He conceived the idea of an Italian customs league, after the model of the German one, and pressed it with so much earnestness that in November, 1847, it was instituted for the Roman, Tuscan, and Sardinian dominions, and every effort was made to render it acceptable to the other powers of Italy. He established a municipal government for the city of Rome, which had hitherto remained without one; and he created a Council of State for all his dominions, to consist chiefly of the laity, one person being chosen for each Province by the sovereign, out of a list of three, nominated by the provincial authorities. This Council was to sit in Rome, and aid the Government with its advice in putting the various departments in order, in constituting municipalities, and in other public concerns. He created, also, a Council of Ministers, which Farini calls the most important act of his reign, "As being that by which the executive power acquired an organization worthy of a civilized state, and altogether novel in that of Rome." There were to be nine departments, and, with the exception of the president of the Council and its secretary, the ministers need not be cardinals. All those first appointed, however, were cardinals or prelates. A body of _Uditori_ was attached to this Council, consisting of twelve ecclesiastics and twelve laymen, all appointed by the sovereign. The laws respecting the censorship of the press were much relaxed, and numerous political journals were established at Rome, which before had nothing that deserved the name of a newspaper. "Our infant journalism," says Farini, "had its infant passions and caprices; instead of meditating, it gambolled, and every day it smashed its toys of the day before, as children do; it instituted a school of declamation, not of political knowledge; it ran and plunged about, blindfold; it made boast of an independent spirit, and was a mean slave to out-of-doors influence." These measures of reform, and the enthusiasm which they created, were not without effect on surrounding nations. Considering the place whence they came, and the sovereign who conducted them, they were adapted to have a vast influence. Rome, the "Eternal City," was regenerated, and a new life bounded through her old limbs; and the August head of the Catholic Church, the greatest religious potentate of the civilized world, the infallible, the object of veneration to half Christendom, and hitherto the most despotic and conservative sovereign in Europe, was now the daring innovator, the radical, the idol of the populace. Austria looked on with distrust and dismay, and tried to pick a quarrel and thus find a pretext for invasion by ordering its troops, who had as yet only garrisoned the fortress, to occupy the city of Ferrara and patrol its streets--a measure almost sure to lead to a collision with its citizens.