Part 30 (1/2)

Despite the restrictions which are placed upon it, the commune remains the true focus of local life in France.[518] Its activities, on a sufficiently petty scale though they not infrequently are, run the (p. 351) gamut of finance, commerce, industry, education, religion, and politics. So strong is the communal spirit that public sentiment will acquiesce but rarely in the suppression of a commune, or even in the union of two or more diminutive ones; and, in truth, the code of 1884 recognized the fixity of communal ident.i.ty by permitting changes of communal boundaries to be undertaken by the departmental authorities only after there shall have been held an _enquete_ and local susceptibilities shall have been duly consulted. Save by special decree of the President of the Republic, not even the name of a commune may be altered.

[Footnote 518: Among general treatises on the French commune may be mentioned M. Block, Entretiens sur l'administration; la commune (Paris, 1884); L. Bequet, Traite de la commune (Paris, 1888); P. Andre and F. Marin, La loi sur l'organisation munic.i.p.ale du 5 avril 1884 (Paris, 1884); and F. Grelot, Loi du 5 avril 1884 (Paris, 1889). The best and most recent extensive work is L. Morgand, La loi munic.i.p.ale, 2 vols. (7th ed., Paris, 1907). The most convenient brief discussion in French is in Block, Dictionnaire de l'administration francaise, I., 738-852. In English a good description is in A. Shaw, Munic.i.p.al Government in Continental Europe (New York, 1897), and a fuller and more recent one in W. B. Munro, The Government of European Cities, 1-108. On munic.i.p.al elections the best work is M. J.

Saint-Lager, elections munic.i.p.ales (6th ed., Paris, 1904). Worthy of mention are Chardenet, Panhard, and Gerard, Les elections munic.i.p.ales (Paris, 1896), and J. Dorlhac, De l'electorat politique: etude sur la capacite electorale et les conditions d'exercise du droit de vote (Paris, 1890). An excellent study is P. Lavergne, Du pouvoir central et des conseils munic.i.p.aux, in _Revue Generale d'Administration_, 1900. See also A. G. Desbats, Le budget munic.i.p.al (Paris, 1895); M. Peletant, De l'organisation de la police (Dijon, 1899); and R.

Griffin, Les biens communaux en France (Paris, 1899). On the government of Paris the reader may be referred to G. Artigues, Le regime munic.i.p.al de la ville de Paris (Paris, 1898), and M. Block, L'Administration de la ville de Paris et du departement de la Seine (Paris, 1898). Excellent bibliographies are printed in Munro, _op. cit._, 380-389, and in Block, Dictionnaire, I., 850-852.]

PART IV. ITALY (p. 353)

CHAPTER XIX

CONSt.i.tUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

I. THE ERA OF NAPOLEON

*386. Italy in the Later Eighteenth Century.*--The dominant forces in the politics of Europe since the French Revolution have been the twin principles of nationality and democracy; and nowhere have the fruits of these principles been more strikingly in evidence than in the long disrupted and misgoverned peninsula of Italy. The awakening of the Italian people to a new consciousness of unity, strength, and aspiration may be said to date from the Napoleonic invasion of 1796, and the first phase of the _Risorgimento_, or ”resurrection,” may, therefore, be regarded as coincident with the era of French domination, i.e., 1796-1814. At the opening of this period two non-Italian dynasties shared the dominion of much the larger portion of Italy. To the Austrian Hapsburgs belonged the rich duchies of Milan (including Mantua) and Tuscany, together with a preponderating influence in Modena. To the Spanish Bourbons belonged the duchy of Parma and the important kingdom of Naples, including Sicily. Of independent states there were six--the kingdom of Sardinia (comprising Piedmont, the island of Sardinia, and, nominally, Savoy and Nice), where alone in all Italy there lingered some measure of native political vitality; the Papal States; the petty monarchies of Lucca and San Marino; and the two ancient republics of Venice and Genoa, long since shorn of their empires, their maritime power, and their economic and political importance. All but universally absolutism held sway, and in most of the states, especially those of the south, absolutism was synonymous with corruption and oppression.

*387. The Cisalpine Republic, 1797.*--During the two decades which comprehended the public career of Napoleon it was the part of the French to overturn completely the long existing political arrangement of Italy, to abolish altogether the dominion of Austria and to subst.i.tute therefor that of France, to plant in Italy a wholly new and revolutionizing set of political and legal inst.i.tutions, and, quite unintentionally, to fan to a blaze a patriotic zeal which through (p. 354) generations had smouldered almost un.o.bserved. The beginning of these transformations came directly in consequence of the brilliant Napoleonic incursion of 1796. One by one, upon the advance of the victorious French, were detached the princes who, under English and Austrian tutelage, had been allied hitherto against France. The king of Naples sought an armistice; the Pope made peace; at Arcole and Rivoli the Austrian power was shattered. October 16, 1796, there was proclaimed, with the approval of the conqueror, a Cispadane Republic, including Modena, Reggio, Ferrara, and Bologna; and March 27, 1797, there was promulgated for the new state a const.i.tution which, after having been adopted by representatives of the four districts, had been ratified by a vote of the people. This const.i.tution--the first in the history of modern Italy--was modelled immediately upon the French instrument of 1795. It provided for a legislative council of sixty members, with exclusive power to propose measures, another of thirty members, with power to approve or reject measures, and an executive directory of three, elected by the legislative bodies.

In Lombardy a similar movement produced similar results. Through the spring and early summer of 1797 four commissions, const.i.tuted by Napoleon, worked out a const.i.tution which likewise reproduced all of the essential features of the French model, and, July 9, the Transpadane Republic was inaugurated, with brilliant ceremony, at Milan. Provision was made for a directory and for two legislative councils consisting of one hundred sixty and eighty members respectively; and the first directors, representatives, and other officials were named by Napoleon. At the urgent solicitation of the Cispadanes the two republics were united, July 15, and upon the combined commonwealth was bestowed the name of the Cisalpine Republic.[519] During the preceding May the venerable but helpless Venetian republic had been crushed, and when, in the treaty of Campo Formio, October 17, 1797, Austria was brought to the point of recognizing the new Cisalpine state, she was compensated in some degree by being awarded the larger part of the Venetian territories, including the city of Venice.[520]

[Footnote 519: The Cisalpine const.i.tution was amended September 1, 1798, when there was introduced in the republic the French system of administrative divisions.]

[Footnote 520: E. Bonnal de Ganges, La chute d'une republique (Paris, 1885).]

*388. The Ligurian, Roman, and Parthenopaean Republics, 1797-1799.*--In the meantime, in June, 1797, the ancient republic of Genoa had undergone a remodelling. The ruling oligarchy, driven from power by Napoleon, gave place to a democracy of a moderate type, the (p. 355) legislative functions being intrusted to two popularly elected chambers, while the executive power was vested in a doge and twelve senators; and to the new commonwealth, French in all but name, was given the designation of the Ligurian Republic. The Ligurian const.i.tution was accepted by the people December 2, 1797. During the winter of 1797-1798 the French Directory, openly hostile to the papacy, persistently encouraged the democratic party at Rome to overthrow the temporal power and to set up an independent republic.

February 15, 1798, with the aid of French arms, the democrats secured the upper hand, a.s.sembled in the Forum, declared for the restoration of the Roman Republic, and elected as head of the state a body of seven consuls. The aged pontiff, Pius VI., was maltreated and eventually transported to France. For the new Tiberine, or Roman, Republic was promulgated, March 20, 1798, a const.i.tution providing for the customary two councils--a Senate of thirty members and a Tribunate of sixty--and a directory, christened a consulate, consisting of five consuls elected by the councils. Within a twelvemonth thereafter (January 23, 1799), following a clash of arms between the French and the Neapolitan sovereign, Ferdinand IV., Naples was taken and the southern kingdom was converted into the Parthenopaean Republic. A const.i.tution was there promulgated providing for a directory of five members, a Senate of fifty, possessing exclusive right of legislative initiative, and a Tribunate of one hundred twenty.[521]

[Footnote 521: For an interesting portrayal of the workings of republican idealism in the Neapolitan republic see Fisher, Republican Tradition in Europe, 150-157.]

*389. Const.i.tutional Revisions.*--During the absence of Napoleon on the Egyptian expedition the armies of France suffered repeated reverses in Italy, and by the end of 1799 all that had been gained for France seemed to be, or about to be, lost. By the campaign which culminated at Marengo (June 14, 1800), however, Napoleon not only clinched his newly won position in France but brought Italy once more to his feet.

Under the terms of the treaty of Luneville (February 9, 1801) Austria recognized the reconst.i.tuted Cisalpine and Ligurian republics, while Modena and Tuscany reverted to French control, and French ascendancy elsewhere was securely established. September 21, 1802, Piedmont was organized in six departments and incorporated in the French Republic.

During the winter of 1802-1803 the const.i.tutions of the Cisalpine and Ligurian republics were remodelled in the interest of that same autocratic domination which already was fast ripening in France. In each republic were established at first three bodies--an executive _consulta_,[522] a legislature of 150 members, and a court--which were chosen by three electoral colleges comprising (1) the (p. 356) _possidenti_, or landed proprietors, (2) the _dotti_, or scholars and ecclesiastics, and (3) the _commercianti_, or merchants and traders; but the legislature could be overridden completely by the _consulta_, and the _consulta_ was little more than the organ of Napoleon.

Incidentally, the Cisalpine Republic at this point was renamed the Italian Republic. Within a twelvemonth the new const.i.tutions, proving too democratic, were revised in such a manner that for the legislative body was subst.i.tuted a senate of thirty members presided over by a doge, in which were concentrated all political and administrative powers.

[Footnote 522: An advisory council of state, consisting of eight members.]

*390. The Kingdom of Italy (1805) and the Napoleonic Kingdom of Naples, 1807.*--The stipulation of the treaty of Luneville to the effect that the Italian republics should remain entirely independent of France was all the while disregarded. Politically and commercially they were but dependencies, and, following the proclamation of the French empire (May 18, 1804), the fact was admitted openly. To Napoleon it seemed incongruous that an emperor of the French should be a patron of republics. How meager was the conqueror's concern for the political liberty of the Italians had been demonstrated many times, never more forcefully than in the cynical treatment which he accorded Venice. No one knew better, furthermore, how ill-equipped were the Italians for self-government. Gradually, therefore, there was framed a project for the conversion of the Italian Republic into a kingdom which should be tributary to France. Napoleon's desire was that his eldest brother, Joseph, should occupy the throne of this kingdom. But Joseph, not caring to jeopardize his chances of succession in France, demurred, as did also the younger brother, Louis. The upshot was that by a const.i.tutional statute of March 17, 1805, the Emperor caused himself to be called to the throne of Italy, and May 26 following, in the cathedral at Milan, he placed upon his own head the iron crown of the old Lombard kings. The sovereign's step-son, Eugene Beauharnais, was designated regent. In June of the same year, in response to a pet.i.tion which Napoleon himself had instigated, the Ligurian Republic was proclaimed an integral part of the French empire. The annexation of Parma and Piacenza promptly followed.

Against the coalition of Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Naples, which was prompted immediately by the Ligurian annexation, Napoleon was completely successful. By the treaty of Pressburg (December 26, 1806) Austria ceded to the Italian kingdom her portion of Venetia, together with the provinces of Istria and Dalmatia.[523] Following a vigorous campaign conducted by Joseph Bonaparte, the restored Bourbon family was driven again from Naples, whereupon Joseph allowed (p. 357) himself to be established there as king. In 1808 he was succeeded by Napoleon's ambitious marshal and brother-in-law Murat. From Bayonne, Joseph issued a const.i.tution for his former subjects, providing for a council of state of from twenty-six to thirty-six members and a single legislative chamber of one hundred members, of whom eighty were to be named by the king and twenty were to be chosen by electoral colleges.

Not until 1815, however, and then but during the s.p.a.ce of a few weeks, was this instrument actually in operation.

[Footnote 523: The incorporation of Dalmatia with the kingdom of Italy was but temporary.]

*391. The End of French Dominance.*--Finally, there were brought under complete control the papal territories. Following prolonged friction with the Pope, Napoleon first of all (April 2, 1808) annexed to the kingdom of Italy the papal march of Ancona and the duchies of Urbino, Macerata, and Camerina, and then (by decrees of May 17, 1809, and February 17, 1810) added to the French empire Rome itself and the _Patrimonium Petri_. The Roman territory was divided into two departments, and in them, as in all of the Italian provinces which fell under Napoleon's rule, a thoroughgoing French system of law and administration was established. To all of the tributary districts alike were extended the Code Napoleon, and in them were organized councils, courts, and agencies of control essentially a.n.a.logous to those which comprised the Napoleonic governmental regime in France. In them, likewise, were undertaken public works, measures for public education, and social reforms similar to those which in France const.i.tuted the most permanent and the most beneficent aspects of the Napoleonic domination. For the first time since the age of Justinian the entire peninsula was brought under what was in fact, if not in name, a single political system.