The Governments of Europe Part 30

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.

If the rise of French power in Italy had been brilliant, however, the collapse of that power was speedy and complete. It followed hard upon Napoleon's Russian campaign and the defeat at Leipzig. The final surrender, consequent upon Napoleon's first abdication was made April 16, 1814, by the viceroy Beauharnais, whereupon the Austrians resumed possession in the north, the Bourbons in the south, and the whole problem of permanent adjustment was given over to the congress of the powers at Vienna.[524]

[Footnote 524: For brief accounts of the Napoleonic regime in Italy see Cambridge Modern History, IX., Chap. 14; B. King, A History of Italian Unity (London, 1899), I., Chap. 1. Works of value dealing with the subject include P. Gaffarel, Bonaparte et les republiques italiennes, 1796-1799 (Paris, 1895); A. Dufourcq, Le regime jacobin en Italie, 1796-1799 (Paris, 1900); F. Lemmi, Le origini del risorgimento italiano (Milan, 1906); G. Sabini, I primi esperimenti cost.i.tuzionali in Italia, 1797-1815 (Turin, 1911); and R. M. Johnston, The Napoleonic Empire in Southern Italy, 2 vols.

(London, 1904). An older work is E. Ramondini, L'Italia durante la domin.a.z.ione francese (Naples, 1882).]

II. THE RESTORATION AND THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 (p. 358)

*392. Italy in 1815.*--By the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna, June 9, 1815, Italy was remanded to a status such that the name of the peninsula could be characterized with aptness by Metternich as merely a geographical expression. In essentials, though not in all respects, there was a return to the situation of pre-Napoleonic times. When the bargainings of the diplomats were concluded it was found that there remained, in all, ten Italian states, as follows: the kingdom of Sardinia, Lombardo-Venetia, Parma, Modena, Lucca, Tuscany, Monaco, San Marino, the kingdom of Naples, and the States of the Church. To the kingdom of Sardinia, reconst.i.tuted under Victor Emmanuel I., France retroceded Nice and Savoy, and to it was added the former republic of Genoa. Lombardo-Venetia, comprising the duchy of Milan and all of the continental possessions of the former Venetian republic, including Istria and Dalmatia, was given into the possession of Austria.[525]

Tuscany was restored to the grand-duke Ferdinand III. of Hapsburg-Lorraine; the duchy of Modena, to Francis IV., son of the archduke Ferdinand of Austria; Parma and Piacenza were a.s.signed to Maria Louisa, daughter of the Austrian emperor and wife of Napoleon; the duchy of Lucca, to Maria Louisa of Bourbon-Parma. In the south, Ferdinand IV. of Naples, restored to all of his former possessions, was recognized under the new t.i.tle of Ferdinand I. And, finally, Pope Pius VII., long held semi-prisoner by Napoleon at Fontainebleau, recovered the whole of the dominion which formerly had belonged to the Holy See.

[Footnote 525: By decree of April 24, 1815, these territories were erected into a kingdom under Austrian control, though possessing a separate administration.]

Respecting the entire arrangement two facts are obvious. The first is that there was not, in the Italy of 1815, the semblance, even, of national unity. The second is that the preponderance of Austria was scarcely less thoroughgoing than in Napoleon's time had been that of the French. Lombardo-Venetia Austria possessed outright; Tuscany, Modena, and Parma were ruled by Austrian princes; Ferdinand of Naples was an Austrian ally, and he had pledged himself not to introduce in his possessions principles of government incompatible with those employed by the Austrians in the north; while even Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia--the only important native sovereign, aside from the Pope, in the peninsula--was pledged to a perpetual Austrian alliance.[526]

[Footnote 526: W. R. Thayer, The Dawn of Italian Independence, 2 vols. (Boston, 1893), I., 116-178.]

*393. Foreshadowings of Unity.*--"Italy," wrote Napoleon some (p. 359) time after his banishment to St. Helena, "isolated between her natural limits, is destined to form a great and powerful nation. Italy _is_ one nation; unity of language, customs, and literature, must, within a period more or less distant, unite her inhabitants under one sole government. And, without the slightest doubt, Rome will be chosen by the Italians as their capital."[527] At the time when this prophecy was written the unification of Italy appeared, upon the surface, the most improbable of events. It was, none the less, impending, and to it Napoleon must be adjudged to have contributed in no unimportant measure. In the words of a recent writer, "the brutalities of Austria's white coats in the north, the unintelligent repression then characteristic of the house of Savoy, the petty spite of the duke of Modena, the mediaeval obscurantism of pope and cardinals in the middle of the peninsula, and the clownish excesses of Ferdinand in the south, could not blot out from the minds of the Italians the recollection of the benefits derived from the just laws, vigorous administration, and enlightened aims of the great emperor. The hard but salutary training which they had undergone at his hands had taught them that they were the equals of the northern races both in the council chamber and on the field of battle. It had further revealed to them that truth, which once grasped can never be forgotten, that, despite differences of climate, character, and speech, they were in all essentials a nation."[528] It is not too much to say that Napoleon sowed the seed of Italian unity.

[Footnote 527: M. Cesaresco, The Liberation of Italy (London, 1895), 3.]

[Footnote 528: J. Holland Rose, in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., XV., 48. See also Fisher, The Republican Tradition in Europe, 158-159.]

*394. Attempted Revolution, 1820-1832.*--From 1815 to 1848 Austrian influence, shaped largely by Metternich, was everywhere reactionary, and during this prolonged period there was no government anywhere in Italy that was not of the absolutist type. No one of the states had a const.i.tution, a parliament, or any vestige of popular political procedure. In July, 1820, Ferdinand of Naples was compelled by a revolutionary uprising to promulgate a const.i.tution which was identical with that forced in the same year upon Ferdinand VII. of Spain. This ready-made instrument provided for a popularly elected parliament of one chamber, upon which were conferred large powers; a council of state composed of twenty-four members to advise the king; an independent judiciary; and a parliamentary deputation of seven members elected by the parliament, whose duty it was, in the event of the dissolution of parliament, to safeguard the observance of the const.i.tution. In March, 1821, revolution broke out in Piedmont and, after the mild-tempered king, Victor Emmanuel, had abdicated in (p. 360) favor of his brother, Charles Albert, a temporary regent, the Prince of Carignano, under pressure, conceded to the people a replica of the Spanish fundamental law. In both Naples and Piedmont, however, the failure of the progressives was complete. The reformers proved to be lacking in unity of purpose, and when, under authorization of the greater continental powers, Austria intervened, every gleam of const.i.tutionalism was promptly snuffed out. Similarly, in 1831-1832, there was in Modena, Parma, and the Papal States, widespread insurrection, and with rather more evidence of a growing national spirit; but again, with Austrian a.s.sistance, the outbreaks were suppressed.[529]

[Footnote 529: Cambridge Modern History, X., Chap.

4; Johnston, Napoleonic Empire in Southern Italy, II., Chap. 4; Thayer, Dawn of Italian Independence, I., 215-278.]

*395. The Revolution of 1848 and the New Const.i.tutions.*--The turning point came with the great year of revolution, 1848. During the thirties and forties, by public agitation, by the organization of Mazzini's "Young Italy," by the circulation of patriotic literature, and in a variety of other ways, the ground was prepared systematically for the _risorgimento_ upon which the patriots and the prophets had set their hearts. In 1846 a liberal-minded pope, Pius IX., inst.i.tuted a series of reforms, and the example was followed forthwith by the princes of Piedmont (Sardinia) and Tuscany. In January, 1848, revolution broke out afresh in Naples and within a month Ferdinand II.

was obliged to yield to public demand for a const.i.tution. The instrument, promulgated February 10, provided for a legislative body consisting of a chamber of peers, appointed by the king for life, and a chamber of deputies, elected by the people. February 15 the sovereign of Tuscany, Leopold II., granted to his subjects a const.i.tution of a similar character, making provision for a complete representative system.

February 5 the munic.i.p.ality of Turin, voicing a demand in which many of the n.o.bility and high officials of state concurred, pet.i.tioned Charles Albert of Piedmont for the grant of a const.i.tution. Three days subsequently, at the conclusion of a series of secret sessions of his council, the sovereign announced that "of his free and entire will" he believed the time to have come for an extension to his subjects of a full-fledged representative system of government, and March 4 there was promulgated a remarkable instrument--the _Statuto fondamentale del Regno_, modelled on the amended French Charter of 1830--which, with absolutely no modification of text, survives to the present day as the const.i.tution of the Italian kingdom.[530] March 14 there was (p. 361) issued by the Pope an instrument known as the _Statuto fondamentale del Governo temporale_, by which were const.i.tuted two legislative bodies--a high council and a chamber of deputies--and a council of state, composed of ten members and twenty-four advisors, to which was committed the task of preparing measures. Bills pa.s.sed by the parliament were to be submitted to the Supreme Pontiff, who, after their discussion in consistory, should extend to them, or withhold from them, final approval. Before the year was far advanced the news of the overthrow of Louis Philippe, of the uprising in Germany, and of the fall of Metternich plunged the whole of Italy afresh in insurrection. Under the pressure of popular demand the Pope and the King of Naples sent troops to aid the northern states in the liberation of the peninsula from Austrian despotism, and for a time, under the leaders.h.i.+p of the Piedmontese monarch, Charles Albert, all Italy seemed united in a broadly nationalistic movement. July 10 a new and extremely liberal const.i.tution was adopted by a const.i.tuent a.s.sembly in Naples, and, February 9, 1849, following a breach between the Pope and the Roman parliament, the temporal power of the papacy was once more swept away and Rome, under an appropriate const.i.tution, was proclaimed a republic.[531]

[Footnote 530: The nature of the governmental system provided in this instrument will be explained at length in the succeeding chapter.]

[Footnote 531: G. Garavani, La cost.i.tuzione della repubblica romana nel 1798 e nel 1849 (Fermo, 1910).]

*396. The Reaction.*--The reaction, however, was swift and seemingly all but complete. At the earliest possible moment the king of Naples withdrew from the war, revoked the const.i.tution which he had granted, and put the forces of liberalism to rout. With the a.s.sistance of France, Austria, and Naples, the Pope extinguished the Roman republic and re-established in all of its vigor the temporal power. By Austrian arms one after another of the insurrectionary states in the north and center was crushed, and Austrian influence in that quarter rose to its former degree of ascendancy. Const.i.tutionalism gave place to absolutism, and the liberals, disheartened and disunited, were everywhere driven to cover. Only in Piedmont, whose sovereign, after the bitter defeat at Novara, had abdicated in favor of his son, Victor Emmanuel II. (March 23, 1849), was there left any semblance of political independence or civil liberty.[532]

[Footnote 532: Elaborate accounts of the revolution of 1848 in Italy are contained in King, History of Italian Unity, I., Chaps. 9-19, and Thayer, Dawn of Italian Independence, II., Bks. 4-5. A good brief account is Cambridge Modern History, XI., Chap. 4 (bibliography, pp. 908-913). A suggestive sketch is Fisher, Republican Tradition in Europe, Chap. 9.]

III. THE ACHIEVEMENT OF UNIFICATION (p. 362)

*397. The Leaders.h.i.+p of Piedmont.*--To all inducements to abrogate the const.i.tution which his father had granted Victor Emmanuel continued deaf, and the logic of the situation began to point unmistakably to Piedmont as the hope of the patriotic cause. After 1848 the building of the Italian nation becomes, indeed, essentially the story of Piedmontese organization, leaders.h.i.+p, conquest, and expansion. Victor Emmanuel, honest and liberal-minded, was not a statesman of the first rank, but he had the wisdom to discern and to rely upon the statesmans.h.i.+p of one of the most remarkable of ministers in the history of modern Europe, Count Cavour. When, in 1850, Cavour entered the Piedmontese ministry he was known already as an ardent advocate of both const.i.tutionalism and national unification, and after, in 1852, he a.s.sumed the post of premier he was allowed virtually a free hand in the prosecution of policies designed to contribute to a realization of these ends. The original purpose of the king and of his minister was to bring about the exclusion of Austrian influence from Italy and to organize the various states of the peninsula into a confederacy under the nominal leaders.h.i.+p of the Pope, but under the real supremacy of the sovereign of Piedmont. Ultimately the plan was so modified as to contemplate nothing short of a unification of the entire country under the control of a centralized, national, temporal government.

*398. The Annexations of 1859-1860.*--In 1855 Cavour signed an offensive and defensive alliance with France, and in 1859 Piedmont, with the connivance of her ally, precipitated war with Austria. According to an understanding arrived at by Cavour and the Emperor Napoleon III. at Plombieres (June 20, 1858) Austria was to be expelled absolutely from Italian soil; Lombardo-Venetia, the smaller duchies of the north, the papal Legations, and perhaps the Marches, were to be annexed to Piedmont, the whole to comprise a kingdom of Upper Italy; Umbria and Tuscany were to be erected into a kingdom of Central Italy; the Pope was to retain Rome and Ferdinand Naples; and the four states thus const.i.tuted were to be formed into an Italian confederation. In the contest which ensued the Austrians were roundly defeated, but their only immediate loss was the ancient duchy of Lombardy. Despite Napoleon's boast that he would free Italy to the Adriatic, Venetia was retained yet seven years by the Hapsburgs. Under the terms of the treaty of Zurich (November 10), in which were ratified the preliminaries of Villafranca (July 11), Lombardy was annexed to Piedmont. Years (p. 363) before (June 8, 1848) a Lombard plebiscite upon the question of such annexation had brought out an affirmative vote of 561,002 to 681.[533]