Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/511

1846-1856.] ITALY 489 army took up a position at the base of the Alban hills. Spaniards arrived at Fiumicino, and Austrians entered the Legations. The French professed to come as friends but the triumvirs of the Roman republic refused them entrance, and General Ouclinot established his camp on the Jani- culan. Garibaldi, who was guarding the frontier of the Abruzzi, returned and defeated the Neapolitans at Palestrina on the llth of May. Still his assistance did not suffice to avert the French attack, and on July 2, after a siege of four weeks, the city capitulated. Mazzini and Garibaldi made good their escape. The French troops entered and held Rome for the pope. It was not until April 1850, however, that Pius IX. ventured to return. When he ar rived in his capital, he began the reactionary reign, sup ported by his French garrison and Jesuit advisers, which only ended with the semi-forcible entry of the Italians in 1870. ipres- With the fall of Rome the hopes of the revolutionary i f party ended. Austrian troops replaced their ducal puppets in Parma, Modena, and Tuscany. King Ferdinand, rightly now named Bomba, terrorized his subjects into silence <by the aid of Swiss mercenaries, artillery, and dungeons too loathsome to be described. Only Venice still held out, blockaded in the Adriatic and bombarded from the land, through all the horrors of famine, conflagration, and cholera, until the month of August. Few episodes in the history of that noble city are more glorious than this last desperate and patient struggle ; and few names upon her muster-roll of heroes are equally illustrious with that of the lion-hearted and blameless Daniele Manin. rgan- In the disastrous year 1849 it seemed as though the ion of f a te of Italy was sealed. The republicans had done their linian ^ Qs ^ an( j f a j[ e( j a fc Milan, Rome, and Venice. The power of Piedmont was broken at Novara. And yet we have good cause to say that the miseries of this epoch wrought the future salvation of the race. The former vain trust in the Italian sentiment of petty courts, the Neo-Guelfic mysticism of Gioberti s party, the Utopian confidence in papal liberalism, the vague schemes of confederation which had assumed many visionary forms, were all dissipated for ever. To rightly thinking men it became clear that the regeneration of Italy must be entrusted to Piedmont. When Vittorio Emmanuele entered Turin in silence after Novara, with a demoralized army and a ruined exchequer, the spirit of his people was cast down, but not extin guished. They had assumed responsibility, and were not going to abandon it. " The house of Savoy cannot retreat " became the watchword of the throne. D Azeglio s Nous recommemerons expressed the determination of the ruling % classes. It is true that at this crisis they had to combat the hostility and bitter jealousy of the republicans. Maz- ztni s party stirred up Genoa to revolution, and La Marmora received the ignoble task of restoring that intract able city to a sense of duty. " Better Italy enslaved than delivered over to the son of the traitor Carlo Alberto," exclaimed the prophet of democracy, whom no reverses could persuade that in such politics as those of Italy the half is better than the whole. But Mazzini was no longer a power of the first magnitude. The work which he had done for Italy was solid and abiding. Still he had failed to carry the bulk of the nation with him. Men of more sober aspirations saw that to aim at national independence and European reconstruction at one leap was Utopian. Italy must first be made ; and the only power capable of calling her into existence was Piedmont, still free and puissant among a crowd of feeble and anarchical despot isms. The experience of 49 proved that the armies of Piedmont, in the hour of need, could rely on volunteers of pith and nerve, in cities so downtrodden even as were Rome and Venice ; for it must not be forgotten that the republicans who sustained both sieges were members of the bourgeoisie and proletariate. This consolidation of opinion after the events of 1849 was proved by Gioberti s recan tation of his earlier mysticism. In 1851 he published a new treatise the Einnovamento, which distinctly indicated Piedmont as the substantial basis of Italian independence. Daniele Manin, now an exile in Paris, declared his adhesion to the same doctrine. The constitutional party was further strengthened by the adhesion of the leading repub licans, Pallavicino and La Farina; and in 1857 the main point of unaminity was secured by the formation of the Societct Nazionale, which kept sectarian jealousies in the background. Garibaldi, at this time less republican than he afterwards became, was himself a president of this political association. Henceforward the genuine Mazzinisti formed a permanent minority. They could do little more than to impede without perplexing or baffling the policy of the Piedmontese statesmen, who felt themselves to be supported by the instincts of the race at large. Vittorio Emmanuele began his reign with Massimo d Azeglio for minister. He steadily refused all Austrian advances, though enforced by his own wife and mother, both of whom were Austrian archduchesses. The house of Savoy had pledged itself to Italy, and the house had never broken faith. The first cares of the new ministry were de voted to internal reforms, to the organization of the army by La Marmora, and to financial measures. In 1850 they passed the so-called Siccardi law, which abolished ecclesi astical courts. This was followed by a law of civil marriage; and in 1854 the ecclesiastical reforms were completed by Rattazzi s bill for restricting religious corpo rations and placing church property under state control. The necessity of these measures is demonstrated by the fact that the little kingdom of Sardinia counted 41 bishops, 1417 canonries, about 18,000 persons vowed to a monastic life, and one ecclesiastic to every 214 inhabitants. Their importance will be understood when we reflect that these laws were extended to Italy after the union. Meanwhile Cavour had joined the government in 1850, Cavour s as minister of commerce. Not least among his great adm i nis * qualities was a thorough understanding of parliamentary tactics ; and, though his first attempts at public speaking were unsuccessful, he soon remedied this defect. Mastery of facts and moral force gave weight to his eloquence far above rhetoric. Meanwhile his study of English politics, and admiration for men like Pitt and Peel, developed what in him was an innate instinct for parliamentary leadership. This sound sense of the conditions of representative govern ment induced him to form a coalition with Rattazzi, the leader of the democrats, in 1852. D Azeglio and the king were frightened by so bold a step. But Cavour s prepon derance in the chambers was irresistible ; and in November 1853 he superseded D Azeglio as prime minister. From this date the fortunes of Italy were in his hands, and Cavour became one of the foremost men in Europe. It was by his advice that the Sardinian troops under General La Marmora took part with France and England in the Crimean war, where they distinguished themselves in the battle of the Tchernaya. The nation by this step secured powerful allies, forced itself upon the notice of Europe, and accustomed its army to service on a grand scale. At the congress of Paris in 1856 Cavour represented Sardinia, and laid the grievances of Italy before the allied powers. Both France and England remonstrated, but vainly, with Ferdinand II. for his misgovernment. Cavour had travelled both in England and France, and had observed that, though the English sympathized with Italy and were horrified by what they heard of Neapolitan atrocities, he was not likely to get more than moral support and non-interference from Great Britain. Yet he could XIII. 62