The Pope Who Would Be King, page 30
Rayneval’s reports to Paris offered some encouragement. In the last few days, he wrote on July 9, the French had dissolved Rome’s National Guard, confiscated arms, and arrested or expelled many of the men who were trying to turn the population against the new order. They were also returning the palaces of the French, Austrian, and Spanish embassies to their rightful owners. Increasingly, priests and monks who had previously remained indoors, or ventured outside only in disguise, were now willing to risk appearing in their clerical garb on Rome’s streets. The great majority of the Romans with whom he had spoken, he reported, had no sympathy for the fanatics who had so recently ruled Rome, but they were wary about the pope’s return. “At base,” Rayneval recounted, “the revolution was made to chase the priests from power. That is the key idea, the popular idea, the idea that everyone understands. The particular form that institutions take matters much less.”8
The Italian patriots who had converged on Rome to join in the intoxicating days of the republic now found themselves with nowhere to go. Nicholas Brown, the American consul, and John Freeborn, his British counterpart, handed out hundreds of visas to help them flee, some bound northward in Europe, some to the Americas, and some to North Africa. Both men acted against their governments’ wishes. “These unhappy people,” Freeborn told London in trying to justify the five hundred passports he had given out, “have implored this protection even on their knees.” Lord Palmerston, the British foreign minister, reprimanded him for disobeying clear instructions. Washington, even less pleased by its consul’s embrace of the Roman Republic, dismissed him from his post.9
Nicholas Brown set sail on July 9 aboard a ship bound for Genoa, accompanied by the notorious Pietro Sterbini, leader of the Popular Club and the accused mastermind of the assassination of Pellegrino Rossi. Traveling with them were many other republican veterans bearing passports that the American consul had given them.10
Mazzini was still in Rome but knew that he could not stay long. Having gotten an American passport—under the alias “George Moore”—from the U.S. chargé d’affaires, he asked his good friend, Margaret Fuller, for help. Did she know of any American or British family traveling to Switzerland that would be willing to take him with them? “Under a little disguise and with my American passport,” he told her, he could “patiently await and keep myself concealed till the day of their departure.” As Fuller could find no such family, Mazzini took another route, sailing incognito to Marseilles on July 12. From there he made his way, unrecognized, to Geneva, hiding from the Swiss police before making his way to London to continue his life in exile, dreaming up new plots for Italian independence.11
* * *
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AFTER ALL FRANCE HAD done for him, Pius might have been more grateful. When the Tuscan ambassador, having heard that the French had presented the pope with the keys to Rome, came to congratulate him, he was surprised at the pontiff’s reaction. Rather than express appreciation, Pius complained that the French were being too indulgent in dealing with those who had driven him out. How had they allowed Garibaldi and his men to escape? How could they have permitted Mazzini to show his face in public unmolested? Why was only the French flag flying over the city?12
Cardinal Antonelli was displeased as well. “Every Power that has occupied the other parts of the Papal States,” he wrote to his nuncios, “has had the merit of raising the Pontifical flag and declaring that its occupation was aimed at restoring the Government of His Holiness.” The French had acted very differently. “Up until now, in the many acts that they have published, not a word has been said about the Holy Father, nor about his Government, nor has his flag been raised.” The demagogues, Antonelli complained, including those who had served on Rome’s city council, continued to walk freely down the city’s streets, while priests remained fearful of appearing in public in their clerical robes.13
The French had imagined that papal rule would return only after Pius announced his intention to retain constitutional rights. Now that their troops occupied Rome and the pontiff had still not made any such pledge, the French found themselves in an awkward position. After all the blood they had shed, how could they admit that the Romans did not want papal rule brought back? Their only alternative, it seemed, was to create a government of their own, but this would not only be a direct challenge to papal authority over Christendom’s capital, it would antagonize the Austrians. It would also open up a drain on French finances without any end in sight.14
Bowing to the inevitable, on July 15 French troops hoisted the papal flag over Castel Sant’Angelo as a hundred cannon blasts sounded. Accompanied by his senior officers, General Oudinot then rode through thousands of his troops to St. Peter’s Square. There he dismounted and climbed the stairs up into the basilica, where three cardinals awaited him. Following a holy mass paying tribute to the French for their conquest of the city, Cardinal Antonio Tosti climbed to the podium. “You will pass on to posterity,” said the cardinal, looking straight at Oudinot,
the title of the liberator of Rome….You have freed us from the oppression of monsters who dishonor mankind….The good people still mourn for the small amount of French blood that was shed, but this blood, together with that of the innocent priests and upright citizens barbarously slaughtered by these monsters, will bring heaven’s blessings to France, to you, and to your valiant soldiers.
As General Oudinot walked back through the cavernous basilica, the Romans who had come to celebrate shouted cries of gratitude and joy and rushed forward to kiss his hands. Many were employees of the Holy See and had lived through trying months. Carried away by the emotion of the moment, some went into the nearby streets of Trastevere, where they called on the residents to join them in shouting Viva Pio Nono! They did not get the reaction they hoped for. “The women of Trastevere,” noted the Roman diarist Roncalli, “opposed them with nasty gestures and instead hurled abuse at Pius IX himself.”15
Corcelle went directly from the ceremonies in Rome to Fiumicino to board a ship bound for Gaeta.16 Pius greeted him with great warmth. “I will never forget this moment,” reported Corcelle. The contrast between the new French envoy’s warm attitude toward the pope and Harcourt’s poor opinion of the pontiff could scarcely have been greater. “Those who have experienced the grace of his paternal tenderness,” wrote Corcelle, “know how difficult it is not to respond with emotion.” That Tocqueville had replaced Harcourt with Corcelle says much about Tocqueville. Corcelle was part of a small group of his close friends who had worked together on journalistic and political projects for a decade. Tocqueville thought him well adapted for the post both because of his interest in the church and because he had briefly been the French government’s special envoy to the pope immediately after Pius fled Rome. But Corcelle had a very different attitude toward the pope and would, in the end, do much to undermine Tocqueville’s efforts to prevent a return of the old theocracy.17
In Corcelle’s first two-hour conversation with Pius in Gaeta, and a second of equal length the next day, he followed Tocqueville’s instructions, warning Pius of the danger of continuing to follow a reactionary path. Although the pope offered no indication that he agreed with the French advice, Corcelle defended the pope. “I am convinced,” he wrote Tocqueville, “that Pope Pius IX has remained what he was in 1847.”
In marked contrast with Harcourt, who had shown little compunction in badgering the pontiff, Corcelle clearly remained under the pope’s spell. When Corcelle urged the pope to appoint laymen along with priests to his government, Pius replied playfully, “Do you want to be my minister of finance?” He reminded the Frenchman that he had once appointed one of his compatriots, Pellegrino Rossi, to help him put things in order. “He was the only statesman that I could find capable of overseeing an entirely new political approach,” remarked Pius, before adding, “and they killed him!”
Corcelle followed up each of his conversations with the pope by going to see Cardinal Antonelli. The French envoy tried to impress on him the importance of getting the pope to return to Rome immediately. Otherwise, he argued, what little enthusiasm the French had been able to drum up for the pontiff through their ceremonies of July 15 would soon wane. Yet Antonelli was unmoved. He was clearly in no hurry to have the pope return.
At the same time, he informed the new French envoy that Pius was preparing a proclamation addressed to his subjects. They would be the pope’s first words to them since Rome had been retaken. It was crucial, replied Corcelle, that the pontiff strike the right tone.
Antonelli handed him a copy of the text, which he read with mounting dismay. The pope spoke of the need to reestablish his rule but said nothing about granting freedom to his subjects. Told that the message had already been sent to General Oudinot to place on Rome’s walls, Corcelle rushed to Rome in an effort to intercept it. Should it be published as it was, without any mention of the pope’s intention to keep his reforms, thought the French envoy, it would be a disaster.18
On his arrival in Rome on July 21, Corcelle found Oudinot uncooperative. Hadn’t they, only a few days earlier, made a much-ballyhooed announcement of the restoration of the pope’s authority? How could they now prevent publication of the pope’s address to his people?
As it turned out, the question was moot, for copies of the pope’s proclamation were already appearing on walls throughout Rome:19
Pope Pius IX
To his most beloved subjects
God hath lifted his arm on high and hath commanded the stormy sea of anarchy and impiety to cease. He hath guided the Catholic arms to sustain the rights of humanity trodden under foot….
My beloved subjects! If in the whirl of frightful events our heart has been overwhelmed with grief in reflecting on the many ills suffered by the Church, by religion, and by you, it has not failed in the love which it always had for you, and still bears you. Our prayers hasten the day that shall bring us again among you….
In the meantime, in order to reorganize public affairs, we are about to name a Commission, which, being provided with full powers and aided by a Minister, shall regulate the government of the State.
That blessing of the Lord which we have always implored…we now implore with greater fervor, that it may descend in full measure upon you, and it is a great comfort…to hope that all those who were resolved to become incapable of enjoying the fruits thereof by their errors, may be made worthy of it by a sincere and constant repentance.20
In the days since the French seized Rome, the people had been anxiously awaiting some sign of what path the pope would take in returning to the city. They hoped that the old, benevolent, liberal-minded pope would return, but they feared that a now vengeful pontiff, spurred on by his evil advisers, would try to restore the despised government of the priests. This first papal declaration of purpose did nothing to allay their fears.
“What is most notable in this city is heartbreaking,” observed the Tuscan ambassador that day. “I don’t speak of the material damage, though it is certainly visible, but of something more important. The discontent is painted on people’s faces…unwilling to submit themselves to a government that wants to push the Restoration back to times that are inconceivable today.” Or as the London Times reporter in Rome put it, “The dread of the restoration of Church government…pervades all classes, except those immediately connected with the families of the Cardinals.”21
If the Romans were discouraged, the French troops in Rome were unhappy as well. Resented by the locals, living in cramped temporary quarters in the sweltering summer heat, their mission unclear, they had heard all too often of the ravages that the malaria season brought to the Eternal City. “The summer is very unpleasant,” wrote the French colonel Adolphe Niel to his brother in late July. It was Niel who had brought the pope the keys to Rome earlier in the month: “Matters are very muddled. The pope does not dare to return.” In the evenings, he reported, with the curfew eased, the long, narrow, dust-filled Corso was jammed with carriages and pedestrians as the Romans tried to escape the heat. The piles of warm horse manure made the streets treacherous. “The cobblestones are so slippery for the horses,” Niel observed, “that despite wearing spiked horseshoes, they often fall down.”22
Rome’s Jews nervously waited to see what the pope’s restoration would mean for them. The constitution that the Roman Republic had announced the day of its demise granted them equal rights, but now nothing was clear. When a Jew tried to open a store in the town of Velletri, south of Rome, local merchants complained. In response, Cardinal Antonelli, writing from Gaeta, advised them that with the return of papal authority, Jews no longer had the right to open stores outside the ghettos and would soon be closed back within their walls.23
Duke Harcourt, the French ambassador to the Holy See, having been recalled by Tocqueville, left Rome on July 21. Two months later he would resign from the diplomatic corps.24
In Gaeta, Rayneval, unhappy that the pope’s first address to the Romans after retaking the city made no mention of any plans to keep his reforms, went to talk to him.
“Do you want me to forget my dignity?” replied Pius. “Should I condemn myself to appear to be bowing to French pressure?…If I do something good,” he asked the French ambassador, “shouldn’t my acts be spontaneous and, above all, have the appearance of being so?”
As long as Pius had needed the French to get Rome back, he had left them some hope that he would meet them halfway. Although he was neither politically astute nor calculating, his natural desire to please, and his long-standing emotional preference for the French over the Austrians, had led him to humor them. Now that Rome had been retaken, he would not budge.
“You do not know my intentions,” the pontiff told Rayneval. “You will not find them reassuring. I do not want any Constitution because a Constitution would be the end of the Papacy. But as for the reforms that you speak to me about so often, haven’t I taken the initiative?” Here the pope spoke of his willingness to establish representative town and provincial councils and even an advisory state council. And, he added, he was well aware of various abuses that had long plagued the Papal States. “Do I not know,” he asked, “that the judicial system leaves much to be desired? Do I not know that improvements are needed in finances and administration?
“Why doubt my intentions?” asked the pope. “Haven’t I given great proof of my goodwill?”25
Rayneval then went to see Antonelli, who gave him more discouraging news. The pope had indicated that he was about to name three men to oversee the new papal government in Rome. He had initially spoken of appointing one cardinal and two laymen, but now Antonelli insisted that only cardinals could properly represent the pope. This, thought Rayneval, would send exactly the wrong message. Antonelli also told the French ambassador that he would soon be announcing the reestablishment of the old ecclesiastical tribunals. Rayneval was horrified.
The next day Rayneval again went to talk to the pope. “Pius IX,” he observed, “has a sweet, conciliatory disposition that easily calms even the most agitated feelings. Unfortunately,” the diplomat added, “he lacks firmness, and he doesn’t know whom to believe.” That same apparent lack of firmness, which the French had earlier seen as a weakness, now became the one thin reed on which their hopes rested. Rayneval tried to turn the pope’s attention to the need to grant the broadest possible amnesty in returning to power. The alternative, to launch a repressive roundup of those associated in any way with the Roman Republic, would only further inflame public opinion against his return.
Pius was unmoved. “Do not forget who I am,” said the pope. “It is certainly necessary for the worst to be punished. For the rest, the important thing is that they leave.”
Rayneval then turned to the importance of appointing laymen to the government. All the men the pope had recently chosen to restore papal government in the various cities of the Papal States were clerics. “Your Holiness,” said the ambassador, anticipating the pope’s response, “undoubtedly wishes to tell me that the duties of these prelates are temporary—”
“And that’s a fact,” interjected the pope.
“Well, that’s good, but this important fact is completely unknown….Would it not be a good moment to make it public?”
Pius said he would give the matter some thought.26
* * *
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WHILE RAYNEVAL PLEADED WITH Pius in Gaeta, Romans nervously waited to learn the pope’s choices for the new three-member governing commission. “The people’s fears,” reported the French chargé d’affaires in Rome, “are greater than their hopes.” Their views of the prelates around the pontiff were less than flattering. “Pio Nono,” reported the London Times correspondent in Rome, “is surrounded by persons…who have no other remedy to offer than the old ones—the dungeon and banishment.”27
The Romans’ fears would prove justified when the names of the members of the governing commission were announced. Cardinal Gabriele Della Genga, the best known of the three, had been appointed a cardinal in 1836 at age thirty-four, seven years after the death of his uncle, Pope Leo XII. In the first two years of his papacy, Pius IX had viewed the reactionary Della Genga as an adversary and removed him from his post as head of the papal government in Ferrara, where he was deeply unpopular. The cardinal was rigid, ambitious, and vindictive. He had not forgotten the humiliation he suffered the previous year in Rome when he was forced from his carriage by the angry mob following the pope’s rejection of war with Austria. The Austrians were delighted to learn of the appointment. He would be the soul of the commission that was taking shape.28
The other two cardinals were less well known—Rayneval initially dismissed both as “nonentities.” Luigi Vannicelli, forty-eight years old and a cardinal for the past seven, had been a favorite of Gregory XVI. Known for his reactionary zeal while serving as papal legate in Bologna, he had spent four years in charge of the papal police in Rome. He, too, was a welcome choice for the Austrians. “He is one of the favorites of Cardinal Lambruschini,” recalled the Austrian ambassador, “and he remains today, just as his colleague Della Genga, among the most intimate and devoted friends of the former secretary of state. His political tendencies and his feelings in our favor are, I believe, beyond any doubt.”
