Roman Reporter relaunched

Welcome to the re-launch, under new management, of the former paper, the Roman Reporter. The new editorial board welcomes contributions and letters from all readers.

It is often said that the functions of any media organisation are to entertain, to inform and to educate. The editorial board of Il Giornalista di Roma enthusiastically embrace the first of these goals. How else would we keep your attention long enough to confuse and mislead you?

Pictured: his Holiness, Pope Pius VI.

The citizens of the Papal States have been startled by the effective renunciation by the Pope of his temporal power over the Italian territories nominally under his direct control.

The move was apparently prompted by the annexation by Revolutionary France of the city of Avignon and the surrounding area of the Comtat Venaissin, both Papal territories since the Middle Ages. The Pope seems to have concluded that the Papal States in Italy would have equally little chance against any vigorous military or political offensive, unless the machinery of government and finance and the armed forces are reformed and modernised.

Pius VI is almost the longest-reigning Pope (at the time of writing), but in latter years he has been accused of promoting the arts and architecture at the expense of the poorer Roman subjects.

Not for the first time in her long history, Rome is inordinately wealthy, glutted with the revenues of the Church but lacking in the thews and sinews of war. In the fading days of the Roman Empire, Goths, Vandals and Lombards all captured the helpless city in turn. In 1527, the city was brutally sacked by the mutinous Imperial army of the Duc de Bourbon, in search of plunder. A mere 5,000 militia from the city's teeming populace faced the invaders.

Although Niccolo di Machiavelli urged Princes never to place their trust in mercenaries, the Papal States have turned to an adventurer of notoriously chameleon loyalties, the emigre Frenchman Auguste d'Huitpinte, who has described himself as practically the "Lord High Everything". He has taken the empty title of "Conti di Colle Albani" to ensure a seat in the upper councils of the States.

To the further alarm of the nobility of the Papal States, d'Huitpinte has appealed for like-minded individuals to join him, particularly those with naval or sea experience, as he frankly admits to being strictly a land animal (though he has been seen frantically reading manuals on ship construction).

Profile: Auguste d'Huitpinte

Pictured: An alleged portrait of Auguste d'Huitpinte, painted when in French service

Auguste d'Huitpinte was born near Pau in Southern France in 1757, the only son of Césare d'Huitpinte, a minor official in the French Ministry of Marine. It is sometimes claimed that Auguste's mother was the discarded mistress of one or other of King Louis XV's ministers, whose son he actually is.

Césare died when Auguste was only three. The boy was taught by Jesuit priests with the intention of entering the Church, and was apparently an ill-disciplined pupil. When he was ten years old, his mother married a retired Army officer, who sponsored Auguste into the Strasbourg Military Academy. On graduating in 1777 he joined the artillery. Posted to a garrison in Lille, he made repeated attempts to join units going to fight against England in her colonies in America, but was refused.

Two year later, in 1779, his mother and stepfather died in a smallpox epidemic. Lieutenant d'Huitpinte was granted six months' leave to settle their estates. He disappeared for over two years. When he rejoined his unit, he could not account for his absence. It also transpired that in the interim he had married the daughter of a Treasury official banished by the King for life, for embezzlement. These indiscretions resulted in d'Huitpinte being cashiered.

He subsequently ran a coaching inn (and some other, nefarious, businesses) at Chambèry in Savoie with his disgraced father-in-law. When the Revolution broke out in France, d'Huitpinte enthusiastically joined volunteer units of the French army, quickly reaching the rank of General de Brigade. He was accused of opposition to the more extreme revolutionary policies of the Jacobins, and also suspected of disloyalty as an "aristo". He fled the country to avoid arrest and the guillotine.

Italy presents united front

Apparently in contrast to the fragmented nations of Germany, the Italian states have rapidly made common cause with each other to forestall any hostile move. Though they might be an assorted collection of constitutional monarchs, absolute monarchs, oligarchs and acquisitive condottieri, the heads of the Italian states have recognised the dangers posed by predatory major powers. The veteran statesman King Stefano of Sardinia has been the leading spirit of the association.

Though no fixed plans for mutual defence can yet be made, the Papal States in their central position are well placed to support any beleaguered ally in the north.

Reporter volante

The nobility of the Papal States were not alone in being surprised at the near-coup. Several heads of state were quick to congratulate d'Huitpinte on his election as Pope. Regrettably, he cannot perform "hatches, matches and dispatches", and has had to turn down several requests for indulgences and dispensations.