Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 10.djvu/771

 NAPOLEON

701

NAPOLEON

Dupanloup denounced the schemes which menaced the pope. On the other hand it was plain to the Ital- ians that the emperor had halted before enfranchising Italy as far as the Adriatic. Napoleon then dreamed of settling the affairs of Italy hy means of a congress, and Arthur de la Gueronniere's pamphlet, "Le pape et le congres", demanded of Pius IX, in advance, the surrender of his temporal power. On 1 January, 1860, Pius IX denounced this pamphlet as a "monument of hypocrisy", and on 9 January he answered with a formal refusal a letter from Napoleon advising him to give up the Legations. A few months later, the Legations themselves joined Piedmont, while Napo- leon, by making Thouvenel his minister of foreign affairs and by negotiating with Cavour the annexa- tion of Nice and Savoy to France, proved that he was decidedly more devoted to the aspirations of Pied- mont than to the temporal power of the pope. Mean- while the Catholics in France commenced violent press campaigns under the leadership of the " Univers" and the "Correspondant". On 24 January, 1869, the "Univers" was suppressed. The minister of state, Billault, prosecuted the Catholic publications and pulpit utterances deemed seditious. To be sure Baroche, on 2 April, announced in the Corps Legis- latif, that the French troops would not leave Rome so long as the pope was unable to defend himself. But Napoleon, only too anxious to withdraw his troops, at one moment thought of having them replaced by Neapolitan troops, and then proposed to Pius IX, though in vain, that the Powers of the second order should be induced to organize a body of papal troops, to be paid by all the Catholic states jointly. Pius IX, on the other hand, allowed Mgr de Merode to make an appeal to the aristocracy of France and Belgium for the formation of a special corps of pontifical troops, which should enable the pope to do without the em- peror's soldiers. Among these soldiers of the pope were a large number of French Legitimists; Lamori- cicre, their commander, had always been a foe of the imperial regime. Napoleon III was annoyed, and ordered his ambassador at Rome to enter into negotia- tions for the withdrawal of the French troops: on 11 May, 1860, it was decided that within three months the soldiers given to the pope by Napoleon III should return to France.

In the meantime, however. Garibaldi's campaign in Sicily and Calabria opened. Farini and Cialdini, sent by Cavour to Napoleon, represented to him (28 Au- gust) the urgent necessity of checking the Italian revolution, that Garibaldi was about to march on Rome, and that France ought to leave to Piedmont the task of preserving order in Italy, for which purpo.se the Piedmontese must be allowed to cross the pontifi- cal territories so as to reach the Neapolitan frontier. "Faites vite (act quickly)", said the emperor, and himself left France, travelling in Corsica and Algeria, while the Piedmontese troops invaded Umbria and the Marches, defeated the troops of Lamoriciere at Castel- fidardo, captured Ancona, and occupied all the States of the Church except Rome and the province of Viterbo. Napoleon publicly warned Victor Emman- uel that, if he attacked the pope without legitimate provocation, France would be obliged to oppose him; he withdrew his minister from Turin, leaving instead only a charge d'affaires, and was a mere spectator of that series of events which, in February, 1861, ended in Victor Emmanuel's being proclaimed King of Italy. The expedition to Syria (18.59), in which SO, 00(1 French troops went to the relief of the Maronitc Christians, who were being massacred by the Druses with the connivance of the Turks, the two expeditions to China (1857 and 1860), in co-operation with England, which resulted, among other things, in the restoration to the Christians of their religious establishments, and the joint expedition of France and Spain (1858-62) against the Annamese Empire, which avenged the persecution

of Christians on Annam and ended in the conquest of Cochin China by France, merited for the armies of France the gratitude of the Church. Still the attitude of Napoleon III in regard to Itahan affairs caused great pain to Catholics. Falloux in an article entitled "Antecedents et consequences de la situation actu- elle", published in the "Correspondant", implied that Napoleon was an accomplice in the Italian revolution. The Catholic associations formed to collect subscrip- tions for the pope's benefit were suppressed, and Pius IX, in the consistorial allocution of 17 December, 1860, accused the emperor of having "feigned" to protect him.

Liberal Period nf the Empire, 1860-70. — It was just at this time that the emperor, by the decree of 24 November, 1860, made his first concession to the Opposition, and to Liberal ideas, by granting more independence and power of initiative to the Legisla- ture. But the Liberal opposition was not disarmed,

and the Catholic

discontent was aggravated by his Italian pohcy. The emperor replied to Pius IX by publishing la Gue- ronniere's book, "La France, Rome et I'ltalie", a vio- lent arraignment of Rome. Then Bishop Pie of Poitiers publishcfl his pastoral charge in which the words, "Lave- tes mains, O Pi- late" (Wash thy hands, O Pilate), were addressed to Napoleon III. In the Senate, an amendment in fa- vour of the temporal power of the pope was lost by only a very small majority ; in the Corps Lcgislatif, one-third of the deputies declared themselves for the pontifical cause. The emperor asserted his Italian sympathies more and more clearly: in June, 1862, he recognized the new kingdom; he seni. an ambassador to Turin, and to Rome two partisans of Italian unity; and he used hia influence with Russia and Prussia to procure their recognition of the Kingdom of Italy. One striking symptom of the emperor's changed feelings towards the Church was the circular of January, 1862, by which Persigny declared all the St. Vincent de Paul societies dissolved. Following upon Garibaldi's blow at the Pontifical States, which had been stopped by his defeat at Aspramonte (29 August, 1862), General Durando, minister of foreign affairs in Ratazzi's cabi- net, declared in a circular that "the whole Italian nation demanded its capital ". Thus were the Italians proclaiming their eagerness to be installed at Rome. Fearing that at the forthcoming legislative elections the Catholics would revolt from the imperial party, Napoleon suddenly manifested a much colder feeling for Italy. The Catholic influence of the empress gained the upper hand of Prince Napoleon's anti- religious influence. Thouvenel was supplanted by Drouin de Lhuys (15 October, 1862), who was made to give out a curt statement that the French Govern- ment had no present intention of taking any action in consequence of the Durando circular, thus bringing about the fall of the Ratazzi cabinet in Italy. A ^reat many Catholics recovered their confidence in Napo- leon; but a political alliance between a certain num- ber of Liberal Cat holies, devoted to the Royalist cause and members of the Heijublican party resulted, in

N.VPOLEON III