The Roman Question and the Powers, 1848–1865

There are two factors in the Revolution and the Risorgimento during the nineteenth century which have dictated the organization of this book and conditioned as well the presentation of its contents. One is the advent of a revolution which, abortive in r849, threatened continually thereafter to break out again; the second is the ideology of a ruling class, whose basic funds of values and conscious aims were abruptly and profoundly altered by the sudden appearance of revo­ lution and the equally swift decay of this same movement. From these two points of view it becomes mandatory that the story of the Risorgimento and the Revolution commence in the year r848. The mastery of the Revolution, as one sees with hindsight, was attained by r861. That achievement, not frequently recognized for what it was in terms of motivation and historical necessity, is of central interest in this book. I have consequently sought to give a rather full picture of events, with particular attention for the internal politics of the revo­ lutionary countries involved. The attitude of a class of men, threatened in their lives and in their property, is the attitude of the counter-revo­ lution. There was a willingness to accept revolutionary progress out of the need to direct its course.