THE POSITION IN ROME.
ONE of the many paternal mercies which characterize the Papal "regime," consists in keeping a condemned pri- soner in ignorance of his sentence. ;Weeks, months, years may pass away, and yet the prisoner lingers on in prison, knowing only that every hour may bring him tidings of life or death. The Roman people are now subjected to a like punishment. For twelve weary years they also have been waiting to learn their fate. Just as the prisoners in the Papal gaols watch the faces and movements of their gaolers, to try and catch some indication of the time when their sentence is to be made known to them, so the Roman people keep longing, and watching, and forming vague conjectures on stray words and chance actions, till their hearts are sick with the hopes so often promised and so invariably deferred. Many a time has the day been fixed—in Rome—for the entry of the King of Italy ; but the day has passed and gone, and the flowers have faded, and the tricolors grown moth-eaten, and still night after night the French troops patrol down the Corso, waking the echoes of the silent city with the rattle of their endless drumming. For about the hundredth time, the Romans have endured one of their periodical disappointments. When Baron Ri- casoli announced, at the close of the last Italian session, that the solution of the Papal question was at hand, the news revived the drooping hopes of the Romans. Now, however, the new session is almost arrived, and yet the state of Rome remains unaltered. It is not unnatural that, in Rome itself, hope should be almost extinct, but those who look on the question as outsiders, can see that there is as yet no cause for despair. The whole object of the French Government with regard to Rome (and we believe, to some extent, of the Italian Go- vernment also) is to gain time. Whether the evils of a forcible solution to the Papal question are or are not exag- gerated, is a question into which we need not now enter. It is enough to say that both the French and Italian Governments are prepared to make almost any sacrifice sooner than come to an absolute and open breach with the Papacy. There is unfortunately no prospect of a compromise so long as the present Pontiff lives. The older he grows the more obstinate he becomes ; while his enfeebled intel- lect succumbs daily more and more to the bigotry of men like Merode, and to the infatuated selfishness which dictates the policy of the Antonelli faction. Popes, however, are not long-lived in general. Seven years is the average duration of a Papal reign, and Pio Nono has already worn the tiara for more than twice that period ; he is now in. his seventieth year ; be is subject to epileptic seizures, and he is a martyr to erysipelas. If to these causes are added the fa- tigues of the frequent ceremonials at which Pius the Ninth is a most constant and devout attendant, and the never-end- ing worries and annoyances to which the Pope is exposed by the embarrassments of his position, it will be evident that, to say the least, his chance of life is a very poor one. The de- tails of the Pope's illnesses are always so carefully concealed at Rome, that it is impossible to ascertain what was the real degree of danger in his late attack ; but every one who has seen him, as we have ourselves, during the last few years, must be aware that within the past twelve months he has been breaking fast. The great desire, then, of the French Government, is to avoid, if possible, any decisive step till the Pope dies. It may possibly be asked what the Italians are likely to gain by a change in the Papacy i One Pope may be as head- strong as another, and it is the Popes in general—not Pio Nono in particular—who stand in the path of Italy. This view, however, is a mistaken one. The death of Pius the Ninth would place the French Government far more at liberty than it is at present. The present Pope can always appeal, in a most embarrassino.b way, to personal promises of support made by the Imperial Cabinet in the early years of the Empire. This, any successor to the Papacy would be unable to do. Moreover, whatever sym- pathy for the Papacy there really exists in France, is far more for Pius the Ninth in person than for the Pope in the abstract. A new Pope, too, would be far less tram- melled than the present Pontiff. In justice to Pius the Ninth, it should be remembered that at his accession he took the most solemn vows to uphold the independence and integrity of the Papacy. He believes, conscientiously, that any consent on his part to the cession of the temporal dominions would be an act of perjury, and shrinks from the idea of compromise. Now, another Pope cannot be called upon to take a similar oath. The possessions of the Papacy will be already lost when he ascends the throne, and he is not likely to bind himself by inconvenient pledges. The real gain, however, expected in Italy from the accession of a new Pontiff, is the probability that the Pope may be expressly elected with the view of facilitating a compro- mise. The reasons why thii probability is relied on are of considerable weight. Of the sixty to seventy cardinals with whom the election rests, there are but twenty, at tie most, not of Italian birth. Even of this score of foreign cardinals, several are at distant dioceses, and are therefore not likely to be present at the election. The real choice then, rests entirely with the Italian cardinals. Now, the high Italian clergy is anything but Ultramontane in prin- ciples. The Italian cardinals may be, and are, bitterly opposed to the overthrow of the temporal power, which they look upon as an attack on their own vested rights, but for ab- stract doctrines about Papal supremacy they have, as Italians, little or no sympathy. Then, too, the loss arising from the feud between the Church and State in Italy is far greater to them than to their foreign colleagues. Cardinal Rauscher at Vienna, or Cardinal Wiseman at Westminster, is just as great a man, whether the Pope is at peace or at war with the King of Italy; but the Cardinal Archbishop of Ferrara or Sienna must be painfully conscious how much more im- portant and profitable his position would be if he were on good terms with the Italian Government, a Senator in the Italian Senate, and a high dignitary in the State. Then, though a cardinal is a priest before all things, he has still some prejudices left about his own country, and at any rate he has considerable knowledge of his countrymen's character. Italian cardinals probably love themselves better than any- thing, yet they have an Italian antipathy to Austria, and can hardly but feel a certain pride in the greatness of their own country. They appreciate, too, what the foreign car- dinals do not, the danger of a schism in Italy. In fact, they know perfectly, how entirely the Church has lost its hold on the educated minds of the land.
For all these reasons the choice of the Italian cardinals is likely to fall on a man of pliability, who will content himself with protesting against the wrongs done to the Church, and, having protested, submit tacitly. If, as seems probable, the French are still stationed in Rome when the election takes place, the whole French influence, which is considerable, would be exerted to promote the election of a moderate Pope, though any candidate actually put forward by France is certain to be vetoed by Austria. The elections to the Holy See are such a complete matter of lottery, that it is useless speculating on, who is likely to succeed Pius the Ninth in the event of a vacancy. The only thing we can feel pretty certain of is, that any one expected to win the election will fail to do so. As far as surmises are worth anything, the most likely candidate to obtain the support of that party in the conclave, which is in favour of a compro- mise, is Cardinal Andrea, the Bishop of Sabina), a man under fifty, and who is believed to hold the opinion that, in the interest of the Church itself; further resistance is unad- visable. All such surmises, however, are little more than guesswork.
It is possible, though not probable, that Pius the Ninth may defeat all these calculations by lingering on for some years more. If so, we hardly think it possible that the " status quo" of the Roman question can be preserved above a year longer. But we believe that, wisely or not, the French Government considers that the gain of a tranquil solution through the accession of a new Pope would be so great, that, on the chance of the opportunity occurring, they will induce the Italian Government to defer immediate action for another year. Any day some change in the position of affairs may necessitate the adoption of a more vigorous policy ; but we suspect the present programme is inaction for as long as possible.
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