es restrained the power of the monarch, no fundamental
laws, no coronation oath, no binding decrees of predecessors, no
provincial estates, no powerful corporations. But, in reality, this
unlimited absolutism was softened by custom, and by great indulgence
towards individuals.

When Consalvi adopted the French institutions, he did not understand
that an absolute government is intolerable, and must sink under the
weight of its responsibility, unless it recognises the restraint of
custom and tradition, and of subordinate, but not dependent forces. The
unity and uniformity he introduced were destructive. He restored none
of the liberties of the towns, and confided the administration to
ecclesiastics superficially acquainted with law, and without knowledge
of politics or of public economy. In the ecclesiastical States of
Germany, the civil and religious departments were separate; and it is as
wrong to say that the double position of the head must repeat itself
throughout the administration, as to say that a king, because he is the
head of the army as well as of the civil government, ought to mix the
two spheres throughout the State. It would, in reality, be perfectly
possible to separate the political and ecclesiastical authorities.

Leo XII. attempted to satisfy the _Zelanti_, the adversaries of
Consalvi, by restoring the old system. He abolished the provincial
Councils, revived the Inquisition, and subjected official honesty and
public morality to a strict espionage. Leo saw the error of Consalvi,
but mistook the remedy; and his government was the most unpopular that
had been seen for a century. Where the laity are excluded from the
higher offices, and the clergy enjoy the monopoly of them, that moral
power which modern bureaucracy derives from the corporate spirit, and
the feelings of honour which it inspires, cannot subsist. One class
becomes demoralised by its privileged position, the other by its limited
prospects and insufficient pay. Leo tried to control them by the
_congregazione di vigilanze_, which received and examined all charges
against official persons; but it was suppressed by his successor.

The famous Memorandum of the Powers, 31st May 1831, recommended the
admission of the laity to all secular offices, the restoration of the
provincial Councils, and the introduction of elective communal Councils
with the power of local government; and finally, a security against the
changes incident to an elective sover