MERODE, FRÉDÉRIC-FRANÇOIS-XAVIER de. - Prelate and statesman, b. in Brussels on 20 March 1820, d. in Rome on 10 July 1874. Of a most noble family, after pursuing classical studies at the Jesuit College of Namur and at that of Juilly in Paris, on the advice of the nuncio Pecci (later Leo XIII), he attended (1839) the military school of Brussels, left it as a second lieutenant of infantry in 1841 and took part in the operations in Algeria (1844-45).
On returning to his homeland he followed an ardent priestly vocation, and, encouraged by Montalembert, by Abbot Gerbet and by Father Ventura, he left for Rome in Oct. 1847 and received the minor orders on 23 Dec. 1848. In the course of the revolutionary and republican events he had a new occasion to give fresh proof of intrepid courage; for which he suffered harassment and imprisonment. Once the French had entered the city (5 July 1849), he took part in the restoration of the pontifical government and, having said his first Mass in St. Peter's (23 Sept. 1849), served as military chaplain.
Pius IX, on receiving him after his return from Gaeta, wished him at once as his Cameriere segreto partecipante (14 Apr. 1850) and kept him constantly at his side, soon making use of him in confidential negotiations with France, and for the study and preparation of the important institutional and administrative reforms which he resumed and carried out between 1850 and '70. But to the grave political situation that arose around the Holy See between 1850 and '70 is linked the greater activity of Msgr. De M. The spring of 1866 found him a diligent minister of Arms in close collaboration with Gen. La Moricière (v.), and he sought to provide for everything with self-denial and technical skill. And yet, from the campaign of Castelfidardo (v.) and of Ancona (v.), to the victory of Mentana (v.), down to the supreme resistance along the walls of Rome, that new, good army, besides prolonging by a decade the millennial function of so venerable a State, sufficed, as Cochin wrote, that it «should not collapse in silence and without a resounding echo in History». The lack of political adaptability and the contrasts with Card. Antonelli, impatient with de M. because of his activity and severe influence in the government of the State, forced him to leave the ministry on 6 Oct. 1865, to assume instead the office of pontifical almoner with the appointment as titular archbishop of Melitene (22 June 1866). It was in fact the Pope's intention to have him near in order to continue to make use of him as always.
De M. turned at once to the reform of the elementary schools and of many charitable and welfare institutions of the city, while, following the example of the Middle Ages, he gave a first direction to the reclamation of the countryside by means of colonies of farming monks, such as that of the Trappists at the Tre Fontane on the Via Laurentina. Rome also owes to him the first town plan of the city and the first imposing works of expansion and building renewal. With shrewd foresight he disposed of areas then deserted in order to create the piazzas of Termini and of S. Maria degli Angeli, to open the future Via Nazionale and the side streets, to begin in Prati the Via Vittoria Colonna and the connecting streets, to delimit the present Piazza Cavour, to trace on paper what was later the great Via dei Fori Imperiali from Piazza Venezia to the Colosseum. After having taken a large part in the works of the Vatican Council, casting a vote against the opportuneness of the proclamation of the dogma of pontifical infallibility, but submitting that very evening (18 July 1870) at the feet of the Holy Father, he lived his last years safeguarding so many of his works and so many interests of the Holy See threatened by the changing times. He thus took also on lease the Palazzo Altemps to house there a pontifical university in place of that of the Sapienza, which had become royal. And he intervened to secure for his friend G. B. De' Rossi and for the new science of Christian archaeology means and areas for further investigations (1873); during the excavations the illness that cut him down struck him. He was buried in the Teutonic cemetery.
A romantic and chivalrous mixture of soldier and monk, Msgr. de M. united the customs of a pious cenobite with the solicitations of charity and the intransigence of justice. Of him, misunderstood by too many, Veuillot well said: «No one knew him better than Pius IX and no one perhaps loved him more».
Bibliography3 works
Sa vie et ses oeuvres, Paris 1886 (excellent and complete bibliography); A. M. Bonetti, Venticinque anni di Roma capitale d'Italia e suoi precedenti (1875-95), I, Rome 1895, pp. 122, 292; G. S. Pelczar, Pio IX e il suo pontificato, Ital. trans., Turin 1909-11, passim; K. von Schlözer, Römische Briefe (1864-69), Stuttgart-Berlin 1920, see index; A. Vigevano, La campagna delle Marche e dell'Umbria, Rome 1922, passim; S. Jacini, Il tramonto del potere temporale nelle relazioni degli ambasciatori austriaci a Roma (1860-1870), Bari 1931, see index; L. F. Stock, United States Ministers to the Papal States. Instructions and despatches (1848-68), Washington 1933, see index; P. Dalla Torre, L'anno di Montana, Turin 1938, pp. 4, 17, 18, 45, 59 (with ample bibl. almost always connected with the life and works of de M.); S. Negro, Seconda Roma (1850-70), Milan 1943, see index; P. Dalla Torre, L'opera riformatrice ed amministrativa di Pio IX fra il 1850 ed il 1870, Rome 1945, passim.
Paolo Dalla Torre