ble example and would soon persuade them
thoroughly to merge themselves among the mass of peoples faithful to
the Emperor." But this plan could not be carried through, because the
people of Dalmatia would have risen in revolt; moreover, the most
fertile regions had been so neglected that too many of them were now
marshes or through other causes uninhabitable. Thus von Thurn assisted
the Italianized party; they would, at any rate, unlike the other
Serbo-Croats of Dalmatia, not strive for union with anybody else.
Before the French Revolution no one in Italy dreamed that it would be
possible to bring about Italian unity, and the patriots of 1848 longed
only for the liberation of their Peninsula; they spoke of Triest as
"the port of the future Slavia" or as "a neutral zone, a transitional
region between Slavia and Italy."

AND THE ORTHODOX CHURCH

It may be that when von Thurn also gratified a reasonable ambition of
the Orthodox Church he was moved by the idea that the Roman Catholic
Church of the Croats might thus to some extent be counteracted; he
may, on the other hand, have been impelled by altruistic motives when
he authorized the establishment of an Orthodox bishopric. Under Venice
the Church had not been recognized; and after having several times
almost succeeded in obtaining their bishop, a _modus vivendi_ was at
last reached in 1797, with the consent of the Senate and perhaps of
Rome. Under this arrangement the Orthodox were free to profess their
religion, but the Senate officially ignored their separation from the
Roman Church; their priests had to obtain their rights from the
Catholic bishops and allow the Catholic priests to cull certain of
their legitimate revenues. And this, although the Orthodox formed
one-half of the dioceses of Scardona and [vS]ibenik, and two-thirds of
that of Bocche di Cattaro. They were not more backward than the rest
of the population. Von Thurn--who, they thought, knew nothing of the
circumstances--was informed by them that the see of Dalmatia was
vacant and that they had elected the Archmandrite Simeon Ivcovi['c], a
man universally esteemed for his prudence and wisdom. They begged von
Thurn to confirm this election, and he did so.

AND BY FATHERLY LEGISLATION

But von Thurn seems to have relied largely on the gratitude which this
neglected province would feel for the introduction of Austrian
improvements. The happy-go-lucky Venetian methods were no longer to
disfigure the cou