648 Chapter XXVII
Malta, the defense of Switzerland, the opening of the markets of South America,
the capture of Brest.”^9
It is well to insist on this “realism” or traditional self- interest of the Powers. Not
much wisdom is to be gained, however, from a continued emphasis on the point
made by Albert Sorel, that the conflict was an evolutionary phase in the ancient
rivalry of France with the Hapsburgs, or of the “Second Hundred Years’ War” be-
tween France and England. Considering the kinds of friends and admirers that
each Power was then able to attract, the war had a strong ideological character. The
form of European institutions depended on which side should win, or on the na-
ture of the compromises in which the conflict might be resolved. It was a war of
democrats and republicans against monarchists and aristocrats.
The Roman Republic
Discontent and disorder had long been endemic in the Papal States and at Rome.^10
In this city of 150,000 governed by ecclesiastics, there had been 4,000 murders in
the years from 1758 to 1769, and even before the arrival of the French army the
annual number of abandoned babies was about a thousand. Since church affairs
were the only industry, along with the fine arts and the training of art students, as
in the French Academy at Rome, there was very little of a middle class of the kind
found in northern Italy and northern Europe. After the loss of the northern lega-
tions—that is, after the revolt of Bologna and Ferrara against Rome, and their
absorption into the Cisalpine Republic—the papal territories were limited to some
of the most unproductive country in Italy. The rural areas were chronically dis-
tressed. A peasant revolt broke out in 1791 near Fano on the Adriatic. The bishop
reported that “complaint against the government is universal, and there are people
who talk in public of the French as liberators and even go so far as to conspire for
their arrival.”^11 In fact, when the French did arrive, or even approach, the peasants
were horrified. At Rome the poverty contrasted with the showy wealth of a few
rich families, whose incomes came mostly from rural land, which they owned in
such vast amounts that even a backward agriculture could support them in luxury
in the city.
“There is nothing to be seen between the ranks of princes and shoemakers, and
the houses are palaces or hovels.”^12 Sir Gilbert Elliot, in thus describing Rome in
1794, thought that revolution was imminent, held down only by power and big-
9 Dundas to Pitt, December 9, 1798, Ibid., IV, 435.
10 For the Roman Republic: V. Giuntella, Bibliografia della Repubblica romana del 1798–99 (Rome,
1957); id., La giacobina Repubblica romana in Archivio della Società romana di storia patria, LX XIII
(1950), 1–213; writings by Renzo de Felice cited below; A. Dufourcq, Régime jacobin en Italie: Etude
sur la République romaine (Paris, 1900); L. von Pastor, History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle
Ages, Eng. trans., 40 vols. (London, 1891–1953), XL. Pastor’s account of the revolution at Rome is the
fullest available in En glish (XL, 213–60, 289–348), but despite its merits, the original German hav-
ing been published in 1933, it does not take account of the recent work of Godechot and the Italians
on the subject. See also E. E. Y. Hales, Revolution and Papacy (New York, 1960), 91–129.
11 Giuntella, Bibliografia, X X.
12 Life and Letters of Sir Gilbert Elliot first Earl of Minto, 3 vols. (London, 1874), II, 246.