390 



ITALY. 



tor Eraanuel, that thus the unity of Italy might 

 be consecrated in the royal person. The law, 

 enacting this as the royal title, passed the Sen- 

 ate on the 26th February by a vote of 126 yeas 

 to 2 nays, and the Chamber of Deputies, on the 

 llth of March, unanimously; and on that day 

 the King assumed the title, which was recog- 

 nized by England on the 30th of March, and 

 subsequently by Switzerland, Greece, Den- 

 mark, Portugal, the United States, and, on the 

 10th of June, by France. Austria protested 

 against it, but without effect. 



The Roman question was, of course, the most 

 absorbing one with the Italian parliament, and 

 it was, as it still is, involved in great difficulties. 

 It may be well, as it has not been fully un- 

 derstood in the United States, to give briefly 

 its history. 



Since 1848, the Eoman Government has 

 chiefly been maintained by the overawing force 

 of Austrians in the Legations and the French 

 army in the capital. The defeats of the Aus- 

 trians by the French and Sardinians at Magenta 

 and Melagnano, in the summer of 1859, were 

 immediately followed by the evacuation of the 

 States of the Church by the Austrian garrisons. 

 Upon this, several of these States at once re- 

 volted from the Pope, and proclaimed Victor 

 Emanuel king or dictator. Bologna was the 

 first in this movement, proclaiming for the 

 Sardinian king, on the 13th of June. Forli, 

 Faenza, and Iniola followed her example on the 

 loth ; Eimini, Cesena, and Eavenna on the 17th ; 

 Perugia and its vicinity, on the 18th ; and Fano, 

 Urbino, Fossembrone, Sesi, and Ancona a few 

 days later. Thus within a space of two weeks, 

 one half of the Papal territory was lost. It 

 was charged that this was done at the instiga- 

 tion and with the assistance of foreigners ; but 

 the error of this statement will be evident, if we 

 call to mind the fact that even under the severe 

 repressing influence of the Austrian garrisons, 

 revolts against the Eoman authority had often 

 occurred, and the moment the pressure of these 

 garrisons was removed, they returned to their 

 former condition of disaffection and hostility to 

 that Government. 



On the 18th of June, the Pope issued an 

 encyclical letter, in which he represented the 

 nature and causes of the revolution; and on 

 the 20th of June, he delivered an allocution, 

 in which he threatened excommunication against 

 all who, " by act or counsel or in any other way, 

 have dared to violate, disturb, and usurp our 

 and this Holy See's civil power and jurisdic- 

 tion, and the patrimony of the blessed Peter ; " 

 and called upon the sovereigns of Europe to 

 use their united zeal and counsel for the pres- 

 ervation of his temporalities intact. The 

 Eoman Government also took prompt meas- 

 ures to reduce the revolted provinces to obe- 

 dience. By the end of June its authority was 

 restored, for the time, in every part of tbe 

 Papal dominions, except the four Legations of 

 Bologna, Ferrara, Eavenna, and Forli, but at 

 the cost of a terrible amount of violence and 



bloodshed. The Government next attempted 

 the subjugation of these Legations, but in vain. 

 Massimo d'Azeglio, the commissary extraordi- 

 nary, with two Piedmontese regiments and a 

 large body of volunteers, had already arrived at 

 Bologna, and was ready to meet the Eoman 

 troops. The Pope consulted the French ambas- 

 sador as to the best means of subjugating these 

 revolted provinces ; the ambassador advised de- 

 lay, and promised to demand from the court of 

 Turin the withdrawal of the Piedmontese troops. 

 The peace of Villafranca occurred soon after, 

 and the Pope asked the French Government 

 to restore his authority in the Eomagna ; the 

 Emperor refused on the ground of ^wa^i-engage- 

 ments of France to Italy, and postponed the 

 matter till the close of the conferences at Zurich. 

 A few weeks later, the Pope addressed a letter 

 to the Emperor, asking that the French should 

 garrison the Marches of Ancona and other points 

 then occupied by Eoman troops, so as to leave 

 them at liberty to recapture the Legations. To 

 this request the Emperor gave a negative 

 reply. 



Thus repulsed, the Eoman Government turn- 

 ed to Spain, and applied for a sufficient number 

 of troops to put down the insurrection. The 

 Spanish Government promptly responded by a 

 resolution to put 20,000 troops at the disposal 

 of the Pope. But here a new difficulty occur- 

 red ; it was necessary to notify the French Gov- 

 ernment of their intention, and that Govern- 

 ment at once responded that they would neither 

 consent to nor permit the entrance of a Span- 

 ish army into the Eoman States ; that the in- 

 tervention of Spain would only produce fresh 

 complications in the affairs of Italy ; and that 

 France would consider such a movement on the 

 part of Spain as a declaration of war. As 

 nothing was further from the wishes of Spain 

 than a war with France, this reply effectually 

 crushed all hopes of aid from that quarter. A 

 subsequent application to the King of Naples 

 was frustrated in a similar way. 



On the 29th of August, 1859, the French 

 Minister at Eome, the Duke de Grammont, had 

 an audience of the Pope, and stated to him the 

 wishes of the Emperor in regard to the Lega- 

 tions. He declared that the people had them- 

 selves cast off the Eoman authority, which had 

 indeed been exercised in such a way as to merit 

 the disapproval of other nations ; that he could 

 not interfere consistently with his own position, 

 to restore them to a Government which they 

 hated, and advised him to consent to their sep- 

 aration, he having the right, for the first time 

 only, to nominate the governor of the new re- 

 public. The Pope expressed the greatest surprise 

 at these proposals, and indicated in the strong- 

 est terms, his determination never to relinquish 

 any of the rights of the Holy See. "In that 

 case," replied the Duke de Grammont, " France 

 will withdraw her troops from Eome." The 

 Pope is said to have answered : " Your Govern- 

 ment, then, wishes to dethrone me. It knows 

 that, with the revolutionary spirit which is 



