In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • La politique française envers les États Pontificaux sous la Monarchie de Juillet et la Seconde République (1830–1851)
  • Alan J. Reinerman
La politique française envers les États Pontificaux sous la Monarchie de Juillet et la Seconde République (1830–1851). By Nicolas Jolicoeur. [Collection “Diplomatie et Histoire,” Direction des Archives, Ministère des Affaires Étrangères.] (New York: Peter Lang. 2008. Pp. 394. $46.95 paperback. ISBN 978-9-052-01388-6.)

Nicolas Jolicoeur’s study is the first to treat French policy toward the Papal State during the July Monarchy and the Second Republic, 1830–51, as a distinct unit. This allows him to bring out the essential continuity of French policy during those years, despite the drastic changes of regime and official ideology that took place.

He rejects the view often advanced that French policy represented a response to pressures exerted by either Catholics or liberals. Those pressures did exist and French leaders had to give them some attention, but neither was decisive. The essential driving force of French policy was geopolitical—the determination to prevent its rival, Austria, from exercising a hegemonic power in the Papal State, as in the rest of Italy.

That determination explains France’s firm support for the pope’s temporal power: without political independence, the pope must fall under the political rule of another state, which could manipulate the pope’s moral authority to its own benefit and France’s detriment. By the same reasoning, France must also oppose a united Italy that included Rome.

This attitude alienated Italian liberals, who had expected support from a liberal France. In the hope of placating them, and their French supporters, France proposed to reform the papal regime, thus making its revolutionary overthrow unnecessary. These reforms would not introduce popular sovereignty—the pope would retain ultimate power. However, the antiquated and inefficient administration would be modernized and largely secularized—government offices, now held largely by ecclesiastics, would be opened to laymen.

Had this program been successfully implemented, it might have satisfied moderate liberals, although not radicals, and certainly not those who aimed at a united Italy. But success remained elusive.

The French effort at reform came in three waves. The first was in the aftermath of the 1831 revolution, which the Austrian army suppressed. In hopes of preventing another revolution, the powers held a diplomatic conference at [End Page 597] Rome. Many reforms were discussed, but little came of it. Failure was due partly to papal opposition, but also to France’s attempt to satisfy its liberal critics by steadily increasing its demands, which went beyond anything the papacy was willing to grant. The second effort came in 1846–48 during Pope Pius IX’s reformist phase. France strongly encouraged the pope’s reforms; its effort came to naught because the Roman radicals, demanding the secularization of the state and war with Austria, overthrew the pope. The third effort was in 1849, when Louis Napoleon suppressed the Roman Republic, expecting that the pope in gratitude would introduce serious reforms. But Pius IX, embittered by the 1848 revolution, now refused any concessions. By 1851, French efforts at reform had ended in failure.

Jolicoeur stops in 1851, for with the Second Empire, French policy entered a new phase, more adventurous but even less successful. Napoleon III, hoping to replace Austrian hegemony in Italy with French while preserving the temporal power, allied with Piedmont in war against Austria. His plans backfired: Italy was unified; French hegemony vanished; and the temporal power ended—a justification, perhaps, of the more modest French policy of 1830–51.

Jolicoeur has produced a valuable study of French policy toward the Papal State, whose value lies not only in its thorough account of developments but especially in its approach. Instead of dividing these years in two, because of the divergent ideological bases of the regimes involved, he treats them as a unit. This allows him to bring out the essential continuity of French policy, whose basic aim was always geopolitical: to undermine Austrian hegemony in Italy. Every aspect of its policy followed from that fundamental aim.

His study is well written, thorough in its treatment of events, and solidly...

pdf

Share