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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 , leeolate 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 but 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
civilisation of mankind . It is high time to startle thrones from their ghastly 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 an 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 IWlin ! 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 ! The ceaseless refrain waited to the four winds of heaven by the echoes of reactionary terrorism . Who are the champions of the rights of propeity ? Ask the manes of the slaughtered nobles of Gallicia ; or , if they reply not , interrogate the ravage re , the conliscators 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 coalwhippers and draymen of London will point out the human tiger , whom the tuste of blood could madden , but never appease . Who is the anointed champion of religion ? Who but the perjured King of happy Naples , the confidential , intimate adviser of " his Holiness , " of whom Mr .
Gladstone says he is " reputed to be most regular and strict in the oflices of religion . " These be thy hsroes , O great party of order ! apt representatives of the sacred cause of property , family , religion ! Italy is now tho " little cloud " on tin- political horizon , to which the glasses of all the greybeards ' of despotism , and of nil the neophytes of reaction , are anxiously pointed . And well they may . mentioned the existence of a x " note addressed by the I'apal Cabinet of Austri u , in which of the Absolutist Governan < l Piedmont , in the event jtantingc . ncie 3 of ' 52 , was disconfidential document , like fploinatic secrets , was speedily may be supposed , moused the , ) - '¦ { ' - \ ' . I ' " f
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 severely 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 a 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 a national force sufficient to provide for the security 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 tip 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 all 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 enumerate dangers than to point out the means of prevention ; " and then follows the key to all the recent Papal-Austrian , and Austrian-Neapolitan
manoeuvres . 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 , Fiance should refuse to acquiesce is this arrangement , then at least Rome 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 England . In case of their positive refusal , it says , an Austrian and Neapolitan army should inarch suddenly upon Rome on the eve of any changes in France , and cut off the retreat of the French troops on Civita Vecchia ; or force them to abandon the capital . If this scheme wcru 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 ailairs under some form or other , or the revolution will triumph . In the iirnt ease , the Papal Government will find explanations easy ; in the second , it would have taken the most urgent and summary measures for its own safety " m the midst of the general wreck of Jtaly ! "
I he note concludes with entreating the Cabinet of Vienna to urge incessantly on the Government of England , und 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 Idan 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 belored 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 fro tx 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 insclence , 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 baa the potter , even now , let Antonelli say . You denounce the " radical corruption of the Roman People . " You know this to be false . It is the Government of Home , 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 hoasted 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 exasperatioiiH the moral sense of a whole people , and to rend asunder all civil and social ties ; you carry 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 urtiznns with interdictions tho
most vexatious ; you forbid them to speak to " suspected persons "; to leave their houses after sunset ; to receive friends . You make Rome a desert , if not a living tomb . The foreign troops buvo no sooner sounded the retreat than all shops are closed , and no step , save the measured tread of the sentries and the wbirri is heard in the streets . JCvery hour of the day innocent persons , heavily chained , are being dragged to prison on some frivolous suspicion ; and if w « take refuge beyond the walls from Hcenes ho repulsive and no odious , we are
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There is nothing so revolutionary , because there 13 nothing so unnatural and convulsive , a 3 the strain to keep things fixed when all the world is by the very lav ? of , its creation in eternal progress . —De . Arnold .
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^^ SATURDAY , AUGUST 2 , 1851 .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 2, 1851, page 728, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1894/page/12/
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