manière que vous croirez la plus convenable pour atteindre le but que je vous ai indiqué. ¶ Le riche portera son écu à cette souscription, et le pauvre son obole; et la somme réunie sera appliquée à la double mission de consoler les infortunes domestiques et de récompenser les actes de courage dont le brigandage aura été l'occasion ou la cause. Le ministre indiquera en son temps les modes à employer pour faire parvenir les fonds réunis dans les mains des autorités provinciales entre lesquelles ils doivent être distribués. Tout en demandant le concours des particuliers pour la souscription, le Gouvernement veut aussi que ces mêmes particuliers lui prêtent leurs services pour la distribution. ག A cet effet, MM. les préfets des provinces dans lesquelles on devra ou distribuer des secours ou accorder des récompenses recevront des instructions spéciales relativement à la nomination, dans le chef-lieu de province, d'une commission d'honnêtes citoyens, et dans les communes des commissions qui correspondront avec la première, afin que, après avoir vérifié les infortunes à soulager ou les actes dignes de récompense, l'on puisse, proportionnellement aux sommes recueillies, donner une récompense convenable aux uns et un soulagement aux autres. Peruzzi. No. 508. ITALIEN. Min. d. Ausw. Franz II. an die Agenten des Königs im Auslande. Albano, le 1 octobre 1862. Monsieur, depuis que l'inqualifiable irruption garibaldienne et piémontaise est venue opprimer par sa violence les peuples des Deux-Siciles et a été cause que ce royaume, naguère si florissant, est devenu le but des épreuves les plus déplorables qu'aient jamais subies des peuples civilisés, Sa Majesté le roi, fort de ses droits et de ses devoirs sacrés de souverain légitime, protesta hautement à Naples, le 6 septembre 1860, contre tous les actes arbitraires et les excès que les usurpateurs qui s'étaient emparés du pouvoir avaient commis ou commettraient au détriment du bien public. Ces protestations ont été renouvelées dans les mémorandum du 25 septembre 1860 et 28 avril 1861, et dans les circulaires du 5 octobre, du 5 et du 8 novembre 1860, et dans celles des 16 février, 25 mai et 8 juin 1861. Dans ces communications officielles, Sa Majesté a déclaré qu'elle considérait comme nulle et d'aucun effet toute appropriation des biens patrimoniaux qui lui appartenaient, et de ceux qui appartenaient aux princes et aux princesses de la maison royale des Bourbons, ainsi que tout échange ou vente que l'usurpateur des biens du domaine public et de l'État pouvait avoir en vue. Les lois émises en Piémont le 21 août de cette année sont venues réaliser ces affreux projets; et il est déplorable de voir que dans ces lois, pour en effectuer de suite la vente, on se soit arrêté à des conditions désastreuses, et cela non-seulement pour les biens de l'État, du domaine Italien, 1862. No. 508. privé du roi et de la maison des Bourbons, mais, ce qui est plus fort, pour tout 1. October le patrimoine de l'Église, par la voie cachée de la confiscation des biens particuliers au profit du domaine de l'État. Je ne veux pas maintenant appeler l'attention de l'Europe sur l'injustice de ces lois, tant à l'égard de la vente du patrimoine sacré de l'Église, qui est aussi en grande partie le patrimoine des pauvres, des orphelins, des malades et des veuves, et qui vient des legs des particuliers ou d'acquisitions faites par les corporations des États, qu'à l'égard de la vente des biens privés et allodiaux du roi et de la famille royale des Bourbons, en dépit des codes des nations civilisées qui regardent comme sacrées les propriétés privées, quel qu'en soit le possesseur. Je ne veux pas plus exposer le dommage énorme que produira la dissipation inouïe de l'immense quantité des biens du domaine et de l'État, qui, d'un côté, offrant par leurs rentes les moyens d'amortissement de la dette publique, fournissent et ont fourni de tout temps de grandes ressources à la marine, à l'agriculture et à l'industrie manufacturière par leurs bois très-étendus et leurs riches prairies. Ces considérations très-importantes, que le gouvernement usurpateur a mises de côté pour effectuer la dernière et la plus fatale des spoliations dans les éléments de viabilité dans les DeuxSiciles, ont ému le coeur du roi, qui s'attriste pour les dommages causés à la religion et des malheurs toujours croissants de ses peuples. Et malgré qu'il ait bien des fois protesté contre les violences et les abus de l'usurpateur, cependant, pour sauvegarder les droits sacrés de l'Église et de l'État, aussi bien que ceux de la famille royale, il répète encore une fois que toutes les ventes, permutations, donations publiques ou privées, faites pour n'importe quelle raison et sous quelque forme que ce soit, seront regardées comme des ventes arbitraires, immorales, nulles et de nul effet, nonobstant le laps de temps qui se serait écoulé depuis, et cela pour les biens de l'Église et des corporations religieuses et de bienfaisance, ainsi que de ceux appartenant à l'État, au domaine public, à lui-même et aux membres de la maison royale de Bourbon. Vous donnerez lecture et laisserez copie de cette dépêche au ministre des affaires étrangères, et vous donnerez aussi à cette circulaire la plus grande publicité, pour que personne n'ignore les protestations que le Gouvernement du roi fait contre les effets des lois barbares du roi Victor-Emmanuel. Del Re. No. 509. GROSSBRITANNIEN. Sir, No. 509. Min. d. Ausw. an Herrn Odo Russell, diplomatischen Foreign Office, October 25, 1862. Her Majesty's Government have observed with great interest the correspondence which has been published in the ,,Moniteur" of the 25th of Gross last month *). ¶ The Emperor of the French in this correspondence points out 25. October with great force and precision the evils which flow from the present position of His Majesty calls the attention of the Pope to the undoubted britannien, 1862. affairs in Rome. *) Nro. 475, 476 u. 479. Gross 25. October 1862. fact that while everything that is liberal in Europe condemns the resistance of No. 509. his Holiness to every proposal of arrangement, the most attached adherents of britannien, the See of Rome find their consciences troubled by the antagonism between their,,political convictions and religious principles which would seem to condemn modern civilization." To all the reasons thus powerfully set forth, Cardinal Antonelli replies on the part of the Pope with a summary declaration of the Pope's inability to agree to any compromise which should leave him with less than the whole of his former territory. This is a perilous situation. The Pope allows his spiritual authority to be impaired, and his hold over the Roman Catholic Church to be weakened, by his resistance to the wishes of the Italian people. It does not become Her Majesty's Government to dwell upon this danger otherwise than as one to which the religious mind of the Pope must be keenly alive. But the political evil is one upon which Her Majesty's Government may fairly dwell. The personal character of the Pope is marked by benevolence and charity. As an Italian he must feel for the sufferings of Italy. As the supreme head of the Roman Catholic Church he declared in 1849 that it did not belong to his character to draw the sword. The position of a peaceful Sovereign, animated with equal and impartial love towards contending parties and towards hostile armies, has been claimed for him by the Bishops who met this year at Rome, and who expressed their sentiments in an address to his Holiness. Yet in contradiction to his own view of his position, in opposition to the picture drawn of him by the most eminent of his own Church, the Pope's territory has become a refuge for one of the contending parties, and the name of religion has been used as the justification for civil war. We see conflicts of unusual ferocity take place under the pretence of such conflicts being necessary to vindicate the temporal power of the Pope. These scenes must wound the kind heart and harrow the paternal feelings of Pius IX. Is there no way of terminating, or at least of suspending, the conflict? Placed in their present positions neither party will give way. The Italian people will always ask for Rome; the Pope will always refuse any terms of accommodation, whether they be those of the Emperor of the French, of Count Cavour, or of Baron Ricasoli. Must Rome, then, be the seat of a perpetual foreign occupation? Must brigandage for ever ravage the fertile fields of Southern Italy? God forbid such a calamity! God forbid that Pope Pius IX should be the instrument of consigning his countrymen eternally to mutual hatred and to sanguinary civil war! Her Majesty's Government are of opinion that Rome should be the capital of the Italian Kingdom. But, if they are rightly informed, the Pope believes that a time will come when by general consent his former territories will be restored to him, and when his temporal power will resume its former splendour. If such is his sincere conviction, would it not become the Pope, that instead of being himself the principal cause of civil war in Italy, he should retire from this conflict, and expect in tranquillity the issue which in the order of Providence may await the Papacy, and determine the fate of Italy? In such a case the Admiral of Her Majesty in the Mediterranean would convey the Pope to Malta, to Trieste, to Marseilles, or to Valencia, and if His Holiness should Gross 25. October No. 509. choose to remain in Malta, Her Majesty's Government would there provide a britannien, mansion fit for his reception. There His Holiness might be surrounded by 1862. his chief Cardinals and most trusty counsellors. He would not be asked to subscribe to any conditions repugnant to his conscience. Civil war would cease in Italy, and the Italian people would be at liberty either to enjoy the complete possession of their own territory, or again to assign to the Pope, if they so thought fit, a temporal dominion. At all events his spiritual authority would resume its sway over the minds of the Roman Catholics of Italy and of Europe. When the storm was overpast, the Pope might return to Rome, owing to love and affection that homage which would be paid to his sacred character, and that veneration which would be justly due to his exalted personal virtues. ¶ You are directed to speak in the sense of this despatch to Cardinal Antonelli, and to give him a copy of it to be submitted to the Pope. A copy of this despatch will be sent to Earl Cowley, for his information. ¶ I am, &c. To Mr. Odo Russell, Rome. Russell. No. 510. GROSSBRITANNIEN. Min. d. Ausw. an den königl. Botschafter in Paris, die römische Frage betreffend. Foreign Office, October 31, 1862. My Lord, At a time when the new Minister of Foreign Affairs in No 510. France has thought it necessary to write a circular respecting the policy pursued britannien, by the Emperor in Italy, it may not be amiss to state once more the view taken 1862. by Her Majesty's Government of the Roman question. In so doing, I am not Gross 31. October deterred by any fear that this step will be construed into an undue pressure on the Government of the Emperor. In a matter so deeply affecting the welfare of Italy and the future peace of Europe, a frank interchange of opinions cannot be misinterpreted as an undue interference with the action of a friendly Government. If the policy of the Emperor is right in point of justice and expediency, he ought not to persevere in it the less because the British Government differ from him on the subject. If it is wrong, he ought not to persevere in it simply from a fear of being supposed to be influenced by the views of the Government of Great Britain. I will proceed to state what the opinion of the British Government is, and to explain some of the reasons by which that opinion is supported. Her Majesty's Government think that the people of the Roman territory are the most competent judges of what is best for their own welfare and happiness. If, as the British Government have reason to believe, the Roman people wish to annex their State to the Italian Kingdom, and to make Rome the capital of Italy, they ought to be left free to do so. If, on the contrary, they wish to maintain the Pope on his Throne, and to acknowledge him as their Temporal Sovereign, as well as to reverence him as their Spiritual Head, they ought to be left free to do so. This policy is very simple and very straight Gross 31. October 1862. forward, but it cannot be carried into effect because for thirteen years a body of No. 510. French troops has prevented any freedom of choice on the part of the Romans. britannien, It is undoubtedly true that the law of nations allows exceptions to the ral rule that each nation is the best judge of its own form of government. ¶ Such exceptions, when in favour of intervention in support of existing Governments, have been usually defended on the ground that by intrigue, by violence, or by military revolt, a minority had got possession of the seat of authority, and that if, by protecting the quiet majority, time were obtained, the nation would right itself. Accordingly, the foreign occupations which have taken place in Europe were practically limited in point of time to a term of two, three, or five years. In Rome alone we have witnessed the spectacle of a foreign occupation prolonged for thirteen years, and, at the same time, of a people less reconciled to the rule of their Sovereign at the end than they were at the commencement of this protracted period of endurance. ¶ Her Majesty's Government think that this foreign occupation should now end. They are aware that the Emperor of the French has conceived the benevolent design of reconciling the Pope with Italy; and they observe in His Majesty's letter of the 20th of May, published in the ,,Moniteur" of September 25, the expression of a desire and of an expectation that a reconciliation may take place between the Pope and Italy, between the Roman Government and liberty. Her Majesty's Government, however, while admiring the exalted views which prompted this desire, cannot share in the expectation thus expressed. The wide interval which separates the two conflicting parties appears to Her Majesty's Government to be impassable. The Pope considers that an abandonment of his claim to any portion of the former Papal territory which he has ceased to hold would be a violation of his conscience, and surely it does not become a Roman Catholic Sovereign to urge the Pope to do that against which his conscience revolts. And yet such a renunciation on the part of the Pope must necessarily be the basis of the reconciliation between the Pope and Italy which is contemplated by the Emperor of the French.¶The Italian Government, on the other hand, have declared that Rome ought to be the capital of free Italy, and they will not abandon the hope that it may become so. A King of Italy, who in spite of the wishes of the people of Italy, should engage to acknowledge the Pope as the Temporal Sovereign of Rome would either become hateful to Italy or would be obliged to break his engagement in order to preserve his throne. And yet such an engagement on the part of the King of Italy forms the basis of the reconciliation between the Pope and Italy which is contemplated by the Emperor of the French. ¶Tumults and disorders would be the too probable consequence of any arrangement which excluded the authority of the King of Italy from Rome, and the Pope would become obnoxious to all as the cause of those tumults and disorders. Force would be introduced to suppress tumult, and a solution would be found amid bloodshed, tarnishing the sacred character of the Pontiff, and at variance with the exemplary moderation which the Italian nation have hitherto exhibited under the severest trials. For these reasons, to which the Emperor in his wisdom will no doubt give their due weight, Her Majesty's Government are of |