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Leader (1850-1860), 2nd August 1851, Edition Country of 2, Page 12, ^nlilir Mms.

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      Saturday, August 2, 1851.

      SATURDAY , AUGUST 2 , 1851 .

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      There Is Nothing So Revolutionary, Becau...

      There is nothing so revolutionary , because there is nothing so -unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed when all the world is by the very law of its creation m eternal progress . —Dr . Ahnolp .

      Absolutism In Its Panic. Thb " Order " N...

      ABSOLUTISM IN ITS PANIC . Thb " Order " now dominant in Europe is the sullen and bodeful lull that portends the rising gale of Revolution . You may have seen the , leaden waste of waters heaving restlessly , as if for very rage and terror , swept , not stirred as yet by the gathering storm that scowls blood-red on the horizon . Dead , desolate is the silence of expectation ; thunderous the calm . Such is the present hour of European tyrannies ! Reaction has exhausted itself . The cup of despotism is full even to overflowing . Fatigued , but unsated with proscriptions , massacres , vengeance , the " anointed" executioners seek in vain for fresh victims . But in the silence and the

      solitude they have created around them , and which they dignify by the name of " Order "—the religion of monarchies—they discern only the hirelings of every abomination , the panders of every vice , the instruments of all fraud and violence , the satellites of all oppression and corruption . Only—did we say ? only to their darkened sight , open to none hut spies , and to their ears , fatally closed save to the evidences of perjured informers . It is high time to lift the veil that conceals an implacable future from the eyes of crowned and titled conspirators against the freedom , the peace , the happiness , the

      civilization of mankind . It is high time to startle thrones from their ghastty sleep , and to bid them remember , that for the Peoples also there must be an awakening ! It is high time that allies of the Powers that be , should be told without reserve , in language unmistakeable , upon what a mine their impotent and execrated violence reposes—a mine only waiting to be sprung . Already from St . Petersburg to Rome , the note of alarm is sounded : the more farsighted ministers of the " Paternal Governments "

      are seized with the sudden panic of a city , which , after one shock of s . n earthquake , stands in hourly expectation of a second . What a touching unanimity of the Northern Potentates ! How pleasant the " accidental" visits of Berlin to Warsaw , of Vienna to Merlin . ' How edifying the accord of pope , patriarch , and infidel ! Frederic and Voltaire . shaking hands with right Divine and Infallibility ! Consider the holy cause of which these new crusaders of the nineteenth

      century are the leagued champions . The cause of property , family , religion 1 The ceaseless refrain wafted to the four winds of heaven by the echoes of reactionary terrorism . Who are the champions of the rights of property ? Ask the manes of the slaughtered nobles of Gallicia ; or , if they reply not , interrogate the ravage ™ , the confiscators of Hungary . Who are the protectors of the sacred institution of " the Family " ? The orphans of Brescia cry out their names ; or , if they be silent ,

      the very coahvhippers and draymen of London will point out the human tiger , whom the taste of blood could madden , but never appease . Who is the anointed champion of religion ? Who but the perjured King of happy Maples , the confidential , intimate adviser of "his Holiness , " of whom Mr . Gladstone . Kays he is " reputed to be most regular mid strict in the ofliccs of religion . " These be thy horoea , O great party of order ! apt representatives of the Hatred cause of property , family , religion !

      Ituly is now tlio " little cloud " on the political horizon , to which the glasses of all the greybeards of despotism , and of all the neophytes of reaction , arc anxioin ; ly pointed . And well they may . Some time wince we mentioned the existence of a certain " confidential" note addressed by the Papal Government to the Cabinet of Austria , in which the prospective union of the . Absolutist Governments against * France and Piedmont , in the event of the probable contingencies of ' 52 , whs distinctly planned . This confidential document , like many other strict diplomatic secrets , was speedily matlo public , and , a « may be mippoBed . iUQUPed the

      most serious susceptibilities of the French Government . Its authenticity was officially denied at Rome and at Vienna in the most peremptory form . The " enfant terrible" was severel y rebuked by his parents for a revelation so ill-timed ! But as denial and especially official denial , is not disproof : and , as facts have since confirmed more strongly than official gazettes can deny , the cordial , or rather secret , relations of the Papal Government with Austria , and the recommencement of a terrorism , of which the proclamation of the renewed severities of the state of siege at Milan by Radetzky , is but

      a faint and early symptom ; and , as even the Prussian press has denounced the conspiracy of Rome and Austria , and their mutual distrust of France we may be allowed , notwithstanding the official gazettes of Vienna and the Vatican , and the officious falsehoods of the ultramontane organs at Paris , to persist in treating this document as authentic , which they are so busy to declare apocryphal . Let us glance at this note for a moment . It begins by describing France as exposed to fresh political disorders , " of a nature to compromise

      the peace and security of the whole of Europe / It apprehends a catastrophe of law , order , and Government , and a possible triumph of the revolutionary party . It speaks bitterly of the danger of relying on the attitude of French troops as a protection to " his Holiness , " in the event of a change of Government at Paris . It speaks of the " imperious necessity which compelled his Holiness" to accept French troops , and of the unhappy suspicions and presentiments which their prolonged occupation has aroused in the mind of the Pope : whose firmness of character has been often tasked

      to preserve the independence of his own authority from the arrogant pretensions of his preservers . It cannot contemplate without horror the probable position of the Government of " his Holiness " in the event of any change in the direction of French policy , consequent upon n Republican solution , whether peaceful or violent , of the questions of ' 52 : it treats Louis Napoleon as a mere puppet in the hands of the Royalist and priestly factions , as a mere mannequin , who may cheat , but not arrest , Democracy ; and , in the mean time , a safe and easy tool . It then makes the piteous confession that the " great majority of the Roman People " are radically corrupted , inert , and incapable to offer the Papal Government the least aid ; and that all

      attempts to revive a public spirit , and to reorganize I a national force sufficient to provide for the secu-I rity of the capital , have been utterly fruitless . / That the ideas and feelings of the People have | been so radically perverted by the doctrines which prevailed under the " usurping Government , " and by the revolutionary propagande kept up since by the " Soi-disant . National Italian Committee " in London ; that in the very heart of his own capital his Holiness would be exposed to ; ill the fury of his own People , if deserted or unaided by foreign troops . But , adds the note , not without a naivete almost affecting , " it is far more easy to enu ncrate dangers than to point out the means of prevention ; " and then follows the key to all the recent Papal-Austrian , and Austrian-Neapolitan

      man . It suggests the withdrawal from the Roman States of the French troops , and their immediate replacement by Austrian forces , as the " Papal Government has none of its own to trust to . " Or if contrary to all reason and right , France should refuse to acquiesce is this arrangement , then at least Koine should be garrisoned by Neapolitan troops : for are they not Italian ? The note suggests strong diplomatic representations in this sense to the Cabinets of France and Evyland . In case of their positive refusal , it says , an Austrian and Neapolitan army should march suddenly upon Rome on the eve of any changes in France , and cut off" the retreat of the French troops on Civita Vecchia ; or

      ioree them to abandon the capital . If this scheme were effected with prudence , celerity , and determination , the Papal Government is assured it would meet with complete huccckh , and in no way entail any grave ; political consequences ! ' For one of two things must happen in France ; either the present Government will survive the struggle , and remain at the head of affairs under Koine form or other , or the revolution will triumph . In the Cunt ease , the Papal Government will find explanations easy ; in the second , it would have taken the moat urgent and Nummary measured for itn own nafety " in the midst of the general wreck of Italy ! " The note concludes with entreating the Cabinet of Vienna to urge incessantly on the Government of England , and on influential members of the

      EnglishParliament , theabsolute necessity of expelling the Italian refugees , following the wholesome example of France and Switzerland—" both republics . ' " " The information , " concludes this famous note , " we receive , and which we have reason to deem exact , assures us that a vast conspiracy embraces a large portion of the European continent , and that the loan recently opened at London is in great part realized , independently of an Italian and foreign subscription , which it is endeavoured to keep secret . " His Holiness , it is known , recently paid a visit to his " Sacred majesty " of Naples , at Castel Gandolfo , to concert on ulterior measures . He returned to his beloved and loving people on the

      fifteenth of this month . The result of the visit is a fresh proposal that his Majesty of Naples should lend his Holiness of Rome 12 , 000 Swiss mercenaries to be replaced at Naples by 12 , 000 Croatsthe heroes of Brescia ! Respecting this recent trip , it is generally understood that the Pope would have once more made his escape from his beloved people for good and all , taking refuge with that most religious monarch of Naples , had he not been most jealously watched and guarded by an escort of French troops , who consider him as their particular and exclusive property . " Save me from my friends , " exclaims the Pope . But the Pope is the pet of the French just now , and they cannot spare him to Naples or to Austria , at any

      price . Now , mark well the abject fear the petty insolence , the truckling flattery to Austria , the lying perversion of facts , the degrading appeal to the experienced treacheries of our foreign policy , and , above all , the important confessions of the actual state of Italy and Europe , which pierce through the reticence , the mystifications , the circumlocutions of this miserable " note . " Compare its description of the spirit of the Roman people , and of the

      impossibility of organizing a Papal army , with the impudent falsehoods of the French diplomacy ; with the assertions of De Falloux , of Montalambert , of Odilon Barrot , of—that we are compelled to write the name !—de Tocqueville ! Is this the Pope you described as a father restored to his children ; rescuing the Eternal City from a horde of spoliators and adventurers ? Is this the picture of a reformed and liberal Government , of a happy and contented people ?

      It is time to strip off all masks from consecrated impostures and anointed terrorisms . It is time to declare that the ground is crumbling beneath your feet . Three governments coexist at Rome : the French , the Papal , the Invisible . Which of the three has the right on its side all Europe knows ; which has the power , even now , let Antonclli say . You denounce the " radical corruption of the Roman People . " You know this to be false . It is the Government of Koine , as of Naples , that is radically corrupt . It is the Government itself that se's the

      example of illegality , fraud , violence , sanguinary terrorism . All that Mr . Gladstone has so nobly asserted of Naples is equally true of Rome . Who are the creatures of your boasted Government ? Neither in any civil nor in any military function can you find an honest man to serve . From the Ministers of State to your lowest sbirri , you are forced to employ " the wretches who are ready to sell the life and liberty of fellow-subjects for gold , and to throw their own souls into the bargain . " Galley-slaves and convicts are your instruments of law , order , and police .

      You murder with more or less of judicial formality , you exile , you imprison , you scourge men and women ; you make assassination a reprisal of the knife for the axe , of the dagger for the musket . You seek to pervert by your exasperations themoral sense of a whole people , and to rend asunder all civil and social ties ; you curry desolation into the heart of honourable families ; you prosecute men of unblemished reputation on fabricated charges and suborned perjuries . ; and if all pretext of accusation fail , you denounce their love of country , and you punish their secret aspirations . You visit the best nrti / . ans with interdictions the

      most vexatious ; you forbid them to speak to " huhpected persons" ; to leave their bonnes after sunset ; to receive friends . You make Home a desert , if not a living tomb . The foreign troops- have no fiooner sounded the retreat than all shops are closed , and no step , nave the measured tread of the sentrieH and the wbirri is heard in the streets , livery hour of the day innocent persons , heavily chained , aro being dragged to prison on Home frivolous suspicion ; and if we take refuge beyond the walls from scenes ho repulsive and no odiouH , we uro

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 2, 1851, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_02081851/page/12/