For six or seven years their
army lived at the expense of the country. They sent their regiments
naked, and when poor Italy had clothed them, others came to replace
them.
Their army was looked upon with no very favourable eye; neither indeed
was ours: the radical party was opposed both to their presence and
ours. Some stray soldiers of both armies were killed. The French army
defended itself courteously, the Austrian army revenged itself. In
three years, from the first of January, 1850, to the 1st of January,
1853, we shot three murderers. Austria has a heavier hand: she has
executed not only criminals, but thoughtless, and even innocent
people. I have already given some terrible figures, and will spare you
their repetition.
From the day when the Pope condescended to return home, the French
army withdrew into the background; it hastened to restore to the
pontifical government all its powers. Austria has only restored what
it could not keep. She even still undertakes to repress political
crimes. She feels personally wronged if a cracker is let off, if a
musket is concealed: in short, she fancies herself in Lombardy.
At Rome, the French place themselves at the disposal of the Pope for
the maintenance of order and public security. Our soldiers have too
much honesty to let a murderer or a thief who is within their reach
escape. The Austrians pretend that they are not gendarmes, to arrest
malefactors; each individual soldier considers himself the agent of
the old diplomatists, charged with none but political functions:
police matters are not within his province.
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