And yet I dare neither hope for, nor ask of Europe the immediate
application of this grand panacea. Gerontocracy is still too powerful,
even in the youngest governments Besides, we are now at peace, and
radical reforms are only to be effected by war. The sword alone enjoys
the privilege of deciding great questions by a single stroke.
Diplomatists, a timid army of peace, proceed but by half-measures.
There is one which was proposed in 1814 by Count Aldini, in 1831 by
Rossi, in 1855 by Count Cavour. These three statesmen, comprehending
the impossibility of limiting the authority of the Pope within the
kingdom in which it is exercised, and over the people who are
abandoned to it, advised Europe to remedy the evil by diminishing the
extent of, and reducing the population subjected to, the States of the
Church.
Nothing is more just, natural, or easy than to free the Adriatic
provinces, and to confine the despotism of the Papacy between the
Mediterranean and the Apennines. I have shown that the cities of
Ferrara, Ravenna, Bologna, Rimini, and Ancona are at once the most
impatient of the Pontifical yoke and the most worthy of liberty.
Deliver them. Here is a miracle which may be wrought by a stroke of
the pen: and the eagle's plume which signed the treaty of Paris is as
yet but freshly mended.
There would still remain to the Pope a million of subjects, and
between three and four millions of acres; neither the one nor the
other in a very high state of cultivation, I must admit; but it is
possible that the diminution of his revenue might induce him to manage
his estates and utilize his resources better than he now does.
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