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of the whole world, it might be of supreme importance to the United States that they should be free to adopt measures for the defense of the canal at a moment when they were themselves engaged in hostilities.3

31

It may be said that in the Hay-Pauncefote treaty no such provision was necessary as that contained in the convention of Constantinople for securing the defensive rights of Turkey and Egypt, in whose territory the Suez Canal is situated, because no nation at war with the United States would dream of attacking the Panama Canal when the waterway was in actual use "on terms of entire equality" by all the other commercial nations of the world, any more than Russia dreamed of interfering with the Suez Canal when she was at war with the Sublime Porte. The vulnerability of the canal, the ease with which its locks could be put out of commission "by a small party of resolute men armed with a few sticks of dynamite," 32 may also tend to render it immune from flagrant war.

But, however this may be, the United States, having freed itself by the Hay-Pauncefote treaty from certain requirements of the ClaytonBulwer treaty, including alliances or joint action with foreign governments for the protection and management of the canal, should see to it that the general principles of neutralization and equal terms, expressly preserved, re-affirmed and re-consecrated as they are in the treaty now. in force, shall suffer no impairment in the administration of this selfassumed trust for mankind. Thus shall we keep the faith of the treaty and make good the long succession of our declarations and pledges as a nation.

31 Moore's Inter. Law Dig., III, p. 215.

CRAMMOND KENNEDY.

32 Senate Document, No. 54, 57th Congress, 1st Session. Report of the Isthmian Canal Commission, 1899-1901, p. 254.

CARDINAL ALBERONI: AN ITALIAN PRECURSOR OF
PACIFISM AND INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION *

Nihil sub sole novum. Ecclesiastes, I, 10.

1

In a previous study 1 I had occasion to state that the pacifist idea, as well as that of the juridical settlement of international conflicts, dates much farther back than is generally believed, and that it has had sincere advocates in all nations. And what is of even greater importance, international arbitration was practiced to a large extent, both in the Middle Ages and at the time of the Renaissance. I would now present to the enlightened readers of this Journal an Italian personage as one of these advocates, by stating however at the outset, that he was not the first among his compatriots, since four centuries before his time, the Venetian Marin Sanudo 2 had consecrated his life to that idea, while the adherents of pacifism can even claim a Dante Alighieri among their number! For many reasons, however, which will be convincingly set forth in the course of these pages, Cardinal Alberoni is deserving of especial attention. The German Gerhoch, the Frenchmen Pierre Dubois and Eméric Crucé, the Czech king George Podiebrad, the Englishman W. Penn, the Portuguese Suarez, the Spaniard Vittoria, the Hollander H. Grotius, and many others, have in him a worthy associate, a fact which I hope will be made clear by the publication of his scheme, as an appendix hereof.†

I

There are few men who have played a conspicuous part in history whose importance has been discussed to the same extent as that of Cardinal Alberoni. He has been vilified and glorified with equal pas

* Translated from the French by Dr. Theodore Henckels, of Washington, D. C.

1 VESNITCH, Deux Précurseurs français du Pacifisme et de l'Arbitrage International, in Revue d'Histoire Diplomatique, 1911.

2 See: A. MAGNOCAVALLO, Marin Sanudo il Vecchio ed il suo Progetto di Crociata, Bergamo, 1901.

† Printed in this JOURNAL, p. 83.

sion. And while it may be said that the greatness of a statesman is correctly measured by the opposition with which he meets during his life, and even before posterity, the lack of sympathy, I should even say the lack of interest for this prelate-diplomatist is explainable on special grounds, as well as by reason of the circumstances in which he grew up. It is probably due to this reserve that the modern historians of pacifism, eager though they are to search through the past centuries for the precursors of this movement, have almost entirely failed to consider this curious personage. And his ideas, even as his entire life which was so feverish, ever on the alert and so long in years, should certainly have roused them to a special curiosity. Human psychology has in him a specimen worthy of profound study, offering a vast and promising field of work to him who would undertake it. Does it not seem strange to see this man, at the zenith of his power, almost universally traduced as the greatest disturber of the peace, when in fact he conceived the plan of the general pacification of the Christian world, he, the man of action par excellence, and at a time when this idea was the privilege of only those who were generally scoffed at, the discussion of whose ideas brought forth smiles, and who could consider themselves fortunate when they were not classed too far below "dreamers"?

Before proceeding to the consideration of the pacifist work of Cardinal Alberoni, it is necessary to make a general survey, concise as far as this is possible, of the personage and of the importance of his activities during the first half of the eighteenth century.

Jules Alberoni 3 was born at Piacenza, May 21, 1664. He was the son of poor parents who, as gardeners, had come to take up their abode

3 See: S. BERSANI, Storia del cardinale Giulio Alberoni, Piacenza, 1861; (in reference to this, see an extended study by AG. SAGREDO, in the Archivio storico italiano, vol. XVII, 1863, 2nd part, pp. 90–116); J. ROUSSET, Histoire du Cardinal Alberoni, etc., The Hague, 1719; MALDONADO-MACAÑEZ, El Cardinal Alberoni, in the Revista de España, 1884; LAVISSE and RAMBAUD, Histoire générale, etc., vol. VII, 1896; E. BourGEOIS, Letters intimes de J.-M. Alberoni, Paris, 1892 (in reference: G. VALBERT, Alberoni, etc., in the Revue des Deux Mondes, vol. CXV, 1893, pp. 662-673); ditto, le Secret des Farnèse, Philippe V et la politique d'Alberoni, 1911; G. HANOTAUX, Recueil des Instructions aux Ambassadeurs de France, vol. XVII (Rome, vol. II) Paris, 1911; C. CANTU, Histoire universelle, vol. XVI and XVII, Paris, 1868; A. PROFESSIONE, Il Ministero in Spagna e il processo del card. Alberoni, Turin, 1897; Comte DE

in this city. And if it had not been for the function the Christian church performed in the world, he would never have succeeded in bringing his talents to the fore. It was the church, or rather her servants in the Duchy of Parma, who soon became aware of his active and alert mind and made him follow a rigorous course of instruction in their seminaries, just as they had done before with his compatriot J. Mazarin. Further along in this study we will be led naturally to confront these two compatriots one with the other. Dealing with affairs relating to Spain, the author of MS. 25695 of the Bibliothèque nationale (pp. 204-206) indeed states: "Up to this point, we behold in Jules Alberoni another Jules Mazarin. Both were of humble birth: the former was the son of a Piacenza gardener; the father of the latter was a tenant of the Episcopal See of the same city; both started on their career in this bishopric; both attained to the dignity of prime minister of two of the principal European monarchies; and lastly both rose to the office of cardinal." In another place it is asserted that "Alberoni would have been the Mazarin of Spain, had the end been like the beginning."

Scholar and bell-ringer at the cathedral of Piacenza, and educated through charity at the Barnabite monastery in that city, Alberoni in 1702 became chaplain to the Count de Roncoveri, bishop of Borgo di San Donnino, and soon afterward, when he had learned a little French from the novelist Campistron, who had, so to say, strayed into these regions, and through his brilliant intellect won the good will and sympathy of the Duke de Vendôme, commander of French troops in Italy, the Duke de Parma made him canon and appointed him as his representative to the duke. At this moment, the course of his life changes and Alberoni's political career opens: for in 1706, Vendôme brought him to France, presented him to the king, obtained for him an annual allowance and then secured his services as secretary in his military expeditions to BARRAL, Etudes sur l'histoire diplomatique de l'Europe de 1648 à 1791, Paris, 1880; A. BAUDRILLART, Philippe V et la Cour de France, Paris, 1890, five vols; E. DE HECKEREN, Correspondance de Benoît XIV, two vols., Paris, 1912; D'HAUSSONVILLE, La Duchesse de Bourgogne, etc., 4 vols., 1898-1908, vol. III; Gentleman's Magazine, 1736; L. WIESENER, Commencement d'Alberoni, etc., Angers, 1892; C. MALAGOLA, Il Card. Alberoni e la republica di San Marino, Bologna, 1886; J. BUTLER, Duke of Ormonde, the Jacobite attempt of 1717, etc., Edinburgh, 1895; the Archives du Ministère des Affaires étrangères; Fonds Rome and Espagne.

the Netherlands and Spain, in the course of which he was sent on a mission to certain of the provinces for the purpose of consolidating the partisans of Philip V. After his protector had breathed his last in the arms of his dear abbé, Alberoni returned to France in 1712 to report to Louis XIV upon conditions in Spain. The following year we find him already in Madrid as chargé d'affaires of the Duke de Parma. Soon thereafter (1714), Queen Gabrielle of Savoy dies, and he avails himself of the new situation at the Spanish court to improve his fortune. His own activities in the preparation for the new marriage of Philip V to Elisabeth Farnèse, the daughter of his master and sovereign, are so well known that it is thought superfluous to refer to them at this time. His rivalries and strifes more than any other of his actions have been studied and described, possibly on account of their picturesqueness. Frédéric II declares in his Mémoires (Paris, 1866, vol. I, p. 26) that Cardinal Alberoni's temperament was very similar to that of the new queen, whom he portrays in these few masterly strokes: "Spartan haughtiness and English obstinacy, combined with Italian elegance and French vivacity; she proceeded audaciously to the accomplishment of her designs; nothing ever took her by surprise, nothing could stay her." Two persons of this same nature might meet; both might start on their journey at the same time; but they could not long continue in each other's company. The little Princess de Parma, after her sudden and unexpected elevation to the throne of Spain, wanted to rule as absolute mistress; and this prelate-diplomatist, who was climbing the ecclesiastical and social ladder with lightning rapidity, his elevation to the ranks of the nobility, his appointment to one of the most important Spanish bishoprics and his cardinal's hat annoyed her in the royal entourage, the more so because he was her compatriot, because he was indefatigable in his activities, inexhaustible in his intellectual resources and at the same time endowed with an indomitable will power. Europe, rather the Imperial and Franco-English diplomacy, energetically opposed Alberoni, the prime minister of Spain and distinguished Italian patriot; his tendo Achillis was, however, wounded first by the weak nature of Philip V and by the jealous vanity of the latter's young wife. To the reproach that she had appointed Alberoni, a foreigner, as head of her government, Elisabeth answered: "That is true; we appointed him, or to be more correct,

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