monopolized— and abused— the platform. For my part, I
only raised the question on July 13, 1862, after Mazzini's
desperate retreat; I revisited it on September 7, following
Garibaldi's defeat; and I renew my appeal now, as the
Rattazzi ministry yields to the Farini ministry, tasked by
Parliament's majority to atone for your unity with
federalism. Surely, this is the moment—if ever there was
one—to judge what has been done. Your policy lies in
irreparable ruin; if you love Italy and liberty, your only
recourse is to return to common sense and change course.
This is the advice I dared to give, and you brand me a
democrat apostate. Oh! You are Machiavelli's synagogue;
you pursue tyranny, and your maxim is *Per fas et nefas*. For
three years, your unity has brought Italy to despair— yet
you conveniently blame federalism. Politicians of
nothingness, begone!
Chapter 5: Launching the Campaign: The
Federation Suppressed

On both sides of the Alps, democracy took Napoleon
III at his word when he declared France was waging war
for an "idea" — that this idea was Italy's independence, and
that our troops would stop only at the Adriatic. The
principle of "nationalities," as it's called, was thus
established — or so interpreters claimed — in the war
declaration.

Nationalities! What is this political element? Has it
been defined, analyzed? Has its role and importance been
determined? No: no one in unitary democracy knows a
thing about it, and they might well hear of it from me for
the first time. No matter: "Nationalities," they insist, "are
always the Revolution."

Very well. It's not my intention to criticize—not even
slightly—the more or less exaggerated hopes raised by
the French army's descent into Italy. Everyone knows how
war reshapes resolutions; it would have been wise to
account for this—I won't harp on their lack of restraint. As
a federalist, I won't quibble over anyone's independence.
My observations aim elsewhere.

Nationality is not the same as unity: one doesn't
necessarily imply the other. They are distinct notions that
often exclude rather than complement each other. What
constitutes Swiss nationality, for example—what gives it
originality and character—isn't language (three are
spoken there), nor race (there are as many races as languages), but cantonal independence²¹. Now, Italy no less than Switzerland seems carved by nature for federation. Why, then, raise the question of unity even before the campaign began? Why extend the expedition's

²¹ Article 109 of the Swiss Federal Constitution states: "The three principal languages spoken in Switzerland - German, French and Italian - are national languages of the Confederation." This article, dictated by necessity and plain common sense, is one of the most remarkable I have encountered in any constitution; it admirably counters the nationalist fantasies of our time. The framers of Switzerland's constitution could not have better demonstrated that in their eyes nationality is not purely a physiological and geographical matter - it is also, and more importantly, a legal and moral one.

This is not how things are understood in unitary states: there you find neither the same respect for languages nor the same sense of nationality. In the Kingdom of the Netherlands, established in 1814 and lasting until 1830 under King William (otherwise an excellent ruler), the French language was banned in the interest of unity, denied national status. Since the 1830 revolution and Belgium's separation under King Leopold, it is now Flemish (essentially the same as Dutch) that is treated as foreign, even hostile, despite being spoken by two-thirds of Belgium's population. I have heard respectable Flemish citizens complain about lacking notaries and magistrates who understand their language, openly accusing the government of ill will. A Flemish maid sent to the post office to mail or collect a letter could find no one to speak to. "Learn French," the clerk would abruptly tell her. Parisian men of letters might observe that the disappearance of Flemish would be no great loss to human culture; some even push their love of unity to the point of dreaming of a universal language. In any case, this is not liberty, not nationality, not right.
original, clearly defined goal? Was there necessity,
timeliness? This demands scrutiny.

When I invoked— like others before me— Italy's
geographic and historical traits in favor of federation, I
was told these were exhausted clichés, fatalisms that an
intelligent, free nation, acting in its full power and greatest
interest, must overcome. They claimed the theory
explaining politics and history through soil and climate
was false, even immoral; I was nearly branded a
materialist for seeing in the Peninsula's shape a federal
condition—which, to me, means a pledge of liberty.

This peculiar argument revealed something sad: ideas
exist in my opponents' minds as a chaotic swarm; their
intellect doesn't organize them. Hence their incoherent
views and that ineffable arbitrariness guiding their
politics.

The state's supreme goal is liberty— collective and
individual.

But liberty isn't conjured from nothing; it isn't
achieved in one leap. It stems not just from the subject's
energy, but from the more or less favorable conditions
surrounding them; it's the endpoint of oscillations,
advances and retreats whose sum forms social evolution,
culminating in the federal pact—the republic.

Among influences speeding or delaying liberty's
creation, the most elemental and decisive is that of soil and
climate. Soil first molds the race; race and soil together
then shape genius, sparking and directing faculties for art,
legislation, literature, industry; all this, finally, makes
aggregations more or less feasible. Hence systems of
institutions, laws, customs; hence traditions—all that
forms peoples' life, individuality, and morality. True,
reason remains free amid these fatalistic influences—but
if its glory is mastering fatality, its power stops short of
destroying it. It guides movement, provided it weighs
forces' nature and respects their laws.

So when I appealed to geography and history
regarding Italian unity, it wasn't to quibble over fatality's
accidents. I had in mind an organic whole—Italy herself,
in body, soul, spirit, life, her entire being—which, shaped
for federation as birds for air and fish for water, protested
in my mind against centralization.

What I meant to say is this: Italy is federal by the very
constitution of its territory, by the diversity of its people,
by its genius, by its customs, by its history—it is federal in
its entire being and for all eternity. You speak of
nationality—but in Italy, as in Switzerland, nationality is
synonymous with federation. It is through federation that
Italian nationality asserts and secures itself; through
federation that you will multiply its freedoms with each
independent state it forms; whereas with unity, you will
impose upon it a fatalism that will suffocate it.

So why, I ask again, this artificial unity—rooted only
in Jacobin fantasy and Piedmontese ambition—whose
first and most lamentable effect has been to shackle Italian
thought for four years to this insoluble problem:
*Reconciling political unity with administrative decentralization*<fnref n="22" />?

At the very least, did exceptional circumstances
justify what the general physiology of states would seem
to forbid? Was Italy facing mortal danger, a matter of
public salvation? Here, the party's cunning rises to the
level of its philosophy.

Consider that the end of Austrian influence in the
peninsula would inevitably bring a regime change across
Italy: the dukes, the King of Naples, even the Pope would
be forced to grant constitutions to their peoples. For an
intelligent, patriotic democracy, the task was to dominate
them all by steering reforms toward general liberty. But

<footnote n="22">²² See on this subject Municipalism and Italian Unitarianism by M. Béchard, a 45-page pamphlet in which the author describes Italian jurists' attempts to reconcile municipal and provincial franchises (which they all value) with monarchical centralization (whose dogma they have embraced). After our discussion of Italy's geographical and ethnographic constitution and our exposition of the federative principle, the reader will conclude that the problem currently obsessing these ultramontane lawyers is like perpetual motion— if not worse. Given its geographical and physiological constitution, Italy irresistibly tends toward federal liberties. To this imperative tendency — rooted in its very nature and now further aligned with modern principles and future developments— is artificially substituted another tendency, invented by demagogic spirit in agreement with princely ambition, whose result must be the absorption of all liberty. Ferrari once told the Turin Parliament: "Were all Italy to unite in assuring me it is unitary, I would reply that it is mistaken." He was absolutely right.</footnote>
this was not done. Cavour conceived the plan to hijack the movement for the House of Savoy—a scheme perfectly served by the unitary democrats. Independence was barely won when they began making Italy pay for it, submerged in Piedmont's baptismal font.

I have no concern for the dynastic interests entangled in this expedition. Attacked by so-called liberals, democrats, and republicans, I must defend myself from the standpoint of republicanism, democracy, and liberty. I maintain that the correct policy was one rejecting Piedmontese absorption and placing princes, kings, and the Papacy in the hands of liberals: federalism. The small Italian monarchies now faced twin perils: absorption by one among them, or subordination to a federal authority. To the principle of parliamentary representation and separation of powers emerging from new constitutions, had you added a federative bond, what would remain of the old absolutism? Nothing. Meanwhile, liberty would gain all that the old sovereignies lost—for federation's very effect is to amplify citizens' freedom in each state through the pact's guarantees. The duty of democracy's leaders—Garibaldi and Mazzini foremost—was thus to oppose Cavour's ideas, leaning if necessary on the French Emperor. There was no need to immediately depose dynasties that couldn't all be evicted at once, but could be controlled through rivalry and the new legal order.

This was the sound policy demanded in early 1859—aligned with the masses' interest and common sense. Once Piedmont's designs were exposed, democracy would have found allies in Napoleon III (who couldn't refuse), the
King of Naples, the Pope, and even the dukes—all compelled, to keep their crowns after signing new pacts with their subjects, to take refuge in confederation. Why did Garibaldi and Mazzini prefer their zigzagging unitary tactics to this straightforward, sure course? Strangely, it was the men bearing democracy's flag who shouldered the monarchical project— while the once-absolute princes now invoked rights and liberty. Thus Italian revolutionaries became monarchists, and princes federalists.

Certainly, if the Italian people's will is to surrender to Victor Emmanuel—or, what amounts to the same, to establish a unitary state with a president or dictator—I have no objection. I am even inclined to believe that, despite Emperor and Pope, Italy will eventually indulge this pastime. But then let no one speak of liberty or republics: by bidding farewell to its federal tradition, Italy declares itself *ipso facto* retrograde. Its principle henceforth matches that of the old Caesars—or worse, that of the bourgeois monarchy, centralizing and corrupt, where bureaucracy replaces communal union, and financial feudalism supplants agricultural and industrial federation.
Chapter 6: Villafranca: Contradictory Politics

Napoleon III had promised to drive Austria back to
the Adriatic—all evidence shows his intention was sincere.
What prevented him from keeping this promise? Why did
he stop after Solferino? Not all has been revealed, but
documents and facts indicate the true cause was the
looming specter of a unified Italy. Instead of reassuring the
French leader with federalist demonstrations that might
have encouraged him, every effort was made to
discourage him through alarming declarations that would
have tried the patience of any lesser man. I'll state the
matter plainly: rather than accept Italy's liberation to the
Adriatic under terms that would have made the peninsula
at least a federation of constitutional monarchies (until it
could become a federation of republics), they preferred to
send Italy's emancipator home; to cultivate England as
another ally; leave Venice under Austria's yoke; offend the
Catholic world by warring against the Holy See— only to
later accuse the French Emperor of inconsistency, hidden
resentment, and disappointed ambition. This was the
origin of the Villafranca treaty. Did those who provoked it
demonstrate wisdom? Was their tactic truly *opportune*?...

Yet by signing the Villafranca treaty and stipulating
an Italian confederation, Napoleon III still offered his
guarantee; he imposed his victorious mediation upon
Austria. This was democracy's chance to acknowledge its
mistake— a mistake that might still have been corrected.
But the tribunes' arrogance remained deaf to warnings.
Mazzini, who had initially held back, took it upon himself
to reject the terms in the people's name. He urged Victor
Emmanuel to seize all Italy, offering his support at this
price: "Dare, Sire," he wrote, "and Mazzini is yours!"...
Could anything better demonstrate that this so-called
Democracy cared only for unity— the essence of
monarchy—and that unity replaced all principles,
doctrine, law and morality in its eyes? That unity was its
entire politics? Thus republic and liberty were always
sacrificed to the House of Savoy in exchange for a
bourgeois system. And under what pretext? That until
unified, Italy would be incapable of survival, vulnerable to
Gaul and German alike.

Yet the army that triumphed at Solferino and Magenta,
the nation that declared itself Italy's sister, might
reasonably have been considered adequate guarantee—
and had this security been combined with liberal,
reparative policies, the Italian confederation's place in
Europe would have become irrevocable. Basic courtesy
alone should have prevented this insecure nationality
from showing such insulting distrust toward an ally who
asked only minor Alpine border adjustments as reward.
But this would have looked too much like a republic of
work and peace— Italian democracy had grander designs,
and was eager to show its ingratitude.

Some excuse this by saying the priority was expelling
the princes—the Pope and King of Naples preserved by
Villafranca—who, secretly allied with Austria, would
have turned the confederation against public liberties.

Here we recognize Jacobin tactics. When facing
revolution favorable to liberty and national sovereignty but contrary to despotic instincts, the Jacobin first casts doubt on the good faith of those with whom he might treat, disguising his own ill will by denouncing others'. "They won't agree," he says, "or if they do, they'll betray us." But how do you know? Who says these absolutist-born princes won't abandon their illusions when faced with the century's imperatives? And if they do agree, can't you see their acceptance—even if insincere—provides better security than their current expulsion would? Have you forgotten what it cost Louis XVI and Charles X to break their word? That the only royalty which doesn't return is that which through clumsiness or perjury is forced to abdicate? Why then trust Francis II, Pius IX, Leopold or Robert less than Victor Emmanuel? Why favor a prince whom Italian irony nicknames "the gentleman" seemingly in memory of his ancestors' long treachery? Have you democrats made some pact with Piedmontese good faith?

"With seven rulers— emperor, pope, kings and dukes— our plan," reply these king-devouring puritans with disdain, "was first to topple six, then easily dispatch the last."

I've seen orderly men, honest and timid bourgeois who fifteen years ago swooned at the innocent marches of March 17, April 16 and May 15, 1848, now smile at this pirate politics. So true is it that for three-quarters of mankind, the touchstone of good and evil lies not in conscience, but in ideology!
Perhaps the calculation would hold— and as a
republican I'd hold my tongue— if Italy, freed from
Austria and its princes (Victor Emmanuel included), were
to remain in *status quo*: seven separate states and
governments. We'd then have full federation. But this is
precisely what our regicide-faced tribunes reject, obsessed
with political unity. Their contradictory ideal— unnoticed
by them— is to wed Democracy with unity. Their proposal?
First eliminate six claimants, much as Turkey secures the
crown for the eldest son by slaughtering his brothers.
"Then," they add, "the republic would easily finish Victor
Emmanuel." But I ask: who guarantees this plot's success?
Clearly, a monarchy gaining power while losing rivals has
nothing to fear from conspirators. A young eagle isn't
felled like seven nightingales. Had Italian democracy
aimed precisely to use six exiled princes as
stepping-stones for Victor Emmanuel, could it have acted
differently? Unity remains unfinished— Victor Emmanuel
rules barely three-quarters of Italy, yet already overpowers
the democrats. What can Garibaldi and Mazzini do now?...
Suppose this well-laid plan succeeded— what would
liberty gain? Would unity—that is, monarchy, empire—
be less achieved, the republic less excluded?... The truth is,
neo-Jacobins in 1863 care no more for the republic (which
they still proscribe as federalism) than their forebears did
in 1793. Their desires vary: some want a seesawing
centralized monarchy à la Sieyès and Guizot; others a
praetorian empire reviving Caesar and Napoleon; one
craves dictatorship, another a caliphate. For we mustn't
forget the scenario where, the beast's seventh head cut off,
monarchy— bereft of dynasts— becomes prey for the
most popular or, as Danton said, the most villainous. Thus
demands unity: "The king is dead, long live the king!"
Chapter 7: The Papacy and Religious Sects

Shall I repeat what I've written elsewhere about the Papacy and temporal power—that this question, having become a stumbling block in the unitary system, doesn't even exist under federalism?

Let us establish a principle. Regenerated Italy will presumably adopt freedom of worship—with clergy naturally subject to state laws. "A free Church in a free State" is a maxim accepted by unitarists; Mazzini, in his fiercest denunciations of the Papacy, never proposed banning Christianity. I therefore proceed from the acknowledged premise of religious freedom. However the Italian clergy's sustenance is arranged—whether by concordat or voluntary contributions, state salaries or property endowments—they'll enjoy civil and political rights like all citizens. Only mass Italian conversion to deism or atheism could threaten the Church's position—a scenario as unlikely in Italy as in France.

This established, I maintain that by recognizing the Church's legal existence and subsidizing it, the State necessarily grants it a place—large or small—in governance. History shows no political-religious society where government and priesthood lack intimate relations as organs of one body. Try as you might, you cannot sharply divide religion from government any more than politics from political economy. The spiritual will always infiltrate the temporal, and vice versa—their connection is
as inevitable as that between Liberty and Authority<fnref n="23" />. In
medieval times, Church-State relations were governed by
Charlemagne's pact, distinguishing but not isolating the
two powers, making them equals. Today this relationship
manifests differently— more intimately and dangerously.

Once religious freedom becomes state law and
Church-State relations are acknowledged, every minister
of religion— every Catholic priest, bishop, or monk— can,
as both citizen and cleric, be elected representative,
appointed senator (as in France since 1848), or even
become president (as in ancient Jewish and Muslim states),
with no legal incompatibility. What! You have laws
permitting priests to hold government office, become
ministers like Granvelle, Richelieu, or Frayssinous,
senators like Gousset or Morlot, representatives or
academicians like Lacordaire— yet you’re surprised that
in priest-ridden Italy, where theocracy predates Christ by
fifteen centuries, a bishop— the chief bishop— also rules
four million faithful? First abolish your Concordat! First
exclude priests— no, all professing Christians— from
elections and public office! First dare to outlaw religion
itself! Then you may demand the Pope’s deposition for
incompatibility. For mark my words: should the clergy

<footnote n="23">23 When Auguste Comte organized his society, he found his system lacked religion. Unwilling to return to Christianity, he transformed his *Positive Philosophy* into *Positive Religion*, becoming pontiff himself— even borrowing the Marian cult under the apocalyptic title *The Woman*, "source of all grace" (*Mater divina gratiae*!). His positivist disciples protested easily—but what replaced this recognized necessary faculty, religion?</footnote>
campaign with even modest reformist gestures, they'll soon win more elections than democrats and government combined. They'll become democracy's very mouthpiece. And beware— deprive them of a Pope in Rome, and universal suffrage may give you one in Paris. Miracles happen.

The evangelical precept or counsel regarding the separation of powers is often cited. This belongs to the realm of theology, concerns the clergy exclusively, and falls outside the domain of Public Law. I am astonished that men who claim to be raised on the principles of '89—orators of the Revolution – should have plunged into such controversy. In the Revolutionary system, the law stands above faith, which has led some to bluntly declare it atheistic. If, therefore, a priest, by the suffrage of his fellow citizens, is invested with a political role, entrusted with a parliamentary or ministerial mandate, it will not be– if you will– directly and exclusively as a priest, but rather, I repeat, simultaneously as both citizen and priest. In a state where the utility of religion is acknowledged and freedom of worship is guaranteed, the priesthood becomes, no more and no less than the status of jurist, scholar, merchant, or industrialist, a qualification for political office. The same applies should the prince of priests– in other words, the Pope– be elected President of the republic or head of the state in which he resides. Every individual remains free, in their private conscience, to attribute such an election to the breath of the Holy Spirit– *Placuit Spiritui sancto et nobis*. Before civil law, however, it derives from revolutionary right, which has declared all men equal before the law, eligible for all offices, and sovereign judges
of the religion they choose to follow. If, thereafter, some
scrupulous theologian comes forth to condemn this
merging of temporal and spiritual authority, insisting it
violates Christ's law- what concern is this seminary
dispute to democracy? Are we, or are we not, the heirs of
'89?

Observe that to support this argument, I need not
resort to federative law— far more liberal, beyond
comparison, than unitary law. It suffices for me to stand
on the ground of constitutional monarchy, which is that of
the one and indivisible republic; on the ground of Cavour
and the entire Franco-Italian democracy, ground cleared,
planted, and watered by Voltaire, Rousseau, Mirabeau,
Robespierre, Talleyrand, and all our constitution-makers.
This temporal power of the Holy See, which scandalizes
our free-thinkers, against which arguments are drawn
from Saint Matthew, Saint Paul, Saint Thomas, and
others— well, it could, if necessary, be justified by
philosophical tolerance, barely won after a century of
debate; it could be justified by all our declarations of rights,
inspired by the purest spirit of incredulity; it could, I say,
be justified by the very atheism of the law. Thus far, the
clergy has not availed itself of the right secured to every
ecclesiastic by the legislation of '89— but why? Because
since '89, the Church's situation, its relations with the State,
and its social influence have been regulated differently, by
the Concordat. But abolish the Concordat, suppress the
ecclesiastical budget, and like Saint Paul making tents to
earn his living, the priest will turn to commerce, industry,
education, even politics— and political economy in
competition with all citizens— and you will see quite
another spectacle.

As for me, if asked how I propose to escape this terrifying vicious circle—which shows us, among the eventualities of the future and the suggestions of a society turned mystical through sheer materialism, a universal caliphate emerging from universal suffrage—I declare, even if branded as monomaniacal, that I see no way out but federation.

Let us first observe that to reason soundly on this matter as on any other, we must begin by generalizing the question. Democracy sees in the Roman question only Rome and the Papacy: Rome, which it covets to complete Italian unity; and the Papacy, whose spiritual authority it secretly envies no less than its temporal power. In this question of Rome and the Holy See, we must consider all churches, all synagogues, all mystical sects, all cults and all temples of the world in their relation to public law and the morality of nations. Any other approach, being particular, is thereby partial. With this proviso—extending to all religious beliefs what we have to say about the Roman Church—we may now address the papal question.

The Church, independent of its dogma, is the mother of all authority and unity. It is through this unity that it has become, so to speak, the capital of mysticism. No religious society can compare to it in this regard. Its motto is: One God, one faith, one baptism—*Unus Dominus, una fides, unum baptisma*; its governing maxim is excommunication or the cutting off of rebels: "Let him
who does not heed the Church be regarded by you as a
heathen and a publican"— *Qui non audierit Ecclesiam, sit
vobis sicut ethnicus et publicanus*. It is from the Church that
emperors and kings derive their politics of unity and their
prestige; it is from its splendor that they borrow their
majesty. The Jacobins' "One and Indivisible Republic" and
Mazzini's *Dio e popolo* are equally but plagiarism of its
doctrine. Thus, outside its quarrels, the modern
democracy is to the Church what the emperors since
Constantine and Charlemagne were— full of deference
and submission. Robespierre, even in his vengeful days,
always had a soft spot for priests, and in 1848, we saw
how eagerly the Republic welcomed them into its fold.
Should the Church, having been Bonapartist or legitimist,
declare itself democratic tomorrow, it risks little, and
reconciliation will soon be achieved. In Paris since 1830,
there has been a faction within democracy that views the
French Revolution as a corollary of the Gospel; if this
faction is consistent, it must consider democracy
synonymous with the Church. In every country where it
has spread, the Church possesses, by precedence of
prerogative, the strength that unity confers upon
government. This is why, in past centuries, whenever
discord arose between the spiritual and temporal powers,
the Church so often reclaimed full temporal authority for
itself— excommunicating princes, releasing peoples from
their oaths of allegiance, and effecting revolutions in
government. As in the Middle Ages, such events could
 recur— perhaps within a few generations, if, as moral
corruption continues unchecked and politics increasingly
veers toward despotism through the exaggeration of unity
and authority, the Church alone remains as the moral and
moderating authority. We might yet witness this, should
the current trajectory persist.

Federation, by contrast, is liberty par excellence—
plurality, division, self-government. Its maxim is Right,
not granted by the Church as heaven's interpreter or
defined by the prince as divinity's representative, but
determined by free contract. In this system, law, right, and
justice are the arbitral statute of wills—a statute superior
to all authority and belief, to all Church and religion, to all
unity, since authority and faith, religion and Church, being
matters of individual conscience, stand below the pact
expressing universal consent, the highest human authority.
In federation, authority is subordinate, liberty
preponderant; the political order is an inverted hierarchy
where the greatest share of counsel, action, wealth, and
power remains with the confederated multitude, never
passing to a central authority.

Now suppose an extraordinary development of
religious sentiment in the confederation, leading to
exaggerated claims by the clergy and a clash between
temporal and spiritual orders. The clergy, enjoying civil
and political rights like all citizens, might gain local
administrative influence; a bishop might even become a
canton's legislative president. Yet the Church could never
master the Confederation; universal suffrage would never
turn a federative republic into a papal state. With clergy
naturally limited in the electorate and the principle of
authority wholly subordinate, political and economic—
that is, temporal, anti-clerical—interests would always
prevail over ecclesiastical ones in any conflict.
But here's the decisive point. The very idea of a pact
between individuals, towns, cantons, or states differing in
religion as in language and industry implies that religion
isn't necessary to morality; that the Gospel hasn't
pronounced the last word on justice; that the law of
charity is incomplete, and justice based on worship
inexact— what one jurist called "the atheism of law." Thus
we must foresee when, for high public morality (not high
policing as in 1793), the abolition of cults sunk in
debauchery and extravagance might be decreed, the
Church outlawed, its ministers barred from public office,
and the pure religion of Justice inaugurated without
symbolism or idols. We're not at such extremes yet, but
history justifies all foresight, and politics in its
constitutions, like justice in its rulings, makes no exception
for creeds or persons. The Church hasn't forgotten the
Gnostics; Rome saw the praetorian mob crown
Heliogabalus and Julian after Trajan and Marcus Aurelius.
After some democratic or social orgy, we might have to
resume the persecutors' work on new grounds. The
"genius of religions" isn't dead— ask Mr. Erdan, author of
*Mystical France*. We must therefore stand guard—not just
against the Roman Papacy, which refuses to reform or
relinquish power, but against the far graver and equally
foreseeable resurgence of all fanaticisms, superstitions,
and mysticisms uniting across the earth.

Against this cataclysm of consciences, I repeat, I know
no remedy but the division of masses—not merely by
states, communes, and corporations, but by churches,
synagogues, consistories, sects, and schools. Here unity,
far from averting danger, would aggravate it. The frenzy
of masses— today mad with impiety, tomorrow drunk on
superstition— grows with collective power. But combine
political federation with industrial federation; add to these
the federation of ideas, and you can resist all frenzies.
Federation is the breakwater against popular storms. What
could be simpler, for instance, than restraining papal
absolutism through the Pope's own subjects— not handed
over to the Piedmontese as demanded, but restored to
autonomy by federative constitution, their rights protected
by the Confederation's full force? Make this pact of free
union— it's not too late— and not only will the Papacy,
half-secularized, cease troubling you, but you'll control the
entire Church, revolutionized at its head and forced to
march with liberty, while avoiding Catholic universal
opposition.

In 1846, when Jesuit intrigues drove seven Swiss cantons to secede and form the *Sonderbund*, the other fifteen declared Jesuit claims and the resulting schism incompatible with the federal pact and the Republic's existence. The *Sonderbund* was defeated, the Jesuits expelled. Victorious Switzerland didn't abuse its triumph to impose religious formulas or replace federation with unity. It merely added a constitutional article requiring cantons to amend their laws only toward greater liberty, and readmitted the clerical rebels<fnref n="24" />.

<footnote n="24">²⁴ Don't imagine Jesuits alone can disrupt society. Last year (1862), Vaud Canton's government fell from liberals to Methodist fanatics (*Mômiers*)— who, in bigotry, aristocratic spirit, and revolutionary hostility, resemble Paris' and Brussels' *clerical party*. By universal</footnote>
The Swiss example is instructive. As I said, we may someday face not just a religious order's revolt, but an uprising of all Catholicism or even Christianity. Then, unquestionably, society would have the right to oppose this new *Sonderbund* with its federative justice, declaring insurgent churches—whatever their stripe—guilty of assault on public morality and liberty, and punishing their propagandists. But that time isn't yet—nor do unitarists anticipate it. Their concern isn't mystical conflagrations. Protesting deepest respect for Christ, they seek only to strip the Pope's crown for Victor Emmanuel, again violating the federative principle that is Italy's very nationality.

Had Villafranca's plan—though an Emperor proposed it—been supported, one of two outcomes was inevitable: 1. The stronger principle—supernaturalism or rationalism—would have absorbed the other: Revolution prevailing over Church, or Church smothering Revolution;

suffrage's recurring aberration, extreme democrats' votes secured their victory. But what can they do? Be more upright, thrifty, devoted to liberty and mass welfare than their predecessors? Only thus legitimizing their rule—in which case they merely continue liberal work. Attempt economic revolution? In so small a state, insignificant—it would require all twenty-two cantons' concurrence. Try religious reform? The Confederation watches—were they to renew the Sonderbund, their defeat is certain.

Religious agitation rages today—not just from Swiss Mômiers and Italy's Papacy, but in France, America, Russia—everywhere, through the most impure, extravagant creeds.
2. Or their compromise would have birthed an idea superior to at least one constituent, if not both—in any case, progress's friends would have rejoiced. Unitarists lack such aspirations. To Revolution they say, "I know you not" (*Nescio vos*); to Church they ever bend for blessings: give them St. Peter's patrimony for their kingdom, and they'll kiss the Pope's slipper—indifferent equally to temporal-spiritual distinction, liberty, and nationality.
Chapter 8: Danger of Political and Commercial
Rivalry Between France and Italy Under the
Unitary System

It is a fundamental principle of benevolent contracts that a benefit received cannot become a means for the beneficiary to harm the benefactor— a maxim engraved in the conscience of nations, yet seemingly lost on modern democrats. Did not one of their writers accuse me of sycophancy toward the Emperor and treachery to our cause for calling Italian unitary politics "ungrateful"? Yet the Emperor here merely represents the French people.

Much has been said about Napoleon III's secret designs on Italy—that he hoped to gain the Iron Crown for himself, Tuscany for his cousin Prince Napoleon, Naples for Murat, and the title "King of Rome" for his son, with Solferino's retreat stemming from disappointed ambition. These rumors fueled suspicions against him, absolving Italy of gratitude. Some even argued that arming Italy against Austria wasn't enough—it must also be armed against its *magnanimous ally*. Thus, the title of "benefactor," newly earned by Napoleon III, became an added incentive for Italians to unify.

The secrets of the Plombières meeting remain unknown. I cannot speak to Cavour's verbal agreements with Napoleon III, let alone the Emperor's private plans. Frankly, such secrets matter little to true statesmanship. But one thing is certain: a liberated Italy, consolidated into a single political entity, would inevitably threaten French
imperial interests far more than Austria ever had. After
securing Italian independence, Napoleon III would have
to safeguard French preeminence.

As I've stated forcefully before: nothing—not even
patriotism—could make me sacrifice justice. Against my
country's interest, I would defend a foreign cause with my
vote and pen if it proved just and irreconcilable with ours.
Nations have the right to develop according to their
endowments—provided they respect others' rights. If
Italy's political and economic evolution must eclipse its
neighbor, so be it! Humanity cannot halt for any power's
sake. The Revolution will circle the globe—it isn't chained
to France. I only ask that ambition not be mistaken for
Providence's decree.

In this and following chapters, I aim to demonstrate:

1) That Napoleon III desired Italy's emancipation—but only under an Italian Confederation preserving French preeminence, given civilizational constraints and imperial monarchy's logic (still governing all states);

2) Setting aside preeminence (which no impartial writer should defend patriotically), that federation, as proposed by the French Emperor, would have served Italy better than unity.

Thus, unitary democrats in Italy and France committed a double fault: first by opposing the Emperor's prudent measures with ambitious, threatening schemes; then by depriving Italy of unity's benefits along with those
of political, economic, and social revolution.

I exaggerate neither Italy's potential (still so doubted
in many quarters) nor France's decline (chillingly detailed
by Raudot fifteen years ago). But as societies evolve
through historical cycles, with civilization's torch passing
from nation to nation, we must reasonably ask: What
consequences might the new kingdom's creation hold for
France, Italy, and Europe?

At this moment, France stands as a weary nation,
uncertain of its principles and seemingly doubtful of its
destiny. Italy, on the other hand, awakened from its long
slumber, displays all the inspiration and vigor of youth.
France longs for rest, peaceful reforms, moral renewal,
and revitalization of its spirit; Italy cares only to march
forward— regardless of conditions or systems. Should it
produce a few great men— a Richelieu, a Colbert, a
Condé— within a single generation it could become, as a
federated state, the wealthiest and happiest of republics;
or as a unitary state, it might join the ranks of great
empires, wielding formidable European influence—
though at the cost of domestic felicity. Of these two
divergent destinies— the first assured if chosen, the
second fraught with peril— Democracy has understood
only the latter. More eager for political glory and
governmental action than for mass welfare, it openly plans
to wield Italian centralization, once achieved, against all
comers.

Consider a map of Europe. Italy forms a
Mediterranean bridge stretching from the Alps to
Greece—the great highway from West to East. With a railway line extending from Genoa, Cuneo, or Geneva to Taranto, Italy first monopolizes transit for Western European travelers bound for Levantine ports, and soon—via the Suez Canal—for those heading to India, China, Japan, and Oceania. With steam and rail, Italy reclaims its historic role as Europe's hub: through it, Spain, Portugal, France, England, Belgium, Holland, the Rhineland, Prussia, Germany, Switzerland, and parts of Austria connect with Sicily, the Ionian Islands, Crete, Lepanto, Athens, the Archipelago, Constantinople, Odessa, the Black Sea, Smyrna, Cyprus, Rhodes, Acre, Alexandria, Suez, and the entire Far East.

This shift is already evident. Travelers from London, Paris, or Brussels bound for the Levant via Imperial Messageries no longer embark at Marseille—they take trains to Genoa, saving twenty-four hours of sailing. The same applies on return trips. Once the Turin-Naples-Taranto line is complete, embarkations will shift to these ports, sparing passengers sea fatigue and saving time. Under these conditions, no French traveler—whether from central France, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Bayonne, or Perpignan—heading to Egypt, Greece, or Asia Minor would choose Marseille. They'd prefer connecting to the Italian rail line via southern or Lyon routes, then Cette-Marseille-Toulon-Nice, saving 400 leagues (1,600 km) of sailing and four days at sea. France would lose even its traveler clientele.

As for goods transported along this route, French shipping might retain domestic shipments, but lose transit
trade for Russia, Belgium, and Germany— outcompeted
by Genoa and Trieste. Franche-Comté, Burgundy, Alsace,
Lorraine, and the North would be contested. Free trade
principles, courtesy of Anglo-unitarian Saint-Simonianism
in our public law, would demand nothing less.

Nor is this all. A liberated Italy will inevitably become,
like Austria and Germany, a manufacturing center. Raw
materials from India or America will naturally be
processed nearest consumption zones— costing France its
Danube, Serbia, Bulgaria, Moldavia-Wallachia, Rumelia,
and Greek markets, and severing Black Sea trade. This
stems not from anti-French sentiment, but from the
700–800 km transport difference, saving 70–80 francs per
metric ton at 10 centimes per km—a margin that has often
redirected commerce for lesser gains.

Under these circumstances, how could France— cut
off from major trade routes, crippled by free trade policies
undermining its shipping, and stripped of forests to fuel
railway construction— still aspire to maritime power?
What benefit will it reap from the Suez Canal, built almost
exclusively with French capital despite England's
opposition, which promises unparalleled prosperity for
Russia, Greece, the Danubian Principalities, Austria,
Turkey, and especially Italy? If successful, the Suez
passage will hasten Marseille's decline and Le Havre's
ruin, bringing France no advantages—the more it benefits
foreigners, the more it harms us. What weight do talk of
natural alliances, shared principles, or racial sympathies
carry against the reality of clashing interests?
The unitary faction seeks to exploit Italy's strategic position—not for Italian prosperity (which would be perfectly legitimate and unobjectionable), but to empower a new government, establishing either an imperial or constitutional monarchy that would humiliate France and perpetuate unitary rule.

Strategically, Italy's advantages over France are equally formidable. Those who preach the brotherhood of nations will argue that modern civilization abhors war, that moral progress favors disarmament, and that only peaceful industrial competition remains. But we've just seen what such industrial competition means for France, and how free trade threatens our prosperity. Beyond the hardships imposed on our manufacturers and shipowners, daily events prove that since 1789, war has remained the normal state of nations. If conflicts have diminished since Napoleon I's fall, the credit lies not with economic institutions or softened morals, but with costly standing armies maintaining our precarious balance of power.

With the risk of conflagration ever-present, Italy—as a central, first-rate power with vital stakes—cannot avoid taking sides. Which side will it choose? Undoubtedly its own interests, which, as I've shown, fundamentally oppose France's. Economically opposed to France, Italy inevitably becomes our political rival and antagonist—the one follows the other. Only imbecility or treason could deny this.

One final glance at the map: Nature itself, after granting Italy its maritime position, seems to have fortified
it specifically against France. Consider that Alpine bastion
stretching from Nice to Valais— against whom is this
immense fortress arrayed? Not England, Russia, Germany,
Austria, or even Switzerland. By its maritime and
continental position, Italy stands as friend to all nations
except one: France.

Five strategic routes could serve as invasion corridors
between France and Italy: the Geneva-Aosta Valley
passage via Great St Bernard Pass; the Mont Cenis railway;
the Montgenèvre Pass; the Cuneo railway; and the
Corniche road.

Concentrate a hundred thousand men in Turin, at the
center of the semicircle: these hundred thousand men,
capable of quickly and en masse moving to the point
under attack, are enough to guard all the passes.
Meanwhile, to overcome such a concentration of forces, as
in the siege of a fortress, an army three or four times larger
would be needed. Where would France find such an army,
being threatened in the north and east by England,
Belgium, and the Rhine? Suppose France were at war with
Italy alone; the situation would still not be equal: the
transalpine army could constantly resupply and renew
itself from the southern part of the Peninsula, while the
French army, repulsed after the first effort, demoralized
and weakened, would be unable to return to the attack.
Italy would renew against us, with increased ease and far
greater chances, the tactics used in 1796 by General
Bonaparte against the Austrian generals. Thus, while we
think we are protected by the Alps, we are in reality
dominated by them: it is enough to change the situation
by creating a single state on the other side of this immense
barrier, instead of the six that existed before. This is
precisely what French democracy, fraternizing with Italian
democracy, is calling for today, and what has recently been
attempted to achieve by the means that will be seen
shortly.

Surely, and I take pleasure in repeating it, if Italy had
no political existence outside of Germanic or Gallic
oppression, other than that of a unitary monarchy; if, to
enjoy its natural advantages, it had no other means than to
fire all its batteries at us, we would have to resign
ourselves. Our only chance of salvation would be to turn
ourselves into an Italian province, unless we were strong
enough to make Italy itself an annex of the Empire. In
either case, Democracy would have no reason to
congratulate itself: it would once again prove that the
genius of peace and liberty is not in it; that it is much
better at arming nations against each other than at
organizing them, and that, like those military men who, in
the most charming landscape and the most fertile fields,
see only strategic positions, it can only see in the forces of
nature instruments of destruction. Obliged to conquer in
order to be conquered, Italy, barely freed by France, but
becoming as formidable to France as to Austria, could
once again regard itself as lost.
Chapter 9: Difficulties of the Situation in 1859

France desired Italy's independence as a just cause—I don't ask my country to renounce that. Let freedom prevail, even at our disadvantage. The Lombard-Venetian, Tuscan, Roman, and Neapolitan railways— formidable tools for mass exploitation, state consolidation, and foreign competition—are being built or planned. Far be it from me to obstruct them; this incomparable network must proceed. Civilization's interest outweighs ours.

But more was sought. The unification of all Italy into one state— now half-completed — lacks justification from liberty, Italian welfare, or general progress. Why was it permitted? As I'll demonstrate, reconciling Italy's interests with France's position and national sensitivities was feasible. How then did these interests become antagonistic? Should unification conclude; should Italy's people and government fulfill their ambition; should Europe, irritated with us, support them— then France's era of continuous decline in commerce, politics, and war will have struck. Within a generation, we may become mere shadows of ourselves. We posed as saviors of nationalities by warring Austria—but who will save us from this expedition's inexorable consequences, which promised happiness for both nations yet now threatens France with ruin?

Recall the campaign's eve. Having destroyed Austrian influence in Italy, Napoleon III faced demands exceeding his promises. England and neutral powers had issued notes with reservations; the Emperor, compelled to clarify,
declared he acted solely for Italy without personal ambition or territorial gain. Though exercising European high justice, he yielded to neutral pressure. Such an expedition for such ends was unprecedented, arousing skepticism and distrust toward France and himself. Clumsy servants mentioning Murat for Naples' throne or Prince Napoleon for Tuscany alerted Italian patriotism; public opinion, skillfully stirred, rejected French candidates. The Imperial government disavowed these aspirations—making the Italian campaign, though glorious for our arms, seem like a hoax against France if its conclusion was a 26-million-strong monarchy.

Yet Italy's fate required settlement. The victor of Solferino, arbitrating the peninsula's new constitution, had to choose between a military state and a confederation. Granted minor Savoy and Nice territories after declaring disinterest, he faced no other alternatives—with the world watching. An empire? Besides contradicting Napoleonic ideals, France's dignity after such service and current European security forbade it. A confederation? Federating Italy would indirectly threaten the Empire by fostering a hostile principle—opposing December 2nd France not with a counterbalancing power, but with an institution linking Swiss, Germanic, Dutch-Belgian, Danubian, and Scandinavian systems, increasingly isolating France and ultimately nullifying its preeminence.

Had Napoleon III chosen unity, as heir to the First Empire's traditions he would have been duped; as France's leader he would have renounced all claims to preeminence. Opting for confederation would invite accusations of
jealousy and ill will— making him odious while
organizing European federations against him. Maintaining
the *status quo* would betray his own cause and nullify the
expedition.

Napoléon III chose federation.

I make no claim to defend the Emperor's politics or
the Pope's cause. I know nothing of Napoleon III's 1859
intentions nor his current thoughts. Yet I confess— the
more I reflect on Italy's affairs, the more I need to believe,
for my nation's honor, that its leader in 1859 was not
utterly shortsighted. That he sought both Italy's
emancipation and its federative formation knowingly and
loyally. That he expected this combination to benefit both
nations splendidly— making it the cornerstone of new
domestic and foreign policies. But Piedmontese schemes,
British suggestions, and democratic fervor— amidst
protests, clamor, revolts, and annexations— frustrated his
plans. He hesitated to assert authority, trusting time's
action instead.

Hence French policy's vacillations from Villafranca to
Thouvenel's resignation. What could diplomatic reticence,
distinctions, delays, or subterfuges achieve against such
contradictions? Authorities permitted what they had the
right and duty—but lacked courage—to prevent. They let
events— meaning adventures— speak. They sought
absolutist Europe's recognition for a kingdom whose
usurping origins and dangers they understood yet
disapproved. They exhausted public opinion by tugging it
alternately toward Voltairean demagoguery and royalist
clericalism. Contradictions grew starker, responsibility heavier, the situation worse.

Now witness opinion's fickle judgments. Europe's arbiter— conservative Europe's hope in 1852 and 1856, democracy's in 1859— the Imperial government now stands condemned by both. For what crime? If I rightly assess the Emperor's intentions toward Italy—as I sincerely hope— his crime in opposing factions' eyes was twofold: 1) Freeing Italy; 2) Federating it. For this sound and felicitous idea—which history will credit him—he's simultaneously banished by those pompously calling themselves Revolution and those more rightly termed Counter-Revolution. Were Géronte alive, he'd ask Napoleon III: "Sire, what business had you in that cursed galley?" Only a Republic could have freed Italy— because only a Republic could federate it without suspicion, imposing federation if necessary.
Chapter 10: Garibaldi's Plan: Italian Unity Fails
Due to the Democrats' Fault

During the first half of 1862, fortune seemed to favor the proponents of unity— enough to tempt even someone less daring than Garibaldi. His conquest of the Kingdom of Naples and the general excitement promised an even easier success, though with far greater consequences. The plan? To gradually wear down resistance and subtly force Napoleon's hand. The strategy was clear: if Garibaldi possessed political genius equal to his hatred for France and the Emperor, we were doomed, and our decline could be traced back to the voluntary withdrawal of our troops from Rome. The spectacle might have been less dazzling for the general than in 1860, but the result— for unity— would have been a hundred times more significant.

For this Democracy— which had eagerly adopted the cry of "Long live the King!"— the moment demanded full commitment to monarchist politics. It needed to rebrand itself as the party of order and stability, abandoning the insurrectionary fantasy of "nationalities" in favor of aligning with established powers and interests. Governments, after all, would have welcomed the support. Venice could wait; French caution could be lulled; the temporal power question could be sidestepped by attributing the Papal States' defection to popular will. The key was conspiring *with* Victor Emmanuel, not against him.
But Democracy had other commitments. Its hypocrisy had grown burdensome; it longed to unmask itself, deluded as always into believing it could succeed alone. Moreover, its devotion to unity never outweighed personal ambitions, rivalries, and grudges. At its core, Democracy serves only itself—the satisfaction of its leaders and cronies, who form not a political movement but a clique. If Italian unity remains incomplete today, Democracy is to blame.

Garibaldi's strategy hinged on the principle of *nationality*— now synonymous with *unity*, as I've noted. This idea, widely embraced, fueled Italian claims to Corsica, Ticino, Tyrol, Trieste, and Dalmatia, envisioning a revived imperial and papal Italy under Charlemagne or Leo III's shadow—with Rome as capital. Greeks, equally ambitious, dreamed of restoring their schismatic empire (Constantinople). Hungarians imagined a Magyar dynasty replacing the Habsburgs, annexing Croatia, Transylvania, Slavonia, and Galicia (why not Moravia and Bohemia?). Poles demanded borders from 1772— 38,000 square leagues of territory, much of it non-Polish—envisioning a Slavic empire stretching to Moscow and St. Petersburg. Even German factions, prioritizing racial purity over annexation, proposed a unitary empire, offering France the Rhineland as bait.

A tacit alliance emerged among these nationalities, judging by Garibaldi's speeches, Kossuth and Klapka's revelations, and unfolding events. A synchronized uprising was planned across Italy, Greece, Montenegro, Hungary, and Poland, with extensions into Nice and—
reportedly— France's coast up to Marseille. Provence, still linguistically and culturally Italian-leaning, held little love for Paris, especially after the 1852 crackdown on republicans and socialists. At the signal, revolts would erupt simultaneously: governments toppled, dynasties expelled (and soon replaced), Venice and Trieste "liberated," Europe's map redrawn. Garibaldi, in heroic ecstasy, would bestow upon Italy the glorious unity making it Europe's central, "most independent" power— while graciously "repaying" France with liberty for its lost supremacy.

Did the democratic press in Paris endorse this plan? Did they even know of its existence? Did they take it seriously, or merely entertain it with reservations? Who could say? I doubt they themselves could shed any light on the matter— so frivolous in conception, so oblivious to facts, so reckless in speech, so unworthy of their own allies' trust. Besides, Mr. Guéroult is a friend of the Empire; Mr. Havin, a friend of the Empire; Mr. Peyrat was hardly at odds with the Empire; *La Patrie* and *Le Pays* are as devoted to the Empire as *La France* itself; the *Journal des Débats*, despite favoring Piedmont, maintains ties with the Empire; *Le Temps* declared at its founding that it belonged to no party. Moreover, this entire press corps condemned— perhaps without understanding— Garibaldi's latest uprising. This doesn't mean they rejected the principle of nationality as Garibaldi envisioned it; they merely dismissed the general's attempt as ill-timed and inappropriate.

Certainly, the project of a unitary Italy— viewed
purely from a governmental standpoint, ignoring
economic interests and mass welfare (which only
federation could satisfy), and above all disregarding
general Liberty (increasingly stifled by these political
unifications)— had its plausible side. For a moment, one
might have believed it could succeed. But as I've said, this
required patience and the pressure of circumstances:
appealing to governments uneasy about French military
advances, even to the French Emperor himself, weary of
the Roman question and eventually swayed by Democracy,
ready to sacrifice the Empire's clear interests for the new
kingdom's grandeur.

Yet the moment Garibaldi and Mazzini broke with
Victor Emmanuel, invoking *nationalities*— that is, all
Europe's ousted factions— declaring war on dynasties, on
constitutional Austria, on peasant-emancipating Russia,
on imperial France (whose intervention had just freed
Italy), the game was lost. By refusing to reckon with
established powers and the necessities of the age,
surrendering to demagogic frenzy, their unity project—
condemned by both Revolution and Political Economy—
became, politically, an untenable utopia.

Resurrections of Lazaruses, achieved through popular
pronouncements devoid of common prudence— this is the
essence of modern democratic politics! Instead of guiding
nations toward federation (the path of all political and
economic freedoms), they intoxicate them with
gargantuan utopias, urging Caesarist imitations, oblivious
to history's non-uniformity, progress's rejection of vain
repetitions, and the criminal folly of transplanting past
justifications into the present. And when, by some unforeseen luck, the chance arises to realize these retrograde schemes, they ruin everything through indiscipline, self-aggrandizement, and extravagant posturing.

The outcome matched the tactics. First, conspirators rarely agree. Each seeks to exploit the affair for personal gain, vying to seize the initiative and bend the league's efforts toward private designs. Before the battle even begins, the plotters distrust and threaten one another.

The Montenegrins and Greeks gave the signal, followed by the Ionians. But Garibaldi, preoccupied with securing Italian unity first, failed to respond. The Turk, meant to be toppled first, stood firm; the Ionians were disciplined by their English masters (Garibaldi's allies, no less). Garibaldi hadn't considered the difficulty of retaining both English support and Ionian cooperation. Unsurprisingly, the British press unanimously condemned the general's mad venture. The Montenegrins were crushed; the Greeks expelled not the Sultan but their own King Otto, now to be replaced by *any prince*— provided he's neither English, French, nor Russian—or, as *Le Siècle* recently proposed, by a Greek federation! Finally, Garibaldi took the stage, calling Hungary to arms— only for Klapka and Kossuth to abandon him, accusing him of tardiness and refusing to recognize him as Italy's voice without Victor Emmanuel. Garibaldi might well have retorted that if *he* had to march with Victor Emmanuel for Hungary's sake, *they* ought to march with Franz Joseph for Italy's—which would have negated the whole enterprise.
In the end, Garibaldi— whose sole hope lay in rallying the
royal army— stood alone, fell at the first clash at
Aspromonte, and found his fellow Piedmontese soldiers
firing on him as their nation's enemy. Now Poland
collapses in desperate revolt and assassinations; Germany
yawns at unity; and we French await our deliverance!

Is this not utterly absurd? Can this be called
intelligent, liberal, republican politics? Is this revolution?
Do you recognize in these plotters true statesmen—
founders of nations, leaders of peoples?

I have acknowledged Garibaldi's private virtues— his
courage, his selflessness— testimony some of my
opponents have quoted with satisfaction. But having paid
this sincere tribute to the man, must I not condemn the
agitator? Can I take seriously a Garibaldi who cries "Long
live Victor Emmanuel!" while working to undermine him;
who proclaims unity yet calls himself a democrat, even a
republican— as if that meant champion of all rights and
freedoms; who accuses Minister Rattazzi of betraying
unity while criticizing his *municipalism* as too centralized?
Garibaldi— as quick to seize dictatorship as to relinquish
it, part Caesar and part Washington, noble-hearted yet
ungovernable, seemingly driven by some malign spirit—
does he even grasp the difference between monarchy and
republic, unity and decentralization? Has it ever occurred
to him that democracy and empire are separated by less
than a sheet of paper? What was he doing on February 3,
1852, at Santos Lugares, leading 900 Italians to victory for
Urquiza— the Plata rebels' leader, who claimed to fight for
a Southern republics' confederation only to become
dictator— against Rosas, Argentina's dictator who likewise flew the confederal banner? Did Garibaldi fight for principle, or merely against tyranny? Where did he see unity in Buenos Aires? Where federation? Why meddle in that quarrel at all? And in Rome in 1849, where he distinguished himself against the French army— was he for federation or unity? With Cernuschi the federalist, or Mazzini the unitary? Or, as some insist, did he obey only his own whims?

Garibaldi is credited with saying of Napoleon III: *"That man has a straw tail, and I'll be the one to set it alight."*
The remark would be clever— had it succeeded. After Aspromonte's disaster, it's mere bravado whose ridicule rebounds on its author. Alas! What Democracy mistook for Napoleon's straw tail was the devil's own— a tail it's doomed to pull for years to come, unless its trusted tribunes change both tactics and principles.
Chapter 11: Hypothesis of a Solution Through the
Federative Principle

Garibaldi's defeat neither resolved the problem nor
improved the situation. The unification of Italy has indeed
been postponed indefinitely; Mr. Rattazzi, deemed too
centralizing, was forced to step down due to municipalist
demands; at the same time, the question of the Papacy has
somewhat faded in the shadow of Garibaldi's eclipse. Yet
the antagonism between the two powers, Italian and
French, persists ominously, irreconcilable; Italy writhes in
civil war and anarchy, while France is gripped by the
dread of immense peril.

Already, there is talk of a return to the *status quo*,
meaning a division of Italy into four or five independent
states, as before the 1859 war. If this solution is adopted, it
will be the work of diplomacy; it will likely result in the
restoration of deposed princes; constitutional forms and
promised guarantees will be preserved—but Democracy
will have been contradicted, and through it, indirectly, the
Revolution. The cause of the people—by which I mean
that working plebeian class of cities and countryside that
must now command the full attention of true
revolutionaries—will have been sacrificed by the so-called
*party of action* to personal ambitions as grandiose as they
are illusory, and the real question will have been
postponed for a long time.

Some chauvinists, unsettled to the point of terror by
the prospect of a diminished France, would prefer a
thunderclap resolution: they wish the French Emperor, boldly resuming his uncle's policies, trusting in the masses' sympathy, and gambling all or nothing, would declare the French Empire restored to its 1804 borders, and in one sweeping act annex Belgium and the entire Rhineland to the north, and Lombardy and Piedmont to the south. Victor Emmanuel would be offered the throne of Constantinople. Outside of this, they say, nothing will ever be more than a stopgap. *France remains nullified*; it is no longer the center of gravity in politics. The more moderate voices recommend sustaining agitation in Italy until, exhausted by war and weary of brigandage, the nation appeals once more to the liberator of 1859 and throws itself into his arms.

These desperate counsels loudly condemn the error of those who, through the most detestable calculations, drove the Italian people to this fantasy of unity. While our old Democracy, having run out of empty talk, yearns for a general upheaval to reinvigorate itself and, without provocation or reason, clamors for new annexations; while over there it redoubles its Machiavellian schemes and incites the masses to revolt—England, coolly observing the crisis, gains ground everywhere and defies us; Germany, Austria, Prussia, Belgium, and Russia stand ready. With the empire blockaded, everyone expects an explosion. Should we fall in another Waterloo— which we may consider certain if Victory, as usual, remains loyal to the larger battalions— then, as a political body, as a beacon of civilization from which philosophy, science, law, and liberty once radiated across the world, we will have lived our last. The France of Henry IV, Richelieu, and Louis XIV,
the France of '89, '93, 1802, 1814, 1830, and 1848, as much
as that of 1852, will have spoken its final word; it will be
finished.

How simple, how easy, how advantageous to all this
desolate situation would have appeared if, in 1859, it had
been approached from the standpoint of principles, from
the standpoint of federation!

Consider first that what makes Italy, as a maritime
and industrial power, such a formidable rival to France
vanishes entirely under a federative system— without any
loss to the Italian people. It is not, in fact, advantages of
position or territory, nor the superiority of industry and
capital, that make a people dangerous to its neighbors—it
is their concentration. Distributed wealth is harmless and
excites no envy; only wealth amassed in the hands of an
entrenched feudality, placed by it at the disposal of an
ambitious power, can become, economically and politically,
a force of destruction. The oppressive, dissolving influence
of a financial, industrial, and territorial aristocracy over
the people it exploits and the state is undeniable—a truth
that, thanks to 1848, may now pass for common
knowledge. Well then! What the concentration of
economic forces is internally for the working class, it
becomes externally for neighboring nations; and
conversely, what the equal distribution of labor's tools and
wealth's sources is for a nation's welfare and its citizens'
freedom, it also becomes for the community of nations.
The cause of the proletariat and that of European
equilibrium are intertwined; both protest with equal vigor
against unity and in favor of the federative system. Need it
be said that the same reasoning applies to government and
the army, and that the *bravest confederation*, fielding the
same number of soldiers, will never weigh as heavily on
its neighbors as it would if transformed into a unitary
monarchy?

Let the Italians make the most of their geographical
position, develop their navy, expand their railways, and
become industrious and wealthy—that is their right, and
we French have no reason to concern ourselves with it.
Each nation has its own heritage; we have ours, and it is
up to us to make the most of it. After all, we cannot claim
the right to exploit or conquer the globe—let us leave
such notions of industrial, commercial, and maritime
monopoly to the English. We should not build our fortune
on supplying foreign markets: our rivals, the English,
could remind us that while export privileges may
sometimes yield enormous profits, they come at the cost of
terrible hardships. In the broader economy, a nation's
primary market is its own; foreign trade is secondary—
only in exceptional cases can the latter outweigh the
former. The economic growth now evident across Europe
proves this principle, which an Italian federation would
have decisively demonstrated. That is why aristocratic
England pushes with all its might for Italian unity: it
understands that, since supremacy in the Mediterranean
will inevitably slip from its grasp, it must counter French
financial and centralized power with an equal
concentration of banking and centralized authority.

Yet I admit that even if an industrial federation,
naturally emerging from Italy's political federation, does
not give unitary France any legitimate cause for concern;
even if a federated Italy— sharing neither France's
constitution nor its ambitions, posing no rivalry— cannot
be accused of harming us, its industrial and commercial
progress will still mean less profit for us, a loss of potential
gains. But what conclusion should we draw from this?
Only one: that the French people, if they wish to retain
their initiative and compete honorably, must follow Italy's
example. Assuming France keeps its political
centralization, it would be wise to at least prepare for
economic federation. Such an outcome would be one of
the happiest effects of federation—not just for Italy, but
for France itself and all of Europe.

But this is precisely what the French supporters of
Italian unity care nothing about— speculators, dealmakers,
hunters of industrial shares and bribes, all beholden to
financial oligarchy. To secure monopoly in France while
guarding against competition from an Italian monopoly,
they will surely organize (if they haven't already) a
monstrous association merging and uniting the capitalist
bourgeoisie and the entire shareholder class on both sides
of the Alps. Let us not forget that constitutional, bourgeois,
and unitary monarchy tends, in international politics, to
protect the exploiting classes of one state from the
exploited classes of another— thus forming a coalition of
capital against labor, regardless of language or nationality.
This is why *Le Journal des Débats* agrees with *Le Siècle,
L'Opinion nationale, Le Pays, La Patrie*, and *La Presse* on the
Italian question. Here, political differences fade before the
conspiracy of interests<fnref n="25" />.

Let us conclude this second part. Against the revived
Caesarean project of Italian unity stood:

The geographical makeup of the Peninsula;

Municipal traditions;

The legal, republican principle of federation;

A favorable opportunity: Austria defeated, France
offering its guarantee;

The Roman question to resolve— meaning the

<footnote n="25">²⁵ The capitalist coalition between France and Italy is three-quarters complete—a glance at the fourth page of any newspaper confirms it. What are the so-called Italian, Piedmontese, and Roman loans? The Milan city loan, the Cavour Canal, the Lombard, Venetian, and Roman railways—if not French investments as much as, or even more than, Italian ones? The Turin Parliament decreed that shares in the Naples railway would be reserved for Italian capital: *Italia fara da se*. But we know that behind these native names, French backers will lurk, as always. A new Italian loan of 500 million is being prepared—who will underwrite it? Someone well-informed on such matters recently assured me: the House of Rothschild. Sooner or later, Italy will establish a Land Credit and a Mobilier Credit—who will found them? The same men, or their peers, who created the Mobilier Credit in France and Spain. To unite the capital of all countries in a vast, anonymous solidarity—this is what they call the *harmony of interests*, the *fusion of nationalities*. What do the neo-Jacobins think of that?</footnote>
secularization of the Papacy, the revolution of the Church;

The plebeian masses to emancipate;

The political and commercial sensitivities of France,
the Emperor's pride, to consider;

The progress of nations to advance and the balance of
Europe to restore through the growth of federations.

If what is called *opportunity* in politics is not an empty
word, I dare say it was present here.

The neo-Jacobin Democracy acknowledged none of
these considerations. It ignored geography; scorned
history; trampled principles; betrayed the proletariat;
spurned the moment; disdained France's guarantee;
muddled the Roman question; endangered and
compromised France; wounded the Emperor; and
sacrificed European progress— under the pretext of
*nationality*— to a conspiracy of adventurers and schemers.
We know the rest.

At a certain point in his career, Garibaldi could have
given Italy— along with freedom and prosperity— all the
unity that a system of mutual guarantees among
independent cities allows, but which can never be found
in a system of absorption. He could have spurred Europe
toward federations instead of these long-dead *nationalities*,
making the Republic dominant everywhere and ushering
in the economic and social revolution with unstoppable
force. Should I say he shrank from this task? God forbid—
had he seen it, he would have pursued it. But Garibaldi
understood nothing of his time, and thus nothing of his
own mission. His blindness is the crime of that backward
democracy he listened to too much, of those revolution
contractors, restorers of nationalities, tacticians of
adventure, and in *partibus* statesmen he showed too much
defference to. Now that his mistake has broken him, may
he never fully grasp the truth he failed to see! The loss of
his illusions he would bear as a philosopher, as a hero—
but his regrets would be too bitter.

I have stated my principles, what I would have done
in Garibaldi's and Mazzini's place, what I would have
advised had my voice been heard—what I believed I had
sufficiently expressed in my last publication. Could the
gentlemen of the unitary democracy, in turn, tell me what
*they* wanted and what *they* still want? Could they explain
what they mean by *Liberty, Popular Sovereignty, Social
Contract*, and give a definition of the *Republic*?
Part 3

The Unitary Press — *With Deceit and*
*Injury*
Chapter 1: On the Dignity of Journalists. Influence of Unitarianism on the Reason and Conscience of Writers

I have been mistreated by the unitary press, but I will not retaliate. On the contrary, I wish to return good for evil by showing— through the example of some of its most respected representatives— the danger to a writer's reason and conscience when dominated by a prejudice that compromises the independence of their judgment.

In his recent publication *The Italian Tragedy* (page 43), Mr. Pelletan writes:

"But tell me— do you not find it strange, even troubling, that the democratic press, the Voltairian press, should adorn its lapel with the twice-edifying Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus, while vehemently defending Piedmont with Piedmont's livery on its chest? And when it insults us, as it does, for not sharing its blind admiration for Piedmontese politics, we have every right to say: Take off your ribbon if you want to be believed!"

The author returns repeatedly to these decorations, having mentioned them earlier in *The Italian Comedy*. No protest was raised against his words.

Yet, from what I have heard, Mr. Pelletan's reproach may be inaccurate on at least one point— the wearing of the decoration. Editors of monarchist papers like *Les Débats*, *La Patrie*, and *Le Pays* wear theirs, while those of
democratic papers such as *Le Siècle* and *L'Opinion nationale* refrain. Why? Not because the decoration came from a foreign government— otherwise, refusing it outright would have been simpler. It is said they deem it improper for democrats to wear a monarchist insignia. A curious scruple, indeed!

Thus, the following appears confirmed:

Decorations were awarded to French journalists by the Piedmontese government in recognition of their articles on Italian unification.

Among the recipients, those openly aligned with monarchy wear theirs without hesitation, while democrats (or those claiming to be) abstain.

Yet, setting politics aside, all agree that honorary rewards for journalists— even from foreign governments— are compatible with their profession.

This is precisely the opinion I contest.

Truth is absolute; it toleres neither addition nor subtraction. As it appears to us, so we must express it: *Yes is yes; no is no*— and our fellow men have the right to demand this of us. Truth softened, amended, or embellished is a lie. On the other hand, practicing truth is as difficult as practicing justice. Thus, a man who takes up the mission of proclaiming truth must offer, as a pledge of sincerity, the most perfect disinterest and absolute independence. Such is truth, and such must be its
representative— both equally incorruptible.

In principle, therefore, a journalist cannot accept—from anyone, in recognition of their articles— either payment or decoration and keep their office. One of two things must happen: either they renounce such honors (which their zeal, talent, and integrity may have earned) or, if they accept, they must resign. A journalist should only be decorated posthumously, even by their own countrymen. The idea of any reward beyond fair compensation for their labor— whether monetary or honorary— is incompatible with their mandate. Such recompense inherently undermines their impartiality and independence, especially when offered by an interested party in a contentious cause.

Certainly, the journalist's mission is arduous—and this is what makes it honorable. A man devoted to truth must be ready to risk everything for it: fortune, affections, reputation, safety. He must sever all ties of heart and mind, trampling underfoot popularity, favor from power, and human respect. Where is the truthful herald, the incorruptible orator, the writer without fear or reproach? When I consider the trials awaiting him, the temptations and snares surrounding him, the martyrdom hanging over his head, I wonder if even the most revered names— Socrates, Confucius, Christ— can be fully trusted.

This is not the moral standard upheld by our journalists, and we must acknowledge that under their current circumstances— shaped by shared prejudices and vested interests—it is difficult to achieve that lofty
independence and unblemished honesty which are the
foremost virtues of both the publicist and the historian.
Their truth is never more than relative, their virtue
half-hearted, their independence a fragile thing that
requires sufficient financial backing just to sustain itself.

Let us examine what a journalistic enterprise looks
like today.

A company is formed to publish a newspaper. It
consists of the most respectable citizens; it operates
anonymously; the editorial process remains as collective
as possible; individual opinions or dominance are
preemptively rejected— what guarantees of impartiality!
And yet, this anonymous company, this ministry of
publicity free from all private influence, is in fact an
association of falsehood, where collective editing serves
only to disguise artifice—or, to put it bluntly, venality.

First, this company requires capital, raised through
shares. It is a commercial enterprise. From that moment,
the law of capital dominates; profit becomes its goal,
subscriptions its constant concern. Thus, the newspaper—
purportedly an organ of truth— becomes an industry, a
shop. To increase profits and win subscribers, the paper
must flatter prevailing prejudices; to secure its existence, it
must further appease those in power, supporting their
policies while pretending to critique them. Hypocrisy joins
cowardice and greed, justified by the claim that the paper
supports countless families. Loyalty to truth? No— loyalty
to the shop. That, willingly or not, becomes the journalist's
primary virtue.
As an advertiser and publisher, the journalist could shield himself from responsibility by limiting his role to mere insertion. But subscribers expect more: they demand opinions, which make the paper engaging. So, while the paper avoids unfavorable judgments on advertised content (lest it lose lucrative business), certain ventures will earn its endorsement—for a fee. The challenge lies in placing these endorsements strategically without self-contradiction. Steadfastness in friendships, fidelity and discretion toward *clients*— that is the journalist's integrity. It resembles the honesty of a clerk who would never steal a cent but treats customers with contempt. From this point on, prevarication and betrayal govern the paper's production. Expect no guarantees from this workshop, a subsidiary of the companies that fund it, trading in advertisements and levying tribute— through reviews or bulletins— on the entire world: stock markets, commerce, industry, agriculture, shipping, railways, politics, literature, theater. Extracting *truth* from comparing its articles with competitors' becomes an alchemical feat.

It worsens when—as inevitably happens— this so-called truth-serving company adopts a political stance and becomes a party organ. Then you may definitively regard it as a factory of counterfeit ideas and a pulpit of iniquity. Any means justify attacking the enemy. Has a democratic gazette ever spoken fairly of a monarchist government? Has a royalist sheet ever acknowledged democratic aspirations? What judgments do liberals and clerics pass on each other! What criticism comes from
these amateur writers, unspecialized, often unstudied,
paid to read and bury all manner of works, treating
literary justice like rhetorical flourish or club invective!
The more violent and dishonest the paper, the more
virtuous it imagines itself. Loyalty to party, as to shop and
clientele— isn't that its supreme law?

The periodic press has suffered the cruelest insult
imaginable to journalists when the government decreed
that parliamentary reports would be supplied to papers by
the quaestors. I do not claim the quaestors are infallible,
nor even the *Moniteur* itself; such measures are not how I
would reform the press. But I say the punishment was
deserved. The abuse of distortion, like that of advertising
and character assassination, had become intolerable.
When papers complain of government restrictions, they
may be told they forged their own fate. Let them treat the
public and truth as they wish to be treated by power, and I
dare predict: truth would soon be free in France—and the
press with it.

From this brief sketch of modern journalism, we can
now understand how certain editors of Paris' leading
newspapers came to accept decorations from the
Piedmontese government. Our political and social system
is structured such that every life, profession, and
enterprise necessarily serves some interest, clique,
corporation, opinion, party, or clientele—in short, some
faction. Under these conditions, a writer operates only
within relative truth and integrity; absolute truth and
virtue remain beyond reach. To serve truth unreservedly
would require breaking free from all the constraints that
constitute nearly our entire existence— defying these
powerful interest groups and shattering their unified
fronts. Such liberation remains impossible until our
political and social systems undergo complete reform.

Given this reality, publishers naturally ask: Why shouldn't they receive honors—or even payment—after rendering services to their cause, their party, their fellow citizens, or their country? Why refuse rewards from foreign allies whose aims align with those they champion at home? What could be more natural than pro-unity papers like *Les Débats*, *Le Pays*, *La Patrie*, *Le Siècle*, and *L'Opinion Nationale*— viewing Italy's monarchy as complementary to France's (or its indivisible republic)—accepting decorations from the King of Italy?

To this I respond—not like Mr. Pelletan, emphasizing
the impropriety of monarchist ribbons on democratic
chests—but in the name of Truth itself, which by its
absolute nature demands equally absolute independence
from its advocates.

Consider irrefutable proof: Suppose instead of
decorations, the issue involved subsidies (as rumors
suggested). Would those who comfortably wore the Saint
Lazarus Medal have equally accepted cash payments?
Certainly not. Were I to accuse them of this, they'd sue for
libel. Yet subsidies could be justified by the same logic as
decorations— every argument for one applies to the other.
Logically, the two acts are equivalent. Why then this
inconsistency that reveals their lingering scruples?
Because deep down, though their decorations proclaim
allegiance to relative truths, they recognize their true
mandate involves absolute truth. The public still judges
them by this standard: it tolerates ribbons for "good
service" but would never condone cash payments. Here
lies a moral compromise excused by prevailing norms but
indefensible to any reasoning ethics.

For my part— professing not rigorism but doctrinal
precision, believing in a system where justice, truth, and
independence become citizens' and the state's supreme
interests— I reject both subsidies and decorations for
newspapers. To the unitary press I say: You represent
interests, not principles; you champion neither truth nor
liberty. You embody equivocation and conflict. When you
dare impeach my federalist views— which no one has
decorated or subsidized, which I defend at my own risk—
you claim false parity. Know this: An impartial, honest
press cannot exist within your centralized system of
competing interests, where statecraft overrides truth and
law— where both become commodities, and
reason/conscience turn mercenary. A blameless press,
worthy of free institutions, can only emerge where justice
governs the state and all interests—that is, within a
federative system.

Truth understood breeds tolerance— so I won't be as
harsh as Mr. Pelletan. I won't tell the democratic press
editors: "Take off your ribbon if you want to be believed."
Instead, I'd say: "Wear your ribbon if you must— better
yet, accept all subsidies offered, so long as you publicly
acknowledge them. You'll keep your respectability, and
it'll be pure profit for you." The public will know you
speak as Piedmont's paid spokesmen, not free journalists. They'll read you cautiously, as they would an embassy memo—but you might still be believed. Lawyers take fees like doctors do, without losing credibility. When Jules Favre pled extenuating circumstances for Orsini, no one called him an accomplice to regicide. Why shouldn't you, unofficial propagandists, enjoy the same privilege? I'd almost swear Pelletan's targets are guilty only of oversight. In their unitary mindset, they likely lacked clear notions of their rights and duties. My warning is simply this: *Are you speaking as journalists or advocates?* Both roles command respect—but clarify which, for confusing them breeds disgrace.
Chapter 2: *Le Siècle*: Unitary Hallucinations of Mr. Taxile Delort

Come now, Mr. Taxile Delort— speak first. Make your confession, if indeed — though I hesitate to presume — you have anything to confess. You’ve heard Mr. Pelletan’s accusation; you know the rumors circulating, and I’ve just explained how, if the alleged facts are true, you might render them harmless. You once called me *Janicot* over a pamphlet on Italian unity. To you, *Janicot* may mean little — yet I won’t trade insult for insult or label you a sellout. I’ll simply ask: *Are you, yes or no, decorated with the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus?* If not you, is it Mr. Edmond Texier, Mr. de la Bédollière, Mr. Léon Plée, or Mr. Havin? Are you all decorated, or is no one? I won’t even mention subsidies — that’s a suspicion I won’t level at anyone. So speak, and frankly. In 1848, if I recall, you were a republican — even a socialist — and somewhat my collaborator at *Le Peuple*. What brought you to *Le Siècle*? You’ve long been seen as a paragon of integrity and puritanism, as you proved by showing *Le Siècle’s* readers — to Piedmont’s benefit and my detriment — that I’m just a *Janicot*. Well, Citizen Delort, decorated or not, I’ll show you that love of unity doesn’t just warp a journalist’s conscience — it dulls the mind. At the very least, it’s addled yours.

Against my federalist stance (no recent whim), Mr. Delort dredged up words of mine — though he’d oblige me by naming their source, for I never reread myself and forget my own books fastest:
"The Republic must say to the Austrian: 'Leave Italy' — and he will leave. It must tell the Scythian: 'Release my beloved Poland' — and he will retreat to the desert."

Today, I can't guess the tone of the original passage. But what does this *Republic's* command to Austrians and Scythians have to do with Italian *unity*? I argued that *only the Republic* — a federal one — could free Italians and Poles. Yet Taxile Delort, ex-republican, twists this into support for Victor Emmanuel's monarchy! Poor Piedmontists— they can't even grasp what they quote! Say *Republic* or *Federation*, and they hear *Unity* and *Kingdom*!

Another unsourced quote from Delort:

"The insurrection of Italian, Hungarian, Polish, and Croatian nationalities— what is it but the negation of that great feudal order of nations, unlawfully imposed by the Holy Alliance?"

Of course I deny *feudal nations* — medieval or modern. I deny aristocratic and industrial feudalism; I deny state feudalism. Why? Precisely *because* I'm a federalist. Why fling this quote at me? Do I disown it? How does it serve you? You equate *nationality* with *unity* and, though a republican, champion *monarchy* — rebuilding that very feudalism whose foundation is *unity* and whose pinnacle is the Holy Alliance!

Delort persists: "Isn't this the same Proudhon who wrote then: 'Europe's revolution is one and universal; so
too is counter-revolution. The struggles in France, Hungary, Rome, and Germany are the same struggle. Their solidarity is undeniable—all feel it, see it, proclaim it?'"

Indeed—I still believe this! Poland's fate, like Italy's, hinges on *federation*— which is why I oppose today's so-called *Polish restoration*, a revival of unitary rule for a landowning aristocracy history has condemned. But tell me—what does *Le Siècle's* client, *the gentleman king*, stand to gain from this?

Mr. Delort continues his bold citations:

"In 1849, as a fervent supporter of nationalities, Proudhon fiercely opposed the Holy See, demanding the immediate establishment of a Christian Republic—its center no longer in Rome but, as the Emperor wished, in Paris."

Let's set aside the term *Christian*, which in 1849 shocked no one—not even Mr. Delort today—and which, in my writing, carried a meaning far broader than orthodoxy allows. Again, I ask: What connection exists between the *spiritual Republic* I prophesied then (and still affirm)—a concept meaning nothing but *Revolution and Justice*—and Mr. Delort's unitarism? Where is my contradiction? Because I oppose the Church as a revolutionary seeking justice, must I therefore vote with you to transfer the Pope's territories to Victor Emmanuel? What logic!
One last citation from Mr. Delort:

"The abolition of papal temporal power— what is it but Democracy's solemn entry into the city of kings, consuls, emperors, and popes? At a higher level, the fall of papal power marks humanity's final return to philosophy, the renunciation of Catholicism, which, once detached from earth, will retreat to heaven— where Charlemagne's will first dragged it down."

Admire Mr. Taxile Delort's rhetorical trickery. *Le Siècle's* subscribers are honest liberals who cling to revolutionary principles— they nearly fancy themselves republicans, though they grasp little of either. So long as you occasionally murmur *revolution, democracy, '89, liberty, they're satisfied, never probing further. Crimean War? *Revolution*. Lombardy campaign? *Italian unity— revolution!* Expelling the Pope? *Revolution!* Toss them a few fiery phrases about *abolishing the Church's temporal and spiritual power*, and they'll swear the author backs *Le Siècle's* new kingdom— a partisan of unity, a friend of Victor Emmanuel. But when they learn this same writer protests the kingdom in the name of *federation*— oh, then he's a brazen turncoat, a *counter-revolutionary*!

What? You expect *Le Siècle's* readers to be so dull that the very passages where I demolish your thesis will strike them as proof of my *inconsistency*? I admit it: when I wrote those lines, abolishing the Church's temporal power implied abolishing its spiritual power too. That's why I framed the Pope's downfall before triumphant Democracy as Catholicism's death knell. But Piedmont's monarchy
isn't *Democracy*; seizing the Papal States isn't *excluding the
Church from temporal power*; and neither *Le Siècle* nor any
unitarian actually wants that exclusion— none dream of
replacing Gospel spirituality with Revolutionary
spirituality. On the contrary, they— Mr. Delort included —
demand citizenship for the Church, offering pensions,
honors, properties— everything lost with its apanage. So
what's Mr. Delort accusing me of? If there's *inconsistency*, it
lies not with me (who, in my pamphlet, took no stance for
or against the Church) but with *Le Siècle*— now voting
Church honors, now deposing the Pope-King. For *Le Siècle*
to be logical, it would propose— instead of plunder— a
law of justice: separating society from all religion, better
meeting moral needs than the Gospel itself; organizing
higher education not just for 127,474 *privileged souls* but for
7.5 *million children* of both sexes, eradicating ignorance and
prejudice. It would demand abolishing the Concordat,
defunding the clergy, expelling cardinals from the Senate,
reclaiming Church properties granted under a defunct
order. Then *Le Siècle* could mock my anti-Christian
arguments— it would outmatch me in theory *and* practice,
breathing true revolutionary fire. Have the courage,
gentlemen of *Le Siècle*— not of *impiety*, but of your
*rationalism* (if any exists in your anti-Papal crusade).
Without it, don't expect me to join your Piedmontese
intrigue. For as much as I place Revolution's right and
human morality above the Church— so much, and a
thousand times more, do I place *you*, with your unity, your
Voltairianism, and all your hypocrisies, *beneath* the faith of
Christ.

Of all the critiques leveled against my latest pamphlet,
the one that pained me most— given the author's
reputation— was Mr. Taxile Delort's. We've just seen its
true weight. The quoter either saw, or chose to see, in my
words the exact opposite of what I wrote—that's all there
is to it. There was a time when Mr. Delort wrote for *Le
Charivari* and struck readers as serious, dry, and decidedly
humorless— so much so that people concluded he
belonged in a sober publication. But ever since Mr. Havin
recruited him, he's turned flippant, fluttering about like a
gadfly, trying to outdo his clownish colleague Mr.
Edmond Texier. Even *Le Siècle*'s subscribers now find him
frivolous. *Inventus est minus habens!* Diminished stature—
that is the inevitable punishment for all who embrace the
cause of unity.
Chapter 3: *L'Opinion nationale*: Mr. Guéroult's
See-Saw Politics

When I ask a journalist from the democratic press:
"*Are you decorated with the Order of Saint Lazarus?*" —
readers should not assume my question implies an
accusation of corruption or that I'm indirectly labeling the
person as venal. The issue is entirely different. For my part,
let me repeat: I don't believe in rumors of subsidies, for the
simple reason that if such payments existed, they would
be concealed — and I couldn't expose them without risking
a libel suit. As for decorations, I know of no confirmed
recipients. All I can say is that the accusation has been
publicly made without protest; that some who received
decorations wear them while others abstain purely for
partisan reasons; and that none, at any rate, hesitated to
accept them. In my view, this is serious. A private
individual may freely accept foreign honors— even a
pension. But journalism is a quasi-public function; the
journalist is a kind of sworn writer. Proof lies in the official
authorization he must obtain, the financial guarantee
demanded of him, and above all, the implicit trust of his
readers. Strictly speaking, a journalist should accept
neither honorary distinctions nor monetary rewards from
anyone—not even his own government. His only favor
should be public esteem; his only income, his subscribers'
payments. This is a matter of public faith, not private
morality—and it's in this spirit that I continue my
inquiries, without favor or exception.

Mr. Guéroult has devoted two or three articles to me
in his paper. A professional, he began by mocking my
*thesis* and *antithesis*— forgetting that his mentor, Mr.
Enfantin, dabbled heavily in such metaphysical curiosities
with little success. He then sketched my character
unflatteringly, laughed at my *sudden tenderness* for poor
Pius IX (who, he claims, will soon have only three
defenders left: the Protestant Guizot, the Jew Cohen, and
the atheist Proudhon), and traced my current federalism
back to my past anarchism. In short, he did his utmost to
discredit the idea by discrediting the writer.

Since Mr. Guéroult saw fit to dig up my polemical
history in this debate over federation versus unity, he can
hardly object if I return the favor—fair's fair!

Mr. Guéroult hails from the bancroatic, androgynous,
and pancreatic school of Enfantin, which— since the
Ménilmontant debacle— seems to have adopted the rule
of indifferently serving all opinions and governments.
Hence Saint-Simonianism (now "Enfantinism") has always
kept writers in most papers: Mr. Chevalier at *Les Débats*,
Mr. Jourdan at *Le Siècle*, Mr. Guéroult at *La République*
(until expelled post-coup d'état, now at *L'Opinion
nationale*), Émile Barrault somewhere (I forget where), and
others scattered left and right. These double-entry
skirmishers rival even Proudhon's *theses* and *antitheses*.

What is Mr. Guéroult's current politics?

After December 2nd, the Bonapartist party flooded
into government. Like the post-1814 émigrés, this party
was both old and young— old in knowing only glory and
victory (as the émigrés knew only faith and king), young
in facing entirely new questions and needing
apprenticeship. Hence the Imperial government's
oscillations (common to all novice regimes) and the party's
split into two tendencies: one conservative-leaning, the
other flaunting democratic and revolutionary pretensions.
The government has repeatedly declared itself immune to
influence in its warnings to the press—a claim we may
accept. As for the party as a whole? Picture a man walking
the Seine with a bucket on each foot.

Take the question of Italian unity now before imperial
arbitration. The conservative Bonapartists protest, citing
respect for crowns, dynastic legitimacy, Piedmont's
excessive demands, and the dangers of revolutionary
agitation. The progressive Bonapartists, appealing to the
principle of nationality and Jacobin traditions, champion
unification. Between left and right factions, what does the
party's center do? They oscillate between M. Thouvenel
and M. Drouyn de Lhuys, today siding with *La Patrie* and
*Le Pays* against *La France*, tomorrow with *La France* against
*L'Opinion nationale* and *La Patrie...* No one examines the
rights established in '89, the economic interests of the
masses, civilizational progress, or European security— let
alone advocates the only theory capable of solving the
problem: Federation.

Or consider the Papacy's existence, challenged by
Italian unification itself. Again the Bonapartists divide:
MM. de La Guéronnière and de La Rochejaquelein, allied
with cardinals, defend temporal power while MM. Piétri
and de Persigny vehemently attack it. None examine the
question through either revolutionary morality or federative principle— the only framework for fairly judging papal claims. Instead, all profess reverence for Catholicism, implicitly resolving the issue in favor of the Pope-King— though some argue temporal power weakens the Church while others deem it essential. Beneath this debate lies only Piedmont's greed: having seized Naples, Tuscany etc., it now covets papal territories too, believing imperial favor secured by winning over one Bonapartist faction.

Into this fray plunges M. Guéroult— playing seesaw. He dares not deny it, he who, while waging defamation rather than debate against Catholicism, reproaches MM. Renan and La Roque (and myself) as "atheists"— as if atheism/theism, materialism/spiritualism were anything but metaphysical nuances in revolutionary thought. After criticizing Émile Augier's play, Guéroult earned an official warning— now posing as a victim of clerical persecution. Rest assured: Voltairian Bonapartism, which attended Le Fils de Giboyer's premiere, will protect its journalist down to his last hair<fnref n="26" />.

Mr. Guéroult, however, is a different case— pledging allegiance to the dynasty only to better attack the Church and serve his sect. What surprises me is seeing certain factions enthusiastically applaud the very writer who, in Les Effrontés (the precursor to Le Fils de

<footnote n="26">²⁶ By mentioning Mr. Émile Augier alongside Mr. Guéroult, I don't mean to condemn them equally. A playwright has every right to capture the vices and follies of his time— and I'd like to believe it's not Mr. Augier's fault if his work (which I haven't seen or read) is exploited for political maneuvering.</footnote>
I defended Belgium's independence—a nationality as valid as any—against annexationists like Guéroult. My reward? Léopold's Order? No—a chorus of abuse from Belgium's liberal press. True, I invoked federalism for Belgium's defense, while Belgian liberalism (contradictorily) now leans toward unification... I understand advocating unity over federation—it's debatable. I'll even grant that martyrdom doesn't prove truth, nor venality falsehood—but I've a right to know: is this writer speaking as advocate or scholar? M. Guéroult—might you be wearing the Saint Lazarus ribbon?

Has Guéroult, addressing substance, offered plausible arguments for his cause? Has he refuted my federalist case? His reasoning is peculiar. When I cite geography and history, he dismisses them as "commonplaces." Granted—I didn't invent these fields. But until he proves Italy's historical traditions and geographic conditions demand unitary rule—or changes both—I'll stand by these "commonplace" reasons precisely because they're fundamental.

He claims that a unified Italy, even if ungrateful and hostile, could do nothing against us. Without being a military strategist, I believe the opposite is evident simply by looking at the borders. Must one be a great naturalist to recognize that a lion—armed with claws and teeth—is built for carnage, destined to feast on living flesh and

<footnote>Giboyer), once scourged them so harshly. Could their cheers for Giboyer fils be meant to make us forget Giboyer père?</footnote>
drink blood? The same applies to Italy: armed to the teeth
against France, it poses no threat to us only when divided.
True, Mr. Guéroult argues these defenses are meant for
Austria, while France, sharing similar principles, remains
Italy's "sister." Sweet fraternity! Unfortunately,
experience— another *commonplace* — utterly refutes this.
Italy has always clashed with the land of Brennus; it's
from France that she has feared invasion; it was against
France that Roman policy summoned the Germans to
empire after Louis the Pious; it's this very Italian antipathy
that fueled the reckless drive for unity, leaving Austria still
holding Venice; and it's against France that the House of
Savoy has consistently directed its politics.

You speak of *shared principles*. Yet today, Austria and
Piedmont— both constitutional monarchies— share more
principles than Piedmont does with imperial France.
Another *commonplace*: if Austria sold Venice for
compensation, Vienna and Turin would become the closest
allies. Perhaps Mr. Guéroult means that *shared principles*
would unite French, Italian, and Austrian capitalist
interests under mutual guarantees, should France return
to constitutional rule? I've already shown how
constitutional monarchy consolidates *bourgeoisie* (as Pierre
Leroux called it). In that case, let's drop *nationality* and
*democracy*— especially the Saint-Simonian motto of
emancipating *the poorest and most numerous class*. Italian
unity, wedded to French and Austrian unity, would form a
trinity against whom? The proletariat of all three nations.
Will anyone claim I slander Mr. Guéroult's democratic and
socialist sentiments? But history answers: Saint-Simonism,
which first denounced industrial feudalism, has since
worked to entrench it. Hence its shift first to the July Monarchy, then to the Second Empire. Nothing remains of Mr. Guéroult's transient republicanism— not even the intent.

Mr. Guéroult reproaches the federal government for multiplying general staffs. His objection, however, lacks sincerity: the opposite is true, and he knows it. Who would believe that an adherent of Mr. Enfantin, one of those sectarians who have contributed so much over the past twenty years to the proliferation of large companies, could seriously complain about what makes the charm of everything he loves— joint-stock companies and large political units? In my last pamphlet, I cited, based on the budgetary statistics of the various European states, which Mr. Guéroult knows as well as I do, that the general expenses of government increase in direct and geometric proportion to centralization. Thus, the average contribution per head is 15 francs 77 centimes in the canton of Vaud, plus the federal contribution, which also amounts to 6 francs 89 centimes per head, for a total of 22 francs 66 centimes. This same average rises to 30 francs in Belgium and 54 francs in France. Nevertheless, we see that in Switzerland, with a population of 2,392,760 inhabitants, there are twenty-five cantonal governments, plus the federal government, making a total of twenty-six general staffs, as Mr. Guéroult puts it. I do not know the budgets of the other cantons, but assuming they are all equal to that of Vaud, one of the most populous and richest cantons, the total expenditure of these twenty-six governments would amount to 53,821,531 francs 20 centimes. In France, with a population of 38 million people, that is, sixteen
times larger than that of Switzerland, there is only one state, one government, one general staff. Yet, according to the latest budget estimates, it costs two billion sixty-eight million francs, or 54 francs 40 centimes per head. And in this budget, the expenses of the municipalities, such as those of the city of Paris, whose import duties amount to a total of 75 million francs and which is in debt, are not included. This is what Mr. Guéroult would have tried to respond to if he had been in good faith. But what is good to know is not always good to say, and Mr. Guéroult found it simpler to attribute to federalism the incriminating evidence I had brought against unity. This is how business is conducted and how newspapers are written.

Mr. Guéroult insists— with particular affection— on leveling the charge of anarchy, which he deliberately conflates with federation. Like Mr. Taxile Delort, he knows his audience. Just as the Papacy horrifies *Le Siècle*'s readers (otherwise excellent Christians), anarchy apparently terrifies *L'Opinion Nationale*'s subscribers (otherwise perfect democrats). Are we forever to remain this ignorant, self-satisfied people? There's a story that when Venetian ambassadors came to apologize to Louis XIV, a Parisian burgher nearly died laughing upon learning Venetians lived under a republic— a government without kings. Must I now explain to Mr. Guéroult or his readers that anarchy is liberty's corollary? That in theory, it stands among *a priori* political systems like monarchy, democracy, and communism? That in practice, it constitutes over three-quarters of society's fabric— encompassing all acts of individual initiative, whose scope
and importance grow endlessly, much to the chagrin of
monarchy's, theocracy's, and democracy's apologists and
profiteers? That every diligent, intelligent, honest man has
always been— and must be— anarchic at heart? That this
pious horror of anarchy belongs to sectarians who,
assuming humanity's innate depravity and incompetence,
distrust free reason, resent wealth earned by free labor,
suspect even love and family, sacrifice flesh to spirit or
spirit to flesh, and strive to crush all individuality beneath
the absolute authority of bloated bureaucracies and
pontificates?

After this pantomime of refutation, Mr. Guéroult
probes my conscience's mysteries. According to him, my
writing springs from infernal Machiavellianism:

"What interest drives him?" he exclaims. "Religion's?
Affection for the Empire and dynasty? His natural
modesty rejects this. In religion, he's atheist; in politics,
anarchist—that is, opposed to all government... Yet
Proudhon is too honest to work for anything but his ideas.
Must we suppose that by defending temporal power, he
hopes to advance atheism? That by binding the Emperor's
cause to the Pope's, he aims to ruin both and let anarchy
flourish over the Church's rubble? This would be
Machiavellian—but not stupid. And since Proudhon
writes with purpose, we'll hazard this interpretation until
La France offers a better..."

Here Mr. Guéroult— eager to prove he, not I, is the
Empire's true friend (I having "wickedly seized,
treacherously glossed, and diabolically expanded"
Villafranca's idea)— continues:

"If we criticize this government's acts more than we'd like, yet respect its principle and believe it has a great mission, it's precisely because— rooted in national will, continuing the First Empire's organizational role (minus militarism)— it alone, among foreseeable regimes, can peacefully elevate the working classes' morality, intellect, and welfare. Popular and democratic in origin, it alone can gradually triumph Europe-wide for the principles that empower and legitimize France..."

"Thus, when Proudhon tries to yoke the Empire (founded on universal suffrage) to the Papacy (rejected by Romans and all Italy), he plays the Empire's enemy—anarchy's apostle— seeking to tether it to the past so as to sever it from the future. In this, Proudhon fulfills his role and plays his game."

Mr. Guéroult might have spared me this denunciation.
I consider him, for now, a devoted friend of the Empire,
and have no desire to challenge his privilege to princely
favors— whether in Italy or France— any more than I'd
dispute Catholics' right to papal blessings. But I could
have done without being branded an *enemy of the Empire
and the dynasty* over the Villafranca treaty. Enough
suspicions already hound me without adding imperial
wrath to the mix.

Is what I said about the Papacy and the Empire so
hard to grasp that Mr. Guéroult, after racking his brain,
could only see it as some sinister trap laid by a conspirator? I spoke as history dictates. I noted that every institution, like every family, has its lineage; that Napoleon I, reopening churches, signing the Concordat, muzzling Jacobins with titles and pensions, and creating an Empire blending Revolution and divine right, democracy and feudalism, had reknit the chain of time in his own way. His plan was to continue—in new forms—the tradition not just of Charlemagne but of Constantine and Caesar. His troops hailed him as Emperor of the West after Friedland because they understood this vision. In this, Napoleon I became not merely the son-in-law but the true heir of the Germanic emperor—a fact he underscored by treating Czar Alexander, head of the Greek Church and heir to Constantinople, as a colleague. Strip away this historical framework, and the imperial constitution loses all meaning. Do I share these ideas of Napoleon I? No. But it remains true that Napoleon III, as emperor, cannot permit Italian unity and the Pope's dispossession—nor, as the Revolution's representative, can he establish a federative system. Does this mean I falsified history, slandered the Napoleonic ideal, and deserve to be branded an *enemy of the Empire*?

I too have a lineage—a political genealogy I hold as dear as my birthright. I am the son of the Revolution, which was born of 18th-century Philosophy, itself the child of the Reformation, granddaughter of the Renaissance, with ancestors in every orthodox and heterodox Idea from Christianity's dawn to Byzantium's fall. Let's not forget, in this glorious pedigree, the Communes, Leagues, Federations—even Feudalism,
which, through its hierarchies and castes, once embodied
liberty. And Christianity itself— whose child is it? It
springs from Judaism, Egyptian and Brahmin thought,
Zoroastrianism, Platonism, Greek philosophy, and Roman
law. "If I didn't believe in the Church (tradition)," cried St.
Augustine, "I wouldn't believe the Gospel." I say with
Augustine: Could I trust myself or the Revolution if I
didn't trace its origins in the past?

Mr. Guéroult understands none of this. The Enfantinism he emerged from — whose historical and philosophical lineage neither he nor its founder, Mr. Enfantin, can explain — glorified promiscuity, bastardy, the "pantheism of the flesh," and adultery as fraternity. It imagines human institutions sprouting like rotifers from gutter filth. Enfantinism is communism at its crudest, unity at its most material — the sworn foe of all legitimate descent. It loathes sacred genealogies, family names, and domestic religions. To it, children aren't *liberi* (as Romans called them — "children of Liberty") but *nati* ("children of Nature"), belonging not to parents but to the commune. Yet Enfantinists, when it suits them, proclaim themselves dynastic — for while dynasty falls short of their theocratic ideal, it still represents Authority and Unity, without which (they insist) there's no salvation. This cult of flesh knows nothing of right. What it values in democracy is anonymity; in government, concentration; in Napoleon I's Empire (restored by Napoleon III), not the majestic (if illusory) traditional continuity, but the coups that crushed the republic and silenced free thought. What it admires in Italian unity is its series of expropriations. I asked Mr. Guéroult if he wore the Saint Lazarus ribbon — I should
have asked Victor Emmanuel if he aspired to reign by
Enfantin's grace.
Chapter 4: *La Presse, La Patrie, Le Pays, Les Débats, L'Écho de la Presse, La Revue nationale*

Everyone acknowledges Mr. Peyrat's remarkable talent for invective, and an even greater skill at obscuring issues with tempestuous phrasing and indigestible erudition. He calls me "the scourge of democracy" in 1848, compares me to Hébert, dismisses my arguments as "pitiful," and— after declaring Italian unity necessary to "fight Austria," that "small states are vanishing," and "the trend favors large unified nations"— flings me aside like a lion shaking off a mouse. What can I say to this swashbuckler who disregards geography, history, and law; who's never spent five minutes reflecting on federalism, the 1814 Charter, or the 1793 Constitution; and who sees progress and Revolution in Jacobin centralization?— Tell me, Mr. Peyrat, are you decorated with the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus?

Mr. de Girardin has now succeeded Mr. Peyrat at *La Presse*. As he's just taken the helm, I'll adjust my question: Might Mr. de Girardin fancy the ribbon?

The veteran editor returns livelier than ever. Six years in retirement haven't aged him— he's still as impulsive, spirited, and bold as ever. His comeback has reinvigorated the press; his proposals entertain and engage the public. A champion of Liberty (his chosen motto), why didn't he declare for federalism at once? True, this is the man who said in 1848: "I'd rather wield power for three months than write journalism for thirty years." Hence, Mr. de
Girardin's Liberty is first cousin to centralization! Backing Italian unity in 1860—when Garibaldi's conquest of Naples made it seem inevitable—was bold enough. Now, as unity crumbles, Mr. de Girardin shields it undaunted. His solution? In the name of Liberty and Unity, let the Emperor decree: separate Church and State, defund clergy, secularize education, expel cardinals from the Senate. Once the government turns anti-Christian (like the Directory), simply recall troops from Rome, unleash General Cialdini, and leave the Pope to Providence... Part of this mirrors what I earlier challenged *Le Siècle* to attempt. Ah, Mr. de Girardin—your instincts outshine your theories! We might almost agree.

But note this: If the Emperor reverts to the 1795-1802 *status quo* regarding the Church, he must follow through entirely. Ideas demand consistency; politics tolerates no half-measures. The Consulate (read M. Thiers) necessitated reopening churches—indeed, the Directory's failure to satisfy public piety helped Brumaire's success. To break with the Church, as Mr. de Girardin proposes, would repudiate imperial tradition, reverse Brumaire and December 2nd, abolish dynastic principle, restore the 1848 constitution's freedoms (press, association, education), and undertake socioeconomic upheaval dwarfing the work of 1789's Estates-General, 1793's Convention, or 1799's Consulate. In short, breaking with the Church would sabotage the very unity Mr. de Girardin worships—and jeopardize the Empire itself.

Does Mr. de Girardin truly believe himself capable—intellectually and morally—of undertaking such a task? I
dare say no. In that case, his proposed solution amounts to
nothing: empty words. While correctly recognizing that
the papal question drags religion in its wake, he gravely
errs in thinking a mere imperial decree could resolve it by
defunding the clergy, expelling cardinals from the Senate,
banishing religion from schools and politics. "Drive them
out the door, they'll return through the window." Are you
prepared to replace religion—which you surely don't
intend to outlaw? And if not, can you, Mr. de Girardin,
prevent religious associations under a free regime? Close
private schools? Bar clergy from voting, candidacies, or
public office? Ostracized by government, the Church
will—by law and liberty—reassert itself in temporal
affairs, the State, and governance. Its resurgence will only
strengthen as your inability to replace its moral ministry
becomes clearer. You'll then discover that religious
questions aren't settled by decree, any more than Italian
unity is achieved by gifting Naples, Rome, and Venice to
Victor Emmanuel.

Moreover, is it serious to expect an Emperor—born of
two coups against the Revolution, kin to Europe's princely
houses, "Eldest Son of the Church," and guardian of
capitalist interests—to adopt such policies? When I said
the Empire and Papacy were inseparable, I spoke
profound truth. An Emperor without the Church, as Mr.
de Girardin proposes, would be pure Robespierre—or
Marat: Robespierre trailing the Supreme Being's
procession with flowers six weeks before Thermidor;
Marat carried aloft by bare arms two months before
Corday's visit. One almost hears the Emperor echo the
Pope: *Non possumus*!
Like all unitarians, Mr. de Girardin distrusts ideas, scoffs at press and parliamentary debate, and believes only in expedients— what he and his old Jacobin foes call *action* politics. From unity's perspective— where dynastic and class interests reign supreme, where Church and State intertwine—he may be right: opposition press poses little threat. In lies, the biggest drowns out the rest; truth, so feeble, troubles no one.

Yet these colossal coalitions, though necessitated by circumstance, are inherently unstable. When schisms erupt, the press becomes anarchy's mightiest ally. Truth then takes terrifying form—until interests reunite against it, repression is invoked, and order returns through despotism's door. But truth will have its day: "Blessed," says Christ, "is he who is not offended by it."

After *La Presse*, consider *L'Écho de la Presse*, *Le Pays*, *La Patrie* — Empire-loyal papers whose fidelity, like Caesar's wife, mustn't be questioned. Fiercely anti-papal yet pro-Kingdom, they represent Bonapartism's so-called "progressive" wing on the Roman question. Whether they wear the Saint Lazarus ribbon concerns me little (they reportedly don't hide it). But here's what I'd propose:

Article 42 of Switzerland's 1848 Federal Constitution states:

"Members of federal authorities, civil/military officials, and federal representatives/commissioners may not accept
pensions, salaries, titles, gifts, or decorations from foreign
governments. Those already holding such must renounce
pensions and refrain from wearing titles/decorations while
in office."

Would it be too much to ask— under a unitary
government where no political periodical may exist
without official authorization and financial guarantee—
that journalists, like public officials, be prohibited from
accepting foreign decorations or subsidies, as in
Switzerland? At least we'd avoid seeing
government-aligned papers champion foreign interests
while sporting anti-national ribbons.

The *Journal des Débats* has always reserved its most
venomous diatribes for me alone— losing its composure
and abandoning its Attic refinement. What have I done to
it? It never stirred my anger or hatred.

This grave, academic journal's sudden embrace of
Piedmontese unity first surprised me. Upon reflection, its
conduct seemed natural— yet deeper scrutiny left me
perplexed. The *Débats'* politics defy easy sounding.

First, it's reputedly devoted to the Orléans family,
closely tied to the Neapolitan Bourbons. How then— this
was my initial surprise— could it endorse an act so
damaging to the Bourbon dynasty (and by extension,
Orléans dignity)? Others claim it's nearly reconciled to the
Empire. If so, its position mirrors *Le Pays* and *La Patrie*:
how then, while defending French supremacy, does it
back Italian unity? Why not follow La France's example?...
Yet the *Débats* is immutably wedded to bourgeois constitutional monarchy— where Orléans princes are mere symbols. It likely reasons: if symbols matter, a Bonaparte ultimately equals an Orléans. Credit where due— the *Débats* prioritizes principle (read: bourgeois interests) over personal allegiances. This second rationale seemed as logical as the first. But which to believe?

As the fiercest reactionary voice since 1830 and after 1848 (its glory), the *Débats* would have scores to settle should the Republic return. How then could the sheet of Molé, Guizot, Thiers, and Falloux endorse revolutionary Italy? Another surprise— until recalling its role in the July Revolution, from which it profited handsomely. While valuing legitimacy, it hardly disdains usurpation. When both conserving and seizing are possible— as Guizot said— either choice justifies itself. Napoleon III, whom the *Débats* reportedly now supports, embodies— like Louis-Philippe— both conservation and Revolution. What truly motivated its Piedmont stance? Reaction? Revolution? Both?

In 1846 it backed the Sonderbund; in 1849, the Rome expedition. How now oppose papal rights? But the *Débats* is as Voltairean as Christian, as Jansenist as Jesuit, as bourgeois-unitary as dynastic, as revolutionary as order-loving. Perhaps it genuinely believes religion gains from papal dispossession. What simpler than sacrificing the Pope's temporal power to Italian unity— serving both bourgeois coalition and Church triumph? From every angle, the *Débats* offers a rationale. But its true reason? *Seek, and ye shall not find.*
Pre-1848, the *Débats* was Guizot's near-exclusive organ— yet also Teste's, Cubières', and Pellaprat's... An unfortunate hazard: none can vouch for friends' virtue. Each bears his own faults.

Readers of the *Débats* who follow its lead readily accept two moral codes— the grand and the petty. Combining these, the journal's entire policy can be summarized in this transcendent golden-mean doctrine:

Virtue is needed—but not too much;
Religion is needed—but not too much;
Justice is needed—but not too much;
Good faith is needed—but not too much;
Integrity is needed—but not too much;
Loyalty to princes is needed—but not too much;
Patriotism is needed—but not too much;
Civic courage is needed—but not too much;
Modesty is needed—but not too much.

The litany could go on forever.

Timid souls may find this system unedifying. What impudence, cowardice, treachery, or crime against God and man cannot be justified by such compromise between grand and petty morality? But after all, one needn't show more faith than a charcoal-burner or more wisdom than proverbs afford.

The *Journal des Débats* affects aristocratic airs— adopting noble elegance and arrogance, priding itself on
being journalism's model of good taste. Here I interrupt:
these pretensions

Only impress those not in the know,

as Alceste says. It's disguised cant. Since the July
Revolution (didn't the *Débats* itself admit this?), we've
known there's riffraff high and low.

As for Italian federalism, the *Débats* treats it like *Le Pays* and *La Patrie*— no pedantic discussion, just trashing.

After all I've said about unitary principles and Italian
unity— after all we know of the *Débats*' monarchist,
religious, bourgeois-Voltairean stance— asking if it wears
the Saint Lazarus ribbon would be pointless.
Why wouldn't it accept? Isn't it championing
constitutional monarchy? When the *Débats* fights for these
causes, it battles *pro aris et focis*— why shouldn't it reap
earthly rewards?

Yet without delving deep into its history, one could
prove the *Débats* also champions the Papacy and
legitimate (or quasi-legitimate) dynasties. It might as well
wear the Order of St. Gregory as St. Lazarus, the Cross of
St. Louis as the Legion of Honor— who knows what
medals fill its chest? Before bourgeois solidarity existed,
before capital mergers, restricted suffrage, or centralized
power made mass exploitation easy and Liberty harmless,
the Church had enshrined unity as dogma— chaining
people to wage labor through religion. Before financial
feudalism arose, the 1814 Charter declared: "The old
nobility reclaims its titles, the new keeps
hers." The *Débats* hasn't forgotten— hence its past
devotion to Church and legitimate dynasty. So I ask: By
accepting the Saint Lazarus ribbon and tacitly endorsing
Piedmont over the Papacy, does the *Débats* now deem the
Church obsolete— even dangerous to its system? Does it
consider the Orléans and Bourbon dynasties spent? Has it
adopted a new principle— Napoleonic ideas,
Mazzini's Dio e popolo, or another? Or will it simply
follow unity wherever it leads, under any banner, per
Sosie's maxim:

"The true Amphitryon
Is the Amphitryon where one dines?"

I began by saying Italian unity struck me as, for the
clever, nothing more than a business venture. Observe
how all these papers championing Italy's kingdom
are business papers pursuing business politics— this
explains everything. *Le Siècle*— a business paper; *La Presse*— a business paper; *L'Opinion Nationale*— a business paper; *La Patrie*, *Le Pays*, *Les Débats*— business papers. Are
the owners— Mirès, Millaud, Solar, Havin, Bertin,
Delamarre— statesmen? Are Saint-Simonian hacks like
Guéroult, Jourdan, or Michel Chevalier? I was right: to
France's "democratic liberal" press, Italian unity was just
a deal— quotable, discountable, already cashed in by
some, but now crashing. Ah! The Democracy's simpletons
asked if I blushed at legitimist-clerical press applause.
Had this taunt any weight, I'd redirect it to
Garibaldi: Aren't you ashamed, patriot par excellence, to
be patronized by stock-exchange journalism— where right
and patriotism, art and ideas are for sale? This press,
applying corporate tactics to politics, ensnaring all Italy in
speculation's web, has turned democracy and nationality
into twin advertisements after exhausting every puff form.

The *Revue Nationale* article outdoes others in violence
and bitterness, with a personal hatred I can't fathom — its
author Lanfray being unknown to me. Who is Mr. Lanfray?
A zealot for unitary republicanism, one of those fiery
democrats distinguished by their horror of socialism,
shuddering at economic reform, preparing new June Days
in reactionary frenzy. Already envisioning power, they
draft proscription lists. Very well, Mr. Lanfray — but why
shout? Why insult? Fear your friends will forget your zeal?
Fear I'll overlook you? Rest easy, worthy journalist: names
like yours need only a cross to mark their worth and place.
Lanfray wrote an anti-Church pamphlet inferior to
About's, yet fancies himself a statesman! He accuses me of
"chipping at our glories" — what glories? Let him name
them, that I may do them justice by adding his. He
condemns my using official style for the Emperor — then
let him lead by example, he who secured imperial
permission to publish a Review while I've been denied for
ten years. He complains I called his allies imbeciles.
Inexact — I added schemers too; some merit both terms.
Yes — imbeciles: those aspiring to revolutionary progress
while parading patriotism, yet blind to Italian unity's plot
against proletarian emancipation, liberty, and
France. Scheming: those who, for now-exposed ambitions,
duped masses with phrases and cockades for Victor
Emmanuel. Is Mr. Lanfray decorated with Saint Lazarus?...
His reprimand to Pelletan on this is clumsy and convoluted — true to his usual style.
Chapter 5: *Le Temps, L'Indépendant* (of Charente-Inférieure), *Le Journal des Deux-Sèvres*. Mental Servitude of Mr. Nefftzer

In our liberal France— especially since a certain Democracy, steeped in Unity, Authority, and Nationality, appointed itself guardian and oracle of free thought— maintaining independent opinions has become difficult, if not impossible. For those genuinely attempting it, there's not even safety. The influence of this Medusa extends even to papers striving to break free, yet whose trembling genius cannot withstand her gaze. In proper democracy, one doesn't reason: the wind blows from who-knows-where; weathervanes spin, and voilà— opinion is formed. The masses follow unthinkingly, moving as one man. The soundest minds and purest consciences, caught like an endemic fever, follow suit— this is called the tide of opinion. Before this tide, all yield— some from sheepishness, others from social deference. A miracle of unity! One cannot understand Democracy or its retreats without grasping this phenomenon. The example I'll cite is telling.

At *Le Temps*' founding, its editor-in-chief, Mr. Nefftzer, declared to the minister in his authorization request— and assured the public— that the new paper would *remain outside all parties*.

Generally, such a profession is banal, if not cowardly or sycophantic. But Mr. Nefftzer surely had nobler motives. What were they? Against whom, specifically, was
his declaration aimed? He was known as neither legitimist
nor Orléanist. His recent editorship of *La Presse* proved he
wasn't Bonapartist or ministerial either. In religious
matters, his background might have inclined him toward
Protestantism, but he long presented himself as free
of prejudice. Beyond this, Mr. Nefftzer could claim— as
much as any worldly man — to champion liberty, progress,
and the working class's betterment. Thus, when a daily
press writer is neither legitimist, Orléanist, Bonapartist,
clerical, nor bancocrat (like Nefftzer), yet declares
himself frankly liberal, progressive, and reformist
while rejecting all parties, it plainly means he's even
less aligned with Democracy (as a partisan Union) than
with others. *Le Temps* doesn't belong to Democracy as a
party; its aim was independence— this was Nefftzer's
point, lest he say nothing at all. And often, *Le Temps*
debates with *Le Siècle*, *L'Opinion Nationale*, and *La
Presse* confirmed its editor's stance.

So note this: In France, to keep one's freedom— to
hold frank, independent views— it's not enough to
separate from dynasties, Churches, and sects; one
must especially distance oneself from the democrats.

But saying and doing differ. I fear Mr. Nefftzer didn't
reflect that by belonging to no party, he was doomed to
belong to his own—which required defining his paper's
purpose, policy, and principles. To speak in the name
of liberty, science, or law is vague; all parties do so. To
define oneself is to exist. Yet—with all respect—he hasn't
defined himself; his journal lacks an objective (as soldiers
say). Worse, in politics, he endorsed Unity without
realizing that the liberty and philosophy he claims to
uphold require separation. The result? Willy-nilly, he's
relapsed into Jacobinism.

*Le Temps* devoted several articles to discussing my
views on Italy—I had expected something original. What
did it offer? Nothing beyond what official and unofficial
democracy provided. By declaring itself unitary—for Italy,
France, and America alike—without deeper
examination, *Le Temps* simply fell in line behind the
democratic party. It echoed that party's views and
interests, lacking the will or courage to think for itself. It
joined ranks with Messrs. Guéroult, Havin, and Peyrat—
freely, without even the excuse of "We are but numbers,
born to consume the fruits"—for this colorless journal
likely received neither decoration nor pension.

First, *Le Temps* followed the herd in endorsing the
kingdom. To whom did it offer this disinterested support?
Why favor Italian unity over federation? The truth is,
seduced by the allure of nationalities, it mindlessly drifted
with the democratic current. It treated federalism as a
secondary, optional form of governance—proving only
that it had never seriously considered the subject. Had it
done so, it would have recognized federation as Liberty
itself—the whole of Liberty and nothing but Liberty—
just as it is Justice itself, entire and pure. No other system
can claim this.

Like its democratic models, *Le Temps* argued that
federations have so far played a minor role in global
politics. For a self-proclaimed progressive, this objection is
surprising. Truth, in politics as elsewhere, reveals itself
gradually; even understanding it isn't enough— favorable
conditions are needed. The Swiss only fully grasped their
governing principle after the Sonderbund crisis, though it
had shaped them for five centuries. As for America, its
civil war, the South's stubborn slavery, the North's flawed
abolition, its constitution, and travelers' accounts of its
customs all prove federation remained embryonic there,
its republic still steeped in aristocratic and unitary
prejudice. Does this mean federalism isn't the future? The
political world, though seemingly ancient, is transforming.
The Republic— today as in Plato and Pythagoras' time—
remains its ideal, and anyone can see this republican myth,
ever affirmed but never defined, finds its only true
expression in federation. Moreover, the forces that delayed
federalism's development for centuries are fading. To
dismiss a principle due to its novelty is sheer empiricism.

What troubles *Le Temps* and steers it from federalism
is the masses' — especially Italians' — rush toward unity.
No independent thinker, free of partisan influence, would
cite such a reason. What does the masses' voice prove
doctrinally? Leave such arguments to Mr. Havin and his
fifty thousand subscribers. "Monks are not reasons," said
Pascal. The Republic appeared, and republicans failed to
recognize it—as was inevitable. The Republic is Liberty,
Justice, and thus Federation; Democracy is Authority and
Unity. It's a sign of the times that Democracy has lost sight
of its own future. The Italian people, asked about unity,
said Yes. But reality now answers No—and Italy must
yield to reality. Political unity cannot coexist with
administrative decentralization; it's as impossible as
squaring the circle or trisecting an angle. Today, the
unitary tide is met by a federalist countercurrent. "Down
with centralization!" rings louder in Italy now than "Long
live Unity and Victor Emmanuel!" did six months ago.
Only *Le Temps'* naivety blinds it to the fact that Italian
unity is now deeply compromised—if not already lost.

When I observed that Italy's geography precludes a
unified state—or at least a unitary constitution—*Le
Temps* replied that territorial configuration is one of
those fatalities that human liberty must overcome, with
unity being liberty's very expression. Messrs. Guéroult
and Peyrat said the same in other words: Does Mr.
Nefftzer believe his philosophical phrasing makes this
stance independent? How would he respond to someone
declaring: "The body is man's fatal constraint, which he
must transcend to achieve spiritual freedom—as St. Paul
teaches when craving death: Cupio dissolvi et esse cum
Christo. I thus conclude suicide is our foremost right and
holiest duty!" Mr. Nefftzer would likely retort in German
fashion: "Go to the devil and leave me alone!" I'll simply
note that what he calls an anti-liberal fatality is, in this case,
liberty's very condition. Land is to a nation what the body
is to the individual—an integral part of existence. Call it
a fatality if you will, but one we must live with and care
for as we do our minds, lest we annihilate body, soul, and
liberty itself.

Railroads, Mr. Nefftzer adds, will powerfully unify
Italy. Mr. Guéroult agrees. *Le Temps* proves yet again that
proximity to old-school Democracy turns men into
Panurge's sheep. I've already answered Guéroult & Co.:
railroads are ideologically neutral tools, equally serviceable to federation or unity, liberty or despotism, good or evil. Splendid machines, they swiftly and cheaply transport whatever's loaded— like donkeys with packs or mailmen with letters. In federalist hands, they'd revive local political life (strangled by centralization) and restore economic balance where proletarianization reigns. In unitary hands, these same railroads would drain provinces to feed the center, driving people to destitution and society to ruin.

On the Roman question, *Le Temps*— playing both theologian and involuntary old democrat— held forth on spiritual versus temporal power. It even feigned surprise, like most of its party, at my alleged support for the Pope. Here too, *Le Temps* missed the point, its docility warping its judgment. By backing the Kingdom against the Church, it failed to see it was sacrificing one unity for another—a classic unitary fallacy. The Roman question's solution lies not in theology but public law— specifically, the federative principle. Economic distinctions between the two powers are irrelevant, serving only to hypocritically enlist the Gospel for dynastic ambition. As for whether stripping the Pope would hasten Catholicism's demise (and thus oblige me to applaud), let me remind Mr. Nefftzer: Democracy has never officially scheduled religion's destruction. Garibaldi marched with patriotic priests and monks, just as we did in 1848. Guéroult's gravest charge against me is atheism. Since founding *Le Temps*, Nefftzer himself has turned from Hegel to mysticism— following Jacobin tradition from Robespierre to Guéroult. Given this, I reasoned that Democracy's
embrace of religious ideas reduced anti-papal struggles
to sectarian squabbles. With no stake in swearing by
Luther over Pius IX or Enfantin, my duty was to expose
the intrigue and abstain. When Revolution and Church
finally clash, we'll have weightier matters than relocating
the Papacy to Avignon or Savona.

*Le Temps* refuted me vigorously yet treated me with
respect—a courtesy the old Democracy never afforded me,
for which I thank and commend it. If it finds the courage
to uphold the independence it pledged to the minister,
despite our differences, it may count me a friend. That
said— though Mr. Nefftzer never called
me *Janicot, Erostratus*, or juggler—I must still ask: Is he
decorated with Saint Lazarus? This interrogation admits
no exceptions, and *Le Temps* incurred it by breaking its
vow to remain above parties.

A provincial journalist, Mr. Vallein of *L'Indépendant de la Charente-Inférieure*, upon reading my latest pamphlet, felt compelled to renounce his self-proclaimed discipleship. *L'Opinion Nationale* triumphantly reported this. I'd never had the honor of knowing Mr. Vallein, and sincerely regret losing his goodwill. I won't debate him—but I ask: As my supposed disciple now disowning me on so fundamental an issue, are you certain you ever understood my work? Now that you've returned to old Democracy's fold, do you truly feel freer in heart and clearer in mind? And— since your new friends claim I "defend the Pope"— would you have preferred I'd earned the Saint Lazarus ribbon through unitary zeal?
To *Le Journal des Deux-Sèvres*, which mixes affection with impatience by exclaiming "No! This man has only ever had constitutional monarchy in his head!", I'll simply note: this rebuke comes in the name of Italy's bourgeois, unitary, constitutional monarchy, and in hatred of federation. It recalls Mr. Taxile Delort citing my old federalist-revolutionary declarations as proof for Victor Emmanuel. After this, who can deny the democrats have lost their minds? Poor fellows! Thus do nineteenth-century "disciples" understand their "masters"— and thus do they write history.
Chapter 6: *Le Progrès* (of Lyon). Catholic-Jacobin Paralogisms of Mr. Frédéric Morin

*Le Progrès* (of Lyon) initially attacked me with the fervor of a decorated partisan, until Mr. Frédéric Morin— the paper's correspondent— intervened, urging its editor toward fairer judgment if not kinder sentiment.

Mr. Fr. Morin is one of the most distinguished writers who have emerged in the periodical press since the coup d'état. He belongs to the Unitary Democracy, the prejudices of which he is far from sharing entirely or following in inspiration, as he has proven in my case. With a mind of such caliber, the controversy could have been as pleasant as it was useful: with no room for personal pride; the interlocutors, like two pioneers of truth, proposing their hypotheses in turn, examining the solutions, deducing the principles, with no other passion than that for truth and justice. Thus, it would have been with infinite pleasure that I would have engaged in such a discussion with Mr. Fr. Morin, if in the two well-meaning articles he published on my pamphlet, I had found a level of criticism that invited me to do so. Unfortunately, I am forced to say that Mr. Fr. Morin did not rise above the level of his party. Superior in conscience, he remained equal to the masses in thought; and if I point out some of his propositions here, and if further on I allow myself to ask him a few more questions, it is solely to demonstrate to him, by his own example, that in the political environment he has placed himself in, his reason as a journalist and philosopher has already begun to go astray
and decline. Yes, I repeat, it is the centralizing and unitary
preoccupations that, distorting the reason of its writers
and orators, have led French Democracy into a dead end;
it is what makes liberty and rights unintelligible and
impossible to us today, just as, before Copernicus's
hypothesis, under the influence of Ptolemy's theory, the
system of the world was unintelligible and impossible.

Mr. Frédéric Morin, after noting that, "According to
Mr. Proudhon, the only political system that can be
reconciled with the true revolution and achieve political
equality as well as economic mutuality is the federal
system," adds that he has established the falsity of this
idea. (Progress of November 11th.)

I do not know where Mr. Fr. Morin has established
this. I have not found this demonstration in the articles he
published on my pamphlet; and since I am returning
today, with more detailed arguments, to the federal
principle, I would appreciate it if he would, in turn,
reproduce his thesis with new developments. I am curious
to see how he will show that liberty and equality can
result from the indivisibility of power, administrative
centralization, the concentration of economic forces, the
monopolization, and supremacy of capital, and how
economic mutuality could be anything other than a
federation.

Mr. Fr. Morin rejects with me "this false unity that
absorbs all local life into the stagnant abyss of the state";
but he claims that there is a middle ground between
absolute centralization and federalism. He observes that
the forms of human sociability are not limited to two; that they are extremely numerous; that the Greek city-state was not the same kind of political association as the Italian municipality, nor was the latter the same as the medieval commune, which it preceded; that the commune in turn has been surpassed by modern nationality, which is very different from what was called a people in antiquity; that there are states that are both unitary and decentralized, such as Belgium, England, and Prussia; and he concludes with an appeal to the French bourgeoisie, which he invites, following the example of the English aristocracy, to take back the reins of government, in the interest of the masses and their own, and to reconstitute national unity while decentralizing it.

I must say that I was far from expecting such conclusions from a democrat as pronounced as Mr. Morin, and I am afraid that these fine ideas, which he attributes to a lapse of my mind for having overlooked, are simply the result of his own confusion.

However, one thing explains Mr. Morin's opinions to me. He is resolutely of his party, that is to say, Jacobin; as such, a supporter of bourgeois government; and consequently allied to the unitary government, tempered by a rather strong dose of moderation. It is in this sense that he protests against any oligarchy and absolute centralization. What Mr. Fr. Morin is really asking for, despite the reservations he wraps himself in, is a reshuffling or merging of constitutional monarchy and unitary republic, two political forms that differ from each other as, under Louis-Philippe, the dynastic opposition
differed from the ministerial majority. I would like to
draw the attention of the *Journal des Deux-Sèvres* on this
point, which has so judiciously reproached me for never
having had anything else in mind but constitutional
monarchy.

In just a few lines, Mr. Fr. Morin has raised more
issues than we could each address in two hundred pages,
so I will content myself with responding to his laconic
observations with others that I will try to make as concise
as his.

First, his notion of a "unitary yet decentralized" state
is pure fantasy. No political theorist could coherently
define it, and his examples are misrepresented. Belgium's
government did attempt to combine unity with
decentralization, but any informed Belgian will confirm
that centralization grows daily there, while communal and
federalist spirit fades. The central power wages open war
against local autonomy—one reason my critique of Italian
unitarism angered Belgians, as it indirectly targeted their
own centralizing tendencies<fnref n="27" />. The same pattern appears

<footnote n="27">²⁷ The law abolishing municipal tolls (octrois) in Belgium has turned this country's decentralization into a true anomaly. Seventy-eight towns or municipalities relinquished their independent revenue sources through this legislation— they now receive funding for all expenses directly from the state budget, approved by national representatives. Consequently, the finance minister has become the de facto chief administrator of every Belgian municipality's finances. Overnight, the entire country transformed into one vast administrative district. How could such a state maintain what France— now an Empire again— still claims to uphold: municipal</footnote>
in England, Prussia, and anywhere federalism isn't strictly
codified. America's civil war provides further proof.

All power naturally concentrates and monopolizes.
Traditions, racial character, or national genius can't
prevent this— where class divisions exist (bourgeoisie vs.
people), centralization becomes inevitable. Belgium
exemplifies this tragic dynamic²⁸.

freedoms? I repeat: this situation violates not only the state's rights
(parliamentary and governmental authority alike) but also creates
budgetary irregularity—an impossibility. The Belgian communes
willingly chose this path; parliament ratified their demand. One
might say the nation completely surrendered its autonomy to the
government. And yet this respectable Belgian bourgeoisie mocks
our unitary tendencies!..

28 The abolition of municipal tolls in Belgium could have been both economically beneficial and liberating— if only alternative revenue systems had replaced the lost income. This responsibility should have fallen to individual towns, each determining the optimal fiscal approach for its needs. Government and parliament should merely have ratified local decisions. The simplest solution would have been substituting tolls with rental taxes— while exempting impoverished residents. Instead, the bourgeoisie, enticed by ministerial promises, risked (if not outright sacrificed) municipal freedoms, shifting the burden onto the entire population. Thus the budgets of Belgium's seventy-eight major municipalities became mere line items in the national budget. The bourgeoisie sold its birthright for a mess of pottage— and Mr. Frère-Orban executed modern history's greatest act of political corruption. Henceforth, Belgian town councils function merely as Interior Ministry subsidiaries.

In England, centralization progresses slower than Belgium— thanks
to aristocracy and landownership structures. Would Mr. Fr. Morin
revive primogeniture and feudalism to reconcile his vision of
We mustn't mistake political degeneration for "social forms." The shift from federation to unity (or vice versa) isn't some eternal model—it's a transitional phase. Worse still, Morin's appeal to the bourgeoisie risks reviving the caste system he claims to reject. Remember: society evolves constantly. Unless a political system actively expands liberty to maintain equilibrium, it will always revert to centralization and absolutism.

Human associations do take countless forms—that's liberty's role in governance. But the laws governing them remain constant, especially when expressing justice. I've shown how all governmental forms—whether theoretical or empirical—ultimately converge. They're merely different attempts to balance Authority and Liberty. Only Federation fully satisfies liberty, justice, reality, and logic. Other systems are transient and corruptible; Federation alone is stable and definitive. Why then dwell on "varieties of forms" and "middle paths"? Confederations will differ in details but share core principles—just as constitutional monarchies do today. And why invoke the bourgeoisie or centrist compromises when democracy's very purpose is to erase class distinctions? France doesn't need a

decentralization with unity?

Prussia's lingering nobility similarly obstructs bourgeois and democratic development—the final barrier to constitutional liberalism's expansion. Eliminate this aristocratic class and feudal remnants, and depending whether bourgeoisie or democracy prevails, you'd get either plebeian empire or bourgeois monarchy—both equally unitary in essence.
bourgeoisie or nobility—it needs governance rooted in
immutable justice, with only practical applications varying
as liberty demands.

As a journalist of democracy, you're obligated to seek
this institution just as I do. Faced with only two
alternatives— Authority or Contract— you must either
justify your unity without mutilating or bastardizing it (an
impossible task), or accept Federation.

Mr. Morin claims I've misunderstood
modern *nationality*. But what he and others call nationality
is politics' product far more than nature's. Given how
flawed politics has been— mirroring the governments it
serves— why should I value nationalities forged by its
hand? They lack even the merit of fait accompli, for the
institution that birthed them being unstable, these
so-called nationalities— works of vain empiricism— are
equally unstable, rising and falling with it. Indeed, should
current nationalities crumble with the system that created
them, they'd yield to the primitive nationalities whose
absorption formed them— and who'd view this as
liberation, while you'd call it destruction.

I concede that if Imperial France became a
Confederation tomorrow, its twenty or thirty new states
wouldn't immediately each adopt separate civil codes,
commercial codes, penal codes, or systems of weights and
measures. Initially, federation would mean administrative
independence— de facto unity otherwise. But soon, race
and climate's influences reasserting themselves, legal
interpretations would diverge, then the laws themselves;
local customs would gain legislative authority, until states
claimed full legislative prerogatives. Then you'd see the
nationalities— forcibly fused into modern France—
reemerge in native purity, starkly different from today's
fanciful constructs.

These are my core rebuttals to Mr. Morin— though I
regret lacking space to elaborate. Unless I'm mistaken,
they'd show his hesitation toward federalism stems not
from serious political reasoning but: The imposing *status
quo*; Jacobin tradition and partisan bias; The old
Democracy's verdict against the Girondins; The French
people's eternal view of governance— like war in
1793: "En masse against the enemy!" (meaning
centralization and unity); The fact that revolutionary
matters have always been guided by popular passion, not
philosophical reason. Let Mr. Morin consult his conscience:
Doesn't parting ways with his unitary democrat friends
pain him? Why? Because the Revolution remains, for the
people, a matter of sentiment— not right or science. To
prioritize right and science over sentiment is, in popular
opinion, to abandon the people—and Mr. Morin dreads
abandoning them, even for the people's own good, even
briefly.

Beyond party ties binding him to Democracy, other
reasons make me doubt Mr. Morin's independence of
thought. In his November 11 article on Rome, he writes:

"Mr. Proudhon admits Rome belongs to the Romans.
Let the Romans be consulted, then— and let all bow to
their verdict, sovereign in law and our only escape from
contradiction."

This mirrors— almost verbatim— a courteous remark
by a Rotterdam pastor. It reveals that Mr. Morin, a fervent
Catholic, believes religious unity (eventually uniting all
believers in one faith) requires separation from political
unity. Thus he's doubly unitary— in heart and mind,
religion and politics. How then can he call himself
democrat, liberal, even revolutionary? For me, this
remains an enigma.

Be that as it may, neither Mr. Morin nor my Dutch
correspondent understood me. First, did I deny that the
Romans had the right to decide, insofar as it depends on
them, the matter of temporal power by excluding the Holy
Father? Never. That is not the question for me. The issue is
choosing between federation and unity. On this point, I
merely say— setting aside the dynastic rights or claims of
the Holy See— that if the Romans, like the Neapolitans
and Tuscans, prefer the kingdom over the federation, they
are entirely free to do so. However, in my view, they are
disregarding Italy's tradition, the safeguards of liberty, and
the true principles of law, while also alienating the
Catholic world. I argue that instead of advancing the
revolutionary cause through this policy, they are
regressing; instead of bringing Catholicism to reason—
which, in any case, is not their intention— they are setting
the stage for its resurgence.

As for the temporal power of the papacy, which Mr. Fr.
Morin, as a Catholic and in the interest of the Church,
would like to abolish, I will simply ask him this: Does he
deny that if the sixty or eighty thousand priests in France,
facing threats to their material existence, were to choose
among themselves candidates for the Legislative Body and
present them in the next elections across all eighty-nine
departments, they would have the right to do so? Does he
deny that if universal suffrage were to elect the majority of
these candidates, the clergy would have the right to enter
the government en masse? Does he deny that politics
would then legitimately become Christian, if not entirely
ecclesiastical? No, he cannot deny this, because it is
written in our public law. Moreover, would Mr. Frédéric
Morin, a democrat and a Catholic, not rejoice in this
triumph of religion? Undoubtedly. Therefore, the
separation of temporal and spiritual power, as I have often
stated, is in itself an illusion. And since, on the one hand,
the spiritual and temporal are interconnected, while on the
other, the interests that make up the temporal are
divergent, religious unity is just as illusory as
governmental unity. Thus, it is not on the basis of this
triply false principle— religious unity, governmental unity,
and their separation—that the revolutionary party should
attack the Church and lay claim to the States of the Holy
Father. The true, the only question between the party of
faith and the party of progress is a moral one—a question
in which we are certain to fail, and we condemn ourselves
by waging a dishonest war against our adversary,
coupling spoliation with hypocrisy. What sustains the
Church against all attacks and makes the Catholic party
the most powerful of all— something Mr. Fr. Morin should
know better than anyone—is not its unity, but the
weakening of consciences, no longer upheld by any idea
from above or below; it is the materialism of our education;
it is the abandonment of revolutionary thought, replaced
by the most detestable Pharisism; it is our impure
romanticism and our Voltairian libertinism.

According to Mr. Morin, "by studying the hypothesis
of the abolition of the temporal Papacy, I would have been
horrified by the image of temporal authority crowning
itself with absolute rule over souls." — I am grateful to my
honorable critic for attributing lofty motives to my stance
toward the Papacy, but these are not precisely my
concerns. I believe in and await the end of the temporal
Papacy, because I believe in and await absolute Justice and
the pure morality of Humanity, of which the French
Revolution was, in my view, the precursor. Thus, I believe
the day will come when spiritual authority will no longer
be distinct from temporal authority, since both will be
founded on the same Conscience, the same Justice, the
same Reason, and the same Liberty. What troubles me
deeply — what I would weep tears of blood over — is some
reformist trickery, revived from Luther and Calvin; some
mimicry of a state religion or national church copied from
Henry VIII; worse still, some new cult of the Supreme
Being or of Reason; masquerades like those of
Ménilmontant, a theophilanthropy, a Mapa, or any other
spiritist or Mormon folly. Given the decay of souls, I
believe anything is possible in terms of superstition. Our
so-called Voltairianism does not reassure me; I have no
confidence in freethinkers who know only how to mock
and indulge. Philosophy, if not armored with virtue,
inspires only disdain in me. That is why, while
maintaining toward the Church the position that the
Revolution, in my view, has assigned to the modern world, I publicly denounce— alongside the maneuvers of unitary Democracy— the vacillations of an immoral pantheism and a clique without principles.

After indirectly supporting the Papacy as a temporal power, Mr. Morin reproaches me for having advocated "not only a republican federation but even the monarchical federation of Villafranca." — On the contrary, Mr. Cernuschi, the leader of the Roman barricades and a key figure in the Roman Republic of 1849 (whose name I forgot to mention in my last publication alongside those of Ferrari, Montanelli, and Ulloa), told me the other day: "Compared to their unitary republic, I would have preferred a federation of monarchies a hundred times over." And, with all due respect to Mr. Fr. Morin, I share Mr. Cernuschi's view. The odds are ten to one that a unitary republic, like that of the Jacobins, will inevitably become— by virtue of its unity— a constitutional monarchy, and just as likely that a federation of monarchies will, by virtue of its federative principle, evolve into a federative republic. Such is the logic of principles, where the dominant element ultimately absorbs the others. Since when are ideas condemned simply because of those who propose or express them? What astonishing prudishness from Jacobinism! An emperor, Napoleon III, proposes federation to the Italians— so they reject it because it comes from an emperor, and what do they prefer instead? A monarchy. Constitutional princes would represent this confederation— so they must reject it because the confederated states would be monarchies, and what do
they prefer instead? A military kingdom, a rival to the
Emperor!

Let us not be fooled by this Jacobin fastidiousness.
Jacobinism is, above all, unitary—that is, monarchical,
with or without a king. Mr. Fr. Morin admits as much by
opposing federation. Jacobinism is bourgeois in the
interest of order—Mr. Fr. Morin declares this by
appealing to the bourgeoisie. Finally, Jacobinism is
centrist—Mr. Fr. Morin makes no secret of it, advocating a
system of both unity and decentralization. Unitarianism,
bourgeoisism, centrism—this, at its core, is why
Jacobinism opposes federation, and why democracy has
railed so vehemently against the Treaty of Villafranca.
Have we exhausted its contradictions? Not yet. Since Mr.
Fr. Morin's sympathies lean toward the plebeian class, he
now—while supporting unity and appealing to the
bourgeoisie—expresses fear that Victor Emmanuel's
government may be too unitary, too bourgeois, too centrist.
This recalls Robespierre hurling invectives at Feuillants,
Girondins, Dantonists, Hébertists, and moderates, all
while being unable to define his own stance. By enlisting
in Jacobinism, Mr. Fr. Morin, what have you done with
your independence as a philosopher? What have you done
with your sincerity as a Christian? You have lost even your
logic and are now incapable of clearly formulating an
opinion.

But I have even more serious observations to submit
to the correspondent of *Le Progrès*— these will be the
subject of the following chapters.
Chapter 7: Moral and Political Questions: The
Reason of State

Mr. Fr. Morin's final and principal grievance against
me is that I attacked Mazzini. On this point, he deemed it
necessary—for my enlightenment—to compile Mazzini's
record and deliver a eulogy of the great conspirator.

I thank Mr. Fr. Morin once again for the courteous
manner in which he appealed to my sympathies on
Mazzini's behalf. His admiration did not lead him to direct
the slightest disparagement toward me. Such moderation
in tone sets an example as commendable as it is tasteful,
and I shall strive to emulate it— without compromising
the truth that free thinkers owe one another.

First, allow me to observe—with all due respect for
Mr. Fr. Morin's character—that his praise of Mazzini,
however sincere, seems at this juncture to have served
partly as a vehicle for the rest of his argument. He needed
this parachute to convey to his Lyon readers (without
risking their distrust) that one might reject Italian unity
and oppose Mazzini's politics without being an enemy of
the people or of liberty. Similarly, Mr. Pelletan—while
protesting Italian unitarism in two pamphlets—felt
compelled to lace his critiques with lavish praise for
Garibaldi (though forced to condemn his expedition) and
tirades against Austria (despite having once declared:
*Liberty as in Austria!*— a phrase that earned him a month
in prison).
Such is the intellectual and moral poverty of
democracy today that its most devoted champions dare
not venture the slightest unorthodox remark without
instantly arousing suspicion.

What dreadful oath must one swear to reassure you?

A democratic writer ought never to forget Hippolytus'
line to Theseus. To be a Fr. Morin or a Pelletan is to resign
oneself to the Caudine Forks of perpetual self-justification!

Very well— let us speak again of Mazzini. I repeat
(for the last time) that this concerns not the man but the
agitator; that I believe Mazzini as upright and virtuous in
private life as the late Savonarole or Garibaldi; and that no
one admires his steadfastness more than I. But I add—
after this obligatory (and humiliatingly recurrent)
disclaimer—that as someone who vehemently denies
unification and affirms federation, who consequently
condemns Mazzini's entire political principle, I cannot
fathom why I should then bow to his fame as a
revolutionary. What would become of free opinion, critical
independence, or the liberties of the podium and press if,
after dismantling a doctrine and exposing its errors and
immorality, one were required to crown its author in
conclusion? Is this Mazzini's own understanding of
politics? If my assessment of recent events in the Peninsula
and my theory of federalism hold any merit, then I was
right to call Mazzini the scourge of Italian liberty and the
Revolution—and I have the right to demand his
withdrawal. Can a leader's asceticism excuse the disasters
wrought by his system?
Mazzini is a man of *idea* and *policy*. What sets him apart is his religious devotion to that idea—and his willingness to follow its logic to the bitter end. Few possess such courage: it marks true innovators, securing their place in history when their idea aligns with their era's conscience. Let us judge Mazzini's idea and policy, then— without bias but without leniency—and leave the man aside. If I err, I shall gladly be corrected and hasten to retract— less out of regard for Mazzini (whose person is irrelevant here) than for Democracy itself, of which he is merely a representative.

Mazzini is a democrat in the same vein as Robespierre and all Jacobins—which is to say that while Liberty may initially dominate his principles and the interests he represents, it soon transforms into pure Authority through the substitution of collective sovereignty for dynastic rule. This is evident in Mazzini's life, writings, and entire political career. Individual freedom and the rights of man and citizen occupy little space in his concerns. To him, the social contract is merely an implicit, one-sided agreement in which the individual dissolves into the masses and personal liberty is sacrificed to unity. His motto, *God and People*; his aversion to anarchy and socialism; his relentless push for Italian unification—all prove that this democrat, like Robespierre, is fundamentally a man of authority.

Mr. Fr. Morin, whose dogmatic character, unitarian preferences, and puritanical leanings bear some resemblance to Robespierre and Mazzini, might first do me the favor of stating whether he shares these two
famous tribunes' views on the relationship between Authority and Liberty. The theory of federalism I outlined in the first part of this work, along with the practical consequences I drew from unitarian doctrine, should clarify the intent and significance of my question. (See Part 2, Chapter 3 above.)

From one's understanding of Authority and Liberty flows the political maxim guiding governance— otherwise known as *Raison d'État* (Reason of State). If Liberty prevails, this maxim will be *Justice*— it can be nothing else. If Authority dominates, it will be an *Idea*— God, for example, or religion, the Church, the priesthood, aristocratic privilege, respect for authority, dynastic rule, or all these combined. For Mazzini, as for Robespierre, it is above all *Unity*.

The consequence is dire. If the political maxim — the *Raison d'État* — is Justice, then by the incontrovertible principle that the end determines and justifies the means, *everything* in national governance must submit to law: public law, civil law, economic law, international law. Even the nation's survival — if one could hypothetically imagine it ever being at odds with justice — must be sacrificed to justice, meaning the nation must become a martyr for righteousness. But if the political maxim, derived from the principle of Authority, is an Idea or Dogma — one that supersedes justice — then all law and morality may, when expedient, be sacrificed to *Raison d'État*. This is implied in the Jesuits' infamous motto, *Ad majorem Dei gloriam* ("For the greater glory of God"), or its corollary, *Salus populi suprema lex esto* ("Let the welfare of the people be the
supreme law"). Thus, there emerge two moral codes: a
*State Morality*, stemming from *Raison d'État* and elevated
above justice, and a *common morality*, legally binding only
when State interests are not at stake²⁹.

<sup>29</sup> Those unfamiliar with these matters may think I exaggerate by turning into a political system the occasional crimes committed by crowned monsters in the name of <i>raison d'État</i>. Such a view would be as unfortunate as it is mistaken— and I must protest it, both in the interest of public safety and of truth. The practice of what I call <i>raison d'État</i> is an everyday occurrence in politics and governance; it has infiltrated Church affairs, corporate dealings, and trade organizations; it has penetrated every layer of society. It appears in courtrooms as much as in industrial associations, even reaching into domestic life.

When Luther, for instance, authorized Landgrave Philip of Hesse—
by signed consultation—to keep two wives simultaneously to
preserve the Reformation’s political protection, thus violating
religious morality for religious motives, he was following *raison
d’État*. When a doctor, to save an adulterous woman’s honor and
preserve a household’s peace, procures an abortion— becoming
complicit in infanticide to avoid scandal—he obeys *raison d’État*.
When Louis XIV arbitrarily imprisoned the Man in the Iron Mask,
he acted on *raison d’État*. Military tribunals and exceptional courts
are applications of *raison d’État*. When Napoleon I, after fifteen years
of marriage, repudiated Josephine, he sacrificed morality to *raison
d’État*. And the Church official who annulled the religious marriage
on a technicality sacrificed religion to the same principle. When the
Jesuits orchestrated the assassinations of William of Orange, Henry
III, and Henry IV, they too acted on *raison d’État*. All Roman policy,
papal governance, and monastic discipline are but a series of acts
justified by *raison d’État*. The system of lettres de cachet, abolished
by the Revolution, was a formalized version of *raison d’État*. The
September Massacres of 1792, the Revolutionary Tribunal’s purges,
deportations without trial, the executions at the Luxembourg and
The supremacy of *Raison d'État* has been accepted without exception in all governments to this day— even republican and democratic ones. It has been the indispensable condition and the mark of condemnation in politics. Through this brutal sovereignty, Liberty and Justice, insofar as they might hinder the ruler or government, are systematically outlawed. The ideal government, then, would be one where *Raison d'État* is no more privileged than any other principle—or better yet, where Justice and Liberty themselves *become* the *Raison d'État*. Such a system already exists: it is the federative system.

Does Mr. Fr. Morin accept Justice as the sole *Raison d'État*? Or does he believe, like Mazzini, Robespierre, Machiavelli, kings, emperors, popes, and all tribunes of the people, that there can be another? Does he think republics and societies would sometimes be endangered if Justice were not sacrificed to some supposedly higher interest—a political ideal, religion, Church, priesthood, aristocracy, dynasty, democracy, nationality, unity,

<footnote>Tuileries—all these atrocities, carried out by municipalities, the Directory, or ordinary citizens—are attributable to *raison d'État*. When the Girondins demanded prosecution of the September Massacres' perpetrators, they were resisting *raison d'État*. And when Robespierre and his allies opposed them, they upheld it. The true revolution would be one that elevates conscience above all human expediency, abolishing in politics and throughout society this monstrous doctrine of *raison d'État*—which, under pretexts of order, honor, public safety, or morality, alternately permits and absolves the most blatant and egregious crimes.</footnote>
authority, community, etc.? In short, does he unwaveringly
uphold the primacy of Law over all other prerogatives—
or does he concede, if not always then occasionally, to a
"higher order" that overrides Justice?

This is an extremely serious matter. Many democrats
reject this sovereignty of Justice, which ultimately seeks to
dismantle all old systems—unitary Democracy included.
To exclude all forms of *raison d'État* from politics and
establish the rule of Law alone is to affirm federation—as
if the Legislator were telling the masses, reversing the
words of the Decalogue: *You shall have no other law but your
own statutes, no sovereign but your contract*. It is to abolish
the idolatry of unity.

The practical consequence of this—depending on
whether one upholds Justice exclusively or acknowledges
a *raison d'État* superior to Justice—is as follows:

For Mazzini, government is not founded on an
explicit contract but on an implicit, unilateral one, akin to
that binding a child to a family. It does not originate from
Liberty as the dominant principle but from an idea prior to
and above all convention—divine authority, *Dio e popolo*,
or some other. Thus, in Mazzini's view, republic,
democracy, monarchy, and empire are mere labels,
significant in common usage but irrelevant to the essence
of governance, easily interchangeable. What matters is that
the supreme idea is respected and the maxim of State
obeyed. Consequently, a man like Mazzini can, in good
conscience, while calling himself a republican and
democrat, shout—or have others shout— *Long live the*
*King!*— so long as he serves the higher idea: unity. The one thing the democratic republican Mazzini and his followers cannot permit themselves is to call themselves federalists, for in affirming federation, they would renounce their political idealism— their *raison d'État*.

Not so for those committed heart and soul to the federalist idea. For them, the entire political and social order rests not on myth, poetic ideals, or abstract conceptions, but on pure Law expressed through contract. Under no pretext can they recognize kingship or pontificate as expressions of this principle—to do so would betray their conscience. A federalist may wish health, prosperity, and long life to a prince, just as to any individual whose opinions he does not share—his goodwill extends to all. Likewise, he swears no hatred of monarchy, makes no show of regicide: he knows liberty progresses gradually, that kingship is a transient institution like worship and sacrifice, and he respects all institutions. But just as the early Christians, while praying for Caesar, refused to sacrifice to his Genius and Fortune—for that would have been idolatry—so too the federalist, even while wishing well to the monarch, will never cry with Mazzini and Garibaldi: *Long live the King!*

Thus federalism and Jacobinism diverge: the first, indifferent to personalities but unyielding on principles; the second, weak in ideas, powerful only in hatred, yet capable when necessary of silencing its grudges to make itself acceptable.
Chapter 8: On the Political Oath

The issue of political oaths is one of the most delicate matters a political writer can address.

An oath carries a sacramental quality that fundamentally distinguishes it from any other promise, obligation, or commitment—whether tacit or formal. In marriage, for instance, the oath is required because the bond spouses form through mutual devotion does not arise solely from cohabitation or a promise of love. Without the oath sworn before a magistrate and witnesses, neither they nor anyone else could determine whether their union constitutes matrimony or mere concubinage. Even if the formal appearance of betrothed parties before a civil officer were abolished—if the oath were deemed sufficiently implied by the marriage contract, preceded by legal announcements and followed by cohabitation—the oath would still exist in essence. Its absence would only prove its necessity, much like banknotes substitute for currency but ultimately testify to currency's intrinsic value.

Similarly, oaths are required in testimony, arbitration, and expert evaluations. Those called as witnesses, arbitrators, or experts are presumed to have no personal stake in concealing or distorting the truth. Yet they may be swayed by friendship, hatred, or fear; they might be seduced or intimidated. The oath serves to consecrate their dedication to truth, elevating them above mundane considerations, binding their honor through fear of perjury,
and freeing them from human pressures.

In marriage, the oath is a *sacramentum* that renders spouses exclusive to one another. In testimony or arbitration, it consecrates the witness or arbitrator, shielding them from reproach. Outside these specific cases, oaths are unnecessary— a simple promise, written or verbal, suffices. No one swears an oath to pay debts, honor a promissory note, or fulfill duties as a servant, employee, partner, or agent; such demands would rightly seem absurd. Yet an oath may be imposed on a dishonest debtor who claims repayment despite lacking proof, or a creditor who denies being paid after losing the receipt. Here, the oath becomes a self-curse: the swearer invokes infamy if lying.

The same principles govern the oaths sworn by public officials upon assuming office— though these must not be confused with political oaths or feudal homage, despite superficial similarities.

Judges, administrators, ministerial officers, and even rural guards swear oaths. This does not merely signify a promise to perform their duties honorably (which goes without saying and needs no oath any more than a tenant's obligation to pay rent). Rather, it signifies that these officials, being bound to impartiality, are shielded from hatred or resentment arising from their official acts. A private individual who denounces a crime out of personal interest often earns scorn, but a sworn officer tasked with upholding the law and prosecuting offenders retains respect— unless they abuse power to harass the
innocent. What creates this distinction? The oath.

Thus, it is clear that the oath of public officials— like those of spouses, witnesses, or arbitrators— cannot be sworn *to* a sovereign, whoever it may be. The official swears solely to their conscience regarding their duties. To demand an oath to a prince or even the nation implies their duty is subordinate to higher authority— that justice is not their supreme law, but *raison d'État*. This aligns with Machiavellian and Mazzinian politics and corrupts the oath's very nature.

With this understood, we may now grasp the implications of oaths sworn to rulers— their purpose and the limited cases where they might apply.

The political oath is likewise a contract of devotion— and thus unilateral— intended to bind the citizen who swears it to the prince who receives it through a personal consecration that overrides all factual or legal considerations. For the swearer, the prince embodies justice itself— nay, the very source of justice.

In an absolute monarchy or an idealistic, unitary democracy where *raison d'État* supersedes law, demanding such an oath is logical— especially when sworn before the ruler or assembly representing public authority. Under the old regime, for instance, government was personal and autocratic, as evidenced by the indivisibility of power. The political system incarnated itself in the prince— emperor or king— whose death led to elective or hereditary succession but left no structure beyond him. Had officials,
soldiers, or citizens dared say to this man: "I do not
*acknowledge you,*" the state would have collapsed and
society dissolved. Not all members of society swore the
oath (do children swear oaths to their fathers?), but all
owed it— and when the sovereign summoned select
individuals to confer dignity upon them, the debt became
due.

In a federative republic— where authority is
subordinate, government impersonal, and the state
founded on contract— such practices become impossible.
No oath can be sworn to anyone: not to a prince (who, as
president or landamann, is but a subordinate official), nor
even to the *nation* or its assembly, since the nation itself
exists solely by pact, composed of independent states of
equal dignity bound by mutual insurance contracts—
synallagmatic and commutative agreements that exclude
oaths by design.

Some may cite the Swiss founders of liberty swearing
their oath on the Grütli meadow, or its renewal during
national wars. But beyond recognizing this initial act as
merely a solemn, passionate form of mutual commitment,
might we not view the Grütli oath— like all such historical
oaths— as an *abjuration* or *self-curse*? Through it, the
confederates declared themselves free of all feudal
homage, forming a new political society based on free
contract. Here, the oath marked a solemn farewell to
political anthropomorphism— a repudiation of oaths
themselves. Never were the Swiss more sublime than in
renewing their ancestors' abjuration across generations.
From these observations, I conclude that political oaths fundamentally oppose republican spirit generally — and federative spirit especially. In 1848, I was deeply troubled by how oath-taking was abolished in the Republic's name. The repeal was poorly justified, carrying an air of indecency, insincerity, and insult to nation and Republic alike. It implied that since 1789, all oaths had been perjuries; that demanding them was pointless; that no one could be trusted — not even the Republic's own framers. And as if to perpetuate this tradition of perjury under new guise, cries of "Long live the Republic!" grew louder. Why not abolish that slogan along with the oath? Worse still, while abolishing oaths for all else, the Republic exceptionally demanded one from its President. The truth? Oath-taking is nonsensical in a republic. But hypocrisy prevailed: this unitary Republic rejected industrial federation (disguised as *Right to Work*), resisted democracy's tide, and upheld vague "prior and superior principles" that invited idealism. Having no right to claim binding force from contract alone, its premature oath abolition provoked the national conscience into compensating with fervent shouts of "Vive la République!"

In constitutional monarchy — that hybrid, ambiguous system founded on both authority and contract — oaths of allegiance to the prince are required from officials and representatives, just as the prince must swear loyalty to the constitution upon accession. Here, power is divided among ministerial branches while administration remains centralized. The government appears impersonal (since royal decrees require ministerial countersignatures), yet becomes personal again when the king appoints
ministers— always finding one willing to sign for him. Examined closely, this system proves incoherent, as events have shown. Still, it makes more sense than absolute monarchy— indeed, we've acknowledged it as empiricism's most successful political experiment thus far. Thus, in societies where monarchy coexists with popular sovereignty as an integral part of the system, royal oaths remain justifiable. Sovereign and subjects remain bound, as in medieval times—but by a modernized pact. The men of 1789 captured this in their formula: *The Nation, the Law, the King*.

Now back to Mazzini and his politics.

Mazzini, the apostle of *unity*, champions not constitutional monarchy per se but its distilled essence: the unitary republic. By his principle, he could demand his followers swear allegiance to the *One and Indivisible Republic*— an idolized entity above law and liberty. He might even extend such oaths to any representative of this Republic, individual or collective— say, Victor Emmanuel, whom Mazzini effectively pledged to support conditionally in exchange for the king's devotion to unity. Similarly, Robespierre's Jacobins swore oaths to Napoleon in 1804 and later to Louis XVIII in 1814. Only federalist republicans—for whom government springs solely from contract— can logically and legally refuse oaths. Federative pacts and feudal/imperial homage are irreconcilable.

France will soon hold elections. Naturally, Mr. Fr. Morin—Jacobin, Mazzinian, and Roman Catholic— will
argue (if on no other grounds) that by his party's unifying
*raison d'État*, Democratic candidates may legitimately
swear oaths to the Emperor. No personal affection or
policy approval is required, just as royalist oath-takers
needed not love their kings, nor Thiers— when joining
Louis-Philippe's ministry— need become the king's lackey.
Then as now, it suffices that the prince embodies the
swearer's overarching ideal.

Thus, by the Democracy's own admission (and Mr.
Frédéric Morin's), France's constitution— whether royalist,
imperial, or democratic in name— rests on a contract
blending authority with liberty, permitting some
governmental *personality*. Since Napoleon III was elected
chief representative of the nation, his (technically optional)
imposition of oaths remains logically and legally valid. No
true democrat need conscience-strickenly refuse. Between
Democratic opposition and Napoleon III, the difference is
no greater than between Louis-Philippe and Lafayette or
Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi. The 1852 Democrats'
oath refusal targeted the sovereign's person, not his office.
Their current compliance implies that while criticizing
imperial policy, they ultimately acknowledge the
Emperor's legitimacy and their shared ideological kinship.
Their opposition now mirrors Britain's euphemistic *"His
Majesty's Loyal Opposition."*

To help Mr. Fr. Morin better grasp this issue's
significance, I'll point out that Mazzini— having sworn an
oath— retains, by his own theory's logic, a means of
release should the prince displease him. If the State's
guiding principle is violated—if Italian unity (the
Mazzinian Democrats' goal) remains unrealized; if Victor Emmanuel proves inept or unwilling; if he yields to foreign pressure— Mazzini may declare the prince faithless to *raison d'État*, a traitor to unity and country, and thus absolve himself from his oath. This mirrors medieval practice: when kings violated public/domestic morality, noble rights, or Church authority, the Pope excommunicated them, voiding subjects' oaths. Yet this oath-dissolution theory— already dubious when popes invoked Christian society's name (sparking fierce papal condemnations)— becomes outright reprehensible when left to individual conscience. It reduces to Jesuitical "*Swear, forswear...*" For what is swearing conditionally— reserving judgment on when to honor the oath—but treating a solemn act as mere formality? In principle, this negates oaths' essence; practically, it denies the sovereign's constitutional legitimacy. It is, in short, needless perjury.

Does Mr. Frédéric Morin endorse this perjury theory? Does he agree with many Democrats that one may conscientiously swear allegiance to a head of state, then immediately void it by claiming the ruler violated his pact with the people?

There's more: absolved from his oath, Mazzini may conspire against Victor Emmanuel—for a king "traitorous to unity" ceases representing "One Indivisible Italy." Mazzini and his unity-swearing followers, condemning the king's hesitation, thus inherit legitimacy. Like perjury theory, regicide doctrine stems from excommunication—a direct imitation. Here, Mazzini and Jacobins merely copy papal precedent.
Every Italian I've asked believes Mazzini would pursue these theories practically— that this very rigor defines his politics' moral force, as hinted by his farewell threat to Italy's king: "*We shall conspire!*" Perhaps— though I hesitate to assert it— conspiracy or political murder might conceivably be justified to save Justice (above *raison d'État* or even patriotism). But we know Justice isn't Mazzini's guiding principle— nor Orsini's, nor Rossi's unknown assassin's<fnref n="30" />. Does Mr. Fr. Morin, like these sectarians, believe what barely excuses saving Justice (humanity's supreme interest) could legitimize pursuing Mazzinian unity?

Federalist republicans face no such ghastly dilemmas. Their purely contractual system subordinates authority to Liberty; magistrates function impersonally as officials while remaining citizens' equals. They owe no oaths—to swear would betray federation, duty, and public liberty. Should circumstances force federation's abandonment,

<footnote n="30">³⁰ Political assassination is endemic to Italy—one might say this unfortunate country has never known opposition or politics except through such means. Italy is Machiavellian to its core. *La Presse* (February 1st), in an article signed A. Dumas, recounted horrifying details. French justice eradicated Corsica's relatively honorable *vendetta* customs—but who will destroy Naples' monstrous *Camorra*? Only Federal Law can overcome the bloodthirsty habits of a people whose conscience and morality have been warped by despotism and superstition. By this measure, unity's architects haven't merely delayed Italy's regeneration—they've perpetuated its vilest traditions.</footnote>
they'd either withdraw from politics (suppressing regrets and hopes) or, if deeming their service vital, honor their oath unconditionally. The final consequence of political oaths and their corollary, *raison d'État*, is this: since *raison d'État* is sovereign, a virtuous citizen like Mazzini— once invested with vindictive dictatorship— may wield it not only against a faithless prince, minister, or writer, but against entire cities, provinces, and populations.

Take Italy, for example, as Mazzini has decreed it must be: unity equals nationality. But nationality transcends the nation itself, just as an ideal surpasses its realization. Thus, just as a Roman dictator— father of his country— facing a guilty army, had the right to decimate it for perjury (and did so); just as the Jacobins of 1793, backed by Paris and a dozen patriotic departments, claimed the right (under their interpretation of Revolution) to punish the refractory masses— so too Mazzini could brand as rebels all who resist unity, even if twenty-five million strong, for violating their mystic pact with Victor Emmanuel. By this logic, he could exterminate federalists as brigands, burn cities, ravage countryside, and "purify" entire populations guilty (in his eyes) of treason against themselves. Isn't this precisely what Piedmontese forces have done for two years in Naples, Calabria, and wherever Victor Emmanuel's sovereignty is contested?

Does Mr. Frédéric Morin have any objection to this deduction from Mazzini's politics? Let him weigh his answer carefully. I've taken no rhetorical shortcuts— these propositions are laid bare for his consideration. But let him not mistake: this unitary politics I ascribe to
Mazzini—this *raison d’État* of oaths and perjury— is no different from the Jacobins of 1793 proscribing six-sevenths of France in the people’s name. It mirrors: The Roman patriciate claiming life-and-death power over citizen-soldiers as over children and slaves; Moses slaughtering idolatrous Israelites in the desert; The Inquisition burning heretics (real or suspected); Ferdinand and Isabella expelling Jews and Moors; Catherine de’ Medici executing St. Bartholomew’s massacre; The Holy League and Jesuits assassinating William the Silent, Henry III, Henry IV, etc. This is the politics of all theocracies, absolutisms, and demagogues. Only the federative system— founded on free contract and thus making pure justice its sovereign maxim— stands opposed to this politics of fire and blood.
Chapter 9: Slavery and the Proletariat

What is happening across the Atlantic, three thousand leagues from Mazzini's ideological sphere, provides striking proof of this truth: without federalism, politics inevitably degenerates into tyranny, plunder, and extermination— no matter how virtuous or merciful its leaders may be.

For half a century, the United States republic stood as a model society and government. Unparalleled freedom flourished alongside unprecedented prosperity. Yet this federalist republic harbored deep flaws. The fever of exploitation—imported from Europe with its religion and laws— alongside pride in bloodline and wealth, exacerbated inequality and class distinctions to alarming levels, making a return to unitary government inevitable.

American society comprised three groups: *Black workers* (enslaved); *White workers* (sinking deeper into proletarianization); A landed *aristocracy* of capitalists and industrialists. Since slavery and proletarianization clashed with republican values, the Southern states—though self-styled "Democrats" *par excellence*—first conceived centralizing the U.S. and dominating the Confederacy. They aimed to expand their "peculiar institution" (black servitude) nationwide. Rebuffed by the Northern majority (who preferred the label "Republicans") and thwarted in local interests by this majority wielding Union-wide authority, the South broke the federal pact, forming a presumptively unitary slaveholding democracy.
To salvage the Union, two measures were urgently needed: 1. *Emancipating Black people* and granting them citizenship (half-heartedly supported by the North, outright rejected by the South); 2. *Combating the growing proletariat* (which no faction prioritized). With black servitude threatening from the South and white proletarianization from the North, the Confederacy teetered on collapse. Both sides' obstinacy left the crisis nearly unsolvable. Left unchecked: If the propertied classes of North and South remained united, focused solely on exploitation while ignoring workers, the eventual collision of populations would see Southern democratic masses infiltrate Northern republicanism—and vice versa. White and Black laborers, mingling and uniting, would force exploiters to either centralize into a police state or face Haitian/Mexican-style revolts crowning an emperor. If racial divisions and conflicting exploiter interests made separation inevitable, the North would suffer politically, economically, and militarily, eventually begging the slaveholding minority for alliance on *their* terms. Either way, the federation was doomed.

In this situation, the South took the initiative by declaring independence. How did the North respond? Eager to maintain its supremacy and insisting the U.S. territory comprised only one indivisible nation, it first labeled the secessionists as rebels. Then, to remove any pretext for division, it proposed expelling all enslaved people from the republic—compensating owners—while allowing those who requested to remain in a subordinate status akin to India's pariahs. Thus, while branding
Southern Confederates as rebelles for seeking to preserve
their exploitative system by leaving an untenable union,
the North unilaterally decreed, legalized, and cemented
the political and social segregation of people of color— a
novel interpretation of the principle of nationality! Such is
Lincoln's plan. Should this plan pass, black servitude will
merely change form. Many Black laborers, essential to
tropical agriculture, will be retained in their current states;
American society will grow no more homogeneous; and
the drive to prevent future Southern secession will
accelerate centralization. Geographic and social forces
combined<fnref n="31" />, Lincoln's "solution" would only hasten the federal republic's transformation into a unitary system.

Meanwhile, the same Democracy championing Italian unity also backs American unity under the guise of abolishing slavery. Yet its applause for Lincoln's proposal— converting black slavery into proletarian wage labor— betrays its true aim: consolidating human exploitation under bourgeois, quasi-monarchical systems. Contrast this with Democracy's suppression of socialism since 1848, and you grasp its philanthropic hypocrisy: it

<footnote n="31">³¹ If any federation was ever geographically disadvantaged, it is surely the United States. Here, nature itself seems hostile to freedom's cause. A vast continent— 600 to 1,000 leagues wide, nearly square, surrounded on three sides by ocean yet with coasts so distant that most inhabitants might as well be landlocked. At its heart runs a colossal corridor—or rather, a narrow gut (the Mississippi-Missouri-Ohio system)— which, unless neutralized or declared common property, remains a dead-end artery for nineteen-twentieths of riverside dwellers. Such is America's basic configuration. The danger of disunion became immediately apparent. Undeniably, the North fights for unity, but equally for survival itself. Every element now stands in conflict: White and Black, North and South, East and West (Protestants versus Mormons), the nation's Germanic-federalist character embodied in its founding pact versus territorial realities, economic interests, and social customs. At first glance, North America appears destined for unitary empirehood— surpassing even Rome, Mongolia, or China. Yet isn't it remarkable this continent fell to the Anglo-Saxon race— the most federalist by temperament, genius, and aspiration? Let Lincoln teach his countrymen to overcome their prejudices: grant Blacks citizenship while declaring war on proletarianization, and the Union may yet be saved.</footnote>