Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/471

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ITALY 453 concluded a truce, -which was immediately followed by a personal interview between the two emperors (July 11) at Villafranca. There the preliminaries of a peace were arranged, by which Lombardy, exclusive of the impor- tant fortresses of Mantua and Peschiera, was ceded to Sardinia, which had to pay for this conquest a sum of $42,000,000. Venetia was confirmed to Austria. The restoration of the grand duke of Tuscany and the duke of Mo- dena was stipulated for, the question about Parma being left open. A promise was held out to Italy of the formation of an Italian confederation under the honorary presidency of the pope. Intense discontent arose in Italy when these stipulations became known. The people of the duchies and likewise of the Ro- raagna (the insurrection in the other provinces of the Papal States had been quelled by the mercenary troops, principally at Perugia, June 20) united in their protestations against the restoration of their former rulers. They sol- emnly transferred their allegiance to the king of Sardinia, but he thought best still to refuse the crown proffered to him, and to substitute Signer Buoncompagni for the prince of Cari- gnan, to whom the regency was subsequently offered. The peace was signed at Zurich in accordance with the original stipulations of Villafranca, Nov. 10. The final settlement of the affairs of the duchies was to be effected by a European congress, the meeting of which was expected to take place in January, 1860. This, however, was delayed or prevented by subsequent diplomatic developments. A few weeks before the time fixed upon for the meet- ing of the congress, a pamphlet entitled " The Pope and the Congress" was published in Paris, which, though bearing the name of M. de La Gueronniere as author, was generally un- derstood to have been written by the French emperor or under his direction. Its leading doc- trine was that the revolted Papal States should not be forced to return to their allegiance, and that the pope must be restricted as a temporal sovereign to a very small territory and to limited authority. This was followed by a let- ter from the emperor to the pope, in which the latter was vainly urged to sacrifice the revolted provinces, and a promise was held out to him that the possession of the remain- der should be guaranteed to him by the ap- proaching congress. In February the French government demanded, and on March 24 the Sardinian government granted, the cession to France of Savoy and Nice as an indemnity for the expenses incurred in the recent war against Austria. The insurrection which broke out in Sicily on April 4 was destined to lead step by step to that unity of Italy so long the dream of her patriots. The Sardinian prime minister Cavour at first outwardly condemned the insur- rection, and made some show of opposing the part which Garibaldi and his volunteers were preparing to take in it. But the latter em- barked at Genoa on May 5 with his followers on board a Sardinian steamer, landed at Mar- sala on the llth, and on the 14th assumed the dictatorship of the island in the name of Vic- tor Emanuel. On Aug. 3 the latter was there proclaimed king of Italy; on the 19th Garibal- di landed at Reggio, and on the 27th was pro- claimed dictator of the Two Sicilies. Cavour now threw off the mask ; Admiral Persano and his fleet cooperated with Garibaldi in the south, and the Sardinian armies, which had been wresting from the pope one after another of his provinces, received orders to proceed to Naples. The victories gained by Garibaldi at Cajazzo and on the Volturno, the flight of Francis II. to Gaeta, and the subsequent sur- render of that stronghold, Feb. 13, 1861, re- moved the last real obstacles toward national unity. Time, it was then said, would soon re- store Venice to Italy, and the shadow of sov- ereignty still left to the pope was felt by all to be merely a question for diplomacy to settle. On Feb. 18 the first Italian parliament assem- bled at Turin, and on the 26th the deputies de- creed to Victor Emanuel the title of king of It- aly. The decree was promulgated on March 17, and the title officially recognized by Eng- land on the 30th, by France on June 15 ; and the other powers, after some delay and hesita- tion, acknowledged the accomplished fad of Italian nationality. Cavour, dying in June, 1861, was succeeded as prime minister by Ri- casoli. Garibaldi, abetted by some of the most ardent votaries of unity, feeling aggrieved by the cession to France of Nice and Savoy, by the presence in Rome of French troops, and by the keeping up in that city of the papal sovereignty, published a proclamation in August, 1862, call- ing on the people to resist foreign oppressors, landed in Calabria on the 24th, and was de- feated and taken prisoner by the government troops on the 28th at Aspromonte. The French occupation of Rome continued to embarrass Italian statesmen, amid all the financial and social problems which demanded of them an immediate practical solution. On Sept. 15, 1864, a treaty was concluded with France stip- ulating for the evacuation of Rome within a specified time, and providing for the transfer of the seat of government from Turin to Flor- ence. The announcement of this latter mea- sure caused serious disturbances in Turin, and these were followed by another Garibaldian rising in Lombardy, which was suppressed by the government. On May 13, 1865, the king of Italy took up his residence in Florence, the minister of finance having previously demand- ed of parliament permission to raise a loan of $88,000,000. Meanwhile the king and his min- isters sought to enter into negotiations with the pope relating to the nomination of bishops, and a peaceful adjustment of the reciprocal claims of the holy see and the new national government ; but Signer Vegezzi, who had been accredited as special envoy from Victor Emanuel to the pope, failed to bring about a conciliation. Early in 1866 negotiations were