If he had firmly resolved to put down the Republic at Rome, he
was not less firm in his resolution to suppress the abuses, the
injustice, and all the traditional oppressions which drove the
Italians to revolt. In the opinion of the head of the French Republic,
the way to be again victorious over anarchy, was to deprive it of all
pretext and all cause for its existence.
He knew Rome; he had lived there. He knew, from personal experience,
in what the Papal government differed from good governments. His
natural sense of justice urged him to give the subjects of the Holy
Father, in exchange for the political autonomy of which he robbed
them, all the civil liberties and all the inoffensive rights enjoyed
in civilized States.
On the 18th of August, 1849, he addressed to M. Edgar Ney a letter,
which was, in point of fact, a _memorandum_ addressed to the Pope.
_AMNESTY, SECULARIZATION, THE CODE NAPOLEON, A LIBERAL GOVERNMENT_:
these were the gifts he promised to the Romans in exchange for the
Republic, and demanded of the Pope in return for a crown. This
programme contained, in half-a-dozen words, a great lesson to the
sovereign, and a great consolation to the people.
But it is easier to introduce a Breguet spring into a watch made when
Henri IV. was king, than a single reform into the old pontifical
machine. The letter of the 18th of August was received by the friends
of the Pope as an "insult to his rights, good sense, justice, and
majesty!"[13] Pius IX.
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