Continental Prospects

Brownson's Quarterly Review, January, 1852

Art. IV. 1. L'Italie Rouge, ou Histoire des Revolutions de Rome, etc. Par Le Vicomte d'Arlincourt. Paris. 1850.
2.  Republique et Royaute en Italie. Par J. Mazzini. Paris. 1850.
3.   Glances at Europe, in a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, Switzerland, &c., during the Summer of 1851. By Horace Greeley. New York : De Witt & Davenport.    1851.    8vo.    pp. 350.
4.   Westminster Review, January, 1851.    Art. VII.

"Caes. The ides of March are come!
"South. Ay, Caesar ;  but not gone!"

Europe is again in labor. She will again bring forth a mouse, but not without dealing death among the people who stand near to witness the event. Curious by-standers at a riot are commonly the first victims when the order to lire is given. The authors of the troubles of 1848 arc safe, in London, with full purses, and with full confidence in their ability to replenish them, and to creep out of danger in 1852, as they did before. Meanwhile the innocent or indifferent inhabitants are left to pay the taxes, and to repair their ruined dwellings or fortunes in season for the second coming of Mazzini.

Europe is apparently on the eve of another general outbreak. It is probable that only the accidental circumstance that the French Presidential election will not take place until May, 1852, has prevented the signal-trumpet from sounding until now. The revolutionary forces are well drilled, and, as they are at present a defeated party, they are obedient to their leaders. Mazzini has borrowed large sums of money, and he has chosen an ingenious method for increasing those sums. He reaches the bottom of purses, as less distinguished highwaymen do, through the mortal fears of their owners. His is a life insurance company for the coming struggle. Whosoever takes stock will have reasonable security that his life will be spared by the revolutionists. All others are at the mercy of Mazzini, and, if they be good Christians or loyal subjects, their doom is spoken. The borrowed money will be repaid when the Triumvirs once more sit in their chairs on  the  Capitoline  Hill.    Wherefore Mazzini, in a recent proclamation, warns Europe that the hour is beginning to strike. Kossuth, at the present moment the revolutionary idol of falling Europe, repeats the antiphon chanted by the Italian conspirator. He, too, in a recent speech, assured his delighted English hearers that the hour had come, and the man. This quiet confidence of the leaders and the silence of their men may possibly be only a thing designed to frighten the kings and their peaceable subjects. The cry of Wolf! may be raised when the wolf has no serviceable claws or teeth. But it is more likely that the conspirators are confident of success. Their secret clubs are organized in every town and hamlet. The elements in their favor are numerous; the adverse elements are either unknown or omitted in their calculations. The governments appear to be satisfied that the boasting language of the revolutionists is predicated on men, money, and arms, a good basis for boasting. Louis Napoleon, in his message to the representatives of France, tells them plainly that the cloud is bigger than a man's hand, and that France must get ready, seeing that the storm is near. The other great powers of the Continent have their soldiers, by hundreds of thousands, prepared to march to any point, at any moment. Upon the whole, there is sufficient evidence to warrant the belief that 1852 will be the prophetic year of blood.

France, Hungary, and Italy have been selected as the fields of battle, and the conspirators in each country claim the privilege of opening the fight.
It is true that a powerful, restless, and disappointed minority in France is in favor of a new revolution. But the aspect of French politics is not very disheartening to a cool observer. The present government was elected by an overwhelming majority, a circumstance which democrats are accustomed to regard as an authoritative decision of the nation. The opposition of the French Reds to the will of the majority proves that they are not even democrats, but terrorists. The majority of deputies sent to represent the French nation are pledged to the conservation, at least, of what is left of France. The President seems to be fully aware of the dangers which beset France, and convinced that his government is able to solve any doubts or difficulties which Ledru Rollin and his companions may have prepared lor the consideration of the French army. Lcdru Rollin may be strong, but the nation is stronger, and the President is strongest. His recent by-play with the revolutionists, with reference to the electoral law, is an exquisite movement in its way. Louis Napoleon is a better man than most persons were willing to admit, and it is very possible that 1852 will develop in him things for which few are disposed to give him credit now. In the mean time, he is a cautious statesman, and he has the majority of Frenchmen, if not of their representatives, ready to support his measures. The only real obsk- Ae is the constitutional check upon the permanence of his government. But a constitution in France does not mean what constitutions mean in other countries. It was made to order during a revolution, and before the mob of Paris had ceased to claim the right to speak for the nation.

And in enumerating the grounds for hope in the triumph of law over terrorism in France, we must not lose sight of the fact, that every one of the anarchists is also an atheist, an enemy of the Church of God, and that the incense of sacrifice and of prayer daily ascends from France to the Ruler of nations, that he may deliver the people from enemies who never sowed any thing but evil, and never reaped any thing but a harvest for themselves. Upon the whole, the prospects of France are not very dark.

Hungary would not move if she could, and could not if she would. There are disaffected persons in Hungary. There are men who yet look upon Kossuth as a hero. These are a portion, perhaps a small majority, of the officer, the untitled Magyar nobles, the greater part of whom are Protestants. They are the race which betrayed Hungary to the Turk three times. It was their fault that Hungary is a country now twice conquered by Austrian area. The whole Magyar race are a minority in Hungary. The Sclaves, who are the majority, are not disposed to rebel against a government which liberated them from the Magyar domination of a thousand years. The Magyars themselves have no cause for complaint, and it is a significant circumstance that the radical press has not even invented a story to tell against the Austrian administration of affairs during the last two years. It is not unsafe to hazard the conjecture, that the inhabitants of Hungary have never been governed in a manner so satisfactory to themselves as they have been since the victory of Austria over   Magyardom.     And  there  are   other   considerations which  may serve to induce the conclusion that Kossuth will be, for the third time,  a  disappointed demagogue. Austria has made her peace with Rome.    This one circumstance is worth considering.    She is a strong power.    The great majority of her subjects are loyal.    And in the work which Kossuth promises her, she will receive the assistance of Russia, if she  think  proper to request it.      Notwithstanding the threats of Kossuth, the empire is not in mortal peril. Indeed, his recent conduct seems to prove that he has no great confidence in his followers, and that he bases all his hopes upon the chances of English and American intervention.   He is certain to have the cooperation of the Continental democrats, notwithstanding whatever praise he may choose to bestow upon constitutional monarchy, because Austria is in their way as well as in his.    If they can do nothing in France and Italy, he can do nothing in Hungary.   Meanwhile he has trimmed his course so as to suit every conceivable circumstance, but with all his caution, and lib is a consummate politician of the tricksome school, he has found that the maxim, All things to all men, can be successfully reduced to practice only by a servant of God, a character which he is far from sustaining.    The consequence has been that even his friends, we mean his English friends, have found him out, as the phrase is.    He will be seriously aided only by those persons or parties to whom a evolution in Catholic countries is desirable, no matter by  whom, or by what means brought about.    The noisy demonstrations in honor of the Hungarian traitor can have no influence worth mentioning upon   European  politics. They afford a holiday, a little newspaper gossip, and little else.   Of course, for the little men who get them up, they a.! =*- great events.

Italy is not, so far as internal sources against anarchy are concerned, in the same precise category with France and Hungary. The revolutionists there have chances of success which are wanting in other countries, and it may be that Mazzini's boast that Italy will be the first to rebel was not an unconsidered menace. Italy is divided into several kingdoms, and it is not difficult to conceive that several arms directed by one head, or centre, will prove, in certain  important respects, more efficient than the same
arms directed by several heads. Unity of action is a powerful means of success in any operation, but it is not commonly obtained where different governments are interested in the same policy. Mutual distrust, or jealousy, diversity of opinion, as well as rivalry among the captains, combine to make unity and energy of action more desirable than easy in the day of battle.
One of the states of Italy is already in Mazzini's hands. It is Sardinia.   This kingdom is at variance with the Holy See; it has broken its faith with the Pope; it has interfered in a violent manner with ecclesiastical rights and immunities, guarantied by the laws of the state and sanctioned by the canon law; it has exiled bishops for their fidelity to the Church ; it has erected houses for Protestant worship, and it has generally placed itself in a schismatical attitude towards Rome.   In this respect, it is nearly all that Mazzini professes to desire.    It goes by the name of a constitutional kingdom, and, like some other states governed under that form, it is chargeable with more real despotism than obtains in Christian countries governed according to absolute forms.    The young king may be well meaning, but he began his reign under unfortunate auspices.    The Sardinian armies had been defeated for the second time ; the road to Turin was open to Radetzky ; the nation was liable to a severe punishment for its breach of faith towards Austria; the king had abdicated in despair; Turin was filled with hot-brained enthusiasts ; Genoa was in the hands of democrats, and the other states of Italy were in a revolutionary tumult.    The young king found himself in a difficult position, and his solution of the problem was a fatal one.    He resolved to maintain the patchwork constitution which the democrats had improvised in a week for his father, and he threw himself into the arms of the Liberals, as they are called, where he still remains.    He is a mere cipher in the hands of his  ministers, some of whom are able writers, but all atheists.    Their programme for Italy is substantially the same with that of Mazzini.   The young king, like his father, is made to work his own ruin in behalf of Young Italy, and, like his father, he will be most liberally betrayed.    Mazzini declared his policy as early as September, 1846.    The sovereigns were to be used until it became  possible to do without them ; they were to be urged by prayers, threats, and praises, to grant reforms, and when it should become evident that they had granted every reform at all consistent with the essential rights of the throne, they were to be urged to grant a suicidal measure. They would refuse. Then the cry of a United Italian Republic was to be raised, and the sovereigns would find, when too late, that they had been all along in the hands of sworn enemies. If the frightened monarch should beg for mercy, and offer to grant at least a part of what was asked, even to the manifest detriment of the rights of the crown, the cry was to be raised, " Troppo tardi ! " " It is too late !" These were the tactics prescribed to the liberals by their exiled chief. The unfortunate king of Sardinia is the dupe, perhaps the willing dupe, of a similar plot.

Mazzini has yet other grounds of reliance upon success. He has his followers in Italy. Numerically considered, they form an inconsiderable minority of the inhabitants ; but circumstances combine to make them a powerful minority. They are scattered over the whole country, not a city or village is without them ; and, through the complicated but efficient machinery of their secret societies, they form a united body, governed with a rod of iron, governed with an inflexible despotism which has no parallel in the history of tyrannies, which extorts blind obedience from the initiated, requires them to do any deed, no matter how devilish, when bidden to do it, and punishes disobedience, faint-hearted ness, or a returning conscience with speedy and violent death. These men are found in every walk of life. They meet in palaces, in hotels, and in hovels. They are in the army, both as ollicers and as soldiers. They are to be found among the courtiers, and other persons admitted upon an intimate footing with the unsuspecting sovereigns. They are to be found even among priests, as Gavazzi, and others who might be named, prove too well. This organization is powerful in Italy, inasmuch as it is absolutely at the command of its chiefs. Darkness, silence, and mystery make it more terrible to quiet people than it really is, or need be. No one can tell who or how many are initiated, where they meet, how they communicate, who will be their next victim, when or where they will raise the bloody flag. All this, of course, increases the efficiency of the society. Occasionally the chiefs show their power. A prime minister, a zealous priest, or other person obnoxious to them, is in their secret meetings doomed to die. The assassins are selected, and at the appointed moment the murder is done. Not long since, the chiefs issued an order that no member should smoke tobacco, or allow others to do so if they could prevent it. The order was scrupulously obeyed, and the dealers in tobacco lost some thousands of their best customers. Some persons called the order a whimsical one, others supposed that it was a scheme devised to diminish the revenues of the government. It is more probable that the chiefs simply meant to frighten the sovereigns and all peaceable citizens by showing them that there were such things as wheels within wheels ; governments within governments ; that, as there were in Italy thousands of men who obeyed their chiefs implicitly in the matter of abstinence from smoking in public, so the same men would follow their leaders until the Italian republic, the object of the organization, should be a European fact.
The plans of Mazzini may also look more feasible when the Itali an character is attentively considered. He who says that the Italians are cowards judges them too hastily. Yet it is certain that they do not like to fight. This dislike, however, may arise from a lazy habit, a dolce far niente disposition, which has a place not only in the national vocabulary, but also in the national manners. That the Italians can fight well was proved in 1848 by the Neapolitan troops, who behaved nobly in the Sicilian, Cala-brian, and Neapolitan insurrections. Yet the Neapolitan soldiers are, even in Italy, accused of cowardice. But it is not easy to arouse the spirit of warfare among Italians. No people in Christendom are more disposed to sit quietly under their own vines and their own fig-trees, with no one to disturb them or make them afraid. It is easy to conceive that even a small, but resolute, body of men would awe a population of this character into submission, particularly if the vines and fig-trees were spared, and only kings, priests, and such things were swept away. " M'importa niente; non mi seccate!" are exclamations quite as common among Italians as any others.   "It is nothing to me ! Pray, don't disturb me!" Two facts illustrative of this m'importa niente feeling fell under our observation at Rome in 1848. Gioberti had accomplished his base purpose, and the Jesuits had been driven out of the city by Mazzini's society. On the eve of their departure we met a friend of ours, a Jesuit, and we asked him what would become of
certain interests which required the presence of the fathers at Rome.      "M'importa nientissimo ! non seccate l'anima mia ! " was the response. " I know what I will do. Charitas incipit ab ego. I have a coat, boots, breeches, Lombardy hat, and a pair of false whiskers. If the mob come to the house to-night, I will take care of myself. I am willing to be a martyr, but only when there is a causa. The Society has seen worse days than this, and it lives. It will live, in despite of Mazzini. God will take care of the Society if the Church needs it, and if she does not, Requiem aeternam dona ei Domine ! "

That father has since risked his life in a difficult mission among barbarians, but here he had a cause. The coat, hat, and whiskers were needful to the Jesuit in those days. A Jesuit in the garb of his order would have been torn to pieces in June, 1848. We saw several who barely saved their lives by assuming the most improbable disguises. We saw two chased by a detachment of the National Guard.    Happily, they escaped.
The other fact is this.    We have seen Rome, we mean its 190,000 inhabitants, placed in what the French call a state of siege by a very small body of men, some two or three hundred hired fellows.    In February, 1848, if we remember rightly, a few companies of the National Guard imprisoned the Cardinals in their houses, and permitted no one to go out of the city.   But on one occasion Rome was placed in  a state of siege, and there were no  besiegers. Some   rumor,   originating  with   the  clubs,   passed   from mouth to mouth, and the next day the streets were deserted.   When evening came, and no signs of a tumult had been detected, the quiet inhabitants began to unbar their doors, and, snail-like,  to   look cautiously out from their shells.   " What is to become of the government, if you honest citizens do not support it?" we asked of one of them. " M'importa niente !   The government has no life to lose ; I have.    It can rise again in the world ; I cannot.    The Pope and his government are in better than mortal hands, and has a better defender than  the S. P. Q. R.    History shows that.    I know  that we Romans could drive these fellows out of the city, but, caro voi!    I have but one life to lose, and I don't wish to expose it until I am obliged to do so.    Lasciate mi stare !    Non mi seccate voi! "
In fact, when the subjects of  Mazzini wished to show how much power their master had in the city, they more than once resorted to this expedient. They would spread a rumor that something terrible, qualche cosa tremenda, would be done to somebody or something the next day. So the next day quiet people would bar their doors and stay at home. The cowardice of the Papalini, the Pope's friends, would be the subject of laughter at the clubs.

All this shows that the programme of Mazzini, so far as it is predicated upon the gentle disposition of the Romans, betrays a very mean sort of cowardice.   A brave man may run from danger, but only a coward attacks the defenceless.    There is the Pope, and the Cardinals, with the prelates composing the civil and ecclesiastical government of Rome, all priests, and therefore men of peace by virtue of their order, and most, if not all of them, men who would not shed blood to save their own lives ; men who are so merciful to murderers, even, that, if any excuse whatever can be found to commute the sentence of the convicted man into imprisonment, they  gladly seize the excuse.    There are the priests, and religious of both sexes, who form no small portion of the inhabitants of Rome, and whose influence  in  making the  Romans   practical  members  of the peace society is very great.    And another cause of the gentleness which is so evident in the genuine Roman this side of the Tiber is commonly overlooked.    There is scarcely a family which has not a member, whether son or brother daughter or sister, or some relation, in holy orders or in a convent.     This state of things has obtained for centuries, and it is one of the principal causes of the quiet, peaceable manners which characterize the Romans of our day.    The soldiers, no one ever saw such gentle soldiers.    No doubt but that they are brave,  bravery is quite consistent with gentleness, but the government does  not often   permit them to prove their valor.    The Swiss Guards who were stationed at the Quirinal might have cleared the square, and saved the city, in November, 1848, but his Holiness would not suffer them to defend even him from the murderous assaults of his ungrateful people.   He might have remained at Rome, but a few lives would have been lost.    He chose rather to fly.    Of course, it is not for us to criticize any thing which the great and holy Pontiff may think proper to do.    It is a pity that the commander-in-chief did not first clear the square, as a thing in the ordinary routine of his duty, and then ask permission from the Holy Father to do it, We like the story told of a Cardinal, who was obliged to stay in Paris during the worst season of the Revolution, when it was a capital offence to be a priest. A ruffian burst into his room with a drawn sword in his blood-stained hand. The Cardinal sat at his table, reading, and two pistols flanked the book. When the fellow entered, the Cardinal quietly took up one of the pistols. " Go, vile priest! and say your next mass in hell!" roared the Liberal, brandishing his sword and preparing to strike. " Very well," said the Cardinal, " but go you first, and prepare the wine and water!" The bullet was surer than the Cardinal intended, and the ruffian dropped, dead. The servants carried the body out, and the Cardinal resumed his reading.

To complete the enumeration of the means regarded by Mazzini as reliable for the Italian tragedy of 1852, we have only to refer to his loan, to his hatred of the Church, or of the Pope, which is the same thing, and to his secret alliances in other kingdoms.    If his friends arc to be believed, he has at his command a great sum of money, collected for   revolutionary  purposes,  and   hypothecated   upon   the property now owned by the Church, and by the friends of the Pope in Italy.    The failure of his plans for regeneration forms no part of his programme.   He repeats the boast of Caesar,  Veni, vidi, vici, but in  the future tense.    The events of the campaign, from the first simultaneous rising to the moment when he will again survey his Rome from his Capitol, and when he will repay the borrowed moneys with  usurious  interest, are  almost circumstantially laid down in his letters.    How can men help giving him money, how can any Italian refuse, particularly when the collector tells him very significantly that his money will save his life, as his name will be inscribed in the list of patriots! But suppose the government find his name inscribed as a holder of Mazzini stock ?   It is cruel to place a poor Italian, who so loves his dolce far nicnte, between two such warm fires.    But when were the tender mercies of a liberal other than cruel ?

A great portion of this money comes from British and Continental Protestants and atheists, from that indescribable horde which is united upon one thing only, to hate the Pope, and to leave no means untried to drive him from
Rome.     The Evangelical  societies, particularly, are very-useful to Mazzini, inasmuch as they can easily raise money, circulate falsehoods, and excite the crowd.    The Italian revolutionists  rely  greatly  upon   Protestant;  aid.      They promise to encourage the growth of Protestantism in Italy, and more especially in Rome, the only city in the world in which heresy never had a public meeting-house; in which it was never necessary to chant the Nicene Creed, and in which it was not chanted, as some say, until the eleventh century.    Indeed, they did promote the spread of Protestantism, as far as they dared, in the face of a Catholic people. So they circulate stories of the Italian willingness to receive the Bible.    So they encourage the distribution of a notoriously corrupted Bible among the people.    "When a midnight meeting of conspirators is visited by the police, and the ringleaders arrested, the prisoners are always sure to be hopeful Protestants, whose only crime is that of meeting with a few friends to read the word of God.    No lie told by the Italian liberals is so disgusting, so clearly indicative of the utter want of one spark of honor and of honesty in them, as their lie concerning the rarity of the Bible in Italy.    If they had said that it was to them a book unopened, unheard of after they ceased to be Roman Catholics and became liberals, their story would have been nearer the truth.    To those who know any thing about Italy, the story of the Italian refugees at New York who met to read and cry over the Bible, a book heretofore sealed to them, is a source of great merriment.    Colonel Forbes attempted to profit by the ignorance and superstition of Protestants in these matters.    He went about borrowing money, which is to be faithfully expended, during the coming revolutions, in printing and circulating tracts, and similar revolutionary devices.    Messrs. Baird and Kirk, Pasquino and Marforio, were his sponsors.    It is quite unnecessary to say, that the Bibles prepared for Italian use are corrupt and condemned versions.    Of course, the authorized edition would never be distributed, or even mentioned, by the cunning regenerators of Italy.    It would not be safe to allow simple Protestants, who contribute  the moneys, to know any thing about its existence.

The policy of Mazzini, in this matter, is remarkably cunning. Probably he despises Protestantism heartily; he cannot well help it, for he is of an old and honorable Italian family.    But he is aware that the introduction of spurious Bibles, and of a spurious religion, will grieve his Holiness, and all good Christians, while it will secure to him the active influence and  assistance of Protestants everywhere, and possibly of Protestant governments ; certainly of the English administration, which is quite as much interested as he is, not only in grieving the Pope, but in driving him from Rome.    For the rest, it is difficult to conceive such a thing as a Protestant Italy.    Protestantism may be acceptable to an illogical race, like the Anglo-Saxon, and it is.    Protestantism is a system of contradictions, of negative conclusions from affirmative premises, and of affirmative consequences from  negative  principles.     Hence the bad logic, materialism, analytic and inductive philosophy, apotheosis of steam and machinery, and the Protestantism of Anglo-Saxondorn.    None of these things are chargeable to the Italian.    Even the materialists of Northern  Italy, who  sometimes  appear to advocate  the introduction  of these English peculiarities, handle their subject like awkward apprentices.    The Italian does not understand such tools.    What England has reduced to practice was matter of speculation, and only of speculation, in Italy, ages ago. The theories of Bacon  were  known  to  Italians   before Bacon was born.    But it is of no use to plant the institutions of the Anglo-Saxon in the Peninsula.    It is with the rest of the institutions as it is with the steam-engine.   The Italian understands the theory of steam-power as well as the Englishman does, but when a real steam-engine is to be  used in  Italy, an Englishman  must  bring it and take care of it.    And the Protestant must bring his heresy and take care of it, for the Italian will not lift a finger in its behalf, unless some immediate interest, like that of revolutionizing Italy with Protestant help, may induce him, for a time, to give it such countenance as the starving  Irish Catholic gives to it when it brings him food and clothes. The Italian mind is more logical than the French, notwithstanding the assertion of Arlincourt in the book cited at the head of this article.    Where it requires three hundred years for the Englishman to see through Protestantism, the Italian understands it at once.    He is fully aware that it is atheism, disguised in rags which the Italians cannot wear.    So, when he ceases to be a Roman Catholic, he pushes his negation at once to its logical terms, he finds that they are atheism, and an atheist he accordingly becomes. The Italian atheist, however, is in full communion with Evangelicals, because he hates the Pope. A coalition on that basis makes him a hero in the Protestant world.

Finally, the programme of Mazzini indicates great reliance upon the cooperation of secret societies throughout Europe. Now that Kossuth is at liberty, they are ready for action. A simultaneous rising in every Continental nation is to be effected by the societies when the signal shall be given. This policy is necessary on their part, for it would not be prudent to have the movement successive in different countries. A simultaneous outbreak will keep each government busy at home, it will prevent French or Austrian interventions in Italy, and it will spread universal terror. The members of the societies will be compelled to fight somewhere, for the common cause. Their terrible obligations preclude cowardice or escape. According to the thirtieth and four following articles of the constitution of the association, the coward, the disobedient, he who divulges any secret, and any person not of the society who is judged dangerous, be he prime minister, general, or ecclesiastic, shall be judged by the secret tribunal, two assassins shall be named, and if they refuse to commit the murder, their own doom is sealed. The victim, says article thirty-third, shall be pursued with unrelenting rigor; no country shall be to him a refuge; he shall be poniarded, even were he in the bosom of his mother, or on the altar of Christ.

Such are Continental prospects, so far as they appear favorable to Mazzini and his companions. It cannot be denied that they afford to revolutionists some grounds of confidence, and to the friends of true liberty some cause for uneasiness. Yet there are some reasons which justify the opinion that the defeat of the terrorists will be more signal in 1852-53 than it was in 1848-49. We will briefly sum them up, as most of them have been insinuated in the foregoing paragraph.

The legitimate governments are in possession, and they are fully aware of the danger with which they are threatened. Mazzini has taken such pains to publish to the world what he intends to do, that his intended victims are forewarned, and, in a great measure, forearmed. The circumstance that Italy is divided into several kingdoms, if it be favorable to the revolutionists in so far as it deprives Italy of executive unity, is adverse to them inasmuch as it also imports a want of unity among the people. Indeed, no better sign of Italian popular discord can be imagined, than the fact that Italy, with the brief exception of the Roman domination, never was, and never could be, brought under one government.    Even then there was no Italian nation.   The philosophy of the remark of Napoleon, that Italy is a geographical expression, is profound.    The distinction of the Italians into separate and antagonistic national elements is founded upon something intrinsic to the Italian character.    What that may be we leave to the speculation of others, but it is certain that this one fact outweighs all the brilliant theories of the unfortunate Gio-berti, in his Primacy of Italy.    The Italian primacy must always be in fieri, and he who sees it in facto esse will see the ninth wonder of the world.   This adverse fact paralyzed Young Italy in 1848.    Mazzini complains of it bitterly in the book cited at the head of this article.    The patriots could agree upon nothing whatever.    The Piedmontese, Lombard, Florentine, Neapolitan, and Roman troops were in distinct camps; the generals would not obey the royal commander-in-chief, they would not or could  not forget national antipathies, their soldiers fought one another more zealously than they fought the Austrians, and, to make the matter worse, the secret societies directed almost all their  attention to the supposed ambitious movements of Charles Albert, and threw every obstacle in his wTay which craft could devise without the appearance of openly siding with the Austrian troops.    His was an unfortunate position, inasmuch as Mazzini had determined that he should be dethroned if he did not declare war against the Austrian sovereignty in Italy, and that he  should be dethroned at any rate, after he  had done for  Young Italy all  that  a king and a soldier could do.    Mazzini, in his address to the young men of Milan, bewails the want of Italian unity in his rhetorical way.    He complains that the war had already lasted four months,   and  had   accomplished  nothing.    " I look around," he says, " and I see the struggles of desperate populations,.....but the heart of the country, where is it ?     What unity is there in this unequal and manifold movement.    I hear about the Italy of the North, of leagues, of federative compacts, but Italy, where is it ? »
What else could be expected. There were the secret societies for a Red Republic. There were the moderate republicans. There were the national republicans, and the advocates for independent republics. There were the friends of Charles Albert and of his Italian crown. There was the party which asked for Italy as one kingdom, under some foreign prince. There were the constitutional monarchists. There were the advocates of a federative league of sovereigns, with the Pope as supreme moderator. And all these discordant elements were in arms on the plains of Lombardy, jealous of one another to the last degree of intolerance, without experienced captains, and headed by a king who knew that the chances were nine in ten that he would be ruined, whichsoever way the campaign might end. There were the national camps united only upon one thing, which was, that whatever might be proposed by one should be rejected by the others, on the ground that it was a Roman, a Florentine, or a Neapolitan proposal. Even Greeley, who halted in Italy for only a few days, was long enough in the country to despair of Italian nationality and independence, and he expresses his opinion very fully. "^Genoa," he says, "is jealous of Turin, Turin of Milan, Florence of Leghorn, and so on. If Italy were a free republic to-day, there would be a fierce quarrel, and I fear a division, on the question of locating its metropolis.  And I should hardly be surprised to see some of the states, chagrined   by an   adverse decision, leaguing with foreign despots by way of avenging their fancied wrongs. There are brave and noble Italians, but the majority are neither brave nor noble." Greeley thinks that Italy will never be a nation until Italians learn to look more coolly at cannon in the daylight, and to be less handy with their knives in the dark. He echoes the usual story that Rome is heartily republican, but he doubts whether three republican and effective regiments could be raised among the Romans. He admits that the greater part of the fighting done at Rome was done by other than Roman citizens! We all knew that before. From these evidences of an utter want of unity among Italians, it is reasonable to infer that Mazzini will not be able to do much in 1852, and that the notable unity of his clubs cannot control the discordant mass. There will be an insurrection here and there, much innocent and some guilty blood will (low. Religion will be outraged, private and public property will suffer, provisional governments may endure for a short time, the leading patriots will fill their purses, but it foreign intervention do not destroy Italian nationality, Italian discord will dispose of it at a cheaper rate.

The liberalism of Sardinia may favor the plans of Mazzini in some respects; but when the revolution begins, that kingdom will be of little or no use to him, unless it send the king after his father, and become a republic. That consummation is a part of Mazzini's programme, and the court of Sardinia, no doubt, deserves ill-fortune ; but it is quite an open question whether Mazzini will not be disappointed. hi that event, Sardinia will be in his way. The king will employ all his resources to save his crown, and, if his soldiers be as loyal as they were in 1848, he will be likely to succeed. In that case, the Italian republic will certainly obtain no assistance from him, and it will, perhaps, have to meet his troops. It is scarcely possible for him to be a spectator of the event, inasmuch as the republic; would not treat his crown with much regard. Should Mazzini affect to make an exception to his programme of an Italian republic in favor of the young king, and should Sardinia repeat the alliance of 1848 with republicanism, internal animosities, jealousies, and sectional differences are as potent now as they ever were. It must be confessed, however, that Sardinia has adopted a policy which must end in a republic. Perhaps the government will make its peace with Rome. Late advices seem to indicate that this may occur.

Perhaps as unfavorable a circumstance as any other to the republic is, that Italy does not want a republic, and does not know what to do with it. This circumstance should induce even democrats to let her manage her own affairs. It is an extraordinary circumstance that a secret association, composed of less than a twentieth of the inhabitants, should be in a position to overrule the majority, and to overturn established governments. Yet secret societies, even in America, are very powerful, and there is no question but that they control our own elections in several States. It is true that the liberals say that the Italians are republicans at heart; but lying is a part of their trade.   Our Cuban hunters said the same thing of the loyal inhabitants of Cuba. Italian history contradicts them at every step. The Italian genius inclines the government to an elective monarchy based upon aristocracy and tempered with democratic forms.

Moreover, the republic is too costly an affair. The people are thoroughly convinced of it since the experience of 1848. The damage done to public and private property will not be repaired for many years, and in some cases never. Commerce and trade are paralyzed, of course, and general distress ensues. The Roman troubles once reduced the population to 18,000, and the republic would and did, even in its short time, begin to depopulate the city. The revolutionists always contrive to take care of what funds they find in the treasury, to raise more by taxation and by robbing churches of their sacred vessels and bells, and to keep a bank-note press going night and day, in order that the conspirators may keep the silver and gold, and flood the country with paper money which they promise to redeem, of course failing to keep their promise. They leave that to increase the embarrassments of the returning government. On the whole, it is a good speculation for the liberals to get up a revolution every few years, even at the hazard of their lives. The insurgent chiefs must expend vast sums upon their secret emissaries and street-rioters. We find in a report of the Florentine commission, that 200,000 francs were distributed, in 168 days, among petty officers and street-rioters. Colonel Forbes figures in this list for 600 francs. The list of expenses is very long. Upwards of 200,000 francs were expended in Paris, to bring rioters to Italy, and to convert them into Roman patriots. Among other items, there is one of 400,000 francs against the revolutionist Mordini, who sent the money to his own banker, at Paris.    He was Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The cruelty of the terrorists is beyond description, and it is not likely to make their enterprise successful. It is a fearful thing to know that your life is at the mercy of a secret, irresponsible club; that your servant, companion, or friend may be a spy, bound to report your words and actions to his leaders ; that your enemy may, at any moment, falsely denounce you, and that your death may already be decreed by the invisible tribunal. The republic is not likely to be benefited by the knowledge that persons assassinated by its order are never atheists and conspirators, but always good Christians or useful and loyal citizens. We cannot dwell upon this subject. Suffice it to say, that the number of persons assassinated in cold blood at Rome will never be known on earth. It is in evidence that upwards of a hundred and twenty priests were used as targets by the Roman patriots at the convent of St. Calixtus, and that their bodies were sown in the garden. After the entrance of the French, the bodies received Christian burial.

The gross impiety of the liberals is not calculated to prejudice the Italians in favor of the republic. We have not space to dwell upon this head, nor is there need. The robbery of Church property, the burning of confessionals, the scandalous orgies enacted in the house of God, the infamous lives of some of the leaders, the excesses of the soldiers, the brutal scenes daily witnessed in the streets, and in which abandoned women were actors, the public masses celebrated, under the patronage of the government, by excommunicated priests, the parodies and mockery of the Holy Sacraments and Mysteries in the Corso and in other places, the profanations to which the Blessed Sacrament was exposed, tell the tale with sufficient clearness. The following atrocity has been related to us on good authority. A club of liberals was established expressly to dishonor the Holy Sacrament. It met at night. Twelve abandoned women officiated as priestesses. One of them, habited modestly, would receive at an early mass, and then secure the particle in a handkerchief. At night it was laid upon a sort of stone altar, a fire was kindled, the chief demoniac stabbed it repeatedly with his dagger, and then tossed it into the fire, he vomiting blasphemies the while. The priestesses, nude, danced around the flame.

Among the internal safeguards of Italian legitimacy is the throne of Naples. The Neapolitan soldiers and people have been taxed with cowardice, and the Romans, Florentines, and Lombards, were wont to make merry at their expense. Yet they fought well in 1848, and the Sicilian campaign has ranked them with the best soldiers of Europe. The king had three enemies to overcome, his republicans, the Sicilians, and Lord Palmerston. He defeated the three; and Palmerston, in a fit of boyish revenge, circulates through Europe a doleful tale of the tyranny of Naples over her prisoners.    The story has proved to be untrue. So the Neapolitan state may be regarded as a bulwark against the terrorists of 1852.

Another powerful bulwark is seldom noticed. It is the incense of prayer and sacrifice offered from the altar and from humble souls. It is, of course, impossible to estimate the precise effect of these holocausts, for God does not always answer our prayers in the sense in which we offer them. That they are answered is certain, that they have an influence upon the course of human events is also indubitable ; hence, the Christian statesman always considers them in his calculations, knows that they will be effectual in some way, and believes it possible that they may be answered in their direct sense. Three months before the fall of Espartero, no one could have foreseen the event. In October, 1848, no one could have predicted the resurrection of Austria; in December of the same year, no man would have foretold the French expedition to Rome. Yet these things have happened, and it is notorious that the prayers of Christians were offered for each event. Such things have taken place in every century. Hence it is easy to account for the hatred with which terrorists pursue pious Christians. Their instinct tells them that prayers are not good for their plans.

The calculations founded by Mazzini upon aid and comfort from the Continental populations may not be verified. The great powers arc ready for battle, and their troops are even now in the field. It is by no means certain that the lied Republicans will triumph in Germany and France. Louis Napoleon appears to be equal to the difficulties of his position, and his late measures are adapted to deprive the terrorists of all excuse for rebellion. The races subject to Austria exhibit no grave signs of disaffection, and'the Magyars are less in a condition for successful revolt than they were in 1848. And since that year a new element has appeared in European life. Three nations have found where their strength and where their weakness lay. We refer to Austria, France, and Spain ; particularly to the two former powers. The Church of God, through whom kings reign, was never more free in those countries than she is now.

And we do not believe that Mazzini need hope much from the alliance between England and America in behalf of revolutions, about which so much is beginning to be said. England has enough to do at home. In America, the Irish and Catholic element is of some weight. England must do justice, full justice, to Ireland, and she must ask pardon for her penal laws, before America is likely to be drawn into any alliance with her, and the Catholic element in America will not be disposed to listen to it on any terms, inasmuch as it is devised for the annihilation of the Church in Europe.

In conclusion, we are Catholics. Then we know that tke Church is in God's keeping. She has not withstood, in Italy, the storms of eighteen centuries, to be moved by this little tempest. Blood may be shed, thrones may be overturned, even the Pope may be again driven from Rome. What then ? A mightier hand than that of Mazzini shapes the course of events.