Napoleon III. also considered the restoration of the Pope to a
temporal throne necessary to the good of the Church. Perhaps he thinks
so still--though I couldn't swear to it. But his motives of action
were complicated. Simple President of the French Republic, heir to a
name which summoned him to the throne, resolved to exchange his
temporary magistracy for an imperial crown, he had the greatest
possible interest in proving to Europe how republics are put down. He
had already conceived the idea of playing that great part of champion
of order, which has since caused him to be received by all Sovereigns
first as a brother, and afterwards as an arbitrator. Lastly, he knew
that the restoration of the Pope would secure him a million of
Catholic votes towards his election to the imperial crown. But to
these motives of personal interest were added some others, if
possible, of a loftier character. The heir of Napoleon and of the
liberal Revolution of '89, the man who read his own name on the first
page of the civil code, the author of so many works breathing the
spirit of new ideas and the passionate love of progress, the silent
dreamer whose busy brain already teemed with the germs of all the
prosperity we have enjoyed for the last ten years, was incapable of
handing over three millions of Italians to reaction, lawlessness, and
misery. If he had firmly resolved to put down the Republic at Rome, he
was not less firm in his resolution to suppress the abuses, the
injustice, and all the traditional oppressions which drove the
Italians to revolt. In the opinion of the head of the French Republic,
the way to be again victorious over anarchy, was to deprive it of all
pretext and all cause for its existence.
He knew Rome; he had lived there. He knew, from personal experience,
in what the Papal government differed from good governments. His
natural sense of justice urged him to give the subjects of the Holy
Father, in exchange for the political autonomy of which he robbed
them, all the civil liberties and all the inoffensive rights enjoyed
in civilized States.
On the 18th of August, 1849, he addressed to M. Edgar Ney a letter,
which was, in point of fact, a _memorandum_ addressed to the Pope.
_AMNESTY, SECULARIZATION, THE CODE NAPOLEON, A LIBERAL GOVERNMENT_:
these were the gifts he promised to the Romans in exchange for the
Republic, and demanded of the Pope in return for a crown. This
programme contained, in half-a-dozen words, a great lesson to the
sovereign, and a great consolation to the people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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