Chapter XVIII: Why the Pope Will Never Have Soldiers

I paid a visit to a Roman Prelate well known for his devotion to the interests of the Church, the temporal power of the Popes, and the August person of the Holy Father.

When I was introduced to his oratory I found him reading over the proof-sheets of a thick volume, entitled _Administration of the Military Forces_.

He threw down his pen with an air of discouragement, and showed me the two following quotations which he had inscribed on the title-page of the book:

"Every independent State should suffice to itself, and assure its
internal security by its own forces."--_Count de Rayneval; note of
14th May_, 1855.

"The troops of the Pope will always be the troops of the Pope. What
are warriors who have never made war?"--_De Brosses_.

After I had reflected a little upon these not very consoling passages, the Prelate said,

"You have not been very long at Rome, and your impressions
ought to be just, because they are fresh. What do you think
of our Romans? Do the descendants of Marius appear to you a
race without courage, incapable of confronting danger? If it
be indeed true that the nation has retained nothing of its
patrimony, not even its physical courage, all our efforts to
create a national force in Rome are foredoomed to failure.
The Popes must for ever remain disarmed in the presence of
their enemies. Nothing is left for them but to entrench
themselves behind the mercenary courage of a Swiss garrison
or the respectful protection of a great Catholic power. What
becomes of independence? What becomes of sovereignty?"

"Monsignore," I replied,

"I already know the Romans too well to judge them by the
calumnies of their enemies. I daily see with what
intemperate courage this violent and hot-blooded people
gives and receives death. I know the esteem expressed by
Napoleon I. for the regiments he raised here. And we can say
between ourselves that there were many of the subjects of
the Pope in the revolutionary army which defended Rome
against the French. I am persuaded, then, that the Holy
Father has no need to go abroad to find men, and that a few
years would serve to make these men good soldiers. What is
much less evident to me is the real necessity for having a
Roman army. Does the Pope want to aggrandise himself by war?
No. Does he fear lest some enemy should invade his States?
Certainly not. He is better protected by the veneration of
Europe than by a line of fortresses. If, by a scarcely
possible eventuality, any difference were to arise between
the Holy See and an Italian Monarchy, the Pope has the means
of resistance at hand, without striking a blow; for he
counts more soldiers in Piedmont, in Tuscany, and in the Two
Sicilies, than the Neapolitans, the Tuscans, and the
Piedmontese would well know how to send against him. So much
for the exterior; and the situation is so clear, that your
Ministry of War assumes the modest and Christian title of
'the Ministry of Arms.' As for the interior, a good
gendarmerie is all you want.'

"Eh! my dear son," cried the Prelate, "we ask nothing
better. A people which is never destined to make war does
not want an army, but it ought to keep on foot the forces
necessary for the maintenance of the public peace. An army
of police and internal security is what we have been
endeavouring to create since 1849. Have we succeeded? Do we
suffice for ourselves? Are we in a position to ensure our
tranquillity by our own forces? No! no! certainly not."

"Pardon me, Monsignore, if I think you a little severe.
During the three months I have loitered as an observer in
Rome, I have had time to see the pontifical army. Your
soldiers are fine-looking men, their general appearance is
good, they have a martial air, and, as far as I can judge,
they go through their manoeuvres pretty well. It would be
difficult to recognize in them the old soldier of the Pope,
the fabulous personage whose duty it was to escort
processions, and to fire off the cannon on firework nights;
the well-to-do citizen in uniform who, if the weather looked
threatening, mounted guard with an umbrella. The Holy
Father's army would present a good appearance in any country
in the world; and there are some of your soldiers whom--at a
little distance--I should take for our own."

"Yes," he said,

"their appearance is good enough, and if factions could be
kept down by mere appearances, I should feel tolerably easy.
But I know many things respecting the army that make me very
uncomfortable--and yet I don't know all. I know there is
great difficulty in recruiting not only soldiers, but
officers; that young men of good family scorn to command,
and ploughboys to serve, in our army. I know that more than
one mother would rather see her son at the hulks than with
the regiment. I know that our soldiers, for the most part
drawn from the dregs of the people, have neither confidence
in their comrades, nor respect for their officers, nor
veneration for their colours. You would vainly look to find
among them devotion to their country, fidelity to their
sovereign, and all those high and soldierly virtues which
make a man die at his post. To the greater number the laws
of duty and honour are a dead letter. I know that the
gendarme does not always respect private property. I know
that the factions rely at least much as we ourselves do on
the support of the army. What good is it to us to have
fourteen or fifteen thousand men on foot, and to spend some
millions of scudi annually, if after such efforts and
sacrifices, foreign protection is now more necessary to us
than it was the first day?"

"Monsignore," I replied,

"you place things in the worst light, and you judge the
situation somewhat after the manner of the Prophet Jeremiah.
The Holy Father has several excellent officers, both in the
special corps and in the regiments of the line; and you have
also some good soldiers. Our officers, who are competent
men, render justice to yours, both as regards their
intelligence and their goodwill. If I am astonished at
anything, it is that the pontifical army has made so much
progress as it has in the deplorable conditions in which it
is placed. We can discuss it freely because the whole system
is under examination, and about to be reorganized by the
Head of the State. You complain that young gentlemen of good
family do not throng to the College of Cadets in the hope of
gaining an epaulette. But you forget how little the
epaulette is honoured among you. The officer has no rank in
the state. It is a settled point that a deacon shall have
precedence of a sub-deacon; but the law and custom of Rome
do not allow a Colonel to take precedence even of a man
having the simple tonsure. Pray, what position do you assign
to your Generals? What is their rank in the hierarchy?"

"Instead of having our Generals in the army, we have them at
the head of the religious orders. Imagine the sensations of
the General of the Jesuits at hearing a soldier announced by
the honourable ecclesiastical title of _General_!"

"Well! there's something in that."

"In order to have commanders for our troops, without at the
same time creating personages of too much importance, we
have imported three foreign Colonels, who are permitted to
perform the functions of General. They even appear in the
disguise of Generals, but they will never have the audacity
to assume the title."

"Capital! Well, now with us there is not a scamp of eighteen
who would engage in the army if he were told that he might
become a Colonel, but never a General; or even a General,
but never a Marshal of France. Who, or what, could induce a
man to rush into a career in which there is at a certain
point an impassable barrier? You regret that all your
officers are not _savants_. I admit that they have learnt
something. They enter the College without competition or
preliminary examination, sometimes without orthography or
arithmetic. The first inspection made by our Generals
discovers future lieutenants who cannot do a sum in
division, a French class without either a master or pupils,
and an historical class in which, after seven months of
teaching, the professor is still theologically expounding
the creation of the world. It must indeed be a powerful
spirit of emulation which can induce these young men to make
themselves capable of keeping up a conversation with French
officers. You are astonished that they allow the discipline
of their men to become somewhat relaxed. Why, discipline is
about the last thing they have been taught. In the time of
Gregory XVI. an officer refused to allow a Cardinal's
carriage to pass down a certain street. Such were his
orders. The coachman drove on, and the officer was sent to
the castle of St. Angelo, for having done his duty. A single
instance of this sort is quite enough to demoralize an army.
But the King of Naples shows the Pope his mistake. He had a
sentry mentioned in the order of the day, for giving a
bishop's coachman a cut with his sword. You are scandalized
because certain military administrators curtail the
soldiers' poor allowance of bread; but they have never been
told that peculation will be punished by dismissal."

"Well, the scheme of reorganization is in hand; you will see
a new order of things in 1859."

"I am glad to hear it, Monsignore; and I will answer for it
that a judicious, well-considered reform--slowly
progressive, of course, as everything is at Rome--will
produce excellent results in a few years. It is not in a day
that you can expect to change the face of things; but you
know the gardener is not discouraged by the certainty that
the tree he plants to-day will not produce fruit for the
next five years. The morals of your soldiers are, as you
say, none of the best: I hear it said everywhere that an
honest peasant thinks it a dishonour to wear your uniform.
When you can hold out a future to your men, you need no
longer recruit them from the dregs of the population. The
soldier will have some feeling of personal dignity when he
ceases to find himself exposed to contempt. These poor
fellows are looked down upon by everybody, even by the
servants of small families. They breathe an atmosphere of
scorn, which may be termed the _malaria_ of honour. Relieve
them, Monsignore; they ask nothing better."

"Do you think, then, the means are to be found of giving us
an army as proud and as faithful as the French army? That
were a secret for which the Cardinal would pay a high
price."

"I offer it to you for nothing, Monsignore. France has
always been the most military country in Europe; but in the
last century the French soldier was no better than yours.
The officers are pretty much the same, with this difference
only,--that formerly the King selected them from the
nobility, whereas now they ennoble themselves by zeal and
courage. But a hundred years ago the soldiery, properly so
called, consisted in France of what it now does with
you--the scum of the population. Picked up in low taverns,
between a heap of crown-pieces and a glass of brandy, the
soldier made himself more dreaded by the peasantry than by
the enemy. He seemed to be overpowered beneath the weight of
the scorn of the country at large, the meanness of his
present condition, and the impossibility of future
promotion; and he revenged himself by forays upon the cellar
and the farmyard. He had his place among the scourges which
desolated monarchical France. Hear what La Fontaine says,--

"La faim, les créanciers, _les soldats_, la corvée, Lui font
d'un malheureux la peinture achevée."

You see that your soldiers of 1858 are angels in comparison
with our _soudards_ of the monarchy. If, with all this, you
still find them, not absolutely perfect, try the French
recipe: submit all your citizens to a conscription, in order
that your regiments may not be composed of the refuse of the
nation, Create--"

"Stop!" cried the prelate.

"Monsignore?"

"I stopped you short, my son, because T perceive that you
are getting beyond the real and the possible. _Primo_, we
have no citizens; we have subjects. _Secundo_, the
conscription is a revolutionary measure, which we will not
adopt at any price; it consecrates a principle of equality
as much opposed to the ideas of the Government as to the
habits of the country. It might possibly give us a very good
army, but that army would belong to the nation, not to the
Sovereign. We will at once put away, if you please, this
dangerous utopia."

"It might gain you some popularity."

"Far from it. Believe me, the subjects of the Holy Father have a deep antipathy to the principle of the conscription. The discontent of La Vendée and Brittany is nothing to that which it would create here."

"People become accustomed to everything, Monsignore. I have met contingents from La Vendée and Brittany singing merrily as they went to join their corps."

"So much the better for them. But let me tell you the only grievance of this country against the French rule is the conscription, which the Emperor had established among us."

"So you negative my proposal of the conscription."

"Absolutely!"

"I must think no more about it?"

"Quite out of the question."

"Well, Monsignore, I'll do without it. Let us have recourse to the system of voluntary enlistment, but with the condition that you secure the prospects of the soldier. What bounty do you offer to recruits?"

"Twelve scudi; but for the future we mean to go as high as twenty."

"Twenty scudi is fair enough; still I'm afraid even at one
hundred and seven francs a head you won't get picked men.
Now, you will allow, Monsignore, a peasant must be badly off
indeed when a bounty of twenty scudi tempts him to put on a
uniform which is universally despised? But if you want to
attract more recruits round every barrack than there were
suitors at Penelope's gate, endow the army, offer the Roman
citizens--pardon me, I mean the Pope's _subjects_--such a
bounty as is really likely to tempt them. Pay them down a
small sum for the assistance of their families, and keep the
balance till their period of service has expired. Induce
them to re-engage after their discharge by promises
honourably and faithfully observed; arrange that with every
additional year of service the savings which the soldier has
left in the hands of the state shall increase. Believe me,
when the Romans know that a soldier, without assistance,
without education, without any brilliant action, or any
stroke of good fortune, by the mere faithful performance of
his duty, can, after twenty-five years' service, secure an
income of £20 or £25 a year, they will snatch at the
advantage of entering the ranks; and I warrant you, the
personal interest of each will attach them more firmly to
the Government, as the depository of their savings. When the
house of a notary is on fire you will see the most immovable
and indifferent of shopkeepers running like a cat on the
tiles, to put out the fire and save his own papers. On the
same principle, a Government will always be served with zeal
in proportion to the interest its servants have in its
security."

"Of course," said the Prelate,

"I understand your argument perfectly. Man requires some
object in life. A hundred and twenty scudi a year is not an
unpleasant bed to lie upon after a term of military service.
At this price we should not want candidates. Even the middle
class would solicit employment in the military as much as it
now does the civil service of the state; and we should be
able to pick and choose our men. What frightens me in the
matter is the expense."

"Ah! Monsignore, you know a really good article is never to
be had cheap. The Pontifical Government has 15,000 soldiers
for £400,000. France would pay half as much again for them:
but then she would have the value of the extra cost. The men
who have completed three or four terms of service, are those
who cost the most money; and yet there is an economy in
keeping them, because every such man is worth three
conscripts. Do you then, or do you not, wish to create a
national force? Have you made up your mind on the subject?
If you do wish for it, you must pay for it, and make the
sacrifices necessary to obtain it. If, on the contrary, your
Government prefers economy to security, begin by saving the
£400,000, and sell to some foreign country the 15,000
muskets, more dangerous than useful, since you don't know
whether they are for you or against you. The question may be
summed up in two words: safety, which will cost you money;
or economy, which may cost you your existence!"

"You are proposing an army of Prætorians."

"The name is not the thing. I only promise you that if you pay your soldiers well, they'll be faithful to you."

"The Prætorians often turned against the Emperors."

"Because the Emperors were silly enough to pay them ready money."

"But is there no motive in this world nobler than interest? And is money the only lasting tie that binds soldiers to their standard?"

"I should not be a Frenchman, if I held such a belief. I
advised you to increase your soldiers' pay, because hitherto
your army has been recruited by money alone; and also
because money is that which it costs you the least to
obtain, and consequently that which you will the most
willingly part with. Well then, now that you have given me
the few millions I required for the purpose of attaching
your soldiers to the Pontifical Government, furnish me with
the means of raising them in their own estimation and in
that of the people. Honour them, in order that they may
become men of honour. Prove to them, by the consideration
with which you surround them, that they are not footmen, and
that they ought not to have the souls of footmen. Give them
a place in the state; throw around their uniform some of the
_prestige_ which is now the exclusive privilege of the
clerical garb."

"Do you know what you are asking for?"

"Nothing but what is absolutely necessary. Remember,
Monsignore, that this army, raised to act in the interior of
the Pontifical States, will serve you less frequently by the
force of its arms, than by the moral authority of its
presence. And pray what authority can it possess in the eyes
of your subjects, if the Government affect to despise it?"

"But, admitting that it obtain all the pay and all the
consideration that you claim for it, still it will remain
open to the remark of the President de Brosses, 'What are
warriors who have never in their lives made war?'"

"I admit it. The consideration accorded by all Frenchmen to
the soldier, takes its source in the idea of the dangers he
has encountered or may encounter. We behold in him a man who
has sacrificed his life beforehand, in engaging to shed
every drop of his blood at a word from his chiefs. If the
little children in our country respectfully salute the
colours--that steeple of the regiment--it is because they
think on the brave fellows who have fallen round it."

"Perhaps, then, you think we ought to send our soldiers to
make war, before employing them as guardians of the peace?"

"It is certain, Monsignore, that whenever one sees an old
Crimean soldier who has strayed into one of the Pope's
foreign regiments, the medal he wears on his breast makes
him look quite a different man from any of his comrades. The
corps of your army which the people has treated with the
greatest respect, is the Pontifical Carabineers, because it
was originally formed of Napoleon's old soldiers."

"My friend, you do not answer my question. Do you require us
to declare war against Europe for the sake of teaching our
gendarmes to keep the peace at home?"

"Monsignore, the government of his Holiness is too prudent
to go in search of adventures. We are no longer in the days
of Julius II., who donned the cuirass, and buckled on the
sword of the flesh, and sprang himself into the breach. But
why should not the Head of the Church do as Pius V., who
sent his sailors with the Spaniards and Venetians to the
battle of Lepanto? Why should you not detach a regiment or
two to Algeria? France would, perhaps, give them a place in
her army; they might join us in advancing the holy cause of
civilization. Rest assured that when those troops returned,
after five or six campaigns, to the more modest duty of
preserving the public peace, everybody would obey them
courteously. Vulgar footmen would no longer dare to make use
of such expressions as one I heard yesterday evening at the
door of a theatre,--'Stick to your soldiering, and leave
servant's work to me!' They who despise them now, would be
proud to show them respect; for nations have a tendency to
admire themselves in the persons of their armies."

"For how long?"

"For ever. Acquired glory is a capital which can never be
exhausted. And these regiments would never lose the spirit
of honour and discipline which they would bring back from
the seat of war. You know not, Monsignore, what it is to
have an idea become incarnate in a regiment. There is a
whole world of recollections, traditions, and virtues,
circulating, seen and unseen, through this band of men. It
is the moral patrimony of the corps; the veterans don't
carry it away when they retire from the service, while the
conscripts inherit it from the day of their joining the
regiment. The colonel, the officers, and the privates,
change one after the other, and yet it is the same regiment
that ever remains, because the same spirit continues to
flutter amid the folds of the same colours. Have four good
regiments of picked men, well paid, properly respected, and
that have been under fire, and they will last as long as
Rome, and Mazzini himself will not prevail against their
courage."

"So be it! And may Heaven hear you!"

"The business is half done, Monsignore, when you have heard
me. We are not far from the Vatican, where sits the real
Minister of Arms."

"He will urge another objection."

"What will it be?"

"That if he send our regiments to serve their apprenticeship
in Africa, they will bring back French ideas."

"That is an accident, impossible to prevent. But console
yourself with the reflection that it is perfectly immaterial
whether the French ideas are brought into your country by
your soldiers or by ours. Besides, this is an article which
so easily eludes the vigilance of the custom-house, that the
railways are already bringing it in daily, and you will soon
have a large stock on hand. And after all, where's the great
evil? All men who have studied us without prejudice, know
that French ideas are ideas of order and liberty, of
conservatism and progress, of labour and honesty, of culture
and industry. The country in which French ideas abound the
most is France, and France, Monsignore, is in good health."