the immediate presence

of the Swiss.*

Such was the state of Italy and of the Romagna in the concluding years of Gregory XVI. At that time Count Paso lini was residing on his estate at Montericco near Imola. Count Pasolini had inherited liberal opinions from his father, who had been at one time podestà of Ravenna. In these views he had been partly confirmed by his marriage, in 1843, with Antonietta Bassi, a young lady of Lombardy, whose father held a distinguished position in Milan during the revolution of 1848. Like most liberal Italians, the Pasolinis were brooding over the evils to which the Romagna was a prey, and reading with avidity the works of Gioberti, of Balbo, and of D'Azeglio. The see of Imola was, at that time, filled by Cardinal Mastai, as Count Pasolini calls him, or (to give him his fuller name) by Cardinal Mastai Ferretti, who was des

Correspondence respecting Italy. Parliamentary Papers, 1849, p. 16. We have used the voluminous correspondence on the affairs of Italy in our Parliamentary papers to illustrate Count Pasolini's memoir, as well as an excellent chapter on "L'Italie et le pape Pie IX." in the last volume of Guizot's "Mémoires." Those of our readers who may wish for further light on the Radical side of the question should consult GarnierPagès' Histoire de la Révolution de 1848."

could hardly have been expected to foresee that the light which he was destined to kindle he was fated also to extinguish.

On June 1, 1846, Gregory XVI. died, and Cardinal Ferretti was summoned to Rome to take part in the election of a new pope. "There is a story told of a white pigeon perching on Mastai's carriage during his journey, and returning again after being several times driven away." We have more interest in observing that the cardinal carried with him to the conclave "the works of Gioberti and other books of liberal and enlightened principles, which he intended presenting to the new pope." Perhaps, even after what we have said of these works, an English reader may fail to appreciate the significance of the circumstance. But its importance may be inferred from a despatch in which Mr. Freeborn, the British consular agent at Rome, announced the death of Gregory XVI. and the deplorable condition of the States of the Church. "If the new pope," wrote Mr. Freeborn, "continues extreme

The white pigeon reappeared a year afterwards when the pope was pronouncing a benediction from the balcony of the Vatican, and was saluted by the crowd as an emblem of the Holy Spirit. After all, neither the omen nor its application was more absurd than Louis Napoleon's eagle.

severity with political delinquents, and with Rome in 1846, whereas France had refuses all reform or improvement, the the advantage of being represented there country will not remain tranquil. The by M. Rossi. There are Englishmen still works of Gioberti, Balbo, and Massimo alive who enjoyed the acquaintance_of d'Azeglio have been read with avidity." that able man; there are many other EnOn the day after this despatch was writ-glishmen who are probably familiar with ten, after the shortest conclave since 1572, the description of him which lives in M. Cardinal Ferretti was chosen pope. The Guizot's pages. An Italian by birth, a choice of the conclave had thus fallen on Frenchman by office, a liberal in politics a prelate who had been reading liberal and religion, M. Rossi threw the whole publications at least as eagerly as his fu- weight of his influence into the party of ture subjects. And liberal reading led to reform. In the course of 1847 his advice liberal conduct. A month after his elec- was strengthened by the support which he tion the pope granted an amnesty to polit- derived from Lord Minto's presence at ical offenders. A few weeks later, in Rome. Whatever differences may have August, 1846, Cardinal Gizzi, a prelate existed between the French and English whose mild and conciliatory manners made Foreign Offices either in Spain or elsehim universally popular, was appointed where, in Italy their representatives pursecretary of state, and other reforms were sued an identical policy. They urged the either granted or promised. pope to persevere in the course of moderate reform; they helped him to resist the pressure of Prince Metternich and the Sanfedisti.

Encouragement of this sort Pio Nono already required. The roar of the Radicals on the one hand, the threats of the Sanfedisti on the other, filled the pope's mind with vague apprehensions. The ecclesiastics by whom he was surrounded joined with Austria in opposing reform. Cardinal Gizzi, finding his authority decreasing, pressed his resignation on his master; and Pio Nono, destitute of suitable advisers, and harassed with anxiety and doubt, recollected the conversations which he had enjoyed with Count Pasolini in Imola, and, in the beginning of 1847, begged his old friend to come and help him in Rome.

Yet the new pope, though his popular ity was daily increasing, was already beset with a double danger. The party of Young Italy, which Mazzini had formed, was impatient of a policy which was fatal to the success of its own views. Its members had pledged themselves to an Italian republic and the expulsion of the Austrians, and the concession of partial reforms was, of course, likely to satisfy some of its adherents, and so diminish its resources. There was another party in Rome, too, which regarded with even greater dislike the reforming policy of the new pope. The Sanfedisti, or partisans of the holy faith, were equally hostile to republicanism and constitutional monarchy. They believed that moderate reform inevitably led to the extreme results which Mazzini was advocating, and that One result of Pasolini's presence was the true policy of the pope lay in resisting to confirm Pio Nono in his determination all change. If they had stood alone, they to form a State Council of persons nomiwould have had no chance of withstand-nated by himself, but popular in their own ing the movement which popular writers neighborhood. Pasolini was naturally had initiated, and which Pio Nono was selected as councillor for Ravenna. But himself supporting. But their position this measure, which was received with exwas strengthened by the passive or even traordinary rejoicings in the first instance, active support which they received from went but a little way to satisfy real reAustria. To Metternich a liberal pope formers. The Council, originated in April, seemed as impossible as a united Italy. 1847, did not assemble till the following autumn, and in the interval riots in the provinces increased the pope's anxiety, and induced Metternich to strengthen the Austrian garrison at Ferrara. The anniversary of the pope's amnesty, moreover, became an occasion for disorder; and the pope, constrained in consequence to prohibit public meetings, lost some of his popularity.

If, however, Pio Nono found that his measures were opposed by the Sanfedisti at Rome, and by Metternich at Vienna, he soon derived fresh encouragement from the moral support which he received from the two great western powers. The foreign policy of France was, at that time, directed by M. Guizot. In England, soon after the election of Pio Nono, the Peel ministry broke up, and Lord Palmerston resumed the seals of the Foreign Office. England had no diplomatic intercourse

Unluckily, too, when the Council met, it proved powerless for good. Its members, indeed, displayed a conscientious dili

gence. Pasolini himself undertook to report on the administration of the provincial hydraulic works, on house taxes and direct taxes, on government arrangements for the general business of the country, on the condition of the ports, and on the regulation of shores and embankments. But these Herculean labors produced no results. The Council, as Pasolini himself soon found, was "neither an advising nor a legislative body, and therefore radically defective."

In truth, it was impossible for any council to do anything. Between the Council and the pope stood the ministry; and, till the spring of 1848, the ministers were all ecclesiastics. M. Rossi had already traced the causes of misrule to the exclusive character of the government, and had urged the pope, in the preceding July, to admit at least two laymen to his Cabinet. The events which rapidly succeeded one another in 1848, forced the pope partially to yield. In the first days of January, disturbances broke out at Milan. About the same time the people rose in Sicily, defeated the royal troops, and insisted on obtaining the Constitution of 1812. At the end of January insurrection was only avoided in Naples by the promise of a similar concession; in the succeeding month the Piedmontese, following the prevailing example, demanded and obtained representative institutions; while in Rome, as in all Italy, the people, almost wild with excitement, shouted approval of the reforms which had already been granted, and clamored for other similar measures.

It was in the midst of this prevailing agitation that the pope took a tardy and tentative step towards realizing the policy which both France and England were pressing on him. He appointed Prince Gabrielli, a military man, minister at war. The appointment gave universal satisfaction. The Romans regarded it much as Pio Nono himself regarded it. "Ebbene, Signor Conte," so he said to M. Rossi, "l'elemento laico è introdotto." It was no doubt something to introduce the lay element into the Papal ministry. But M. Rossi saw at once that the tenta. tive measure would go a very little way. "J'espère encore," so he replied to the pope, "que la première suffira; mais elle suffira surtout si on sait bien qu'au besoin la seconde ne manquerait pas. Il faut au moins trois ministres laïques." A few days' experience confirmed the truth of M. Rossi's opinion. Early in February the people, learning or suspecting that the

ministers intended to thwart the pope's action, gathered in the Corso and clamored for the downfall of the government. Pio Nono, yielding to the uproar, decided on adopting M. Rossi's advice, and on at once appointing three laymen to the ministry; and he named, among the three, his old friend Count Pasolini to the department of agriculture and commerce.

Pasolini entered on his task with some hesitation. He felt from the first that the heterogeneous elements of which the Cabinet was composed threatened its stability; while, though he retained his high opinion of Pio Nono's character, he was already a little doubtful of his master's vigor. Events, moreover, moving at railway speed, fanned the excitement of the populace and increased the difficulties of the government. The revolution in France and the flight of Louis Philippe and M. Guizot were rapidly succeeded by popular uprisings throughout Europe. Prince Metternich was forced to fly from Vienna; the Austrians were driven from Venice, and the Lombards, rising against the garrison, maintained for six days the memorable struggle in the streets of Milan which forced Radetzky towards the end of March to withdraw into the Quadrilateral. These grave events produced fresh excitement in Rome; and Pio Nono, surprised to find that the concessions which he had already made were leading to fresh demands, lamented the ingratitude of his subjects and the disappointment of his expectations. On Pasolini's strong remonstrance, he was induced at the beginning of March to reconstitute his ministry. Cardinal Bofondi was succeeded as president of the council by Cardinal Antonelli. At Pasolini's sug gestion a young statesman, Marco Minghetti, one of the most capable of Italian ministers, was admitted to the Cabinet. The lay element, as Mr. Probyn has pointed out, actually preponderated in the reconstituted ministry. But these concessions, which would have satisfied popular expectation in January, passed almost without notice in March. The people in January had demanded men; in March they were asking for measures, and for the sternest of all measures war.

When the news of the revolution in Vienna

was published in Rome on March 21, a great tumult arose. The bells rang loud peals. The Austrian colors were hauled down and burned in the Piazza del Popolo, to the cry of "Italy, Italy forever!" The Government. . . determined to form an army . . . and began to enter volunteers, of whoin Colonel Ferrari was

to be commandant. To the banners of all the Pontifical troops they added the national tricolor, and the Piedmontese general, Giovanni Durando, was chosen commander-in-chief of the whole army.... All Rome, intoxicated with joy, rang with the clash of arms and the music of warlike songs. The Pope and the religious congregations presented large gifts for Italy.... More than 12,000 volunteers went out from the States of the Church, among whom were two of the Pope's nephews.. and the Pope blessed them all as brave defenders of the Roman territory. . . . General Durando reported the extreme ardor of his volunteers to cross the Po in order to commence offensive operations.

In the opinion of Pio Nono's ministry, only one course was possible under these circumstances. When papal volunteers, blessed by the pope, were marching under the Italian tricolor to the Po, the die was practically cast, and, for good or for evil, war seemed inevitable. But, while his ministers were urging war, the pope was waiting for more news. While ministers were pressing for a decision, the pope was professing a desire to be guided by circumstances; and so, while Austria was striving to gain time, and Radetzky was reorganizing his beaten army, the papal troops remained stationary at Ferrara, and failed to throw into the balance the additional weight which might have turned

the scale.*

his ministers should be satisfied by his policy, and he proceeded to draw up the allocution, on which he was determined, "in Latin of such involved construction that at first no one could understand the sentences." But one sentence soon became plain enough to all who read it. War with Austria the pope declared to be "abhorrent from our counsels," and Count Pasolini and his colleagues, on realizing the full meaning of this fatal declaration, at once resigned office.

The history of the next few days is not creditable to Pio Nono. He professed distress and astonishment at the interpretation which ministers had put on his words. He declared that since the Romans did not understand Latin, he must speak Italian; and he induced his ministers to remain at their posts by promising a new clearer and more satisfactory utterance. If Count Pasolini be not misinformed, he actually wrote a paper declaring that though he could not make war as pontiff, he could not decline to assist his subjects as prince; and he sent twice for the proof-sheets to show the draft of this paper to Count Pasolini. But the proofs never came. A stronger hand than that of Pio Nono undertook the work of revising them. Cardinal Antonelli, intercepting the document, corrected it in his own way; and Pasolini and M. Minghetti, finding the pope still opposed to war, insisted on retiring from the administration.

Towards the end of April the ministry learned that the pope intended to deliver an allocution on the war, and addressed The pope's allocution — the fatal allocu to the pontiff a long State paper on the tion, as the friends of Italy called it — subject. The pope, by an odd reasoning, justified and explained the step. The dethey argued had to decide the matter as termination of the pope to take no part in head of the Church and head of the State. the war not merely paralyzed the papal As head of the Church they left him to contingent, but it withdrew from the Italbe guided by the inspiration of God. As ian cause the moral support of the pope's head of the State they declared "war to assistance. The Austrian ambassador, be, at this juncture, the least of possible well aware of the consequences, said alevils, and the only means of restoring to most openly of his Holiness, "We have troubled Italy that natural and lasting caught him now;" and, in fact, Radetzky peace which is the attribute of a justly was enabled, soon afterwards, to strike acquired nationality;" and, in laying the the blow which restored Austrian authordeclaration before the pope, "they inti-ity to Lombardy for another eleven years. mated that they would resign if he declared himself against war."

This attitude of the ministry placed Pio Nono in great embarrassment. He could not afford to part from his advisers, and he could not bring himself to plunge into the whirlpool of war. He urged Count Pasolini to fear nothing; he promised that

As a matter of fact, General Durando at last crossed the Po on his own responsibility, But the movement was disavowed by the pope, and the troops declared rebels. See the Correspondence relating to the affairs

of Italy, Part II, p. 421.

The ministry itself rapidly dispersed. Cardinal Antonelli, who was succeeded by Count Mamiami, remained, indeed, at Rome. But M. Minghetti passed to the Piedmontese camp, and took his place in the ranks of the Piedmontese army, while Count Pasolini shortly afterwards moved to Florence, "whence he anxiously watched the progress of Roman affairs." They were by no means happy. Count Mamiami held the reins of government, but he did not enjoy the pope's confidence. Irresolute and vacillating as usual, sur

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