Prisoner of the Vatican (16 page)

Yet Bilio recognized that other considerations argued in favor of flight. To stay risked giving the impression that the pope believed that he could continue his holy mission without his states. The longer this situation lasted, the more it would seem acceptable and even natural. Staying in Rome also risked reinforcing the stability of the Italian government and placing "obstacles in the way of or at least slowing down certain political upheavals which, in the final analysis, might work to the benefit of the Holy See's cause, preparing the way for a Restoration."

"Before being asked, on His Holiness's orders, to give my opinion on this extremely serious question," Bilio wrote, "I was convinced of the absolute necessity of leaving Rome as soon as possible. But now, considering the question more carefully," he concluded, "I find myself perplexed and unsure."

As for where the pope should go if he fled, Bilio had a different suggestion: Belgium. The population was Catholic, communication with the rest of the world would be easy, and the devotion of the royal family would assure the Holy Father an honored place and the freedom to carry out his mission. But what most recommended Belgium over Malta was something else: as soon as the Franco-Prussian War ends, thought Bilio, "the Holy Father will be able to pass easily into the neighboring French territory, and thereby with his presence stir that generous nation to avenge the injuries inflicted by Victor Emmanuel's government on the Holy Father no less than on France itself."

Lanza and Visconti followed the anguished debate in the Vatican as best they could. In the days immediately after Rome was taken, they feared nothing so much as that the pope would flee, and their diplomatic correspondence overflows with reports on the subject.
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On September 28, Visconti received a message from Rome that the Prussian ambassador to the Holy See was involved in a plot to get the pope to take refuge in Germany. Visconti telegraphed Minghetti, Italy's ambassador in Vienna, the same day: "I fear that the Pope, giving in to the Jesuits' pressure, is going to leave Rome." He urged Minghetti to get the Austrian government to do all it could to dissuade him.
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The Italian foreign minister received somewhat reassuring news later in the day from his secretary general, Albert Blanc, who had just that morning met with Cardinal Antonelli. "His Eminence," Blanc reported, "assured me repeatedly that up to now the pope has not been thinking of leaving." But Antonelli had added that "nothing can be guaranteed for the future." If things got worse, the pope might well leave.
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Aware that Antonelli was himself fighting a battle to convince the pope to stay and that he was in danger of losing out to what Blanc characterized as the Jesuit faction, the secretary-general sent Visconti a second telegram the same day, warning that the pope might attempt to escape secretly, at night, bound for a ship on the coast.
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A similar warning came in a breathless telegram to Lanza sent from Rome at one o'clock that morning from a person who had just spoken with the pope's personal physician. Pius, he learned, was making secret arrangements to leave quickly, planning to take the old papal escape route along the raised passage running from the Vatican to the Sant'Angelo Castle, from there into a boat on the Tiber, and then to the coast, where a steamship awaited him.
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The following day Minghetti, in Vienna, reported that the Austrians, through their ambassador in Rome, were advising the pope not to leave. Although the Austrian government had earlier offered the pope a refuge, Minghetti wrote, should he actually take them up on their offer, "they would find themselves greatly embarrassed."
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The Austrians told Minghetti that the real problem lay with the Germans, charging that Prussia's ambassador to Rome, Harry von Arnim, was secretly trying to convince the pope to come to Germany.

Suspicions of a German plot were widespread. In England, in late September, Lord John Russell, the former British prime minister, warned Archbishop Manning of reports that he, too, was getting from Rome "that Baron Arnim offered the Pope an asylum in Germany—Fulda, I think—and strongly pressed his Holiness to accept." The allegations were soon getting confirmation from Antonelli himself, who told the British envoy in Rome that Arnim had been urging him to convince the pope to leave Rome and come to Prussia. Arnim, it seems, was a magnet for conspiracy theorists and far from popular among his diplomatic colleagues. As one of them described him: "His exterior is haughty and spiteful, so that he more often repulses people rather than attracts them."
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Arnim denied that he was encouraging Pius to flee. Meeting with Blanc at the end of September, the Prussian ambassador claimed that, on the contrary, he was doing all he could to calm things down. The pope, he reported, "is obsessed with mystical ideas and awaits a miracle. Given the unpredictability of his nervous susceptibilities," he warned, "no one can know if he will end up staying or leaving." Yet Arnim's own superior, Bismarck, himself began to suspect that Arnim was disobeying his instructions and issuing invitations to the pope on his own authority. On October 3 he wrote, telling him emphatically, "Refrain from any utterance on the question." He added: "Now for your own information I remark that if the pope should leave Rome I do not know how to find him a satisfactory place of refuge."
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Among those most upset about the rumors were the Catholics of France, whose capital was then under German siege. The archbishop of Tours sent a worried note to Antonelli: "The rumor is spreading here, Eminence, that the pope is going to leave Rome, retreating to another city, under the protection of Prussia." Such stories, he hastened to add, were undoubtedly groundless, but the prospect—remote though it may be—was so upsetting that he felt compelled to write. "If you will permit me to say so, Eminence, such a decision would produce a most deplorable effect on souls here." The king of Prussia, as part of his unquenchable ambitions, might well seek to lure the Holy Father into his territories. But the archbishop was certain that in the end Pius would come to regret such a move, for he would surely end up as a mere client of the king. Acceptance of the Prussian offer would send shock waves through France and "scandalize the entire Catholic world."

A week later Antonelli replied rather curtly: "I thank you for your communication regarding the eventual departure of the Holy Father from Rome. Your comments are most appreciated, but I can assure you that I have never entertained the thought of moving to a place such as the one that you mentioned."
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Yet something rings false in Antonelli's language. It was odd for him to use the first person in discussing Vatican policy. The archbishop had hit a nerve.

In fact, that fall the Vatican was engaged in secret efforts to get the Prussians to agree to host the pope. Early in November, at the Vatican's request, Archbishop Ledochowski of Posen traveled to Versailles to meet with Bismarck. While the Prussian king remained resolute in his opposition to hosting the pope, Bismarck—who had previously opposed it as well—had now, curiously, changed his mind. He began to think that coming to the pope's rescue might attract greater support for his government from Germany's Catholics while helping to suppress the opposition in Prussia's Polish territories. He also thought it might hasten the end of the remaining French military resistance, with French priests finding it awkward to urge their flock to wage war against the pope's saviors. In fact, just after the Italians seized Rome a few weeks earlier, Bismarck, in ruminating over the possibility that the pope might flee, had voiced his ambivalence. "We have already been asked if we would grant him asylum," he told a companion at the time. "I do not object to Cologne or Fulda," he said, then explained: "It would be an astounding thing, but understandable, and rather advantageous for us if we appeared to the Catholics what we are in actuality, the only power at the present time that can and will give protection to the head of the Church." Having the pope outside Rome would, he thought, also have the advantage of cutting the pontiff down to human size. "People are inclined to turn Catholic," the German chancellor mused, "when they get a glimpse of the pomp and ceremony of Catholicism in Rome, especially women." By contrast, if Pius were to live in Germany, he would be viewed "as an old man seeking help, as a good old man, as one of the bishops, who like the others eats and drinks, takes a pinch of snuff, even smokes a cigar—it would be much less dangerous."
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A new crisis loomed in late January 1871 with the final vote of the Italian parliament to move the capital. The threat to leave Italy was the strongest card that the Vatican had to play, not only in putting pressure on the Italian government but in getting the attention of the various European powers, whose leaders feared, for good reason, that having the pope outside Italy would dangerously disrupt the balance of power. And nothing would more dramatically destabilize the new Italian state than the pope's living in exile, calling on the world's leaders to return him to his rightful home.

Although the Italians were concerned about the rumors of Prussia's encouragement of papal flight, their suspicions fell most heavily on France. Yet an examination of the French diplomatic correspondence shows that the French leaders had no interest in having the pope flee. "Tell Cardinal Antonelli," Favre instructed his ambassador to the Holy See, "that we are ready to receive him with all due respect in Corsica, or at Pau, in Algiers ... but that we continue to believe that the reconciliation which will permit him to stay in the Vatican is still the best solution."
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At the same time, Favre asked his ambassador in Florence to speak with Visconti. Tell him nothing of our offer of Corsica or Pau, Favre cautioned, but urge him to redouble the government's efforts to keep the pope in Rome. "In making his continued stay impossible for him," warned Favre, "Italy is playing a dangerous game. It may set something in motion whose impact would be incalculable." What was worse, France would inevitably be dragged in. "This mess must be avoided at all costs," wrote Favre. "With a little humility and good sense, the Italian government can keep the pope and so save itself from great misfortune."
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A month later—from Versailles, where the French government had taken refuge following the uprising in Paris and the establishment of the Paris Commune—Favre again wrote to his ambassador in Florence. Although the world was collapsing around him, Favre had not changed his sober advice. The envoy was to persuade the Italian government to show sufficient respect for the pope so that the danger that he would flee could be avoided. Above all, the Italians should reverse their decision to move their capital to Rome, for, as the French ambassador subsequently warned Visconti, "We have reason to fear that the Pope will leave Rome the day that you effectively move the seat of government there."

What Favre most wanted to avoid was having the pope call on him to provide refuge on French soil. "In asking us for asylum," Favre wrote to his envoy, "the Holy Father will create a real embarrassment for us. We would receive him properly, but we would be unable to halt the inopportune zeal of his friends and the excesses of his enemies. We would be placing the Roman question in the thick of our national passions, to the great detriment of our internal peace and of our guest's dignity."
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The French envoy's efforts to convince Visconti to keep the capital in Florence got nowhere. "If we followed this advice," Visconti subsequently wrote, "we would have put everything into doubt again, reopened the Roman question domestically, and produced agitation that would be impossible to control. Offending and arousing national sentiment against the pope, considered an obstacle to the final creation of Italy, was not a means to restore calm around the Roman question." Visconti was also skeptical that the pope would actually leave Italy, not least because nowhere would he have as much freedom as he had where he was. True, "the fanatical party and the Jesuits are continuously urging him to go," Visconti told the French ambassador, but what the situation demanded was not new action by the Italians but rather French help in convincing the pope to stay.
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As the July 1 date for moving the capital approached, Antonelli urged the world's governments to leave their ambassadors in Florence, arguing that moving them to Rome would imply approval of the Italians' control of the Holy City. Yet he was unsuccessful. When, to his consternation, he learned that the Austrian government had approved the move of its embassy, he called in the Austrian envoy to the Holy See and again brandished the Vatican's ultimate threat: "To recognize officially the present state of affairs at Rome is to push us to the last extremity. We had decided to endure whatever we could, but I fail to see how the position of the Holy See can continue hereafter to be tenable at Rome." Before dismissing the envoy, Antonelli told him that should the pope now decide to flee Rome, the fault would not lie with Italy alone: "You, as well as the other powers that, by the official presence of their representative, recognized the Italian government, would be largely responsible."
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Lanza and Visconti wanted to believe those reports that dismissed the papal threats to leave Rome as the idle posturing of an ailing, elderly man who would never give up the comfort of his familiar surroundings for a frightening sea voyage and a dubious destination. Yet some of their most trusted advisers not only believed that the threats were real but were convinced that the pope was about to go. On June 11, Count Kulczycki reported that Pius was disbursing funds to the members of the Curia to enable them to buy nonclerical garb to aid in their escape. On the twenty-third, reporting on the meetings the pope had been hastily arranging to help him decide whether to go, the count concluded, "I believe that the Pope will leave."
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