ART. VI.-1. Correspondence respecting the Affairs_of_Italy. Part I. 1846-1849. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty, July, 1849. Part II. From January to June 30, 1848. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty, July 31, 1849.

2. Correspondence respecting the Affairs of Rome. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty, Jan. 15, 1849.

3. Ma Mission à Rome. Mai, 1849. Mémoire présenté au Conseil d'Etat. Par M. FERDINAND DE LESSEPS. Paris: Amyot. 1849.

4. Réponse de M. F. de Lesseps au Ministre et au Conseil d'Etat. Août, 1849. Paris: Amyot. 1849.

EIGHTEEN months ago we parted with the Pope at Rome'. His resolution to uphold, in all its pristine pride, his pseudo-Apostolic power, was unshaken, but his strength was utterly broken. The attempt which characterized the commencement of his reign, to make the democracy throughout Europe subservient to the aggrandizement of the Papacy, and to the restoration of its former ascendancy in the political world, had borne its legitimate fruit. The Constitution of March 14th, which carried concession, according to the then declaration of Pius himself, to its utmost limits, had been extorted from the fears of the Pontiff by popular clamour; the Order of Jesuits, the pillar of the Papacy, though standing high in the personal favour of Pius himself, had been forced to yield before the storm, and to withdraw from the eternal city; the revolution, for such it was, of the first days of May, 1848, the result of the Allocution of April 29th, had deprived the Pope of all real control over the foreign relations of the Pontifical States; and for his own personal popularity, or rather for his deliverance from the most menacing storm of unpopularity, the once idolized Pius stood indebted to the patronage of one formerly branded by the Church with the mark of heresy, and driven into exile as a political offender.

Virtually the Papacy was deposed in Rome itself in May, 1848. The shadow only of the Pope's sovereignty remained. The

1 See "The Papacy and the Revolution," English Review, vol. ix. pp. 255–285.

ministry of Count Mamiani, reconstructed in August by one of its members, the unfortunate Count Rossi, in vain endeavoured to reconcile the violent demands of the democracy, and the popular aspirations after an Italian nationality, with the spiritual supremacy of the Pope, and with the relations in which, as the head of the Roman Church, he stood to the " Catholic" world. The hopeless struggle ended in the assassination of Count Rossi, and the ignominious flight of the Pope in the month of November, 1848,-events which are, no doubt, fresh in the recollection of our readers, and which we need not therefore recapitulate. This was a death-blow, not only to the temporal, but to the spiritual power of the Pope. The charge of ingratitude, contained in the protest issued by Pius IX. on the 29th of November', sat lightly on the consciences of his rebellious subjects, who on the 12th of December committed the government of the State provisionally to a Junta, in which the sovereignty was vested until the Pope should return to his dominions. The protest of Pius against the Junta, and his subsequent Bull of excommunication, failed of producing the desired effect. The election of the Constituent Assembly was proceeded with, the Pope's spiritual censure was treated with every indignity which enmity and profaneness combined could devise; and on the 9th of February of the present year the deposition of the Pope, and the constitution of the Roman Republic, was solemnly proclaimed on the Capitol; a final and decisive step which induced the Pope, in a circular issued by Cardinal Antonelli on the 18th of February, to invoke the armed intervention of the European powers for the restoration of the Papacy.

At this point, then, commences the history of the open warfare in which the Papacy has been engaged with the republican principle, and in which it has been supported, not only by the ancient "Catholic" monarchies of Europe, but, strange to say, indirectly by Protestant England, and directly by republican France. The three months, or nearly so, which had elapsed since the assassination of Count Rossi and the flight of the Pope, had been consumed in fruitless endeavours made by both parties to secure their own ends without coming to an open rupture; the revolutionary party at Rome seeking at first to prevail upon Pius to return and continue to lend the sanction of his name to their proceedings,

489.

See our "Foreign and Colonial Intelligence," English Review, vol. x. pp. 488, 3 See our "Foreign and Colonial Intelligence," English Review, vol. xi. pp. 232— 235.

See for the details our "Foreign and Colonial Intelligence," English Review, vol. xi. pp. 235-238.

and, even after the refusal of Pius to receive their overtures, hesitating to make any other than a temporary provision for the administration of the Government, in the still cherished hope of rendering the weakness of the Pontiff's character subservient to their designs; while, on the other hand, the Pope tried the various weapons with which the armoury of his authority, both temporal and spiritual, supplied him, in the hope of bringing his revolted subjects back to their obedience by exhortation and remonstrance. It was not until all these expedients had been resorted to in vain; when all chance of a peaceable accommodation was clearly at an end; when the Romans were clearly convinced that the Pope would not abate one jot or tittle from his ecclesiastical pretensions, nor give for the maintenance of free institutions the guarantees which his people demanded of him; and when Pius could no longer disguise from himself that upon no account the Romans would again willingly submit to the bastard sovereignty of an ecclesiastical power;-not till then it was, that both parties took a course involving open and irrevocable hostility, and evincing a determination at all costs to maintain their respective claims; the Romans their claim to civil freedom, the Pope his claim to absolute and irresponsible dominion. This being the critical point, at which the Romans became decidedly republican, and the Pope avowedly reactionary, it will not be uninteresting to examine somewhat more minutely the documents from which the temper and spirit of both parties and the view which they took of their position may be collected.

The decree of the Roman Assembly, which cut off all possibility of reconciliation with the Pope, was the result of a protracted debate of fourteen hours, in the course of which Mamiani and Sterbini, with a few others, alone had the courage to oppose the general determination to do away with the Papal sovereignty altogether out of 144 members five only voted against the proposal to proclaim the republic; fourteen, though they voted for the deposition of the Pope, were not prepared to vote for the republican form of government; while all the rest voted both for the deposition of the Pope and for the proclamation of the republic. The decree of the Assembly, enacted by this overwhelming majority, was as follows:

Fundamental Decree.

"Art. 1. The Pope is deposed, de facto and de jure, from the temporal government of the Roman State.

"Art. 2. The Roman Pontiff shall have all the necessary guarantees of independence in the exercise of his spiritual power.

"Art. 3. The form of government of the Roman State shall be

a pure democracy, under the glorious name of the Roman Republic.'

"Art. 4. The Roman Republic will entertain with the rest of Italy those relations which are demanded by a common nationality ".'

This decree, dated "February the 9th, at one o'clock in the morning," was proclaimed in the Capitol at noon on the same day; and, after the ceremony, the following proclamation was published by the ministry :—

"A great fact has been accomplished. The National Assembly, consisting of our lawful representatives, has, in the name of the sovereignty of the people, concluded, that the only form of government suitable for us is that which rendered our forefathers so great and glorious.

"Accordingly the Roman Republic has been decreed by the Assembly, and proclaimed this day from the Capitol.

66 Every citizen, who is not an enemy of his country, is bound to give his prompt and loyal adhesion to this government, which, sprung from the free and universal vote of the representatives of the nation, will proceed in the paths of order and justice.

"After so many centuries, we behold our country and our liberty restored; let us prove ourselves worthy of this gift of God, and the Roman Republic will be eternal and prosperous."

A circular was at the same time addressed by the Minister for Foreign Affairs to the Roman Ministers and Consuls abroad, for the purpose of announcing to them the proclamation of the Republic, and the confirmation of the Government Commission by the Assembly, and of inducing them to acknowledge with as little delay as possible the Roman Republic, which, it is said in the circular, "having sprung from the free vote of the people, is, as a matter both of right and of fact, the most legitimate government in the world." On the following day an Executive Council of three,-Italians, responsible and removable-was appointed by the Assembly; the first Triumvirs were Armellini, Salicetti, and Montecchi; the first of whom retained his position to the last, while the other two were subsequently replaced by Mazzini and Saffi. Two days after, another decree passed the Assembly, ordering the laws to be promulgated and justice administered in the name of God and the people;' adopting the tricoloured flag, with an eagle, as the national standard; and re

5 Although we have enumerated, at the head of this article, several documentary collections and authentic publications, yet, as there are many documents connected with the history of these transactions not contained in them, we shall freely quote from the public journals, without deeming it necessary to indicate the particular source from which we have taken each document.

leasing all civil and military functionaries from the oaths which they had taken to the late government.

Thus far, unquestionably, the change which had been effected, was the work of the Romans themselves; but it is fair to mention, that at this period the influence of Mazzini, who had already visited Rome in December, but who was at this time staying in Florence, began to manifest itself. On the 25th of February, the Costituente Italiana contained an article of three columns, from the pen of Mazzini, and signed with his name, a few extracts from which will best serve to show the character of his views :

"Rome the sainted, Rome the eternal, has spoken; and her first word is the first word of a new era-the third Italian era. From a period of artificiality, of political sophistry, of immoral machinations, incapable of creating a people and making them into a nation, the Romans now pass on to the broad and brilliant life of truth. The veil has been withdrawn from the lie of an impossible agreement between liberty and a power which had become a dead corpse; between national unity and the mean selfishness of foreign courts or courts in bondage to the foreigner; and we arise in the consciousness of our mission and our strength.

6

"To the prince who flies when the country awakes fair and radiant with a thought of love and of new life, we say : Thou art not worthy to live upon our soil.' To the priest who, untrue to the mission of emancipation committed to him by the First Martyr of humanity, drives the prince to an act of cowardice, and who threatens to anathematize a people eager to interrogate him on the duties and the rights of the new era, we make answer in the words of the Bishop of Gaul : 'Thou camest to excommunicate, and thou shalt depart excommunicated.'

"Religion, betrayed by its ministers, resides in us, who are, in community of sacrifice, of love, and of progress, the Eternal Church of the faithful. Let the phantom vanish before the light of truth. None reigns here but God and the people;' God, sovereign in heaven and in earth; the people, progressive worshippers and interpreters of his law. As in the days of Gregory III., we may inscribe on our banners, 'Ecclesia sancti Dei et respublica Romanorum.'

"But, in order to be resuscitated as a Church and as a republic, we must drink into love, and into the consciousness of originality and autonomy of an autonomy which shall not be, as some would have it, provincial and dynastic, but Italian."

As a useful gloss upon this rhapsody of mingled Deism and republicanism, we subjoin, from the same document, what may be called Mazzini's profession of faith:

"To us life is a mission, this earth the stage on which we are to fulfil it in order to elevate ourselves to God. Man is a prefectible and social