ed
little against so imposing an array of opinion, backed as it was by
the Power which still stabled its horses in the Convent of San Marco.
The Tuscan Statute was formally suspended in September 1850.

From that day forth, Tuscany sank lower and lower in the slough. To
please the Pope, havoc was made of the Leopoldine laws--named after
the son of Maria Theresa, the wise Grand Duke Leopold I.--laws by
which a bridle was put on the power and extension of the Church. The
prosecution and imprisonment of a Protestant couple who were accused
of wishing to make proselytes, proclaimed the depth of intolerance
into which what was once the freest and best-ordered government in
Italy had descended.

The ecclesiastical question became the true test question in Piedmont
as well as in Tuscany, but there it had another issue.

It had also a different basis. In Piedmont there were no Leopoldine
laws to destroy; what was necessary was to create them. To privileges
dating from the Middle Ages which in the kingdom of Sardinia almost
alone had been restored without curtailment after the storm of the
French Revolution, were added the favours, the vast wealth, the
preponderating influence acquired during Charles Felix' reign, and the
first seventeen years of that of Charles Albert. Theoretically, the
Statute swept away all privileges of classes and sects, and made
citizens equal before the law, but to put this theory into practice
further legislation was needed, because, as a matter of fact, the
clergy preserved their immunities untouched and showed not the
slightest disposition to yield one jot of them. The Piedmontese
clergy, more numerous in proportion to the population than in any
state except Rome, were more intransigent than any ecclesiastical body
in the world. The Italian priest of old days, whatever else might be
said about him, was rarely a fanatic. The very nickname 'Ultramontane'
given by Italians to the religious extremists north of the Alps, shows
how foreign such excesses were to their own temperaments. But the
Ultramontane spirit had already invaded Piedmont, and was embraced by
its clergy with all the zeal of converts. There was still a _Foro
Ecclesiastico_ for the arraignment of religious offenders, and this
was one of the first privileges against which Massimo d'Azeglio lifted
his 'sacrilegious' hand. To go through all the list would be tedious,
and would demand more explanation regarding the local modes of
acquisitio