om 1847 to 1857
was no less than 50,000,000 francs. With respect to education in the Papal
States, he contended that it was more diffused than it was in this
country--Great Britain."

In countries that were so prosperous, every man literally "sitting under
his own vine and his own fig-tree," it is difficult to believe that there
was wide-spread discontent and a general desire for radical changes. To
prove that there was, it would have required evidence of no ordinary
weight. All testimony that can be relied on shows a very different state
of feeling. Lord John Russell, in his too memorable Aberdeen speech, gave
expression to an opinion which, through the labors of the newspaper press,
had become very prevalent in England, that "under their provisional
revolutionary governments the people of Central Italy had conducted
themselves with perfect order, just as if they had been the citizens of a
country that had long enjoyed free institutions."

The Marquis of Normanby, in his place in the British House of Peers, made
reply to this allegation:(5)

"I should like to know where the noble Lord found that information. There
is not in Central Italy a single government that has resulted from popular
election. They were all named by Piedmont--which had, as it were, packed
the cards. Liberty of speech there was none, nor liberty of the press, nor
personal liberty.... The Grand Duchess of Parma was expelled by a
Piedmontese army, and restored by the spontaneous call of her people. She
left the country, declaring that she would suffer everything sooner than
expose her subjects to the horrors of civil war.... Numberless atrocities
have been committed under the rule of these governments which, according
to my noble friend, are so wise and orderly. I read to you the first day
of this session the letter of a Tuscan, whose character is irreproachable.
Since that time I have received from him another letter, in which he says:
'You will not be surprised to learn that my letter to you has been the
occasion of the coarsest invectives. For what reason I cannot tell, if it
was not because it spoke the truth.'

"Here is a second letter, which I received a few days ago from an English
merchant of the highest standing at Leghorn: 'No intervention is allowed
in Tuscany; and nevertheless, my Lord, intervention appears everywhere;
even armed and foreign intervention. The governor-general is a
Piedmontese; the minister of war is a Piedmontese; the c