The Roman Question Part 18

"_A Consulta di Stato_ for the Finances is established. It will be _heard_ on the estimates of the forthcoming year. It will examine the balance of accounts for the previous year, and sign the vote of credit. It will give its advice on the establishment of new, or the reduction of old taxes; on the better distribution of the general taxation; on the measures to be taken for the improvement of commerce, and in general on all that concerns the interests of the public Treasury.

"The Councillors shall be selected by Us from lists presented by the Provincial Councils. Their number shall be fixed in proportion to the provinces of the State. This number may be increased within fixed limits by the addition of some of our subjects, whom we reserve to ourselves the right to name."

Now, allow me to dwell briefly upon the meaning of this promise, and the results which have followed it. Who knows whether diplomacy may not ere long be again occupied in demanding promises of the Pope?--whether the Pope may not again think it wise to promise mountains and marvels?--whether these new promises may not be just as hollow and insincere as the old ones? This short paragraph deserves a long commentary, for it is fraught with instruction.

"It is established!" said the Pope. But the _Consulta di Stato_ of Finances, established the 12th of September, 1849, only gave signs of life in December, 1853. Four years afterwards! This is what I call drawing a bill at a pretty long date. It is admitted that the nation needs some guarantees, and that it is ent.i.tled to tender some advice, and to exercise some control. And so the nation is requested to call again in four years.

The members of the _Consulta_ of the Finances are a sort of sham deputies; very sham ones, I a.s.sure you, although the Count de Rayneval, to suit his purpose, is pleased to call them "the Representatives of the Nation." They represent the nation as Cardinal Antonelli represents the Apostles.

They are elected by the Pope from a list presented by the Communal Councils. The Communal Councillors are elected by their predecessors of the Communal Council, who were chosen directly by the Pope from a list of eligible citizens, each of whom must have produced a certificate of good conduct, both religious and political. In all this I cannot for the life of me see more than one elector--the Pope.

We'll begin this progressive election again, and start from the very bottom--that is, the nation. The Italians have a peculiar fancy for munic.i.p.al liberties. The Pope knows this, and, as a good prince, he resolves to accommodate them. The township or commune wishes to choose its own councillors, of which there are ten to be elected. The Pope names sixty electors--six electors for every councillor. And observe, that in order to become an elector, a certificate from the parish and the police is necessary. But they are not infallible; and, moreover, it is just possible that in the exercise of a novel right they may fall into some error; so the Sovereign determines to arrange the election himself. Then, his Communal Councillors--for they are indeed _his_--come and present him with a list of candidates for the Provincial Council. The list is long, in order that the Holy Father may have scope for his selection. For instance, in the province of Bologna he chooses eleven names out of one hundred and fifty-six; he must be unlucky indeed not to be able to pick out eleven men devoted to him. These eleven Provincial Councillors, in their turn, present four candidates, out of whom the Pope chooses one. And this is how the nation is _represented_ in the Financial Council.

Still, with a certain luxury of suspicion, the Holy Father adds to the list of representatives some men of his own choice, his own caste, and who are in habits of intimacy with him. The councillors elected by the nation are eliminated by one-third every two years. The councillors named directly by the Pope are irremovable.

Verily, if ever const.i.tuted body offered guarantees to power, it was this Council of Finances. And yet, the Pope does not trust to it. He has given the presidence to a Cardinal, the vice-presidence to a Prelate; and still he is only half re-a.s.sured. A special regulation places all the councillors under the supreme control of the Cardinal President. It is he who names the commissioners, organizes the bureaux, and makes the reports to the Pope. Without his permission no papers or doc.u.ments are communicated to the councillors. So true is it that the reigning caste sees in every layman an enemy.

And the reigning caste is quite right. These poor lay councillors, selected among the most timid, submissive, and devoted of the Pope's subjects, could not forget that they were men, citizens, and Italians.

On the day after their installation they manifested a desire to begin doing their duty, by examining the accounts of the preceding year.

They were told that these accounts were lost. They persisted in their demands. A search was inst.i.tuted. A few doc.u.ments were produced; but so incomplete that the Council was not able in six years to audit and pa.s.s them.

The advice of the Council of Finances was not taken on the new taxes decreed between 1849 and 1853. Since 1853, that is to say, since the Council of Finances has entered upon its functions, the Government has contracted foreign loans, inscribed consolidated stock in the great book of the national debt, alienated the national property, signed postal conventions, changed the system of taxation at Benevento, and taxed the diseased vines, without even taking the trouble to ascertain its opinion.

The Government proposed some other financial measure to the Council, and the answer was in the negative. In spite of this, the Government measures were carried into execution. The _Motu Proprio_ says the _Consulta di Stato_ shall be heard, but not that it shall be listened to.[18]

Every year, at the end of the session, the _Consulta_ addresses to the Pope a humble pet.i.tion against the gross abuses of the financial system. The Pope remits the pet.i.tion over to some Cardinals. The Cardinals remit it over to the Greek Kalends.

The Count de Rayneval greatly admired this mechanism. The Emperor Soulouque did more--he imitated it.

But M. Guizot tells us that "there is a degree of bad government which no people, whether great or little, enlightened or ignorant, will tolerate at the present day."[19]

CONCLUSION.

The Count de Rayneval, after having proved that all is for the best in the dominions of the Pope, winds up his celebrated _Note_ by a desponding conclusion. According to him, the Roman Question is one which cannot possibly be definitively solved; and the utmost that can be effected by diplomacy is the postponement of a catastrophe.

I am not such a pessimist. It appears to me that all political questions may be solved, and all catastrophes averted. I am sanguine enough to believe that war is not absolutely indispensable to the salvation of Italy and the security of Europe, and that it is possible to extinguish a conflagration without firing guns.

You have seen the intolerable misery and the legitimate discontent of the subjects of the Pope. You know enough of them to understand that Europe ought without delay to bring them succour, not only from the love of abstract justice, but in the interest of the public peace. I have proved to you that the misfortunes which afflict these three millions of men must be attributed neither to the weakness of the sovereign, nor even to the perversity of minister, but are the logical and necessary deductions from a principle. All that Europe has to do is to protest against the consequences. The principle must either be admitted or rejected. If you approve the temporal sovereignty of the Pope, you are bound to applaud everything, even the conduct of Cardinal Antonelli. If you are shocked by the offences of the Pontifical Government, it is against the ecclesiastical monarchy that you must seek your remedy.

Diplomacy, without staying to discuss the premises, has from time to time protested against the deductions. In profoundly respectful _Memoranda_ it has implored the Pope to act inconsistently, by administering the affairs of his States upon the principles of lay governments. Should the Pope turn a deaf ear, the diplomatists have no right to complain, because they recognize his character, as an independent sovereign. Should he promise all they ask and afterwards break his word, diplomacy is equally without a ground of complaint. Is it not the admitted right of the Sovereign Pontiff to absolve men even from the most solemn oaths? And finally, should he yield to the solicitation of Europe, and enact liberal laws one day, only to let them fall into desuetude the next, diplomatists are once more disarmed. To violate its own laws is a special privilege of absolute monarchy.

I entertain a very high respect for our diplomatists of 1859; nor were their predecessors of 1831 wanting either in good intentions or capacity. They addressed to Gregory XVI. a MEMORANDUM, which is a master-piece of its kind. They extorted from the Pope a real const.i.tution,--a const.i.tution which left nothing to be desired, and which guaranteed all the moral and material interests of the Roman nation. In a few years this same const.i.tution had entirely disappeared, and abuses again flowed from the ecclesiastical principle, like a river from its source.

We renewed the experiment in 1849. The Pope granted us the _Motu Proprio_ of Portici, and the Romans gained nothing by it.

Shall our diplomatists repeat in 1859 this same part of dupes? A French engineer has demonstrated that d.y.k.es erected along the banks of rivers liable to inundation are costly, in constant need of repair, and ineffectual; and that the only real protection against those devastations is the construction of a dam at the source. To the source, then, gentlemen of the diplomatic guild! Ascend straight to the temporal power of the Papacy.

And yet I dare neither hope for, nor ask of Europe the immediate application of this grand panacea. Gerontocracy is still too powerful, even in the youngest governments Besides, we are now at peace, and radical reforms are only to be effected by war. The sword alone enjoys the privilege of deciding great questions by a single stroke.

Diplomatists, a timid army of peace, proceed but by half-measures.

There is one which was proposed in 1814 by Count Aldini, in 1831 by Rossi, in 1855 by Count Cavour. These three statesmen, comprehending the impossibility of limiting the authority of the Pope within the kingdom in which it is exercised, and over the people who are abandoned to it, advised Europe to remedy the evil by diminishing the extent of, and reducing the population subjected to, the States of the Church.

Nothing is more just, natural, or easy than to free the Adriatic provinces, and to confine the despotism of the Papacy between the Mediterranean and the Apennines. I have shown that the cities of Ferrara, Ravenna, Bologna, Rimini, and Ancona are at once the most impatient of the Pontifical yoke and the most worthy of liberty.

Deliver them. Here is a miracle which may be wrought by a stroke of the pen: and the eagle's plume which signed the treaty of Paris is as yet but freshly mended.

There would still remain to the Pope a million of subjects, and between three and four millions of acres; neither the one nor the other in a very high state of cultivation, I must admit; but it is possible that the diminution of his revenue might induce him to manage his estates and utilize his resources better than he now does. One of two things would occur: either he would enter upon the course pursued by good governments, and the condition of his subjects would become endurable, or he would persist in the errors of his predecessors, and the Mediterranean provinces would in their turn demand their independence.

At the worst, and as a last alternative, the Pope might retain the city of Rome, his palaces and temples, his cardinals and prelates, his priests and monks, his princes and footmen, and Europe would contribute to feed the little colony.

Rome, surrounded by the respect of the universe, as by a Chinese wall, would be, so to speak, a foreign body in the midst of free and living Italy. The country would suffer neither more nor less than does an old soldier from the bullet which the surgeon has left in his leg.

But will the Pope and the Cardinals easily resign themselves to the condition of mere ministers of religion? Will they willingly renounce their political influence? Will they in a single day forget their habits of interfering in our affairs, of aiming princes against one another, and of discreetly stirring up citizens against their rulers?

I much doubt it.

But on the other hand, princes will avail themselves of the lawful right of self-defence. They will read history, and they will there find that the really strong governments are those which have kept religious authority in their own hands; that the Senate of Rome did not grant the priests of Carthage liberty to preach in Italy; that the Queen of England and the Emperor of Russia are the heads of the Anglican and Russian religions; and they will see that by right the sovereign metropolis of the churches of France should be in Paris.

NOTES

1: Preface to the Official Statistical Returns of 1853, page 64.

2: 'La Grece Contemporaine.'

3: Etudes Statistiques sur Rome, par le Comte de Tournon.

4: A few of them did good service in the cause of liberty, and deserved well of their country, in the glorious but unsuccessful struggle of 1848, soon about to be renewed, and, let us hope, under happier auspices, and with a very different result.

Duke Filippo Lante Montefeltro, Colonel in command of a _corps d'

armee_ of the Roman Volunteers, occupied and held Treviso, whereby he at once a.s.sured the retreat of the Roman army, after its defeat at Cornuda on the 9th of May, 1848, by General Nugent, and prevented the advance of the Austrians upon Venice. The President Manin acknowledged that by his courage and patriotism he had saved Venice, and immediately sent him the commission of a full General.

On the 16th of May, General Nugent arrived before Treviso with 16,000 men, and siege artillery. He at once summoned the place to surrender, giving General Lante till noon on the following day for consideration. At four the same evening, Lante sent for reply, "Come this evening. I shall expect you at six. We are here to fight, not to surrender!" After threatening the town for some days, Nugent retired from before it, and joined Radetzky.

Duke Bonelli, Captain of Dragoons, was Orderly Officer to General Durando at the capitulation of Vicenza. Prince Bartolomeo Ruspoli served as a _private soldier_ in the Roman Legion; he was one of the three Commissioners who were sent to the camp of Radetzky to treat for the capitulation of Vicenza.

Count Antonio Marescotti commanded the 1st Roman regiment of Grenadiers.

Count Bandini, son of a Princess Giustiniani, was also Orderly Officer to Durando.

Count Pianciani commanded the 3d regiment of Roman Volunteers.