the French now fails to sustain the cause of Italian independence and union, he gives Francis Joseph the chance to exchange parts with him, to make himself the champion of a free, independent, united, and powerful Italy, and thus transfer the regards of the Italians from France to Austria. It is as much for the interests of Francis Joseph to strengthen Italy as a barrier for Austria against France, become a great maritime power, as it is for Napoleon to strengthen Italy as a barrier for France against Austria. Italy should serve the same office between France and Austria that Germany does between France and Russia. Napoleon has shown judgment and tact in making peace at the opportune moment. Let us hope that in regard to Italy he will prove himself a real statesman, and justify the admira

tion of his friends.

At the time we write the definitive treaty of peace, if signed, has not reached us. We necessarily, therefore, write in the dark as to many things, but the most we have said is of a general nature, and will remain unaffected by the treaty, whatever its terms. We have strong Italian sympathies, but we have not full confidence in the Italian people and movements in our day. We hope, however, that some progress has been made by recent events in settling the Italian question, and we are sure the peace of Europe and the interests of the church require that it should be settled. The emperor of the French is an able man, and quite too much for his brother sovereigns. He does not seem to us anxious to bring any question to a final settlement, except that of permanently settling his dynasty on the throne of France, and keeping France in a condition to make war, with or without reason, on any European power when it pleases her sovereign. He is now creating an occasion for interference in Germany, in hopes of being made protector of the small German states, and it will not surprise us if, instead of deposing the pope, as he intended, he makes the efforts of Lord John Russell to strip the pope of his temporal power, one of his pretexts for avenging Waterloo on Great Britain.

SARDINIA AND ROME.*

[From Brownson's Quarterly Review for July, 1861.]

THE troubles in our own country and the stirring nature of the events during the last three months, as well as our inability during that period to use our eyes either for reading or writing, have prevented us from keeping as well posted as usual on European affairs. The preservation of our republic, and with it the hopes of the friends of free government throughout the world, has claimed our first attention, and made even the great movements in Europe appear to us of but secondary importance. We have hardly kept run of the insurrectionary movements in Poland, Hungary, or Italy, and know little of what are the prospects of the "Sick Man" of the East. The most we have learned in regard to the old world is that Spain is rapidly rising to a first-class power, which gives us pleasure; that peace is still maintained between France and England; and that Austria is making energetic and, we hope, successful efforts to reconstitute her empire under a liberal parliamentary government. The French, we are informed, have withdrawn their troops from Syria; but the imperial government promises not to abandon the Syrian Christians to the tender mercies of the Turks. The French troops, at the time we are writing, still occupy Rome, and though several powers have recognized the new kingdom of Italy, the affairs of the peninsula would yet seem far from being settled.

Next after the affairs of our own country, those of Italy have for us the most interest; and, if we believed that the interests of our religion were inseparable from the Italian political movements, they would have more interest for us than even the civil war in which we are now engaged at home. Religion is man's supreme law, and its interests take precedence of all others. Without religion no man can attain to the end for which he has been created and redeemed, as without religion no people can be really free and fulfil the legitimate purposes of social existence. Christianity is

* Deuxième Lettre à M. LE COMTE DE CAVOUR, Président du Conseil des Ministres, á Turin. Par LE COMTE DE MONTALEMBERT, l'un des Quarante de l'Académie Française. Paris: 1861.

the only religion; and there is no Christianity in its unity, integrity, and efficiency, without the church; and no church without the papacy. The body without the head is a lifeless trunk; and the pope is the .visible head of the church. It is necessary to the well-being of the church that the pope should be free and independent in the exercise of his spiritual functions. If the loss of his temporal estates and the establishment of the unity of Italy under Victor Emanuel or any other constitutional sovereign would deprive the Holy Father of his spiritual freedom and independence, we should consider the success of the Italian national movement the greatest possible calamity not only to Italy, but to the whole Christian world. But, as yet, we are not fully convinced that such would necessarily be the fact. It always depends on the pope himself whether he shall be free and independent or not; for it is always in his power to follow the example of his predecessors for three hundred years under the pagan emperors, and to suffer martyrdom. Never did religion flourish more, or the church gain more brilliant conquests, than when the election to the supreme pontificate was an election to the martyr's crown. It may be a great convenience for the supreme pontiff to be also a sovereign prince and reign as an earthly potentate; but we cannot dis cover as this is an absolute necessity in the constitution of the church. We know from history that the popes governed the church, watched over its interests, and performed all the functions as visible head of Christ's kingdom on earth for seven hundred years without being recognized as sovereign temporal princes. Whether the possession of the supreme temporal power over a small Italian state has ever tended to secure their spiritual freedom and independence, has ever been of any real advantage to the church, or rendered their spiritual power more acceptable or more efficient, is a question which it is not our province to discuss. It may have been necessary, or, at least, useful, in past times, before the consolidation of power, and the formation of the great centralized kingdoms and empires of Europe; but we are not certain that it is either the one or the other in the present changed circumstances of the political world, and therefore we regard the movements going on in Italy mainly as political movements in which the interests of religion are only indirectly and temporarily involved.

One thing is certain, that, since the general rejection by Christian nations of the divine right of governments and the

recognition of de facto governments as legitimate, which, in principle and in fact, places right on the side of might and vests the sovereignty in the strongest or the successful, the temporal independence of the pope can be only nominal, for, as the sovereign of only a small state, he lacks and must lack the power to vindicate it by force, whenever seriously attacked by any of his neighbors. He may be independent in theory, but in practice he does and must depend on the policy, the diplomacy, or the rivalries of the great powers of Europe. The policy of states and empires has long since ceased to be dictated from the Vatican; throughout all Europe the temporal power has, as a fact, long since escaped from its subjection to the spiritual; and the powers of Europe, whether Catholic or non-Catholic, hold themselves free to support or to war against the pope, according to their own views of their own political interests. There is not a single European power that is prepared to sacrifice the slightest political interest for the sake of sustaining the temporal sovereignty of the Holy See; all are ready to use the sovereign pontiff or to cast him aside, according to their reasons of state. Nothing seems to us further from the truth than to suppose that there is still a political Christendom existing. There may be sovereigns who have Catholic faith and piety, but there are really no Catholic governments. The political order throughout the world is as un-Catholic, though perhaps not as anti-Catholic, as was the political order of the Roman empire under Decius and Diocletian. There is no political power on which the pope can rely, and no sovereign in Europe that he can summon to his aid when his states are invaded. How, then, can we say that his temporal sovereignty aids and supports his spiritual freedom and independence?

We state facts as they are, not as we would have them. We are far from holding that the changes which have gone on in the world, which have involved, if not the subjection of the church to the state, at least her separation from it, have been for the better, or are, in any sense, deserving the approbation of the wise and good. But this is not the question with which we have now to deal. The changes have been effected; the facts are as they are; and the question is, what is the best manner of dealing with them? To attempt to maintain the temporal sovereignty of the pope over a small Italian state, in the face of these changes seems to us impracticable, and not likely, even if practicable, to render him more free and independent in the administration

VOL. XVIII-28

of ecclesiastical affairs. To treat these changes as though they had not been effected, to proceed on the assumption that things are as they were in the middle ages, when the sovereign pontiffs exerted a real influence on the politics of princes and states, is not the part of wisdom; to attempt to roll back these changes and to restore the order that has passed away is, in our judgment, impracticable and impossible, even if desirable; to declaim against them, or to sigh and weep over them, may be the part of the conquered, but can never be that of wisdom and strength. True wisdom, it seems to us, requires the friends of religion to accept these changes as facts accomplished, and to endeavor to adjust ecclesiastical and all other arrangements to them.

ter.

But, while we say all this, let it be distinctly understood that we recognize in the fullest and strictest sense the rights of temporal sovereignty possessed by the Holy Father, and that only by an act of gross injustice, of the grossest injustice indeed, can he be deprived of them. The pope is the oldest sovereign in Europe, and no sovereign in Europe holds his states by a better title, or by one so good, so sacred, or so inviolable in its nature. Let it also be understood that we give no heed to what has been said against the papal government in past or in present times. The only fault that we have ever been disposed to find with the papal government is that it has been too lenient and too paternal in its characThe charges of cruelty and tyranny brought against it we throw to the winds; we believe none of them. That government was legitimate in its origin, and by no act or acts has it, so far as we can discover, ever forfeited its original right. No government has ever labored more earnestly, more faithfully, more perseveringly for the good of its subjects, with more benevolence, or with more intelligence. The difficulties in the case grow not out of any duty neglected, or of any wrong done by the pontiff-kings, but simply out of the fact that the political world has lost its respect for right, and the maintenance of the papal government in its independence and integrity is incompatible with modern politics, or the political system originated in the sixteenth century by the successors of St. Louis of France, and solemnly adopted and proclaimed as the public law of Europe by the peace of Paris, March, 1856.

Need we say that we do not approve that system, which in reality is only political atheism? We denounced that peace when it was made, and our pages from first to last