The Sun.
London, England, 1856-08-01 00:00:00

PIEDMONTESE Quzsrios, BTATZ.D.

The following letter by Signor Mazsini has been
forwarded to us for publication :
" TO DANIEL MANILA.
"I do not blame you for your sudden affeet'on for the
House of Savoy. If to you—but yesterday a Republican
—the rule of a King be welcome, so be it; it is better to
say so than to conceal it. If for the noble Republican tra-
ditions of a family whose history is a continual vibration
between the invasions of two foreign powers—if to the
united, free, and logical expression of the national consci-
ence, you prefer that artificial development which goes by
the name of constitutional monarchy—if you prefer a peo-
ple imperfectly represented; and an aristocracy created (for
aristocracy properly so called does not exist in Italy), sys-
tematically to keep it in check—a sovereign who does not
govern, but of a fatal necessity oscillates between the two,
the country must be the best judge of your intellectual
capaci;y. You have a right to preach the Anglo-political
conception which you desire to transplant into Italy. I
am not the partisan of any reigning house ; my house is
the nation ; my love is for the common country; my faith
is in the struggles and blood of her people ; my notion of
right is based upon the progressive life of the nation,
guided by its noblest in wisdom and virtue. It does not
irritate me to see others dissent from me; nor do I fear
that discussion will be injurious to my Republican faith.
The country watches over, and must arbitrate between us.
My trust is in her.
" What I do blame in you is the manner and the time
of your programme. Before any movement has taken place
you endeavour to convert into a formula of political agita-
tion an idea which can only be the conclusion of the
movement itself. You betray absolute and fatal forget-
fulness of the first part of the programme—the insurrec-
tion. You irritate the Republiean party, and alienate
it from the common ground we have so often indicated,
by dictatorially commanding it to cast down its banner
at the feet of a King. You seduce the eager youth of
our country by hopes in the secret intentions of the
Piedmontese Government, when no intentions really exist
save those of acquiring a little popularity, in order to pre-
pare the way to take the leadership of any possible national
movement, and divert it from its real aim. You say the
revolution is at hand, as if Italy were to receive it ready
made from the motuproprio of a Cabinet, instead of
anying
to the Italians—Make your own revoldtion and exist. You
say that Rome must not rise, instead of saying—Let every
corner of the country rise; you declaring that national
unity has made a step in advance, because a Minister of the
House of Savoy has endeavoured to teach our masters how
to prevent the unifying revolution. Yon—allow me the
harsh but true expression—make yourself and (were it
possible) the party ridiculous by proclaiming from your
exile, before a single man among us is up and ready for
battle, that a King is the uniter of Italy—a King who
neither endeavours, nor wishes, nor is able to units her;
whose courtiers repudiate your words, and whose Ministers
persecute, imprison, and transport to America all who at-
tempt to recommence war with the foreigner who dismem-
bers our country.
" Whom do you seek to benefit by your premature, in-
cautious proclamation?
" The King whom now you serve ?
" No. The crown of a people that arises is not given; it
must be won. To desire it before deserving it, is to lose it.
If Charles Albert, instead of shutting himself up in a quad-
rilateral, had gone to the mountain and prevented the
enemy from receiving reinforcements; if, instead of stop-
ping short within the pale of the Germanic Confederation,
he had encamped in the Tyrol ; if, instead of making Ve-
nice, your Venice, Manin—expiate the crime of her Re-
publican banner, he had protected it, and guarded the
passes of the Friuline and Cadorican Alps— if he had not
entered into compacts with the English Government about
the inviolability of Trieste—if he had not rejected the aid
of the valiant and willing people, and, instead of disband-
ing the volunteers, had called upon all the citizens to sup-
port the regular troops in the war of liberation—if he had,
in short, either willed or known how to conquer, no party
could have withheld from him the mown of Italy.
"The ill-considered fusion*—effected precisely when the
enterprise was going to ruin—destroyed him and the
country together. Tell your King to attack and conquer;
that is the only means by which he can hope to wear thet
crown which you have decreed to him, while he is—by
virtue of the treaties—the ally of the foreigner who occu-
pies two-thirds of Italy.
" Or do you seek to benefit the country ?
"The country, Manin, lies even yet inert and unmindful
of its duties beneath the halter and the rod. She must be
taught to have faith in herself by seeing that we have faith
in her. The people must be taught unity of will by seeing
harmony among the men whom, right or wrong, they
regard as leaders ; energy of will, by persistence in the
utterance of resolute and immutable truths. They must
be given a definite aim, and shown the logical means to be
taken, and the duties to be fulfilled, in order to reach it.
The illusions which have betrayed them must be inexorably
destroyed, and they must be elevated by a knowledge of
tree ewereutoueo they rnaszona, but forgot. Above all
things, they must be taught the consciousness of them-
selves of their own dignity, and the eternal right incarnate
within them—the traditions of their fathers, and the high
mission to which they are called in the future. You only
say to them, Agitate your chains, and choose a King.'
" In the face of those who say to them, 'Break your
chains, and be King of yourself,' you endeavour to make
them imagine, in the name of Victor Emmanuel, a hidden
power that is to emancipate and unite them. Your timid
counsels would despair of overcoming the foreign troops
that occupy their own Rome. By the negation of the
republican dogma you declare them, on the one hand, in-
capable of self-guidance, and, on the other, you proclaim
that—thanks to the cares of a Piedmontese King and
foreign Cabinets—they have already reached the goal.
This, Manin, is the way to lull, not to awaken the people.
Italy expected very different language from you.
"It is time to speak the truth to Italy without hesitation;
Mon who continually sacrifice their convictions to the cal-
culations ofipresent expediency—men who await the solving
of the Italian problem from abroad, and not from the
country itself, can ill guide it. Men who, after having
cursed the delusions of '4B, call upon Italy to retrace that
path of sorrow and shame, more than misdirect it ; men
who have seen the people victorious upon 10 different
points of Italy, while the regular army, ill-led and be-
trayed, succumbed, and yet declare that the people cannot
conquer without the regular army, are incoherent; men
who believe that by a few doubtful declarations and by
false adulation we may win over the regular army and the
Government that directs it; men who whisper that, at the
price of apostacy, we may have a Piedmontese initiative;
men who, after there has been so much bragging of vol-
canoes ready to explode, do not cry with one voice to the
country, Take shame to thyself and arise r —these men,
either conaciously or unconsciously-,-from a want of head
or of heart—are unfaithful to the cause of the nation, and
the nation ought to reject their counsels, whatever name
they bear.
" That army for which you are ready to forget the entire
nation we shall have with us. It is an Italian army; it is
brave ; it does not forget ; and it feels as we feel it, the
hatred of the foreigner. But we shall only have it by rising
armed ourselves, to invoke the aid of its arms. That King
whom you now flatter, as formerly you tattered his father
to curse him afterwards—you may have him. God send
you do not live to repent it.
" But the King, you make him yours whenever you will.
"He is young and brave. The shame of Novara and the
insults of Austria must from time to time gleam before his
eyes ; and it is possible that he may one day be moved to
strong thoughts, and drive from him the cowardly men of
the Cabinet who now surround him. From being a Pied-
montese he may become an Italian, but not until you have
arisen and offered him an ally more powerfnl than diplo-
macy—net before the voice of an awakened people shall
cry unto him---( Stand or fall with us.' Kings sometimes
follow ; they never initiate. Whoever seeks to lead the
people after the phantom of a monarchial initiative either
deceives them or has lest his own wits.
"The traditions of the Piedmontese Government are
Royal. The monarchy is restrained by old and new trea-
ties with other monarchies, and by the long-established
laws of European order and territorial arrangement. Can
the Piedmontese Government break through them all at
once, unprovoked and unconstrained, by force of facts
arising from a new order of things ? All the policy of the
mon of the Sardinian Cabinet is based on the hope of the
sympathy, and, if necessary, the support of the English
and French Cabinets. Can the Sardinian Cabinet bring
down upon itself the anger of these two allies whose lan-
guage, official and secret, imposes upon it solely a policy of
resistance ? Every idea of territorial alterations was so-
lemnly and unanimously repudiated in the Paris Confe-
rences, the living right of Italy thrilling in Venetian Lom-
bardy was not even humbly and indirectly alluded to by
the Sardinian Plenipotentiaries. Recognising the legality
of the status quo, they contented themselves with hinting
at a possible theory of non-intervention, which should pre-
vent Austria extending her present boundaries. And do
you imagine that King Victor Emmanuel will suddenly
take the field, pass the Ticino and the Magus, command
various other sovereigns of Italy to give place, and, front-
ing excommunication and the arms of his imperial ally,
desire the Pope to yield up his temporal sovereignty ? Do
you imagine that, making himself a leader of insurrection
and overthrower of territorial equilibrium and the rights
of governmental Europe, he will throw down the gauntlet
to the entire league of the Kings ? You, were you king,
would not do it. Were I king, I would descend from my
throne, and, making of myself a simple citizen freed from
every link or bond with European monarchy, I would say
to the soldiers and the citizens—' Follow me: Do you
hope either the one or the other course from Victor Em-
manuel !
" You, then, whose belief it appears to be that a nation
cannot create itself or exist without a king—you cannot
have this king you want if you do ,sot open the way for him
by an insurrection of the people. Insurrection is for you,
as well as for us, the only solution of the Italian problem.
For you, as well as for us, the initiative must be with the
people ; the Alionarca Unification can only follow, and tie
Piedmontese army can but respond. to the call of its bro
there. Why, then, do you not unite with us to aid, pro
mote, and preach the insurrection ? Why, instead of de