The Sun.
London, England, 1860-10-01 00:00:00

111 E WAR IN ITALY.

Events in Italy mark that the beginning of the
end as at hand. The fall of Ancona, which we
ventured on Saturday to conjecture as even then in
all probability under accomplishment, took place
on the morning of that day. General Lamoriciere
and all the garrison are prisoners in the hands of
the Sardinians. The Pope has been reduced by
force to a position consistent with the character of
a Christian High Priest. He is protected in the ex-
ercise of his ecclesiastical office by his spiritual
subjects, but is denuded of the power to shed blood.
Of all that collection of mercenaries whose practice
has been at once directed and confessed by Gen.
Lamoriciere in a series of the most murderous
orders ever promulgated not a squadron or a com-
pany remains. They have been broken to pieces
almost without bloodshed ; they have yielded or
dispersed with an alacrity which shows how little
such heterogeneous levies are to be relied upon
against a resisting enemy; they will be, in all pro-
bability, contemptuously dismissed as too cheap a
conquest to be valuable even as a trophy; and they
will now bttake themselves to the safe occupation
of invelaing deeds, of heroism. and colouring
Nirardly facts, by darink fictions. From the
-iiatic to the Mediterranean there is no louger
even'the remnant or an-army" piofessing to serve
the Italian Prince who reigned at Rome. The pa-
trimony of St. Peter—as these States have so im-
pudently been called, although they were obtained
by fraud and claimed under a forgery many hun-
dred years after the Apostle whose possessions were
not of this world had gone to his martyrdom, is now
altogether gone ; or, rather, it has been declared
by a French definition to consist only of Rome and
the port of Rome and Viterbo. All the other towns
and all the rest of the country are in the hands of
the Sardinians. From the environs of Rome itself
the glitter of the Sardinian bayonets may be seen
upon the slopes of the hill where Tivoli rests amid
the olive groves. In a circle three miles round the
gates the French outposts keep guard, and warn
back every hostile foot ; but even this is not done
in the interest of the Italian Prince. Rome herself
is no longer subject to the Pope, and is only pro-
tected as the residence of the Father of the Roman
Catholic Church. General Goyon is very vigilant
and very respectful, but so much does the Pope's
own situation resemble, in his own view of the
case, the position of a singing bird in a cage pro-
tected against the desires of some hungry grimal-
kin, that the Cardinal Secretary has thought it
necessary to ask whether the Holy Father was to
consider himself a prisoner or a free agent. We
shall see presently whether it is part of the duty of
the French General to keep the door of the cage
closed as well as to keep the Sardinians and the
Garibaldians at a distance.

Garibaldi has at present enough upon his hands
to prevent him from interfering with the policy
which is being brought out at the seat of the
Papacy. In his victories, as in his defeats, in
his tardy resistance, as in his precipitous flight,
the King of Naples seems fated to aid in
its most critical moments the cause which he
most detests. It is a bitter truth, but it must be
spoken out, that the greatest difficulty in the way
of Italian unity is at this moment the daring leader
who alone has made Italian unity possible, and that
the most hopeful events which have happened for
Italy are the recent failures of Italy's own hero
before Capua and on the Volturno. The double
check which Garibaldi has received is doubtless a
very serious matter. The King's army has for the
first time defeated those terrible revolutionists who
had come to be thought almost invincible. Eyewit-
nesses unaccustomed to battle-fields may have
somewhat exaggerated the panic and the confusion
which prevailed, some semblance of which may be
found even in the best armies when troops have been
led into a hopeless position and are exposel to be
shot down by an unseen enemy. The Sicilians, the
levity of whose courage has been often described in
our own accounts from the island, were for the most
part the lightest of heel upon these occasions. Gari-
baldi himself was not present, and the object in-
tended by the Commander in the first operation was
attained. But still the Garibaldi uniform has been
for the first time seen in full flight, and for the first
time the Neapolitan uniform has been seen in hot
pursuit. The charm has been broken, and, among
a people so crushed by despotism as the people of
Naples are, the moral effect of such an event as this
is not to be measured by the loss sustained or the ad-
♦antage secured. Garibaldi, in short, has his work
yet to do. We may be at ease for the present as to
his future operations northwards. There is no longer
any possibility of a collision between him and the
Sardinians. There is no chance just yet of the
Romans hearing his voice from the Quirinal, or of
' his fixing his headquarters in the palace of the
Doge. The fear rather is lest he should find him-
self unable to perform what the friends of Italy
still look to him to do. He must not allow himself
to be beaten out of the peninsula by the King of
Naples. He must not lose what he has already
gained. But, if we are forced to speak thus of
our hero in a military point of view, what shall
we say of his administrative acts ? The chief
of a band of " Reds," the man who conquers Sicily
to make Saffi its Governor,—the Dictator who cl;s-
places the men of moderate counsels to put mounte-
banks and furious fanatics in their place at Naples,
is not the Garibaldi whom we hoped to admire as
a Statesman. We all believe in his honesty as
firmly as ever; but what care we for the honesty
of a Mazzini or a Saffi, or of any other apostle of
anarchy, or for the honesty of any man who may
be their patron or their tool ? We confess that it

is our. habit to judge of men's intentions rather by
what they do than by what they say when their
acts and their deeds conflict. Garibaldi, by throw-
ing in his lot with Red Republicans, is rapidly
losing the confidence of the friends of order. This
being so, he is by no means so strong an enemy to
the Kinn. of Naples as he was. He is in a strait
out of which Victor Emmanuel can alone help him;
but the support of the King of Sardinia implies
the triumph of Constitutionalism and the defeat of
Mazzini. Supported by Sardinia, acting u.Pyo,l?
common counsels with Cavour, Garibaldi m ni
1r:r:el
have been believed to be the agent of the se
intentions of Napoleon, and he would
N haveli"fs an ow lie
confidence as a substantive power.
insurgent chief, and nothing more.
to the scene to
Napoleon 111. is now hurryingato drama. The
direct the catastrophe of this
china is about
crisis has arrived, and the / that 20,000
to descend. The 111onftear te
'ettsllegsxrteia
more Frenchmen are about. to embark for Rome.
This quite throws Garibaldi out of the mastery of
if he should remove the impedi-
ment position, even
in,ervenesbetween him and the
ment which now
Victor Ewmanuel cannot, of;
course, within the circle which'
Roman frontier..
course, advance
in
Protects, and that circle has just
enlarged by the orders he has re-'
General Goyon
. the Sardinian King can
been somewhat
ceived from Paris, If
peaceful entry into
frighten tChaerdPionpae_lAawntaoyneblyli haas intimated would be'
Rome, as
it would be good service done ;
the case,but other-
wise the best thing ho could do would be to go
south and settle matters in Naples and Sicily.
Garibaldi will perhaps return to his ancient loyalty
in presence of his King. The ultimate decision of
the fate of the Pope must be with Napoleon 111.
He evidently now intends to act, and to show him-
self as holding in his hand the destinies of Italy.
Perhaps he may carry into action his own formerly
avowed opinion, and put an end to the temporal
sovereignty of the Holy See. If the description
given of the correspondence found in General La-
moriciere's portfolio be correct, the French Emperor
may have discovered that he has equal cause to
chastise both the adherents of the Pope and the
Red Republicans who have subdued the mind of
Garibaldi. There is no longer any reason why he
should hesitate in this matter. Napoleon 111. is no
longer the puppet of the Church. However much
other nations may distrust him, and whatever may
be the ultimate tendency of the policy which he
has adopted, he has undoubtedly given to France
an immediate preponderance in the politics of
Europe which she had not under other rulers.
French men of all parties are Frenchmen before they
are partisans and before they are Churchmen ; and
true or false glory will always with them carry the
day against true or false religion. The Pope is
now at the Emperor's mercy. France would
.se9
him removed from Rom@ with A most philoophiCal 1