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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
The Popes of Rome ruled as both temporal and spiritual sovereigns for more than one thousand years, but historians have been little concerned with the former aspect of their sovereignty except as a factor in international politics and diplomacy and for its effect upon their status as heads of Catholic Christendom. Details of the internal administration of the States of the Church have been largely neglected. This state of affairs is particularly true with respect to the modern and recent periods of European history, during which the rise of great national states eclipsed the tiny temporal domain of the Pope. There is a substantial literature on the finances of the Papacy in the later Middle Ages, when finance is recognized as having played an important part in political affairs, but a survey of the literature for the modern period fails to reveal any systematic treatment of the subject. There is reason to believe, however, as this brief note indicates, that there is a significant connection between the financial situation of the States of the Church and the loss of the temporal power. It is even possible that this connection extends to matters of Church doctrine.
1. An authoritative and recently compiled bibliography of Italian economic history in the nineteenth century (Bibliografia di storia economica italiana per il periodo 1840–1887, mimeo., n.d., n.p.) lists only three titles, all insignificant, dealing with the public finances of the States of the Church. The monumental work of the Catholic historian Josef Schmidlin (Papstgeschichte der Neuesten Zeit [ 4 vols., Munich, 1933–1939/)Google Scholar devotes exactly one paragraph to public finance in the reign of Pius IX (1846–1878). Critics of the Church, such as Bury, J. B. (History of the Papacy in the Nineteenth Century, 1864–1878 [London, 1930])Google Scholar are no more attentive to such mundane matters; there is, in fact, no mention whatever of finances in Bury, although it must be admitted that he was primarily interested in ideas rather than institutions. Carl C. Eckhardt, an historian who considered explicitly the Papacy as a world power (The Papacy and World Affairs [Chicago University Press, 1937])Google Scholar, likewise makes no mention of public finance. There are, in fact, only scattered references to be found in any work.
2. The latter part of this account is based on correspondence between the French Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs relative to the admission of foreign securities to the Paris Bourse. All documents cited are preserved in the Archives Nationales, Paris, in série F30, liasse no. 309, and will be further identified in the notes only by reference to writer, recipient, and date.
3. The franc (roughly equivalent to 20 cents U. S. currency in pre-1914 values) is used throughout this note to express monetary values, inasmuch as France, the “eldest [and wealthiest] daughter of the Church,” was the source of virtually all its borrowings. For a brief survey of the debts of the Church see Sachs, Isadore, L'Italie, ses finances et son développement économique… 1859–1884 (Paris, 1885), pp. 452–458.Google Scholar
4. Ibid., pp. 452–453; “Modern Rome and the Papal Government,” Foreign Quarterly Review, XI (1833), 662.Google Scholar
5. Cf. Corti, E. C., The Rise of the House of Rothschild (tr. B. ' B. Lunn; New York and London, 1928).Google Scholar These are only two of a number of cases in which the Rothschilds were involved in support of Metternichean principles.
6. Farini, Luigi Carlo, The Roman State from 1815 to 1850 (tr. Gladstone, W. E.; 4 vols.; London, 1851–1854), I, 142.Google Scholar For a very different (Catholic) view of the financial administration in this period see “Italy and the Papal States,” Dublin Review, XLI (1856), 171–226, which mentions “economical reforms and good management” that reduced the annual deficit “to only 350,000 dollars [scudi] by 1847.”
7. Farini, , Roman State, I, 143Google Scholar; King, Bolton, A History of Italian Unity (2 vols.; 3rd impression revised; London, 1924), I, 74Google Scholar; Annuaire de l'économie politique et de statistique (54 vols.; Paris, 1844–1898), 1851, 277–279Google Scholar; Sachs, , L'Italie, p. 453.Google Scholar One of the officials of the treasury, when questioned on a matter of political economy, is said to have replied that he did not read books dealing with that subject, as they were “pernicious and on the Index” (King, , Italian Unity, I, 75).Google Scholar
8. Sachs, , L'Italic, p. 454.Google Scholar For purposes of comparison, the United States in 1846 had a population 7 times as great as that of the Papal States and an area 150 times as large; its budget for 1846 (which included a surplus three times as large as the Papal deficit of almost two million francs) was but three times as large, whereas its public debt was less than one third that of the States of the Church. The per capita public debt of the United States amounted to about 75 cents; that of the States of the Church to more than four dollars.
9. Farini, , Roman State, I, 145.Google Scholar
10. Ann. de l'écon. pol., 1851, p. 279.Google Scholar
11. Ibid.; Sachs, L'Itatie, p. 454.
12. Corti, E. C., The Reign of the House of Rothschild (tr. B., & Loan, B.; London, 1928), p. 279Google Scholar; The Economist (London), 02 2, 1850.Google Scholar
13. Sachs, , L'Italic, p. 455Google Scholar; Proudhon, P.-J., Manuel du spéculateur à la Bourse (4th ed.; Paris, 1857), p. 427.Google Scholar
14. Sachs, , L'Italic, p. 455.Google Scholar
15. Sachs, , L'Italic, p. 456;Google Scholar Bourse de Paris, Syndicale, Chambre, Annuaire, 1880 (Paris, 1881), p. 179.Google Scholar Of this, 19,175,000 francs represented a net new issue. Some of the earlier issue. had been partially amortized; total French purchases had almost certainly exceeded 150 million francs, possibly even 200 million.
16. Sachs, , L'Italic, p. 456.Google Scholar
17. Ann. de l'écon. pol., 1859, p. 352.Google Scholar
18. The information in this paragraph, it must be admitted, is largely guesswork based on casual and scattered references. Published accounts of the breakdown of the internal debt of the States of the Church are, to my knowledge, non-existent.
19. The Banca Romana, wholly state owned, had been reorganized in 1852 with Count Philip Antonelli, brother of the Cardinal Secretary of State, as its director. Under inept and probably corrupt management, it issued large quantities of banknotes unbacked by any metallic reserve; it also suffered enormous losses which were covered by fictitious accounting entries. (de Cesare, R., The Last Days of Papal Rome, 1850–1870 [London, 1909], pp. 38–39.)Google Scholar
20. Cf.Smith, Adam, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Edinburgh, 1776)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Book V, chap. I.
21. Ibid., Book V, chap. III; Ricardo, David, Priaciples of Political Economy and Taxation (Everyman, ed.; London, 1911), p. 163.Google Scholar
22. The States of the Pope became the first in Italy to introduce postage stamps, in 1852, but the workman in the printing office where they were made sold large sheets wholesale at half price, and the postal clerks instead of cancelling the stamps as often as not removed them from letters and resold them for their personal profit. A telegraph installed between Rome and Terracina in 1854 was used mainly for sending devotional messages and for the entertainment of the official under whose direction it fell; not until 1857 did Rome have telegraphic communications with the outside world. Gas lights for the streets of Rome were installed upon the demand of the commander of the French occupation forces, who wished to protect his troops from the thugs and ruffians that prowled the streets at night. Concessions for railways were granted after 1854, but the government incurred no expense for subsidies until 1859.
23. Sachs, , L'Italie, p. 456.Google Scholar
24. Ibid.
25. French Minister of Finance (hereafter abbreviated as MinFin) to Minister of Foreign Affairs (MinForAff), April [n.d.] 1860.
26. Ibid.
27. The Paris House of Rothschild had also been the principal banker for the Kingdom of Sardinia, and had assisted in floating a new loan as recently as November, 1859. The first loan to be raised by the new Kingdom of Italy was also handled by Baron James. (Cameron, Rondo E., “French Finance and Italian Unity: The Cavourian Decade,” American Historical Review, Vol. LXII, No. 3 [04, 1957].)Google Scholar
28. In retaliation for being by-passed, Rothschild announced on December 1, 1860, the date on which payment of interest on the consolidated debts of 1857 should have been made, that the payments would be indefinitely postponed since he had not received from the Papal treasury the full amount necessary to service the debt (Journal des chemins de fer, XIX [12 1, 1860], 963).Google Scholar On such occasions in the past he had always made temporary advances to cover the interest.
29. MinFin to MinForAff, April [n.d.] 1860.
30. Ibid.
31. Réglement spécial pour la France sur l'émission et Ia vente d'un emprunt…. [etc.], dated 05 25, 1860,Google Scholar and signed by Pius IX and his finance minister, Ferrani; Magne (MinFin) to E. Blount, June 21, 1860. Blount, although an Englishman by birth, had established himself in Paris during the regime of Louis Philippe and was closely identified with French finance throughout his long life.
32. E. Drouyn de Lhuys (MinForAff) to A. Fould (MinFin), February 23, 1863.
33. Sachs, , L'Italie, pp. 457–58, 465, 467.Google Scholar
34. Ibid., p. 456.
35. MinForAff to MinFin, Feb. 23, 1863.
36. Ibid.
37. MinFin to MinForAff, March 6, 1863.
38. Quoted in La Presse, 05 10, 1863.Google Scholar
39. Ibid.
40. May 18, 1863.
41. Confidential note of Drouyn de Lhuys to Fould, March 1, 1864.
42. Ibid.
43. On several occasions, the most notable being that in connection with Ferdinand de Lesseps' Suez Canal Company, the interested parties had obtained from the Corps législatif special exemptions from the anti-lottery law. Available documents do not reveal why the Pope did not attempt this solution.
44. Letter dated June 14, 1864. The bank stated that its assistance was “purely gratuitous and motivated solely by the desire to be useful to the Pontifical government.”
45. La Nation (Paris), 06 14, 1864.Google Scholar The Pontifical decree authorizing the loan was dated March 26, 1864.
46. MinForAff to MinFin, July 2, 1864; MinFin to MinForAff, July 8, 1864.
47. Report of the prefect of the department of the Meurthe to the Minister of the Interior; Nancy, June 26, 1864.
48. Flavio Chigi (Papal Nuncio) to Drouyn de Lhuys, March 28, 1866; MinPorAff to MinPin, March 6, 1866; MinPin to MinForAff, April 11, 1866.
49. Pére Gostlin, missionary of St. Vincent's Seminary, to Napoleon III; Le Mans, June 24, 1869.
50. It is unlikely, for example, that the citizens of the States of the Church would have so willingly abandoned their sovereign in 1848–49 and again in 1859–60 but for the heavy load of taxation from which they obtained no visible benefits. In another connection, had the Pope'a representatives been less maladroit in their financial dealings In Paris, they would probably have found Napoleon's ministers more amiably disposed.