Constitutional Difficulties and the Crimean War

Abstract

In November 1854, Cavour presented a bill to suppress all the “unnecessary” monasteries, or those whose main function was not charity or education. It was approved by the Lower House. Cavour hoped by secularizing monastic property to obtain the 900,000 lire a year which the government was still paying to the clergy as compensation for confiscations during the Napoleonic period. But this dissolution of the monasteries worried the king’s conscience, and, just as Azeglio had been dismissed on the issue of civil marriage, the king thought that here would be a good occasion to get rid of the increasingly demanding and opinionated Cavour. He even wrote privately to ask the Pope to help him.