NAPOLEON AND THE NEXT POPE.
WERE the consequences to Europe less disastrous, the quiescence of Napoleon in Danish affairs might be excused by politicians, for he has an even greater matter in hand. All accounts from Rome represent the Pontiff as drawing near his end, and the election of a new Pope must be to the Emperor a matter of the most urgent import. His first and most immediate object, the one which must be dearest to his intellectual pride as well as to his ambition, must be to compel the Conclave to elect a man who shall either take his directions from himself, be in effect his own nominee, or who, failing that, shall be ready to end the unendurable situation, and come to terms with Italy and civilization. The obstacles to such an election are inconceivably numerous, and in the first object the Emperor will, we believe, most certainly fail. The curious story which has been going about, of the design to promote the Abbate Bonaparte first to a cardinal's hat and then to the Papal chair, only proves how little the system of election by the Conclave is yet understood in England. No doubt such an experiment, if it were only possible, would be worth some risk. A Pope who would obey Napoleon in all things would be of course a new source of influence—would, in fact, make him almost a real Cmsar, representative of the highest religious as well as the highest military power, place in his hands the double sceptre which since Diocletian retired to Salonia no man has ever wielded over civilized men. The ruler of Turkey is caliph as well as Sultan, the Emperor of Russia Pontiff as well as Czar; but in the West absolutism has since the fall of Rome always been tempered by the indepen- dence of the organized spiritual power. The object which Charles V. failed to attain is, however, we belieu, beyond the grasp of Napoleon III. Even if he had at disposal a member of his own family who combined all the necessary qualifications, who was at once a Bonaparte, a priest, a cardinal, and under his own direction, he could scarcely ensure his ap- pointment to the chair. The mode of election has been elaborated through ages and by Roman Cardinals in order to defeat this very danger, and it is difficult even to imagine direct and successful coercion in favour of an indi- vidual known to all the world to be devoted to a particular Power. Austria, France, and Spain, each possess the right of depositing with their envoys one name which the Conclave must not choose, and unless the Emperor could bribe or frighten the Conclave into an unanimous elec- tion by acclaim—a mere impossibility—the Powers would be certain to have marked his name, and the election would be void.
The difficulties in the way even of securing the minor object, the election of a man who will depart from the non possunaus, are very great indeed. It seems to be imagined in England that the Emperor, being in possession of Rome, will be the real elector ; but this is a mere delusion. The number of cardinals eligible is greatly limited by the etiquette which has been maintained for nearly three hundred years, which it might cause a schism to break, and which confines the chair of St. Peter to a cardinal of Italian birth and culture. Ger- man ecclesiastics would hardly yield with patience to a French dictator, or Italian divines to a German Pope, or any race on the Continent to an Englishman or Hungarian. The old etiquette must be maintained, and the Emperor has therefore to find a man who is an Italian, who is not Italian enough to make him a foe, and who will not be from the first thrown out by the cer- tainty of a veto from one of the vetoing Powers. When he has found him he has to secure his election, and this may not be an easy task. No Conclave could to-day be bought head by head as Conclaves once were purchased. The cardinals number among them one or two utterly evil men, and many self-seeking men, and many more men who would if they could advance the cause of their creed and their personal weal as if the two were one ; but as a body they are little more liable to be bought than so many English Peers. There are
too many fanatics among them to begin with, and too many more dependent on courts which are not French. It remain either to persuade or to frighten, and neither is quite so easy as earnest Calvinists may imagine. A very considerable section of the entire body probably believe, just as Pio None believes, that compromise is morally evil, that the duty of a Pope, pressed by external force, is to oppose to external force an immoveable passive resistance, and on such men arguments have just the force of words. They listen, but never act. Then, as to coercion, it would seem, and to most Englishmen it does seem, as if the Emperor held in his hand a threat to which even cardinals must yield. He has only to declare that if a reactionary Pope is elected his troops will abandon Rome, and the Conclave is powerless ; but that view is superficial. If this threat were so valid, it could be used at present, and at present it has notoriously failed. The Pope whenever it is employed simply threatens to leave Rome, and though that is what Italy most desires, it is not in the least the object which the Emperor of the French has at heart. The cardinals know perfectly well that supposing the French withdrawn they could even then come to an arrange- ment with Italy, and see no reason to accept a course which were the Emperor's menaces all fulfilled would still be within their power. Indeed, they coidd do yet more, for if pushed too far the new Pope might obey the instinct of every Italian, pope or peasant, declare the Peninsula hap- pily relieved of the influence of the barbarian, and build the Italian State to a height infinitely acceptable perhaps to freemen, but not in the least among the objects of the present ruler of France. He does not want at all events a Pope who shall reconcile himself with Italy, and remain the foe of France. What he desires is a Pope who will sub- mit to a " transaction " with Italy, yet in submitting neither secure independence nor a servitude under his own country- men, but yield his most cherished prerogatives in order that he may be more even than at present subject to coercion from France. It may be possible of course to find an Italian Car- dinal who shall be so little of a priest and so much of a Frenchman, for France has found him before, but to be cer- tain of such a man, to keep Austria and Spain blind to his leanings, and then to force him on two-thirds of a bitterly suspicious Conclave, this is a task which may tax the astute- ness even of Napoleon III., of the monarch who, be it remembered, never yet played that game with an Italian without carrying out in the end his rivals' most hearty hope. The man whom Cavour defeated is scarcely the man certain to defeat or evade a Roman Camarilla.
We write upon the presumption that now, as heretofore, the Napoleonic idea however wide or however plausible is still an idea born of a selfish wish. Of course if the Emperor of the French has always stated his real belief, if he at heart desires to see the Papacy reconciled with Italy and civiliza- tion, if he has no arriere pensie, no wish to hold the throat of Italy in his grasp, his influence over the election will be direct and immense. If his object is that of every Catholic Liberal, to secure a Pope who shall resign willingly the tem- poral power, and without flight or pretence of compulsion live on at Rome with the state of a sovereign but none of the responsibilities of a king, the centre of the great hierarchy, the spiritual ruler of the whole Catholic world, friendly as an Italian to Italy, and as a French nominee to France, but beyond compulsion as completely as human thought is beyond coercion, then indeed he is master of the situation. He has only to signify to the Conclave that the Pope must be one willing to come to terms with Italy or he will withdraw from Rome, and they must obey or fly, thus in either case securing the object he avows. If they obey, the Pope will shake off the temporal power ; if they fly, he will simply abandon it, remaining in either case the spiritual chief of the Catholic world. In presence of such a choice, spiritual power in Italy or spiritual power in exile, no Italian Pontiff is likely to hesitate long, and the dream of the noblest Catholics of this generation, the transmutation of the Papacy into a purely spiritual power, would at last be realized. But what proof have we as yet in any of the Emperor's acts that he seeks so noble an end, or that seeking it he can be secure of his sub- jects' support ? If he does seek it, and is secure, why does he not even now, by calmly withdrawing his troops, reduce the Papacy to the alternative to which we are told the new Pope will have to submit? That the death of Pius IX. will be the signal for change at Rome we should be the last to deny, for in every despotism a change of persons is of the last importance, but that Louis Napoleon will- dictate the kind or extent of that change still remains to be seen.
Previous page
