404 THE AUSTRIAN DOMINATION IN ITALY. 



ing to point out the specific benefits which the wise and bene cent 

 legislation he applauds has conferred upon the Italian states.fi We 

 are happy to have it in our power to supply the deficiency ; we will 

 grapple with the case a little more closely than the Count deems it 

 expedient. We will furnish a few facts by way of illustration 

 whence it will appear that, however wise and judicious the imperial 

 law may be in the abstract, nothing can be more vexatious and op- 

 pressive than its interpretation and execution. 



" Justice is the foundation of kingdoms" is the motto of the 

 Austrian potentate. His comment on the text is, pay what you like 

 and when you like. The Austrian government was indebted to the 

 corporation of Milan in the sum of 4,500,000 livres for commissaries 

 supplied during the war. Subtilty, sophistry, and bare-faced asser- 

 tions were employed to reduce it one million and a half to be paid 

 by instalments of 150,000 livres a year. This sum was to be appro- 

 priated to the finishing of the arch of the Simplon at Milan, newly 

 dubbed, The Arch of the Peace ; but instead of the 150,000 the admi- 

 nistration only receives from 60 to 70,000. 



The fifth section of the Austrian civil code runs thus : " The laws 

 have no retrospective effect, and, consequently, cannot bear upon an- 

 terior acts or rights previously acquired." In 1799, the emperor ar- 

 rested some twelve thousand individuals for having declared in 

 favour of the Cisalpine republic recognized by the treaty of 1797> 

 and detained them in prison till after the battle of Marengo. The 

 same year it cashiered four lawyers for having defended the legality 

 of the sale of national property, which was not prohibited by any law, 

 and which was subsequently sanctioned by Francis himself. 



Again, the Austrian civil code acknowledges and guarantees the 

 right of literary property, and yet the police are at liberty to seize on 

 all the copies of a work, even though it has had the approbation of 

 the censor, without indemnifying the proprietor. Six years after the 

 publication of the translation of Sismondi's Italian Republics, it was 

 prohibited by an imperial edict, and the editor was despoiled of a 

 property amounting to 60,000 francs. 



Many other works, printed with the prescribed formalities, shared 

 the same fate, as, for instance, the History of Milan, by Count Verri, 

 and an Essay on the Price of Corn, by Berra, printed at Vienna in 

 1826, and prohibited at Milan in 1827. From these facts we are 

 justified in concluding that the Austrian law affords no security to 

 literary property, and represses the energies of the human intellect 

 by its arbitrary administration. 



The code directs the judges to be careful in their examination of 

 causes, and to be impartial and just in their decisions. Let us see the 

 means by which these benefits are to be secured to the subject. All 

 proceedings in a cause are confided to a single reporting judge; the 

 latter lays the details before his four colleagues, suggesting at the 

 same time the judgment, and the reasons for it. The decision follows 

 at once. Thus all is made to depend upon the diligence, the skill, 

 and the integrity of a single functionary, who has it in his power to 

 shape each cause to his own inclinations, and to suppress or alter the 

 complexion of it as he pleases. But matters are still worse with re- 



