Victor Emmanuel II

“ Victor Emmanuel devoted himself to his duties as a constitutional king with great conscientiousness, but he took more interest in foreign than in domestic politics and contributed not a little to improving Italy's international position. In 1873 he visited the emperor Francis Joseph at Vienna and the emperor William at Berlin. He received an enthusiastic welcome in both capitals, but the visit to Vienna was never returned in Rome, for Francis Joseph as a Catholic sovereign feared to offend the pope, a circumstance which served to embitter Austro-Italian relations. ”

“ After the suppression of the Italian Revolution, by Austria, in 1849, and the restoration of Austrian power in Italy, Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, who had headed the movement for Italian independence and had been defeated, abdicated in favor of his son, Victor Emmanuel. The new King, as Victor Emmanuel II, succeeded to the throne March 23, 1849, the day of his father's defeat at Novara. ”

“ Victor Emmanuel, the young King of Sardinia, had won no such popularity, suffering from the prejudice against his family, the House of Savoy, and against his wife, an Austrian by birth. He came to the throne at a dark time, succeeding to a royal inheritance of {199} ruin and misery. The army had been disgraced, and the exchequer was empty. He had the dignity of a king and remarkable boldness, but it would have been hard for him to have guided Italy without his adviser and friend, the Count Cavour. ”

“ This demand, though strenuously pressed in later negotiations, Victor Emmanuel unconditionally refused. He had to endure for a while the presence of Austrian troops in his kingdom, and to furnish an indemnity which fell heavily on so small a State; but the liberties of his people remained intact, and the pledge given by his father inviolate. Amid the ruin of all hopes and the bankruptcy of all other royal reputations throughout Italy, there proved to be one man, one government, in which the Italian people could trust. ”

“ It was necessary, as Charles Albert had seen, that the king who was to carry out the destinies of Italy should be trusted. Victor Emmanuel came to the throne with few advantages; he was unpopular, his private friends were said to be reactionaries, his brusque manners offended most people. He had practically no advisers in these critical moments, but the moral courage with which he refused the Austrian offers of lenient terms if he would repudiate the Statute and his father's word, won for him the nation's trust, which he never lost. ”

“ The Roman question yet remained unsolved, for Napoleon, although he had assisted Piedmont in 1859 and had reluctantly consented to the annexation of the central and southern provinces, and of part of the Papal States, would not permit Rome to be occupied, and maintained a French garrison there to protect the pope. When war with Prussia appeared imminent he tried to obtain Italian assistance, and Victor Emmanuel was very anxious to fly to the assistance of the man who had helped him to expel the Austrians from Italy, but he could not do so unless Napoleon gave him a free hand in Rome. ”

“ It has ever been a place of glory, a place of death and a place of shame, but since the great modern changes it is meant to be only the seat of honour, and upon the slope of the Capitol the Italians, in the first flush of victorious unity, have begun to raise a great monument to their greatest idol, King Victor Emmanuel. ”

“ Charles Emmanuel (1796-1802) , believing in Bonaparte's promises, was induced to enter into a confederation with France and give up the citadel of Turin to the French, which meant the end of his country's independence. Realizing his folly he abdicated on the 6th of December 1796, and retired to Sardinia, Victor while the French occupied the whole of Piedmont. After the defeat of the French by the Austro-Russian armies during Bonaparte's absence in Egypt, Charles Emmanuel landed at Leghorn, hoping to regain his kingdom ”

“ Policy makes laws which it violates as easily as it makes them. The Church can never break her laws, which are of Divine origin. Victor Emmanuel, accordingly, must have submitted to the laws of the Church, in order to be reconciled to the Church, to Pius IX. and to God.
At the death of the king the revolutionists were struck with consternation. “Victor Emmanuel is no more!” said the Liberta, “and Italy is like a warrior without his sword.” They all felt as if the edifice which they had raised were falling to pieces. They took no blame to themselves, however. ”

“ Even after the first French defeats the chivalrous king, in spite of the advice of his more prudent councillors, wished to go to the rescue, and asked Thiers, the French representative who was imploring him for help, if with 100,000 Italian troops France could be saved, but Thiers could give no such undertaking and Italy remained neutral. On the 20th of September 1870, the French troops having been withdrawn, the Italian army entered Rome, and on the 2nd of July 1871 Victor Emmanuel made his solemn entry into the Eternal City, which then became the capital of Italy. ”

“ The presence of the French troops in such force is a fact from which we must draw our own inferences, for little faith can be given to the assertions of any of the parties concerned. If we attempt to form our judgment on the future from the past, the probability would seem to be, that the French Emperor is well disposed to assist Victor Emmanuel to the crown of Italy, but upon the condition that he will make a fresh cession of territory to France. ”

“ The founder of United Italy, before he could have the benefit of the last sacred rites, prayed to be pardoned all his crimes against the Sovereign Pontiff and the Church. By acknowledging and condemning his faults, he also condemned the unhallowed work which was forwarded by so much usurpation and sacrilege. The Christian-like end of Victor Emmanuel did not meet the views of the ministers. ”

“ The long Pontificate of Pius the Ninth came to a close almost simultaneously with the reign and the life of Victor Emmanuel, first King of United Italy, after the Pope and the King had faced each other during nearly a third of the century, two political enemies of whom neither felt the slightest personal rancour against the other. On his death-bed, the King earnestly desired the Pope's parting blessing, but although the Pope gave it, the message arrived too late, for the old King was dead. ”

“ General Menabrea was not let into the secret till later. With regard to Victor Emmanuel, there is no doubt that he wished with all his heart to be able to do a good turn to his Imperial ally of 1859 if the occasion presented itself. Some men see their wives even to old age as they saw them when they were young and fair. The first print on the retina of the mental vision was so strong that no later impression can change or efface it. This hallucination is not confined to the marital relationship, and Victor Emmanuel never left off seeing Napoleon in one sole light: as the friend of Solferino. ”

“ The young king rallied around him the ablest and most patriotic men he could find, including D'Azeglio, who soon became his prime minister; and it was from this nobleman's high character, varied abilities, unshaken loyalty to his sovereign, and ardent devotion to the Italian cause, that Victor Emmanuel was enabled to preserve order and law on the one hand and Italian liberties on the other. All Italy, as well as Piedmont, had confidence in the integrity and patriotism of the king, and in the wisdom of his prime minister, who upheld the liberties they had sworn to defend. ”

“ No doubt there is a considerable amount of personal sympathy for the King—and he deserves it—for it must never be forgotten that, whereas all other Italian patriots—even when we include amongst them the pure and glorious name of Joseph Garibaldi—only played their lives, Victor Emmanuel threw a crown and sceptre on the board, and dared to stake the Royal condition of his family, that he might throw for the independence of Italy. This was the movement of a great and magnanimous heart. People say that his head is not equal to his heart ”

“ The King of the Belgians to Queen Victoria. Laeken, 3rd February 1860.
My dearest Victoria,—... New Lodge must be exceedingly pretty, and, God willing, I ought once to get sight of it. By all one can hear, the Italians certainly will attack the Austrians, if they are not told to leave it alone; Victor Emmanuel speaks openly of it, just as he did last year, when one also thought it was a mere bravado. Things look in most directions very gloomy; my neighbour is creating dangers for himself by the constitutional Government he gives to Italy. ”

“ The Italian ladies, at the same time, dressed so as to display, by a cunning arrangement of stuffs, the colours of the Italian flag; and, when the “Guerra, guerra” chorus, from Norma, was sung in the Scala, the audience applauded it as if they would never stop.
It seemed, therefore, to be Victor Emmanuel’s clear mission to help the Italians to fulfil an obvious destiny; and Victor Emmanuel’s mission was Napoleon’s opportunity to show Francis Joseph, as he had already shown the Tsar, that Emperors who treated him as a parvenu did so at their peril. ”

“ In 1628 he was in alliance with Spain in the war against France; the French invaded the duchy, which, being abandoned by Spain, was overrun by their armies. The duke fought desperately, but was taken ill at Savigliano and died in 1630. He was succeeded by his son Victor Amedeo I., while his third son Tommaso founded the line of Savoy-Carignano from which the present royal house of Italy is descended. Charles Emmanuel achieved a great reputation as a statesman and warrior, and increased the prestige of Savoy, but he was too shifty and ingenious, and his schemes ended in disaster. ”

“ Through evil and good report, kinglike and manfully did he uphold the constitution to which he had sworn, till he met his reward in the wondrous confidence and enthusiasm of which he is now the object.
It is not a sudden impulse, this love of the Italians for Victor Emmanuel. On the contrary, when he mounted the throne, so great was the universal hatred for kings, generated by the perfidy of their own princes, that few reposed [333] belief in his assurances. It was only when he was seen firmly contending with Rome against her encroachments and intolerance ”

“ It accepted the protection of France in Rome and its immediate neighborhood, but declined further aid, as it was raising forces of its own under a French general, Lamoricière. These soldiers were men of various European nationalities belonging to that Roman Catholic party which was determined to maintain intact the temporal rule of the Pope as against the wishes of the vast majority of Italians, themselves Roman Catholics, who desired to substitute for that rule the constitutional sovereignty of King Victor Emmanuel. ”

“ As far back as the year 1868, Victor Emmanuel made overtures to Napoleon with a view to alliance, the chief aim of which, from his standpoint, was to secure the evacuation of Rome by the French troops, and the gain of the Eternal City for the national cause. ”

“ The emperor, divided between the empress Eugénie, who as a Spaniard and a devout Catholic was hostile to anything which might threaten the papacy, and Prince Napoleon, who as brother-in-law of Victor Emmanuel favoured the cause of Piedmont, hoped to conciliate both sides by setting up an Italian federation, intending to reserve the presidency of it to Pope Pius IX., as a mark of respect to the moral authority of the Church. ”

“ Capital sentences were sent after them by the folio: there was hardly a noble family which had not one of its members condemned to death. When his brother, Victor Emmanuel, recommended mercy, he told him that he was entirely ready to give him back the crown, but that, while he reigned, he should reign after his own ideas. He seems to have had thoughts of hanging the Prince of Carignano, and for a long time he seriously meant to devise the kingdom to his son, the infant Prince Victor. Thus a new set of obstacles arose between Charles Albert and the throne. ”

“ But to Napoleon’s statement that he could not agree to the unification of Italy, as he was bound by his promises to Austria at Villafranca, Victor Emmanuel replied that he himself, after Magenta and Solferino, was bound in honour to link his fate with that of the Italian people; and General Manfredo Fanti was sent by the Turin government to organize the army of the Central League, with Garibaldi under him. ”

“ The chief implored Victor Emmanuel to receive his comrades into his own army, a prayer which the King had not the power, even if he had the will, to grant, as in the constitutional course of things the decision was referred to the ministers, who, again, were crippled in their action by the military authorities at Turin. Though it is natural to sympathise with Garibaldi in his eagerness to obtain generous terms for his old companions-in-arms, it may be true that his demand was not one that could be satisfied in its full extent. The volunteers were not inferior to the ordinary soldier ”

“ The issue was a single and a simple one, which could not be misunderstood; and that it should be made so clear that even the commonest mind could comprehend it fully, Victor Emmanuel accompanied his letter with a statement of the terms which he proposed for adjusting the relations between the Church and the State. They were these: All nations should have free access to the pope; all Churches in Rome to be neutralized; ambassadors to the pope to enjoy full immunity; the cardinals to retain their revenues and immunity ”