restored the Holy Father to his throne in the Vatican wills that the Head
of the Church should be respected in all his rights as a temporal
sovereign.” A little later, the Emperor of the French, elated with his
military success, issued a proclamation which renewed the apprehensions
that had been so happily allayed. “Italians!—Providence sometimes favors
nations and individuals by giving them the opportunity of suddenly
springing into their full growth. Avail yourselves, then, of the fortune
that is offered you! Your desire of independence, so long expressed, so
often deceived, will be realized, if you show yourselves worthy of it.
Unite then for one sole object, the liberation of your country. Fly to the
standards of King Victor Emmanuel, who has already so nobly shown you the
way to honor. Remember that without discipline there can be no army, and
animated with the sacred fire of patriotism, be soldiers only to-day, and
you will be to-morrow free citizens of a great country.”
“The Romagnese,” continues Montalembert, “took the speaker at his word.
Four days after the appearance of this proclamation, they rose against the
Papal authority, created a provisional government, convoked a sovereign
assembly, voted the deposition of the Pope, and the annexation to
Piedmont. Finally, seeing their audacity remained unpunished, they
organized an armed league, officered by Piedmontese, and commanded by
Garibaldi—that Garibaldi, who, having been vanquished by French troops ten
years ago, now avails himself of our recent hard-won victories, to boast
that he will ‘soon make an end of clerical despotism.’ ”
Three months after the revolution had been established in the Romagna, M.
de Montalembert wrote: “The revolution, triumphant, is still asking Europe
to sanction its work. France has to impute to herself all the scandals and
all the calamities that will follow. Great nations are responsible not
only for what they do, but for what they permit to be done under the
shadow of their flag, and by the incitement of their influence. The war
which France waged in Italy has cost the Pope the loss of the third part
of his dominions, and the irreparable weakening of his hold on what
remains. The eldest daughter of the church will remain accountable for it
before contemporaries, before history, before Europe, and before God. She
will not be allowed to wipe her mouth like the adultress in Scripture,
_quæ tergens os suum dicit, non sum operata malum_.”
Another power which was, in the full sense of the term, _foreign_ in the
Roman States, still more directly aided the revolution. This power was the
army of Garibaldi. It will be seen, when it is considered what troops this
army was composed of, that it was wholly alien in the States of the
Church. In this motley corps there were:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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