The Press.
London, England, 1855-12-01 00:00:00

INIIMMNIONNIMMINOMMI=IIMMIN

THE PRESS.

soldier and worst courtier of his time, was
one—are points which should certainly, we
think, not have been, as they are, entirely
passed over. Some materials, we should think,
must exist for their illustration.

With the peace of Château Cambresis
(1559) the modern career of the Dukes of Savoy
commenced. Their Italian possessions were
restored to them, though, on certain flimsy
pretexts, not evacuated by the French till 1574;
and the young Duke Emanuel Philibert was
one eminently calculated to restore the pro-
sperity of the country. Five Dukes of Savoy
carry on the lino down to Victor Amadeus 11.,
who succeeded to the title in 1675. The war
of the Succession which made him a king
broke out, as the reader is aware, in 1702, and
was concluded by the peace of Utrecht in
1713. By this treaty Sicily was given to the
Duke of Savoy, with the title of king, but he
exchanged it in 1718 for the Island of Sardinia ;
and from this agreement dates the origin of
the present monarchy of Sardinia. Though
the events of this great war are disposed of by
M. Gallenga in only nine pages, he has com-
pensated for this by giving some really
valuable and thoughtful remarks on the Pied-
montese character in those days, the causes
which had conspired to produce it, their relation
to their dukes and kings, and their capacity for
soldiers. It is in passages of this sort that our
author shines most ; and we are sorry that the
one in question is of that description that it
will not bear to be broken up by extracts.
The reader will find it in the third chapter of
the third volume, p• 121-141. In the same
chapter will also be found a no less useful
account of the position of the Romish Church in
Piedmont at that time. And we are glad to find
that the first check given to the Jesuits by
any European prince was by an edict of a
king of Sardinia. " Victor Amadeus, the
" ablest, the most warlike, and the most ambi-
" tious prince of his age, the greatest, after
" Emanuel Philibert, of his whole race,
" died at Moncalieri on the 31st of October,
" 1732." He was succeeded by his son,
Charles Emanuel, then in the twenty-ninth
year of his age—who had, however, assumed
the royal power two years before, at the time
of his father's abdication. The remainder of
the eighteenth century is well entitled by M.
Gallenga " The Stagnation of Piedmont," yet
the chapter so headed is one of the most in-
teresting iu the whole work. The following
passage on Piedmontese diplomatists is
Curious :
Although the Princes of Savoy, like all able and active
rulers jealous of their absolute authority, hardly ever gave
up the post of honour, either at the head of their army or
of their Cabinet, and had therefore almost the exclusive
credit of all that was achic ved, either in peace or war, in
their name, so that scarcely in the history of any country
so rare a mention occurs of great warriors or influential
statesmen, uncrowned, yet it is well known that Savoy had
at all times brave generals and able Ministers, however
comparatively obscure ; and unquestionably not a small
share of the success of Victor Amadeus IT. and Charles
Emanuel HI. was due to the transcendent, though latent
skill of their Prime Ministers, the Marquis d'Ormea and
Count Bogino. Where the talents of the subalterns were
less eclipsed by the presence of the monarch—as in diplo-
matic transactions abroad—the Piedmonteso agents ap-
peared to better advantage, and the wisdom of the Savoy
princes was especially manifest in the choice of their
plenipotentiaries. Such were, for instance, the Marquis
Annibale Maffei, of Verona, who represented Savoy in
London at the treaty of Utrecht, and the Chevalier
D'Ossorio, a Sicilian, who resided at the same Court during
the Spanish succession, The tact, address, and polished
manners of these and other Piedmontese envoys elicited
the most flattering encomiums from such men as Mon-
teaquieu and Chesterfield. " In all Courts and congresses,"
says the latter, " where there are various foreign Ministers,
those of the King of Sardinia are generally the ablest, the
politest, and lea plus Mies." A lustre was at this epoch
thrown upon Piedmontese diplomacy, which has not
utterly faded at the present day.
At the outbreak of the French Revolution,
the monarch who sat on the throne of Savoy,
Victor Amadeus 111., was not equal in capacity
to his ancestors. After much foolish hesita-
tion, and unreasonable dread of his subjects,
he threw himself into the arms of the allies.
Austria however, for certain purposes of her
own, was but lukewarm :
In pursuance of such schemes, Austria, during the whole
period of these transactions, purposely allowed Savoy to
stand her own ground as she best could, with her unaided
forces ; nor was she very active in her support even after
the attainment of her aim. The troops sent to co-operate
with the Piedmontese were in small numbers and of an
inferior description of raw recruits, and she Insisted upon

her own generale
over the united a
war began clearl:
generale, either
treachery, abandoned
sive anxiety to cover
The above passage is remarkable.

" From the abdication of Charles Emanuel
" 1V.," says Mr. Gallenga, " in 1798, to the re-
" storation of his brother Victor Emanuel 1.,
" in 1814, the history of Piedmont is a mere
" blank." The whole of Italy was annexed to
the French empire, and a portion of Piedmont
was incorporated in the Cisalpine republic.
But in 1814 the monarchy of Sardinia was
restored and Genoa added to its continental
dominions. Now came an age of violent re-
action—kings who would in other days have
been gentle and liberal, were now fiercely
anti-popular, and the result was shown in a
very few years by simultaneous risings in
Spain and Italy. Victor Emanuel abdicated,
and was succeeded by Charles Felix, a strict
absolutist, but not a tyrannical ruler. He
cared for nothing but his opera-box and his
dinner, and died in 1831, without exciting
either the joy or the regret of his subjects.
But during these years great changes had
been silently preparing. The new king, Charles
Albert, applied to Louis Philippe, in the first
year of his reign, to know if he would support
him in case he gave his people a constitution.
Here is his reply—" He was sufficiently plagued
" and worried with his own charter at home,
" without taking upon himself the champion-
" ship of similar institutions abroad." In
less than twenty years, however, it mattered
little 1 who was protected by Louis Philippe
or not. The Revolution of '4B found in Charles
a ready adherent, and six days after the
Austrians had been driven from Milan he
crossed the Ticino and proclaimed a national
war. What followed, we need not repeat here
—but we will conclude our notice with some
extracts from M. Gallenga on the condition
of things in Piedmont in this present year,
1855:

Piedmont has seven archbishops, thirty-four bishops,
seventeen abbeys and priories, 1,417 canonises. Its forty-
one prelates enjoy a revenue of 1,012,742 francs, nearly
equal to the stipend of all the prelacy of France ; ten
tunes as large as that of all the Belgian prelacy. There
are Piedmonteae bishops whost revenue is above 100,000
francs ; that is, double the stipend allowed to the French
or Belgian primate, and equal to that of all the Belgian
prelates put together. The revenue of cathedral and col-
legiate chapters in Piedmont is 1,09:,155 francs; it ex-
ceeds nearly by one-half that of France, and is sixteen
times larger than that of all the chapters of Belgium.
Piedmont has, besides, 71 monastic orders, 604 religious
houses, 8,563 monks and nuns, with an acknowledged
revenue of 2,282,551 francs.
• • • • •
The seizure of Church property, and the appropria-
tion of the whole or part of it to even the most laudable
secular purposes, was not to be thought of. The
Sardinian Government nevertheless determined to have a
hand in it, to regulate its administration, its equitable dis-
tribution.
It was impossible to lose sight of the great fact that
2,540 Piedmontese pariah priests had an income of less
than 500 francs : in order to provide them with share sub-
sistence, by means of supplementary pensions (rongrue),
the State had to bear the burden of 925,412 franca yearly •
and it was charged besides with other purely ecclesiastical
expenses. Adding other burdens which fell on the pro-
vinces and Comuni for the support of the Church, it ap-
pears that the nation bore the charge of above five millions
for mere ecclesiastical purposes.
All this for the benefit of a Church whose revenue
exceeded one-tenth of that of the whole landed property
in the kingdom ; a Church whose bishops, canons, &c.,
revelled in a wealth vastly above that which is deemed a
competency for similar dignitaries in other Catholic cum.
munities
It was resolved that the Church should at least main-
tain itself—that it should supply the wants of its poorer
pastors : such was the main aim of the bill presented
to
the Chambers by the Cavour-Battazzi Ministry, on the 28th
ofNovember, 1854.
The object of the law was twofold. Directly, it was
meant to tax the wealthier clergy for the support of the
more needy.
From archbishops, bishops, abbots, canons, and the
best-endowed parish priests whose re%.:lue was above a
certain specified itmottnt, one-third of the surplus was to
be taken yearly ; but as the produce of this tax, or quota,
was deemed insufficient for the exigencies of the Church,
Government proposed—it was its indirect object, avowedly
—the suppression of some of the convents, and the con-
fiscation of their goods. • •
•••
Sothis in the main the measure which, under the name
of " Convent Law," was finally adopted by the Sardinian
Parliament on the 29th of May, 1655.
•
• • •
Cavour, on the contrary, was at heart an aristocrat, a
hater pr4fani trulgi, one of the wealthiest men in Piedmont

1147
Is always wielding the supreme command
armies, so that, when the fortunes of the
•ly to turn against the allies, the imperial
r from their blindness or from wilful
doued the defence of the Alps, in an exces•
cover the Milanese.

1

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1148

connected with one-half of its proudest families. He
began his public career as a journalist, in 1847, editing the
Risorgintento, the most ably conducted, but most Conserva-
tive, of the constitutional papers. At that time, and during
he crisis of 1848.9, he made himself—merely on account
of rather imperious, absolute manners—somewhat ob-
noxious u a Codiao (pig-tailed retrogradist); but he bad
sense enough to perceive that a free State must needs be
ruled by its true aristocracy; that is, that either the
nobility must put forth new abilities, and strive, as it
always will do, to keep its place by real merit, or must ac-
quiesce and see the power pass into the hands of " better
men." The army, the Court, and diplomacy had always
been matters of strict monopoly. This evil Cavour at-
tempted to remedy, by adopting the revolutionary maxim,
"to new measures new men." The aristocracy, we repeat
—that is, the class born with the advantages d rank and
wealth—is always sure in the end to rule in every State ;
but what it hitherto obtained from mere favour, it will now
have to gain, in Piedmont, by sheer exertion. The most
honourable career must equally be open to all talent.
We must now take our leave of M. Gallenga
—merely adding, that by our opening remarks
we by no means wish to detract from the very
great merit and usefulness of the work he has
produced. If deficient in some of the essen-
tials of history, and betraying to some extent
want of judgment in its proportions, it is still
a most interesting book, and probably the best
manual that exists on the early condition of
North Italy and Savoy.

The Story of the Campaign of Sebastopol. By
Lieutenant-Colonel E. Bruce Hamley.
London : Blackwoods.
To many of our readers this narrative will be
familiar, from having been published in
Blackwood's Magazine ; but no adequate idea of
is excellence, as a whole, can be gained from the
perusal of it in detached portions. " The Story
of the Campaign "is now complete, from the
first landing of the allies in the Crimea to the
fall of Sebastopol, and it is a story which
must for ever exercise a dreadful fascination
over the minds of men. The siege compre-
hended a whole war in itself, and perhaps
may comprehend also the issues of a war.
Colonel Hamley had the most favorable
opportunities for observation. On the staff of
the artillery from the first, and subsequently
aide-de-camp to Sir Richard Dacres, he took
a leading part in all the actions and opera
tions of the campaign. No person could be
better situated for observing and collecting
facts , and this circumstance, together with
the intrinsic merits of the book, render it
unlikely that this, the first record of the
campaign, will ever be exceeded in authority,
or surpassed in interest.
The reader who takes up this narrative
fresh from the perusal of the newspaper cor-
respondence from the Crimea, will be most
struck, we think, with its solidity. Nothing
appears to be written for effect. All the
leading facts essential to a true comprehen-
sion of the events of the campaign stand
boldly forth ; and these events, following
each other as they do in natural sequence,
make the most careless reader understand the
significance of each incident, and how closely
one is related to another. We scarcely know
any writer who is at once so grave and graphic
as Colonel Hamley—so extremely unpretend-
ing, yet so thoroughly impressive. It appears
wonderful that a narrative written in detached
portions, as time and opportunity served,
should read like a well-considered and finished
history. But there was a kind of dramatic
unity in the siege which is stamped upon this
chronicle of it. Every page is impressed with
such a character of truth as would assure us
of its perfect authenticity, even if that were
not guaranteed by the author's name.
Nor does he confine himself to mere facts.
The commencement of the third chapter
(page 17) lucidly explains the peculiar cha-
racter of the campaign. The fleet served the
allies as a moveable depot, and enabled them
to advance with their eptire force free from
the necessity of maintaining lines of commu-
nication with their original landing-place.
It is on reading this narrative complete that
we are made aware how surely the allies
advanced in their great enterprise, and how
effectively, in spite of disparagement of their
labours and infinite errors at home, they
prosecuted their work. The great peril—and
at one time there was great peril—to the
expedition arose from the inadequacy of its
strength in the first instance. Previously to
Illkerroaua its fate was really doubtful. Its