e
Ghibeline influence; the rest were governed by their own _Signori_ till
subjugated by Cæsar Borgia, who, while shaping out his own ambitious
ends, did Rome good service by bringing these elements of feud and
bloodshed into the recognition of one supreme authority.




CHAPTER XXVIII.

   Injudicious policy of the Government at the
     Restoration—Non-fulfilment of the _Motu proprio_ of Pius
     VII.—Disappointment of the pontifical subjects—Inability
     of Cardinals Consalvi and Guerrieri to contend against
     the narrow views of their colleagues—Reasons of Austria's
     animosity against the former—Guerrieri's projected
     reforms bring about his fall—The constitutional movement
     of 1820-21—Its effect in the Papal States—Abuse of
     Consalvi's instructions—Extreme political rigour under Leo
     XII.—Distracted condition of the country—The _Sanfedisti_
     rising of 1831—First Austrian armed intervention in
     Romagna—Conferences at Rome—Mr. Seymour's protest—Fresh
     disturbances in the Legations—the Austrians again occupy
     Bologna—The French land at Ancona—The reign of Gregory XVI.


The Italian princes summoned back from exile or captivity, by the
downfall of Napoleon, to the exercise of sovereignty, bad, all of
them, learnt a little from adversity. Upon none, however, had its
lessons been so completely thrown away, as the Pope,—or, to speak more
correctly, the Papacy.

From the first resumption of its functions, the aim of the Roman
Government seems to have been to blot out all traces of the enlightened
and vigorous administration of the French; not by continuing whatever
they had introduced of good, or improving on whatever they had left
imperfect, but by forcibly reviving the usages of an almost obsolete
generation. It was seriously deemed possible, by the most puerile
restrictions, the most inquisitorial surveillance, to compel men
to recede a quarter of a century, and return submissively to the
stagnation which characterized Italy before th