Rassegna storica del Risorgimento

La vigilia del *4
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one Cicerouach io [sic], a merchant of great infiuence among the people, and
at the same time warmly attached to the Pope. His Holyness acted on the
occasion with his usuai ability and promptness, the approaching festival was at
once postponed, a national guard, from among the people, forthwith constituted,
such of the conspirators as had not escaped, were arrested, and soon without
either bloodshed or in jury order was a gain restored in Rome. Some of the
French prìnts bave gone so far as to assert that in this insnrrectionary movement
against the pontificai authority, the govemment of Austria was interested, and
even that the plot was concocted in Vienna , but such a charge for various
reasons is totally without foundation. The only circumstance which would seem
to favor such an accusali on and upon which it was doubtless based, was that on
the 17th of July, the day on which the conspiracy was to have been consummated
in Rome, three squadrona of Austrian light infantry marched over the frontìérs
into Ferara,5) and when the Legate of that town Cardinal Ciaehi6) protested
vigorously against such a movement the commandant of the troops expressed
great astoni shment, and enquired if the Cardinal had not received news and
instructions from Rome. Whether this timely entrance of the Imperiai forees
into the territories of the Pontificai States was the result of accident or of an
arrangement between the Austrian officers and the conspirators of Rome, there
is no evidence that the step was either ordered or sanctioned by the Austrian
govemment. Although the important reforms so energetically conducted by the
present Pope, accord hut illy with the unchanging, status quo policy of Prince
Metternich, whose great aim seems to he only to leave Austria as he found. her,
yet this govemment is one of too high standing to commit itself by an act of
such unwarrantahle interference with the institutions of another, whilst her own
existence is one too much dependant on the preservation of the proper balances
of power, for her to be concerned in their disturbance. Besides, the members
of the govemment, and particularly the reigning family, are such devoted
catholics that no human consideration eould induce or urge them to an attack
upon the sacred head of their religion, hut above ali Austria finds sufficient
occupation at home, (without interfering with her neighbors) in the difficulty
of holding together, the many discordant nations of which the empire is coni-
posed, where there is not and never can exist any nationality among them, and
where the incongruous race* of Asiatìc and European origin are prevented from
burating asunder, only by the most rigid and inflexible politicai system...
Prince Metternich, contrary to his usuai practice of visiting his estates, remains the entire Summer in Vienna.
jSfo. 19 Legation of the U. States
Vienna, September 26th, 1847
Sir
In my last deapatch I advised you, of the conspiracy which had occured at Rome and the entrance, on the same day, of the Imperiai troops into the
s) Dal principio alia fine dei dispacci 18 e 19, Stilcs scriveva a Ferara ; nel dispac-20, cominciò a scrivere correttamente il nome della città. *) Cardinale Luigi Ciacchi (1788-1865).