The Roman Question in the Diplomatic Negotiations of 1869–70

Abstract

DURING that period in which Louis Napoleon enjoyed the reputation of being the Sphinx of Europe (a reputation to which the Austrian ambassador ironically referred: “they called his words silly before he had achieved political power; now they say they are oracular”), the events which called forth perhaps his most sphinx-like behavior, were those connected with the Roman Question. The President Bonaparte who had taken it upon himself to be his uncle's nephew, must have considered the example given by the first Emperor of the French, who expelled the Pope, united Italy, and made Rome the second city of his Empire. But now in 1849 Louis Napoleon had come to be accepted by Europe not as a revolutionary, but as the man who put an end to revolution. And however he may have been tempted to revert to his youthful emulation of the other's revolutionary program, and in spite of the fact that, in his personal feelings, he was little predisposed in the Pope's favor, still his attitude toward Rome was of necessity influenced by the fact that it seemed impossible to maintain supreme power in France without the support of the conservative (French) Catholics. Thus, considerations of French inner policy made for an alternation of the ancient rivalry between France and Austria for the hegemony of Italy and for influence over the Roman court. Indeed there were those in France who went so far as to speak of the common interests that Paris and Vienna shared in Rome: now that Pius, welcomed only a few years ago as “papa angelicus,” as the national pope, had been forced to flee to Gaeta (the possession of the Napolitan “Re Bomba”), the conservative powers of Europe should unite to restore him.