Roman question

In the following July, an intervention by French troops restored Pope Pius IX to power, making the Roman question a hotly debated one even in the internal politics of France.

[2] In July 1859, after France and Austria made an agreement that ended the short Second Italian War of Independence, an article headed "The Roman Question" in The Westminster Review expressed the opinion that the Papal States should be deprived of the Adriatic provinces and be restricted to the territory around Rome.

However, the Italian Government could not take its seat in Rome because a French garrison (which had overthrown the Roman Republic), maintained there by Napoleon III of France, commanded by general Christophe Léon Louis Juchault de Lamoricière, was defending Pope Pius IX.

In early August, Napoleon III recalled his garrison from Rome and could no longer protect what remained of the Papal States.

King Victor Emmanuel II then sent Count Gustavo Ponza di San Martino to Pius IX with a personal letter offering a proposal that would have allowed the peaceful entry of the Italian Army into Rome, under the guise of protecting the pope.

[4]The Italian army, commanded by General Raffaele Cadorna, crossed the frontier on 11 September and advanced slowly toward Rome, hoping that an unopposed entry could be negotiated.

Pius IX decided that the surrender of the city would be granted only after his troops had put up a token resistance, enough to make it plain that the takeover was not freely accepted.

However, Victor Emmanuel II of Italy refused to take residence in the Quirinal Palace, and foreign powers were likewise uneasy with the move.

The law was intended to attempt to avoid further antagonizing the Pope following unification and was roundly criticized by anti-clerical politicians across the political spectrum, particularly on the left.

On 26 July 1862, before Garibaldi and his volunteers were stopped at Aspromonte, Pius IX confided his fears to Lord Odo Russell, the British Minister in Rome, and asked whether he would be granted political asylum in England after the Italian troops had marched in.

These were confided by Otto von Bismarck to Julius Hermann Moritz Busch: As a matter of fact, he has already asked whether we could grant him asylum.

[...] Doubtless the main object of this gathering will be to elicit from the assembled fathers a strong declaration in favour of the necessity of the Temporal Power.

Obviously a secondary object of this Parliament of Bishops, convoked away from Rome, would be to demonstrate to Europe that the Vatican does not enjoy the necessary liberty, although the Act of Guarantee proves that the Italian Government, in its desire for reconciliation and its readiness to meet the wishes of the Curia, has actually done everything that lies in its power.

[12]One of the pope's confidants, Don Bosco, a popular priest-educator well known for his prophecies,[13] sent Pius IX a note scripted in a prophetic vein: "Let the sentry, the Angel of Israel, stand firm at his post, to guard the fortress of God and the Ark of the Covenant!”[14] Pius IX agreed and remained at his post as a self-imposed prisoner at the Vatican; so did his successors, until the signing of the Lateran Treaty occasioned the recognition of papal liberties.

[15] Historical novels such as Fabiola and Quo Vadis have been interpreted as comparing the treatment of the popes by the newly formed Kingdom of Italy to the persecution of early Christians in the Roman Empire.