COUNT CAVOUR ON ROME.
TT is only in Italy that we find the powers of the Admi- nistrator, the mtriguant, and the debater, each displayed in the highest degree, all united in one man. The Count Cavour who organized Piedmont till the little State became all sinew, who, in 1855, forced the diplomatists of Europe to sanction the first move towards Italian independence, and who, in 1860, while accepting the peace of Villafranca, changed it from a treaty into an "unfortunate hypothesis," is the Count Cavour who to-day, controls the stormy Par- liament of united Italy. /We question if he considers the last the lightest of the three tasks. So delicate are the relations of the monarchy to its allies, so intricate some of its internal complications, that the readiest of English debaters might well shrink from the task the Italian noble so readily undertakes. What question, for example, could be more formidable than that of the volunteers. These men, scattered all over Italy, feel that they have given two .kingdoms to Victor Emmanuel, and have received only their dismissal in return. The mere discussion of their claims excites them to madness, yet it is essential to re- fuse them, without an irreparable breach between the Gari- baldians and the monarchy. In the midst, however, of an ordinary discussion on the Army, Brofferio brought up their services and their treatment. General Sirtori, foam- ing with excitement, declared that they had been treated from the first as foes, and in a few momenti the House would have been split into Piedmontese and Southerners. Count Cavour, however, was equal to the occasion. After an unavailing appeal to General La Marmora, he called for the division, the House acceded, and after outvoting La Marmora by an immense majority, passed to subjects which can be discussed without lashing the speakers into madness.
This was a mere instance of official tact, but in the debate on Rome qualities much higher than Parliamentary tact were demanded and displayed. It is difficult to imagine a situation more embarrassing than that of the Italian Premier. M. Andinot demanded that Rome should be the capital of Italy, that the Minister should explain all obstacles which stood in the way of that great end. It was necessary for Count Cavour, in reply, to prove that he desired Rome as ardently as his countrymen, yet to abstain from menacing Catholic- ism ; to explain the policy of his government, yet avoid giving a hint of its plans ; to resist the French occupation of Rome, yet to arouse none of the susceptibilities of the most susceptible of European peoples. To say that he attained all these objects, so various and so conflicting, is to express but half the merit of his speech. Without a word which could be interpreted as an indication of his plans, without losing for a moment his air of deference to France, he contrived to leave on his hearers the impression that the question approached solution, that the Italian troops were, so to speak, already in march to Rome. Italy, he 'mid, could not be constituted without Rome, and the declaration cleared away a thousand doubts which had hung around his policy. It was the one distinct utterance of his speech, and the one to which half Italy looked in jealous fear, lest Naples or the Marches should be sub- jected, not to an Italian metropolis, but to an Italian pro.. vince. The national sentiment thus soothed, the Premier turned to the Catholics. He repudiated altogether the notion of attaching spiritual power to temporal authority. That plan, he argued, with a double glance at the Papacy and the Na- poleons, produced a Mahommedan regime. He denied that such a course could ever be pursued in Catholic Italy. The object of Italy was not to destroy the Papacy, but to recon- cile it with civil government. The temporal power must disappear, but the independence of the Pope would thereby be increased. The concordats and other shackles which fet- tered the Papacy were necessary only because of the temporal power. As for the guarantees of independency, it should be declared the fundamental law of the monarchy, i. e. placed we may presume beyond the authority of Parliament. That -- independence once secured, Catholic opinion would permit the Emperor of the French to withdraw his troops from Rome. Force against France could never be employed, for Italy would not imitate the ingratitude Austria had displayed, ' when, at the Congress of Paris, she resisted terms of peace for the Power which had saved her in 1849. And so the Premier sat down, having affirmed the right of Italy to Rome, repudiated ingratitude to France, and reassured the Catholics as to the independence of the Church, to hear the Parliament decreeiiy an unanimous vote that the Italian me- tropolis was Rome. There are many who will deem vote and speech alike mere words, contributing nothing towards the removal of the 20,000 bayonets by whom, and not by the Pope, Rome is at present isolated from Italy. These worshippers of force mistake, however, the key to the situation. If Louie Napoleon were determined per far aut nits to remain at Rome, bayonets would doubtless be more valuable than oratory. But this is by no means the case. Not to mention that a Prince who reigns by universal suffrage cannot afford to break wholly with the Revolution, the Emperor is plainly desirous to quit Rome. All he asks is to quit it without offending either the self-respect of the French army, or the Catholic feeling of the French peasants. Both these feelings will be soothed if Italy, while deferring to France, guarantees the independence of the Papacy. The Catholics of Europe- cannot officially declare the Pope less free when protected by three hundred thousand Catholic Italians, than when receiv- ing orders from the General of twenty thousand French.. Nor can the French army be insulted by an advance avow- edly postponed for months, only because Italy was unable to cross bayonets with France. The only real difficulty in the way is the Pope himself, who may, as he threatens, resist even when the Italian troops are mounting guard at the- Vatican. But his resistance, to be effective, must be followed by flight, and the Pope once gone, the excuse for the French occupation is destroyed.
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