TOPICS OF THE DAY.
FRANCE AND ITALY. • LACORDAIRE, in the enthusiastic universalism of,his first vision of the Roman Catholic Church, once spoke of the various separate elements of that Church as " those narrow coteries called nations ;"—but looking to his own subsequent experience, it would have given him probably less surprise than pain to see that the Temporal Power of the Pope would owe the greatest and most sudden triumph it has gained in our time to the very worst elements which ever held together the meanest of coteries,—the envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness which the members of an exclusive national coterie cherish towards those who defy their power and endanger their influence. M. Rouher, the great Vice-Emperor of the French, characterized the debate in the Legislative Chamber of France more exactly by far than the European Revolu- tion, at which his anathema was directed, when he said, in his great Papal speech of December 5, "the dregs of all evil passions accumulate in the lower social stratum, and some- times will come to the surface." Truly they did come to the surface and that with unexampled virulence, in the debate of December 4 and 5, and we are afraid we must even admit that the evil passions which then came to the surface had ac- cumulated "in the lower social stratum." Though expressed with malignant force by the mouth of such men as Thiers and Berryer, these evil passions evidently drew their sap from the masses of country voters whom the vast majority of the French Deputies represented. They found expression, net in the feelings of loyalty to the Church expressed by such men as Cardinal Bonnechose and Archbishop Darboy, but in the shriek of cynical individual scepticism f9.1.d. collective national malice in which M. Thiers so brilliantly expressed at once his contempt for the Roman See, and his intention to support it on the ground that it maddens the Italians, and may therefore end by inducing Italy to 'fall voluntarily on the willing sword of France. It was M. Thiers' speech,—the speech of a Mephis- topheles, rather than of a man, both in the wealth and in the subtlety of its diabolic suggestions,—that really touched the heart,—using that word as the seat of the passions,—of the French Chamber. It was to its wonderful effect that M. Rouher's great modification of policy was obviously conceded. As all the French papers remark, MM. Thiers and Berryer are, to all intents and purposes, the dic- tators of the moment with respect to the foreign policy of France. In other words, the Pro-Papal policy which the Lower Chamber has advocated must be ascribed not to any Catholic reaction, but to the dismay, the fury, and the fear with which France discovers that a network of great nations is forming around her, in the meshes of which she will be comparatively powerless. "No Sovereign should create volun- tarily on his own frontier a State of twenty-five millions of inhabitants," said M. Thiers, amidst general applause, and the key-note of the feeling of the Chamber throughout, is the key- note also of M. Thiers' speech,—the censure directed against the propagation of "those false ideas of nationality" which have led to the unification, first of Italy, and afterwards of Germany. The passion with which France now resolves that Italy shall remain divided by guaranteeing the permanence of "the bullet in her side" is due more to the rise of Germany, whom she does fear, on her eastern frontier, than to the growth of Italy, whom she does not fear, on her southern fron- tier. France discovers, just in time to alienate the gratitude and earn the deadly hostility of Italy, that there is one great step yet wanting to secure the greatness of the weaker of the two new powers, and in her spite at the progress of the other power over which she can exercise no control, she decrees with grinding teeth, and an explosion of insensate wrath that can only be described as the nearest equivalent to swearing in which a deliberative assembly can indulge, that if Prussia must become a great power, Italy never shall be while France can help it. Of course, this nand be,—in spite of the lifoni- teur's unmeaning protest,—a definitive coup de grace to the notion of a Conference. When the Pope has intimated that he accepts it to reclaim his former territory, Italy on the express ground that she must and will go to Rome, and France records a pledge solemnly given that Italy shall never be permitted to go to Rome, it would be about as possible for these three parties to deliberate on the future, as for the forty persons who bound themselves together under a great curse neither to eat nor to drink till they had killed St. Paul to confer with St. Paul himself, and the Roman Government which imprisoned but protected him, how to. reconcile their divergent views as to the apostle's destiny. The Pope said what rendered the Conference hopeless; Italy went on to say what rendered it ludicrous ; France has now pronounced what renders it impossible.
What is to us the darkest of all dark elements in the French situation, is that the Emperor and the coarse Imperialists who make up his entourage appear to repre- sent, at least in relation to foreign policy, a morale not lower, but indisputably higher than that of the French nation. They need goading by the masses a tha electors before they cast away all largeness of policy and all generosity. They are not, indeed, dominated by religious con- victions; but no more are the Deputies who so rapturously applaud M. Thiers. But having cast away these religious ideas, M. de Moustier and M. Rouher would obviously have hesitated at making them the flimsy excuses for a policy of inveterate envy and provocation, had not the Tempter presented. himself with M. Thiers for mouthpiece and all the power of the country population at his back. That the coarse though clever tyranny which rules France should be, in this respect,. at least, superior to France,—the tempted, and not the tempter,. —is, indeed, a matter which might break the hearts of noble Frenchmen.
If we turn from France to Italy, there is but little food. for consolation. In the Italian debate we find no sign of earnest self-respect, of high courage, of clear, purpose, ta say nothing at all of noble audacity. The contemptuous words of M. de Moodier, and the threatening words of M. Rouher, seem to have roused no flame of indignation. Italy speaks as we might expect from a nation which has precipi- tated a revolution without intending to pay the cost, on a speculative hope that the cost would never be required at her hands. Member after member rises in the Parliament to speak with a sort of quaver of fretful dismay of what has happened and what is impending, but neither in the Govern- ment nor in the Opposition does there seem any sign of dis- tinct resolve. The policy before the recent move, during it, and after it, is all of a piece. The former Ministry began by resenting, with great justice, the ostentatious boast of the Antibes Legion that it was the mere vanguard of the French Army, and the presumption which the acts of the French Administration itself had afforded that this, as afterwards actually turned out, was no empty boast. Then M. Rattazzi seemed to think that it would be better to prepare for his experiment on French forbearance by subserviency, rather than by remonstrance ; he declared himself fully satisfied, —every cause of complaint absolutely renieved, —:though none of the grounds of complaint had been removed. at all, and strove to wheedle France out of a permission break a treaty on the virtual French breach of which he had not had the nerve to quarrel. When the French were proof against these little flatteries, and the expedition reached Civita Vecchia, the new Government took heart to cross the frontier,—only, however, to creep back again within two days, on feeling the inexorable sternness of French displeasure. Since then the attitude of Italy has been precisely, that indi- cated by this moral see-saw,—inability to refrain either from trying to conciliate France, or wishing to defy her. All the speeches in the Assembly,—Signor Menabrea's not excepted, —hover in painful indecision between defiance and complai- sance. If Italy had only the nerve to say openly', We are too weak to fight, and will not attempt it ; but we will hold no converse with a Government that heaps on us insult and threats, and we shall break off all diplomatic communication,' her attitude would be dignified and her future clear. For even this, however, she has not at present the strength. Low as is our estimate of the attitude taken up both by France and Italy, we cannot, however, say that the situation is without compeniating benefits. One great benefit certainly results from the recent declaration of M. Rouher. All ambi- guities are removed. The Pope knows that France has now guaranteed him against Italy without making any condition as to reforms in the Roman territory,—has exchanged, in fact, her patronizing promises of conditional support, for an absolute pledge which she cannot violate without dishonour. The Pope, therefore, will be more than ever disposed to brave Italy and rely on France. He will probably cast off all dis- position to compromise, and make the situation of his protector more than ever unpleasant to a power which has never been insensible to the censure of public opinion. In the next place, it is evidently good for Italy to know definitively that she can no longer look to gain Rome except by defying France. It will make her nitifFpatient for the present, more resolute for the future, more independent in all things. M. Rouher has pledged the Emperor never to allow Italy to take Rome,—and Rome he has defined as meaning the whole territory now actually ruled by the Pope. The Italians well know what such a pledge means. If anything can brace them to their work, it is such a rock as that in the path. It will be useless for them, helpless as they are, to dash themselves against the ateady sword of France. They must become something very different from what they now are, before they can rally their whole strength for the contest with even reasonable hope of success. But the knowledge that the French nation wishes nothing better than to dismember Italy,—that even the Emperor of the French might be compelled by his own people to undo the one great work of his life,—that he will assuredly never venture to complete it, or even to wink at Italy's com- pleting it,—should nerve Italy to discipline herself for the tremendous task now before her. Nothing is worse for a nation in Italy's position than the hope that intrigue can help her. It prevents her looking steadily to the conditions of all true national greatness, — moral unity, popular earnestness, strong administration. It is not amiss, too, that Italy should be taught to regard the Pope as committed to lean on a foreign power which rejects the unification of Italy and longs for her dismemberment. If anything could de-mesmerize the super- stitious imagination of the Italian people, this ought to do so. As the Bishop of Argyll, who knows Italy profoundly, acutely remarks in his recent pamphlet, here are French Bishops denouncing, as the worst scum of the earth, the very people who, if any people could, should exhibit the peculiar moral influence of the Papal teaching in its very highest form. ,Cannot the Italians themselves see that when their worst national enemy is Rome, they can scarcely regard Rome as their hest spiritual friend ? Who, then, is in fault,—Italy for not loving Rome, or Rome for opposing Italy's warmest aspira- tions ? If the former, Italians should return to their allegiance, hut this they never will do. If the latter, then what so logical a conclusion as that they should separate from Rome, —declare themselves schismatic Were there faith enough for schism in Italy, we should have hope indeed. But schism implies a new faith, and not merely an old faith's decay. Still, if there be faith left in Italy, it is in this direction,—that of sehista,—that the inflexible attitude of the Pope and his pro- tector should tend. In any case, new definiteness and clear- ness of purpose must,' we believe, come to Italy from the sharply defined Papal policy of the Emperor and M. Rouher.
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