Page:Vactican as a World Power.djvu/376

 THE THRONE IN THE TIME OF STORMS

"a decision of the moot question whether the Pope in matters of faith is infallible in his own person also, or whether he can claim this in- fallibility only at the head of a Council."

The trend of events took its course despite all the rulers of the Papal States could do. Cavour succeeded in gaining a strong ally for his king in the person of Napoleon III; and the two powers wrested Lombardy from Austria by the victory of Magenta. This province was then awarded to Sardinia, but the Austrians kept Venice. Soon alien control of the peninsula ended abruptly. When the Austrian troops evacuated the Romagna, this rebelled against the Papal govern- ment and in 1859 demanded union with Piedmont. Napoleon courted favour with both Piedmont and Rome in the hope of carrying out his federalistic program without the use of force. His official councillor, Lageronniere, drew up a document advocating that the Pope was to retain Rome and the patrimonium Petri as the basis of a patriarchal government possessing no state sovereignty. The smaller the country, he argued, the greater is the monarch. Meanwhile the action of the Romagna and the abdication of the Dukes of Parma, Modena and Tuscany in response to popular clamour brought about a confederation of states under Piedmontese leadership. With a bold stroke Cavour had, without the knowledge of Napoleon but with the tacit understanding of England, got the provinces of Central Italy to vote on the question of whether they wished incorporation in an Italian kingdom. The results were everything he could have desired. The Papal troops under General de Lamoriciere were defeated by the Piedmontese at Castelfidardo during September 1860; and in the same year the Garibaldians vanquished the kingdom of Naples and Sicily. A great statesman, a prince and a pirate had thus brought about unification. Only Venice was still Austrian, and the protection of France still held Rome and the patrimonium Petri for the Pope. On March 17, 1861, Victor Emmanuel was proclaimed King of Italy. Florence was to be the capital city. Soon thereafter Cavour died on June 6, with the formula of "a free church in a free state" on his lips. He still thought that that formula would guarantee a reconciliation between the priesthood and the state, although he could verify with his eyes the truth of what Montalambert had told him during the previous April: "In every corner of your state one sees the Church hampered,

CAVOUR