CHAPTER XVI

GREGORY XVI

 

As soon as the eyes of Pius VIII were closed, the Roman revolutionaries began to stir, hoping that the period of change from one pope to another would be favorable for the execution of their plans. The advocate, Giuseppe Cannonieri, from Modena, in conjunction with certain Italians and Corsicans, attempted to set up a revolutionary movement, the ultimate aim of which seems to have been the establishment of an Italian monarchy under Jerome Bonaparte, son of the King of Westphalia, who was then eleven years old. On the night before 10th December the conspirators were to assemble in front of the Vatican in order to force their way to a depôt of arms; and when the revolutionary troop had first been armed, the Castle of Sant' Angelo was to be occupied, the bank of San Spirito to be looted, the prisons to be opened, and several well-known men to be taken into custody as hostages. By means of the money they had seized, they expected to induce the inhabitants of Rome to participate in the revolt, so that a popular assembly might be gathered on the Capitol, and the little Bonaparte proclaimed as King of Italy. The Governor of Rome, however, obtained news of the conspiracy, and the whole project came to nothing. Some of the conspirators were imprisoned; others had to fly. The boy for whom they had intended the Italian crown was amongst those who were imprisoned, but on the request of the Russian ambassador he was immediately released.

The Conclave which met amidst these troubled circumstances must be looked upon as a continuation of the Conclave of 1829. During the reign of Pius VIII no great or important changes had taken place in the Sacred College. Two of the cardinals nominated by Pius VIII, the Frenchman, Rohan-Chabot, and the Englishman, Weld, both widowers, for the very reason that they were foreigners could not have any expectations of the tiara, and only one of the three Italians to whom Pius had given the cardinal's bat, Nembrini, could be regarded as a candidate at a papal election.

Most of the forty-five cardinals, who on 14th December went to the Conclave in the Quirinal, gathered round the twoi old candidates for the papal dignity, Pacca and Di Gregorio. Albani was eager to enlist votes for Pacca; if this old man of eighty, who was now quite in his dotage, attained to the, triple crown, Albani might then hope to remain Secretary of State in spite of his eighty years, and thus continue to enjoy the sweets of power. Bernetti worked for Di Gregorio, who still had many friends, and he hoped to obtain the secretaryship if Di Gregorio became Pope, so that at the beginning the strife in the Conclave turned upon the question which of the two ambitious cardinals should be Secretary of State.

The Catholic powers seemed this time as if they would take up a neutral position. The Neapolitan government, which generally followed the lead of France, enjoined the Neapolitan ambassador at Rome to show the greatest reserve, and only to be careful to keep the Neapolitan Court informed of the proceedings in the Conclave. The instructions that were given to the Sardinian ambassador were of a similar purport; even in Sardinia they wished to allow the Conclave to go its own way without joining either Austria or the new government of France. The French ambassador, the Marquis de Latour-Maubourg, gave an assurance that his government also, faithful to the principle of non-intervention, would abstain from any interference in the business of the Conclave; but in reality the French representative brought with him a veto against Cardinal Macchi, who had been so intimately connected with Charles X that Louis Philippe could on no account see him ascend the papal throne. Spain too seemed as if she would be an inactive spectator at the coming election; but the Spanish ambassador, the Count Labrador, had received orders from the Queen, Maria Christina, to prevent the election of Cardinal Giustiniani. This cardinal, during his stay in Spain as nuncio, had attached himself so intimately to Don Carlos that Maria Christina had good reason to fear, lest as Pope he should place difficulties in the way of her daughter Isabella's pretension to the Spanish throne.

At the first ballot, the day after the opening of the Conclave, Pacca and Di Gregorio received eight votes each, and outside the Conclave it was expected that the fight would be between those two. The young Gioacchino Pecci was of opinion that Pacca would have the best chance, and that Di Gregorio's party would finally give their votes to him. On 28th December, however, the friends of Di Gregorio showed an inclination to vote for Giustiniani, to the dismay of Albani. At the morning ballot on 29th December, Pacca, Di regorio, and Giustiniani had& sixteen votes each, and it seemed probable that Giustiniani would obtain still more votes at the next ballot. Under these circumstances Albani considered it best to send one of his henchmen to the esteemed Cardinal Falsacappa, to induce him to take the lead in the intrigues that must no be carried on. But Falsacappa answered that he wished to keep in reserve, and that they must go to others whose influence was greater. Albani then addressed himself to Cardinal Marozzo, whose conclavist Dardano was, and after repeated discussions with him the aura of Cappellari began to be perceptible. On 4th January Dardano was already certain that the Conclave would end in Cappellari being elected.

ANTECEDENTS OF GREGORY XVI

Bartolommeo Alberto Cappellari was born on 18th September 1765 at Belluno, which at that time was in the domain of the republic of Venice. At the age of eighteen he joined the order of the Camaldulese monks, and under the name of Fra Mauro became a member of the monastery of S. Michele at Murano in one of the lagoons to the north of Venice, where the remains of Paolo Sarpi many years before were laid to rest. It was there that in 1786 he defended a thesis about the infallibility of the Pope in the presence of the Venetian Patriarch, and on account of the acuteness he then displayed, he became, after his ordination as priest, teacher in philosophy and theology at the college on the island of Murano. In 1790 Don Mauro became lector of his order, and the censorship of books about to be printed was entrusted to him. Five years afterwards he accompanied the procurator-general of his order to Rome, to take charge conjointly of the transactions betweeh the Camaldulese and the Holy See.

At Rome he lived first in the small, now demolished, convent which the Camaldulese possessed in the Piazza Venezia; but afterwards he moved to the great monastery of St Gregory on the Caelian Hill, which the disciples of Romuald had inherited from those of Benedict of Nurcia. In 1800 he became abbot-vicar; in 1805 abbot of the monastery. His lively mind, and profound knowledge both of theology and of the exact sciences, made him a welcome guest in Imperiali's bookshop at the Arco dei Carbognani, where the famous antiquary, Ennio Visconti, and other men of letters met to discuss learned questions. In 1799 he made his début with the book Il trionfo della S. Sede, in which he tried to refute the enemies of the Church by their own weapons, but this apology did not attract much attention. If we may dare to trust Crétineau-Joly, who was very intimate with Don Mauro, after he became Pope, the self-critical pontiff once said with a certain amount of humor to the author of the Histoire de la Vendée militaire: "As Pope I am your father, but in literature we are brothers. I too am a famous author. Do you know that I have written a splendid book, Il trionfo della Chiesa? At first nobody talked about it, not even my brethren in the convent.& But now that I am Pope, all are agreed thati it is a remarkable work".

When Napoleon broke with Pius VII, all the monastic orders were dissolved, and the Abbot of St Gregory's was obliged to leave the Caelian Hill. He found a refuge at Murano, where, in lay dress, together with a brother of his order, Don Placido Zurla, he taught children of noble Italian families. Afterwards he had to remove with the school to Padua, but in 1814 he was able to return to the convent on the Caelian Hill. In the years following he devoted himself again to quiet studies, and in his spare time he frequented the shop of the apothecary, Ricci, in the Forum of Trajan, which was the resort of men of learning, like Fea, Cancellieri, and Scarpellini; and into this circle he introduced his young friend, formerly a barber's apprentice, Gaetano Moroni, who afterwards became his chief confidant.

RISE OF MAURO CAPPELLARI

During the Restoration Don Mauro rose from abbot to be the procurator-general and the vicar-general of his order, and his fame was so great, that it attracted painful attention when Pius VII in 1823 appointed his brother in the order, Zurla, and not him, to be a cardinal. Two years later Leo XII repaired the fault of his predecessor by giving Don Mauro the cardinal's hat, at the same time that the Capucin Micara received it. The new Camaldulese cardinal was further promoted to be Prefect of the Propaganda, and as such Cappellari took part in several of the negotiations of that period about the Concordats.

It was thus a monastic man of letters, but by no means a monk unacquainted with the world, who at the beginning of 1831 appeared as the rival of Pacca, Di Gregorio, and Giustiniani for the tiara. In the preceding Conclave there had already been some talk of choosing him; now he seemed to be the one who could most easily unite the dissentient cardinals. Albani, however, continued for a time to work for Pacca, and Giustiniani had still an influential party around him. But when Giustiniani received twenty-four votes, the agent of Spain in the Conclave, Cardinal Mario y Catalan, attempted by persuasion to induce the partisans of the reactionary cardinal to vote for another, and as this was not successful, he caught at the veto. On 9th January, before the morning ballot, the Cardinal-Dean read a letter from the Spanish ambassador; it contained a solemn veto against the election of Giustiniani. As soon as the reading was ended, the excluded cardinal rose from his seat and said that he owed His Catholic Majesty thanks for a benefice, for the Grand Cross of the Order of the Conception, and much more, but above all because the King was now pleased to free him from a heavy burden which he had not sufficient strength to bear. Cardinal Giustiniani's gratitude was no doubt somewhat tempered. On 11th January the Neapolitan ambassador reported to his government that His Eminence, Cardinal Giustiniani, lay sick of a fever; and there are indications that it was not without a sigh that Giustiniani gave up the prospect of bearing the heavy burden of the Papacy.

As in former conclaves, it was far easier to push a candidate aside than to procure agreement, and even after the Spanish veto against Giustiniani, the parties remained just as sharply opposed to each other as before. Albani would not lose the prospect of keeping the Secretaryship of State, and he told the members of the opposition that if they would not comply with his wishes, they might be obliged to eat Easter eggs in the Conclave. His and Pacca's opponents assembled in Giustiniani's cell, and put a cross on the door as a sign that they wished to be undisturbed. After some discussion, they agreed that they would again begin to work for Di Gregorio, if Cappellari's election proved impracticable. On I2th January, Cappellari obtained twenty votes, and on 15th January as many as twenty-three. But the Albanisti and the Pacchisti were as immovable as ever, so that it seemed impossible to secure for the Camaldulese cardinal the necessary two-thirds of all the votes.

They then tried the usual expedient of proposing new candidates. Cardinal Micara succeeded with comparative ease in getting both Pacca and Cappellari to decline the votes of their colleagues, but Albani attempted in vain to arouse a feeling in favor of Macchi or Galeffi. The opposition were of opinion that he only proposed these two because he hoped to keep the secretaryship if either of them became Pope. Albani had issued a declaration which was also read outside the Conclave, to the effect that he had only worked so hard for Pacca's election because he was persuaded that his aged Eminence would make the most excellent of popes; the idea of securing for himself the Secretaryship of State had been so far from his thoughts that, on the contrary, he was only waiting for a favorable opportunity to retire with honor. Nobody believed him, and the new candidates met with only scant sympathy. Galeffi, in spite of popular favor, was quite impossible, and it was known that France would use the veto against Macchi if his name were seriously brought forward.

HIS ELECTION

The month of January passed without any agreement being reached, and the Romans began to be impatient; it seemed as if the approaching carnival might be spoiled by the irresolution of the cardinals. But in February things began to look brighter. The ambitious Secretary of State perceived that he must give up the hope of keeping his political position; but he wished this time again fare il Papa, and he and Giustiniani put their heads together. On the evening of 1st February, Cappellari got twenty-five votes; and on the next morning early, Albani went to Zurla to tell him that he would no longer oppose Cappellari's election. A courier from Modena had brought him a letter from Duke Francesco IV, in which that prince exhorted him, as his own and Austria's friend in the Conclave, to bring the widowhood of the Church to the speediest end possible, because the revolution was about to break out in Central Italy. A pope was badly needed who could invoke the intervention of the Viennese Court.

It was no doubt this letter which at last broke down the obstinacy of the old Secretary of State, and on 2nd February Mauro Cappellari was elected Pope. In honor of the founder of the Propaganda, Gregory XV, he assumed the name of Gregory XVI.

Not many persons were present when Cardinal Albani, according to Gioacchino Pecci, "a little nervous and with feigned indifference, announced from the Loggia of the Quirinal, the great joy (magnum gaudium) that the Roman Church had a new Pope". But the sound of cannon soon called the people together, and the new Pop had twice to bless the crowd who had flocked together. The rejoicing, however, was not great. Gioacchino Pecci confides to his brother that the Camaldulese cardinal, with his stern exterior, did not enjoy the favor of the people. But the diplomatists were satisfied. Metternich at once wrote to Count Lutzow that the Sacred College could not have made choice that was more agreeable to the Emperor. Although the Court of Vienna had refrained from expressing any wish whatever, the name Cappellari was at the bottom of all its hopes and wishes. Metternich then repudiated the insinuation that the reason why the Austrian government was so well pleased, was that the new Pope had been born an Austrian subject; he was well aware that a Pope, as temporal sovereign, ought first of all to consider his own subjects, and as prince of, the Church to be a father to all the faithful. He concluded by expressing his appreciation of the way in which Cardinal Albani, supported by his worthy colleague, Cardinal Gaysruck, had accomplished his delicate mission amid such difficult and trying circumstances. The Marquis de Latour-Maubourg was also satisfied. He informed his government that the new Pope had spoken of France and her King with the greatest kindness, and the French papers, especially the National and the Avenir, greeted the new Pope with much warmth of feeling.

ITALIAN REVOLUTION