The Sun.
London, England, 1856-05-12 00:00:00

SARDINIA.

The following is the " Note," or " Protest,"
presented by MM. Cavour and Villamarina to the
Governments of France and England, dated April
the 16th, 1856, and read by Count Cavour in the
Chamber :

"The undersigned, Plenipotentiaries of his Majesty
the Bing of Sardinia, full of confidence in the senti-
ments of the justice of the Governments of France and
England, and in the friendship which they profess for
Piedmont, have never ceased since the opening of the
Conferences, to hope that the Congress of Paris would
not separate without taking into serious consideration
the state of Italy, and deliberating on the means to be
adopted for the re-establishment of its political equili-
brium, disturbed now by the occupation of a great part
of the provinces of the Peninsula by foreign troops. Cer-
tain of the concurrence of their alließ, they could not
think that any other Power, after having testified so
lively and so generous an interest in the fate of Eastern
Christians of the Slave and Greek races, would refuse to
interest themselves in the people of the Latin race, who
are still more unhappy on account of the advanced degree
of civilisation which they have attained making them
feel more acutely the effects of bad government.
"This hope has been disappointed.
"Notwithstanding the goodwill of France and Eng•
land—notwithstanding their well intentioned efforts, the

persistence of Austria obliged the discussions of the Con-
gress to be strictly bounded within the sphere of the
questions marked out before its meeting, and is the
cause of this assembly, on which the eyes of. Europe are
fixed, being about to dissolve, not only without having
effected the least amelioration for the ills of Italy, but
without giving a ray of hope for the future to the other
side of the Alps calculated to calm the minds and make
them bear the present with resignation.
" The peculiar position occupied by Austria in the
Congress perhaps rendered this deplorable result inevit-
able. The undersigned are forced to acknowledge this.
Also, without addreseing the least reproach to their allies,
they believe it their duty to call their serious attention
to the sad consequences that this may have for Europe,
for Italy, and especially for Sardinia.
" It would be superfluous to trace here an exact pic-
ture of Italy. What has taken place in those countries
is too notorious. The system of repression and violent
reaction commenced in 1848 and 1849—justified in its
origin, perhaps, by the revolutionary disturbances which
had just been suppressed, continues without the smallest
relaxation. It may even be said that, with few excep-
tions, it is exercised with redoubled vigour. Never were
the prisons and dungeons more lull of persons condemned
for political causes ; never has the number of exiles been
greater ; never has the police been more vexatious, nor
martial law more severely applied. What is taking place
at Parma only proves this too clearly.
" Such means of government must necessarily keep
the populations in a constant state of irritation and re-
volutionary ferment.

"Such has been the state of Italy for seven years.
Nevertheless the popular agitation appeared recently to
be calmed. Italians, seeing one of their national princes
coalesced with the Great Western Powers for the sup-
port of the principles of right and justice, and for the
amelioration of the fate of their co-religionists in the
East, conceived a hope that peace would not be made
without some relief for their misfortunes. This hope
kept them calm and resigned ; but when they know the
negative results of the Congress of Paris, when they
learn that Austria, notwithstanding the good offices and
benevolent intervention of France and England, refused
all discussion—that she would not even enter into an
examination of the means proper for remedying such a
sad state of things—there can be no doubt that the dor-
mant irritation will be awakened among them more vio-
lently than ever. Convinced that they have nothirg to
expect from diplomacy and the efforts of the Powers
which take an interest in their fate, they will throw
themselves with southern ardour into the ranks of the
revolutionary and subversive party, and Italy will again
become a hotbed of conspiracies and tumults, which may
perhaps be repressed with redoubled vigour, but which
the least European commotion make burst forth in the
most violent manner. So sad a state of things, if it
merits the attention of the Governments of France and
England, equally interested in the maintenance of order
and the regular development of civilisation, must natu-
rally preoccupy the Government of the King of Sardinia
in the highest degree.. The awakening of revolutionary
passions in all the countries surrou.iding Piedmont, by
the effect of causes of a nature to excite the most lively
popular sympathies,, exposes it to dar,gers of ex,e give
gravity, which may compromise that firm an moderate
policy which has had such happy resu!ts fur the in erior,
and gained it the sympathy and esteem of enlightened
Europe.
"But this not the only danger threatening Sardinia.
A still greater is the consequence of the means employed
by Austria to repress the revolutionary fermentation in
Italy. Called by the Sovereigns of the small States of
Italy who are powerless to repress the discontent of
their subjects, this power occupies militarily the greater
part of the valley: of the Po and of Central Italy, and
makes its it fluence felt in an irresistible manner even in
the countries where she has no soldiers. Resting on one
side on Ferrara and Bologna, her troops extend them-
selves to Ancona, the length of the A.driatic' which has
become in a manner an Austrian lake ; on the other, the
mistress of Piacenza, which, contrary to the spirit, if not
to the letter, of the treaties of Vienna, she labours to
transform into a first-class fortress, she has a garrison at
Parma, and makes dispositions to deploy her forces along
the Sardinian frontier, from the Po to the summit of the
Apennines.
"These permanent occupations by Austria of territo-
ries which do not belong to her render her absolute
mistress of nearly all Italy, destroy the equilibrium esta-
blished by the treaty of Vienna, and are a continual
menace for Piedmont.

" Surrounded in some degree on all sides by the Aus-
trians, seeing developed on her eastern frontier, com-
pletely open, the forces of a Power which she knows not
to be animated by friendly feelings towards her, this
country is held in a state of constant apprehension,
which obliges her to remain armed and to take defensive
measures which are excessively burdensome for her
finances, already tasked by the events of 1848 and 1849,
and by the war in which she has just participated.
"The facts that the undersigned have exposed suffice
to make appreciated the dangers of the position in which
the Government of the King of Sardinia finds itself
placed. Disturbed within by the action of revolutionary
passions, excited all round by a system of violent re-
pression and by the foreign occupation, threatened by
the extension of Austrian power, it may at any moment
be forced by an inevitable necessity to adopt extreme
measures of which it is impossible to calculate the con-
se.,guences. _ .

The undersigned do not doubt but that Anoka Mate

of things will excite the solicitude of the Governments
of France and England, not only on account of the
sincere friendship and real sympathy that these powers
profess for the Sovereign who ab.ne, among all at the
moment when their success was most uncertain, declared
himself openly in their favour, but, above all, because
it constitutes a real danger for Europe.
" Sardinia is the only State in Italy that has been able
to raise an impassable barrier to the revolutionary spirit,
and at the same time remain independent of Austria.
It is the counterpoise to her invading influence.
"If Sardinia succumbed, exhausted of power, aban-
doned by her allies—if she also was obliged to submit
to Austrian domination, then the conquest of Italy by,
this power would be achieved ; and Austria, after hav-
ing obtained without its costing her the least sacrifice,
the immense benefit of the free navigation of the Dan-
ube and the neutralisation of the Black Sea, would ac-
quire a preponderating influence in the West.
"This is what France and England wouldnever wish :
this they will never permit.
" Moreover, the undersigned are convinced that the
Cabinets of Paris and London, taking into serious con-
sideration the state of Italy will decide, in concert with
Sardinia, on the means for applying an efficacious re-
medy.

_
"C. CAVOUR.
"DE VILLAMA.RINA.
"PAris, April 16, 1856."

SARDINIAN NOTE ON THE PAPAL
STATES.

The following is a translation of the " verbal
note" presented by the Sardinian Plenipotentiaries
to the Ministers of France and England on the
27th of March, 1856
" At the moment when the glorious forces of the
Western Powers tend to assure the benefits of the peace
to Europe, the deplorable state of the provinces under
the- Government of the Holy See, and, above all, of
the Legations, calls for the special attention of the
Governments of her Britannic Majesty and of his Ma-
jesty the Emp,,ror of the French.

" The Legations have been occupied by Austrian
troops since 1849. -The state of siege and martial bzw
have been in vigour since that time without interruption.
The Pontifical Government only exists in name, since
above its legates an Austrian general takes the title, and
exercises the functions of civil and military governor.
Nothing evinces that this state of things will terminate,
since the Pontifical Government, is as convinced of its
impotence to preserve public order as in the first days of
its restoration, and Austria asks for nothing better than
to render her occupation permanent. Here, then, are
the facts which present themselves—a deplorable situa-
tion existing always in a country nobly peopled, and in
which conservative elements abound ; impotence of the
legitimate Sovereign to govern ; a permanent danger of
disorders and anarchy in Central Italy—extension of
Austrian dominion in the Peninsula beyond what the
treaties of 1815 had provided.
"The Legations before the French revolution were
under the high Sovereignty of the Pope ; but they en-
joyed privileges and franchises which rendered them, at
least in the internal administration, almost independent.
At the same time the clerical dominion was even then so
antipathetical that the French army was received in 1796
with enthusiasm.

"Detached from the Holy See by the Treaty of Tolen-
tino, those provinces formed a part of the Republic, after-
wards of the kingdom of Italy until 1814. The organi,,ing
genius of Napoleon changed their aspect as by enchant-
ment. The French laws, institutions, and administration
in a few years developed wealth and civilisation. For
this reason, in those provinces, all the traditions, all the
sympathies are fixed oa that period. The government
of Napoleon is the only one that survives in the memory
not on yof enlightened classes but of the people. His
memory recalls an impartial justice, a strong adminis-
tration, a state altogether of prosperity, of riches, and of
military greatness.
'• At the Congress of Vienna they hesitated a long
time about replacing the Legations under the govern-
ment of the pope. The statesmen who sat there, although
p -e-occupied with the thcught of re-establishing the an-
cient order of things above every other, felt, neverthe-
less, that they were thus leaving a hot-bed of disorders
in the mitht of Italy. The difficulty i❑ the choice of a
Sovereign to whom to give those provinces, and the
rivalry which might be brought f rth by their pessts-
sion, made the balance preponderate in favour of the
Pope ; and Cardinal Gonsalvi obtained, but only after
the Rattle of Waterloo, this unexpected concession.
" Thz-Pdntifical Government, at its restoration, took
no account of the progress of ideas and the profound
changes that the French regime had introduced in this
part of its States. From this a struggle between the
Government and the people was inevitable. The Le;,a-
tions have been the prey of an agitation more or less
secret, but which at any opportunity may break out into
revolution. Three times- Austria intervened with her
armies to re-establish the authority of the Pope, con-
stantly repudiated by his subjects.
"France replied on the second Austrian intervention
by the occupation of Ancons., on the third by the taking
of Rome. Every time that France has found herself in
presence of such events, she has felt the necessity of mo-
derating this state of things, which is a scandal for
Europe and an immense obstacle to the pacification of
Italy.

"The Memorandum' of 1831 proves the deplorable
state of the country, the necessity and urgency of admi-
nir,trative reform. The diplomatic eorrespondence of
Gaeta and Portici carry the impression of the same feel-
ing. The reforms which Pius IX. himself initiated in
1846 were the fruit of his long sojourn at Imola, where
he could judge with his own eyes of the eCfects of the

deplorable regime imposed on those provinces.
" Unfortunately the counsels of the Powers, and the
good intentions of the Pope, were destroyed by the ob-
stacles which the clerical organization opposed to any
species of innovation whatever. If there is one fact that
is clear from the history of latter years, it is the difficulty,
or we should rather say the impossibility, of a reform by
the Pontifical Government responding to the wants of
the time and the reasonable desires of the population.
" The Emperor Napoleon 111., with tbat true and firm
coop d'mil which is his characteristic, has perfectly
affirmed and clearly indicated in his letter to Col. Ney
the solution of this problem, Secularisation and the
Code Napoleon.'
" But it is evident that the Court of Rome will com-
bat to the last extremity, and with all the means in its
power, the execution of these two designs. It well
knows how to accommodate itself by apparently accept-
ing civil and even political reforms, sure of rendering
them illusory in practice ; but it also sees that secu-
larisation and the 'Code Napoleon introduced into
Rome itself, where the edifice of its temporal power
has its foundations, would bare it to the roots and
cause it to fall by cutting awey the principal support—
' clerical privileges and canonical right.' Nevertheless
if it cannot be hoped to introduce a true reform exactly in
that centre where the union of the temporal authority
with spiritual power is so interlaced that it is im-
possib'e to di-connect them without running the risk of
destroying them, it may at least be realised in those
parts which show themselves less resigned to the clerical
yoke, which is a burning torch of turbulence and cor-
ruption, which furnishes a pretext for the permanent
occupation of the Austrians, excites diplomatic compli-
cations, and disturbs the European equilibrium.
" We are of opinion that it is possible, but on the con-
dition of separating. at least administrative, those parts
from the State of Rome. In such a manner an apos-
tolic principality would be formed of the Legations,
under the high dominion of the Pope, but ruled by its
own laws, having its own tribunals, finance and army.
We consider that renewing as much as possible that
order of the traditions of the Napoleonic kingdom
will be sure to produce soon considerable moral
effect, and will be a great step towards re-establish-
ing tranquillity among those pepulatione. With-
out flattering ourselves that combinations of this nature
can last eternally, we consider, however, that for a
long time it would be' suffieient for the end proposed
to pacify those provinces, and give satisfaction to the
wants of the people, and thereby assure the temporal
government of the Holy See without the aid of a
permanent foreign occupation.
" We will indicate briefly the essential points of the
project, and the means of giving them effect :
" 'l. The provinces of the Roman State situate be-
tween the Po, the Adriatic, and the Appenines (from
the Province of Ancona to that of Ferrara), although
remaining subjects to the high dominion of the Holy
See, shall be completely secularised and organised a,
regards administrative, judicia', military, and financial
matters, in such a way as' to be separated from the
remainder cf the State. Nevertheless the diplomatic
and religions relations will remain exclusively the con-
cern of the Court of Rome.
" '2. The territorial and administrative organization
of this Principality to be established in the f ,rm in
which it was under the reign of Napoleon I. until 1814.
The Code Napoleon to be promulgated, except the ne-
cessary modification in the titles regarding the relations
between Church arid State.
" 3. A lay Pontifical Vicar to govern these Pro-
vinces, with Ministers and a Council of State. The
position of the Vicar named by the Pope to be guaran
te--id for 10 years at least. The Ministers, the Counsellors
of State, and all the Government officers to be named by
the Pontifical Vicar. Their legilative and executive
powers never would extend to religious matters, nor to
mixed matters that will be previously determined, nor in
fine to whatsoever regards political international rela
Lions.
" 4. These provinces to contribute a fair proportion
to the maintenance of the (Court of Rome and to the
service of the public debt actually existing.
5. An indigenous army to be organised immedi-
ately by means of the military conscription.
" 6. Besides the communal land provincial councils,
a general council to be formed for the examination and
regulation of accounts.'
Now, if the means of execution are considered they
will be found not to present so many difficulties as at
first might be supposed. In the first place, the idea of
an administrative separationlof the Legations is not new
at Rome. It was proposed several times by diploma-
tists, and even advocated by some members of the Sa-
cred College, though in terms more restricted than those
necessary to make it a serious and durable work.
"The irrevocable will of the Powers and the determi-
nation to put an end without delay to the foreign occu-
pation will be two motives that will determine the Court
of Rome to accept this p'an, which in the main respects
its temporal power and leaves intact the actual organ-
isation of the centre and the greater part of its States.
But, once admitted as a principle; it will be neces-
sary that the execution of the project should be con-
fided to a high Commissioner named by the Powers,
since it is most clear that if this task should be lcit
to the Pontiffcal Government it would find in its
traditional government the means of falsifying en-
tirely-the new institutions. Now it cannot be con-
cealed that should the foreign occupatin coo with,

out these reforms being frankly executed, and without
a public force being established, there would be every
reason to fear a renewal of seditious, quickly followed
by the return of the Austrian army. Such an event
would be the. more deplorable, inasmuch as the effects
would seem to condemn beforehand every attempt at
improvement. It is, therefore, only on the conditions
above enunciated that we consider the cessation of
foreign occupation possible which might be effected
in this war.

" The Pontifical Government has actually two regi-
ments of S 'miss and two of natives, altogether about
8,000 men. These soldiers are sufficient to maintain order
at Rome and in the provinces not comprehend in the
administrative division above mentioned. The new indi-
genous troops, organised by means cf the conscrip-
tion in the secu'arised provinces, would assure tran-
quillity there. The French might leave Rome and the
Austrians the Legations. Nevertheless, the French
troops returning by land to their own country might,
in passing, halt temporarily in the detached provinces.
They should remain for a time previously agreed upon,
and strictly necessary fur the formation of the new in-
digenous troops which would be organised with their
assistance."

A letter from Constantinople of the 27th ult.
says :—" Several officers of the French staff em-
barked here to-day on board the Turkish steamer
Vacita-i-Trajeret for Trebisond. Their object is
to make a scientific excursion in the eastern part of
Anatolia. They are accompanied by Rifaat Bey,
chef d'escadron and professor at the military
school."