the difficulties which stood in the way, and judge more
impartially the means that were taken to remove them. One outcome of
this fuller knowledge is the conviction that patriotism was the
monopoly of no single Italian party. The leaders, and still more their
henchmen, were in the habit of saying very hard things about each
other. It was natural and unavoidable; but there is no excuse now for
failing to recognise that there were pure and devoted patriots on the
one side as well as on the other--men whose only desire was the
salvation of Italy, to effect which no sacrifice seemed too great. Nor
were their labours unfruitful, for there was work for all of them to
do; and the very diversity of opinion, though unfortunate under some
aspects, was not so under all. If no one had raised the question of
unity before all things, Italy might be still a geographical
expression. If no one had tried to wring concessions from the old
governments, their inherent and irremediable vices would never have
been proved; and though they might have been overturned, they would
have left behind a lasting possibility of ignorant reaction.

The Great Powers had presented to the Court of Rome in 1831 a
memorandum, in which various moderate reforms and improvements were
proposed as urgently necessary to put an end to the intolerable abuses
which were rife in the states of the Church, and, most of all, in
Romagna. The abolition of the tribunal of the Holy Office, the
institution of a Council of State, lay education, and the
secularisation of the administration were among the measures
recommended. In 1845 a certain Pietro Renzi collected a body of
spirited young men at San Marino, and made a dash on Rimini, where he
disarmed the small garrison. The other towns were not prepared, and
Renzi and his companions were obliged to retire into Tuscany; but the
revolution, partial as it had been, raised discussion in consequence
of the manifesto issued by its promoters, in which a demand was made
for the identical reforms vainly advocated by European diplomacy
fourteen years before. If these were granted, the insurgents engaged
to lay down their arms. The manifesto was written by Luigi Carlo
Farini, who was destined to play a large part in future affairs. It
proved to Europe that even the most conservative elements in the
nation were driven to revolution by the sheer hopelessness of the
dead-lock which the Italian rulers sought by every means to prolong.
Mass