Catholic resistance to the revolutionary spirit, the Jacobins and Napoleon: flag of the Sanfedists
by Giuseppe Nardi
The Catholic resistance to the French Revolution and later Napoleon Bonaparte found little attention in general historiography or disappears behind other motivations to resist. It was precisely this resistance that permeated large parts of Catholic Europe as a popular and mass movement and was more effective on the psychological level than the resistance of states.
The Sacred Heart of Jesus as a symbol of the Catholic resistance of the Vendée
The Sacred Heart of Jesus as a symbol of the Catholic resistance of the Vendée
It all started in 1793 with the French Vendée, who chose the heart of Jesus as a symbol. From 1796 in the German-speaking part of the world, it was mainly Tyrol, whose resistance was also placed under the Heart of Jesus, and from 1808, Spain.
However, the resistance of the Italians against the Jacobin Regiment is largely unknown.. More precisely, one has to speak of a multitude of insurrections. Hardly anyone remembers the deeds of Fra Diavolo or Cardinal Ruffo. It was also on the Apennine peninsula a mass phenomenon that covered all the historical regions of Italy. Italian historiography still prefers to ignore this chapter.
"This is true in the Jacobin tradition for both the liberal and the Marxist historians" 1, according to the historian Massimo Viglione.
In the textbooks you look for a footnote in vain. In professional circles, the phenomenon has hitherto at best dealt with hastily, if not completely denied. Where the surveys were nevertheless mentioned, they were attributed to peasant backwardness and clerical fanaticism, and the insurgents were often portrayed as subproletariat or even as brigands or criminals. Therefore, Ettore Beggiato presented his book on the Anti-French uprising in Veneto: "1809: the Venetian revolt. The fight against Napoleon in the land of Saint Mark "2) the question put forward:"bandits or patriots? “
Catholic resistance defamed as "brigandage”
Fra Diavolo
Fra Diavolo
The Jacobins had already insulted their Catholic opponents of Vendée as brigands. The term "brigands" for the Italian insurgents dates back to the spring of 1797 and came from Napoleon himself. He referred to the anti-French, Venetian emigrants who had fled over the border in the Italian part of Tyrol and there supported the resistance of the Tyroleans. The contemptible term was intended to discredit the opponents of revolutionary France and the native Jacobin. Massimo Viglione speaks of an "ideological twist" 3), which continues to ache today.
The standard work on the subject (until 1999) came from the French historian Jacques Godechot: La contre-révolution (1789-1804), which was published in Paris in 1961. Godechot only examined the period until 1804, although the resistance lasted until 1813 and 1815, respectively. He strove to reduce the causes of resistance to local conditions and to ignore the common concern to defend Christianity. The scope of the uprisings he played down as well as he completely ignored some areas of rebellion.
"But even such neglect or even insults can tell us something," wrote Roberto Cavallo.
"In this case, they indirectly show an extraordinary affinity and interest that united church and people between 1796 and 1815."
Sanfedists, led by Cardinal Ruffo, liberate Naples under the protection of St. Anthony of Padua
Sanfedists, led by Cardinal Ruffo, liberate Naples under the protection of St. Anthony of Padua
Only the historian Massimo Viglione of the University of Cassino put in 1999 with the book "Forgotten riots. The elevations of the Italians from the beginnings to 1815 "5) the first comprehensive account of the anti-revolutionary, Catholic resistance in Italy between 1796 and 1815 ago.
Italy was made up of several sovereign states at the end of the 18th century. Since the Peace of Aachen in 1748, the peninsula has had a long peacetime. The new ideas of the Enlightenment were just beginning to find modest entrance to princely courtyards, and a little more in the salons of an aspiring bourgeoisie, who had cast eager looks at the church property.
When the French Revolutionary Forces first set foot on Italian soil in 1792, they not only put an end to a long period of peace, but soon met with resistance because of their unrestrained hostility towards the church and their Jacobin allies in Italy. They solved in all states armed surveys in defense of the Catholic religion, but also the captured and abducted popes Pius VI. and Pius VII, from.
Almost without exception, the Italian Jacobins belonged to the wealthy bourgeoisie. They came from that part of the bourgeoisie that considered itself "enlightened" and aspired to become the new leadership of the peninsula. Wherever the revolutionary French came, they emptied the coffers of the Italian states and plundered the churches, pawnshops and even the hospitals. Added to this was the oppressive yoke of new taxes designed to finance the French army in permanent warfare. After three years of Jacobin rule, the resistance reached its climax with a general survey involving some 300,000 Italians in arms according to recent estimates, of which at least 100,000 lost their lives. Overall, the numbers are much higher. More than 60,000 Catholic fighters (not counting women and children at all) were the sole victims of the Franco-Jacobin Terror Regiment in the Kingdom of Both Sicily.
When the tide turned, the Jacobin Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel, besieged by the Lazzars in Naples, wrote in a call for help to the French Revolutionary General Jean-Etienne Championnet the significant sentence:
"Not the nation, but the people are against the French."
Viglione explained:
"This is an impressive sentence, because it says in the end: We are 30 trapped in here are the nation, the four million out there are just the people and count nothing." 6)
Fra Diavolo, Massa Cristiana, Viva Maria and Sanfedisten
The troops of "Viva Maria" 1799 when moving into Florence
The troops of "Viva Maria" 1799 when moving into Florence
After some representations of individual insurgency areas over the past 20 years, Massimo Vigliones book offers a first synopsis of all Italian surveys. A brief glance at the political map reveals the extent of this Catholic resistance: in the Duchy of Piedmont and the Habsburg duchy of Lombardy, belonging to the Holy Roman Empire (the imperial Major Branda de Lucioni at the head of the Massa Cristiana Catholic movement), in the Venice Maritime Republic (with the famous "Veronese Easter"), in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Maritime Republic of Genoa (the "Viva Maria", bearing the coat of arms of the Virgin on their caps), in the Papal States and the Duchies of Emilia (with the cry " Viva il Papa, viva Gesú e Maria "), in the Kingdom of both Sicily (with Fra Diavolo, the" Lazzaroni "or" Lazzaroni "and the Sanfedist of Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo). Not only in the ecclesiastical states, but also beyond, the papal banner became the very symbol of Italian resistance. Welschtirol, the Italian south of the Habsburg County of Tyrol with the centers of Trento and Rovereto (today Trentino), which actively participated in the Tyrolean defensive battles of 1796/1797 and 1809 in the Tyrolean freedom fight under Andreas Hofer, should not be forgotten either.
The historian Massimo Viglione concluded:
"The Italians were fully aware that the French Revolution was a war against the Church and traditional European society."
Pictures: Wikicommons
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