Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/307

 STATES

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STATES

Revolution and of Napoleon. In 1791 the French National Assembly announced the union of Avignon and V'enaissin with France, and in the Peace of To- lentino (1797) Pius VI had to give them up, while at the same time rehnquishing the legations of Ferrara, Bologna, and Romagna to the Cisalpine Republic. In February, 1798, General Bcrthier, who had been sent to Rome by Napoleon, formed the rest of the States of the Church into the Roman Repubhc. rhe pope, becau.se he would not renounce his claim, i\'as taken away as a captive and eventually confined in Valence, where death soon released him (29 August, 1799). People were already rejoicing that the papacy md the church had come to an end. Their joy was, lowever, premature. Under the protection of Em- peror Francis II the cardinals in ISOO elected Pius VII as pope at \'enice. But hard trials awaited him. [t is true that in 1801 Pius VII by Napoleon's favour 5ot back the States of the Church as bounded in the Peace of Tolentino. But the position of the States jf the Church remained extremely precarious. Napo- leon in 1806 conferred Benevento on TaUejTand and Pontecorvo on Bernadotte. In 1808, because Pius V'll wouhl nut close his ports to the English, the States )f tlie C'liuri-h were again occupied and in 1809 com-
 * >letely coiitiscated. The Marches, l>bino, Came-

-ino,and Maceratawere annexed to the newly-created Kingdom of Italy, the rest of the States of the Church to France. Not until the Congress of Vienna, where the able Consalvi represented the pope, were the ■states of the Church again established (1815), almost in their old dimensions except that Avignon and Ve- laissin were not restored to the pope, and Austria received a narrow strip along the frontier of the Ferrara district north of the Po and the right of gar- risoning Ferrara and Comachio.

(5) From the Peace of Vientia to 1870. — The hberal md national ideas prevalent throughout Central Europe undermined the States of the Church, just IS they did the rest of Italy, and found expression in the high-sounding phrases "constitution" and "national unification". The French Revolution ind Napoleon had awakened these ideas. The lame of a Kingdom of Italy, whose crown Na- poleon had worn, was not forgotten. With the )ld conditions, which the congress of Vienna had re.stored, the people were by no means satisfied. rhey lamented the division of Italy into various states, IjDUnd tngether by no common bond, and ibove all tlie fact that they were ruled by foreigners. The iK)pe and the King of Sardinia alone were looked upon as really native rulers. The other rulers were regarded more or less as foreigners. Naples-Sicily was ruled by the Bourbon line, which had come there in 17:38, and which wa.s opposed particularly by Sicily. In Parma and Piacenza also the Bourbon line, first established here in 1748, ruled again from the death (1847) of Marie-Louise, wife of Napoleon I. In Modena and Tuscany collateral lines of the house of Au.stria ruled: in the Duchy of Modena, a line which had in 1803 become the heir of the ancient ducal house of Este; in Tuscany, which, after the Medici had become ex-tinct, had fallen to the ducal house of Lorraine, the line sprung from Ferdinand III, brother of Flmperor Francis I of Austria. Fur- thermore, the Auslrians were the immediate rulers of the Loml)ard-\'enctian Kingdom. The current of national feeling was directed above all against the rule of the Austrians at Milan and Venice, hated as a government by foreigners, and also against the governments which pursued the policies of and were prr>1ccte<l by Austria. Austria's statesman Mctter- iilrli liafl at heart the maintenance of the order e.s- taiilislied by the Congress of Vienna in 181.5. As the States of the Church were included among the gov- ernments under Austria's protection, they gradually sihared the hatred against Austria.

The narrow pohce spirit of the absolute govern- ments, which did not distinguish between what was justifiable and what was not, promoted the growth of di.ssatisfaction, which first took shape in secret societies. Carbonarism and freemasonry spread rapidly. The Greek war of independence, which excited universal admiration, aroused the national spirit in Italy. The Sanfedists (per la santa fede), as the loyal Cathohcs were called, were only a weak support for the Papal Government in the States of the Church. The Carbonari, led by exiles and made fugitives in Paris and yielding to the impression made by the Revolution of July, profited by the vacancy of the papal chair after the death of Pius VIII, in 1830, to inaugurate rising in the States of the Church, especially in Bologna. Under the presidency of Mazzini, the founder of the revolutionary society of the "Giovane Itaha", delegates assembled at Bologna in 1831, as a parhament of the united provinces, to estabUsh a republican form of government, and elected a provisional government. When the new pope Gregory XVI asked for Austria's assistance, Metter- nich was ready to intervene without delay. The Austrians restored peace in the States of the Church, as also in Modena and Parma. But hardly had the troops departed, when new disorders broke out, and, in answer to the pope's renewed call for help, the Austrians reappeared at Bologna in 1832 under Radetsky. To neutralize the influence of the Aus- trians the French Government of Louis Philippe sent to Ancona troops, which remained there as long as the Austrians occupied Bologna (until 1838). In opposition to the followers of Mazzini there were not lacking for a while men who strove to bring about the unification of Italy with the co-operation of the pope. Their spokesman was at first the former chaplain of King Charles Albert of Sardinia, Vincenzo Gioberti, who in 1843, as an exile in Brussels, wrote the treatise "II primato morale e civile degU ItaUani", a publication which caused a great sensation. He desired that the pope should become the head of the national union of states in Italy, from which the foreign princes were to be excluded. Piedmont, how- ever, was to act as regularly appointed protector of the pope and Italy. The priest. Count Antonio Rosmini, desired an Italian confederation with the po])e at its head and two dehberative chambers. He publi.shed his iileas in 1848 in the treatise "Delle cinque piagiii' dclla S. Chiesa", in which he also par- ticularly recommended the reform of the Church. The son-in-law of Manzoni, Marchese Massimo d' Azeglo, set forth the perverse political conditions in Italy and especially in the States of the Church more unsparingly in the treatise "Gli ultimi casi di Roma- gna" (1846), in which he urgently advocated reform, but at the same time warned against conspiracy and revolution. The majority of those who were enthu- siastic about the unification of Italy put their hope in Piedmont, "la spada d' Italia". Cesare Balbo in his book "Le speranze d' Itaha", which appeared in 1844, ex-pected first of all the founding of a union of the Lombard states.

The demand for reform in the States of the Church was in fact not unjustified. It was exi)ected that it would be inaugurated by Gregory XVI's successor, who was hailed with extravagant hopes, when as Pius IX he ascended the papal chair on Ki June, 1846. Men saw in him the pope of whom Gioberti had dreamed. Pius IX convoked at Rome a council of state composed of representatives of the various provinces, established a formal cabinet council, and sanctioned the formation of a militia in the States of the Church. In addit ion ho suggested to Tuscany and Sardinia the formation of an Italian customs union. But the country was wrought U|) too highly to con- tinue peacefully and slowly along such a course. The Liberals at Rome were dissatisfied because the