Part 67 (1/2)

The outcome was that Austria retained Venice, but gave up to Sardinia the larger part of Lombardy. The Sardinians were bitterly disappointed that they did not get Venetia, and loudly accused the French emperor of having betrayed their cause, since at the outset he had promised them that he would free Italy from the mountains to the sea. But Sardinia found compensation for Venice in the accession of Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and Romagna, the peoples of which states, having discarded their old rulers, besought Victor Emmanuel to permit them to unite themselves to his kingdom. Thus, as the result of the war, the king of Sardinia had added to his subjects a population of 9,000,000. One long step was taken in the way of Italian unity and freedom.

SICILY AND NAPLES ADDED TO VICTOR EMMANUEL'S KINGDOM (1860).--The romantic and adventurous daring of the hero Garibaldi now added Sicily and Naples to the possessions of Victor Emmanuel, and changed the kingdom of Sardinia into the kingdom of Italy.

The king of Naples and Sicily, Francis II., was a typical despot. In 1860 his subjects rose in revolt. Victor Emmanuel and his minister Cavour were in sympathy with the movement, yet dared not send the insurgents aid through fear of arousing the jealousy of Austria and of France. But Garibaldi, untrammelled by any such considerations, having gathered a band of a thousand or more volunteers, set sail from Genoa for Sicily, where upon landing he a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of Dictator of Sicily for Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy, and quickly drove the troops of King Francis out of the island. Then crossing to the mainland, he marched triumphantly to Naples, whose inhabitants hailed him tumultuously as their Deliverer.

The Neapolitans and Sicilians now voted almost unanimously for annexation to the Sardinian kingdom. The hero Garibaldi, having first met and hailed his Sovereign ”King of Italy,” surrendered his dictators.h.i.+p, and retired to the island of Capri, in the bay of Naples. He had earned the lasting grat.i.tude of his country.

Thus was another great step taken in the unification of Italy. Nine millions more of Italians had become the subjects of Victor Emmanuel.

There was now wanting to the complete union of Italy only Venetia and the Papal territories.

VENETIA ADDED TO THE KINGDOM (1866).--The Seven Weeks' War which broke out between Prussia and Austria in 1866 afforded the Italian patriots the opportunity for which they were watching to make Venetia a part of the kingdom of Italy. Victor Emmanuel formed an alliance with the king of Prussia, one of the conditions of which was that no peace should be made with Austria until she had surrendered Venetia to Italy. The speedy issue of the war added the coveted territory to the dominions of Victor Emmanuel. Rome alone was now lacking to the complete unification of Italy.

ROME BECOMES THE CAPITAL (1870).--After the liberation of Naples and Sicily the city of Turin, the old capital of the Sardinian kingdom, was made the capital of the new kingdom of Italy. In 1865 the seat of government was transferred to Florence. But the Italians looked forward to the time when Rome, the ancient mistress of the peninsula and of the world, should be their capital. The power of the Pope, however, was upheld by the French, and this made it impossible for the Italians to have their will in this matter without a conflict with France.

But events soon gave the coveted capital to the Italian government. In 1870 came the sharp, quick war between France and Prussia, and the French troops at Rome were hastily summoned home. Upon the overthrow of the French Monarchy and the establishment of the Republic, Victor Emmanuel was informed that France would no longer sustain the Papal power. The Italian government at once gave notice to the Pope that Rome would henceforth be considered a portion of the kingdom of Italy, and forthwith an Italian army entered the city, which by a vote of 133,681 to 1,507 joined itself to the Italian nation. The family was now complete. Rome was the capital of a free and united Italy. July 2, 1871, Victor Emmanuel [Footnote: In the early part of the year 1878 Victor Emmanuel died, and his son came to the throne, with the t.i.tle of Humbert 1., the second king of Italy.]

himself entered the city and took up his residence there.

END OF THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE.--Through the extension of the authority of the Italian government over the Papal states, the Pope was despoiled of the last vestige of that temporal power wherewith Pepin and Charlemagne had invested the Bishops of Rome more than a thousand years before (see p. 404). The Papal troops were disbanded, but the Pope, Pius IX., still retained all his spiritual authority, the Vatican with its 11,000 chambers being reserved to him as a place of residence. Just a few months before the loss of his temporal sovereignty a great Ec.u.menical Council of the Roman Catholic Church had proclaimed the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, which declares decrees of the Pope ”on questions of faith and morals” to be infallible.

CONCLUSION.--Although there has been much antagonism between the Vatican and the Quirinal, that is, between the Pope and the Italian government, still reform and progress have marked Italian affairs since the events of 1870. A public system of education has been established; brigandage has been suppressed; agriculture has been encouraged; while the naval and military resources of the peninsula have been developed to such an extent that Italy, so recently the prey of foreign sovereigns, of petty native tyrants, and of adventurers, is now justly regarded as one of the great powers of Europe.

[Ill.u.s.tration: QUEEN VICTORIA ON THE DAY OF HER CORONATION.]

CHAPTER LXIII.

ENGLAND SINCE THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA.

THE THREE CHIEF MATTERS.--English history since the close of the Napoleonic wars embraces a mult.i.tude of events. A short chapter covering the entire period will possess no instructive value unless it reduces the heterogeneous ma.s.s of facts to some sort of unity by placing events in relation with their causes, and thus showing how they are connected with a few broad national movements or tendencies.

Studying the period in this way, we shall find that very many of its leading events may be summed up under the three following heads: 1.

Progress towards democracy; 2. Expansion of the principle of religious equality; 3. Growth of the British Empire in the East.

1. PROGRESS TOWARDS DEMOCRACY.

EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION UPON LIBERALISM IN ENGLAND.--The French Revolution at first gave a fresh impulse to liberal tendencies in England.

The English Liberals watched the course of the French Republicans with the deepest interest and sympathy. It will be recalled how the statesman Fox rejoiced at the fall of the Bastile, and what auguries of hope he saw in the event (see p. 652). The young writers Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Southey were all in sympathy with democratic sentiments, and inspired with a generous enthusiasm for political liberty and equality. But the wild excesses of the French Levellers terrified the English Liberals. There was a sudden revulsion of feeling. Liberal sentiments were denounced as dangerous and revolutionary.

But in a few years after the downfall of Napoleon, the terrors of the French Revolution were forgotten. Liberal sentiments began to spread among the ma.s.ses. The people very justly complained that, while the English government claimed to be a government of the people, they had no part in it. [Footnote: The English Revolution of 1688 transferred authority from the king to the Parliament. The elective branch of that body, however, rested upon a very narrow electoral basis. Out of 5,000,000 Englishmen who should have had a voice in the government, not more than 160,000 were voters, and these were chiefly of the rich upper cla.s.ses. At the opening of the nineteenth century the number of electors in Scotland did not exceed 3000.]

Now, it is instructive to note the different ways in which Liberalism was dealt with by the English government and by the rulers on the continent.

In the continental countries the rising spirit of democracy was met by cruel and despotic repressions. The people were denied by their rulers all partic.i.p.ation in the affairs of government. We have seen the result.

Liberalism triumphed indeed at last, but triumphed only through Revolution.

In England, the government did not resist the popular demands to the point of Revolution. It made timely concessions to the growing spirit of democracy. Hence here, instead of a series of revolutions, we have a series of reform measures, which, gradually popularizing the House of Commons, at last renders the English nation not alone in name, but in reality, a self-governing people.

THE REFORM BILL OF 1832.--The first Parliamentary step in reform was taken in 1832. To understand this important act, a retrospective glance becomes necessary.