But—and here, once for all, the writer begs that
it may be understood that he is writing of the
Papal system and its effects as seen in their own
country, Italy—all this has ceased there long
since to be other than a means and pretext of
power purely temporal. It is not spiritual power
which brings custom to the confessional-box in
Italy.

Taking, then, the temporal power of the Pope,
in the usual restricted meaning of the phrase,
let us inquire what wrong the Pope has done as
sovereign of these "ecclesiastical states," of
which he is the despotic ruler.

The wrongs done daily in every branch of
governmental administration in the Pope's
dominion, both in accordance with bad laws,
and in the teeth of law, when it so happens that
the law is not bad enough for the immediate
purpose in hand, are infinitely too numerous and
various to be catalogued in the space we have
at command. Volumes would be required, and
volumes have been devoted, to the recital of
them. But all these manifold wrongs may be
summed up in one compendious statement of the
result of them, which has the advantages of
needing no acquaintance with a state of society
very different from our own to make it intelligible,
and of being incontrovertibly demonstrable
by the clearest evidence. We say, then, that
the Pope has committed the supreme wrong of
so governing the millions subjected to him, that
all of them, with the exception of the few who
are accomplices in his malpractices and sharers
in the profits they are intended to produce, are
at any moment ready to run any risk of disturbance,
danger to life and property, anarchy,
bloodshed, in the hope of escaping from his
government. In no human society, probably,
since social life began, was there ever the same
portentous unanimity of discontent with the
ruler. And this accusation against any
government is so all-embracing and final, and is so
inevitably felt to be such, even by the most violent
supporters of "the right divine to govern wrong,"
that the same ever-ready reply is always made to
the charge by every government whose misrule
has caused the discontent of its subjects. "The
discontent is not general. The discontented are
few in number, and bad in character." It is
always "a handful of factious men" who make
all the mischief, and prevent a well-disposed and
faithful people from enjoying in peace the blessings
which a paternal government would otherwise
assure to them. Now, discontent may be
very wide-spread, and yet it may be difficult to
disprove assertions of such a character.
Nations cannot easily be polled on any such
question. The great bulk of mankind are ordinarily
dumb, as Carlyle somewhere says, or at best but
inarticulately speaking, on such topics. This
is what bad governments trust to when they
confidently put forward their stock answer to
the accusation that they have made themselves
hateful to their subjects. But the detestation
felt by the subjects of the Pope for his rule is so
unprecedentedly great, the cry against it so
unanimous, that, although it has not availed, as
it might have been expected, to make it impossible
for even sacerdotal effrontery to put forward
the usual plea, it is abundantly sufficient
to convince the public mind of Europe that, in
this case, it amounts to a decisive and final
condemnation of the ruler.

It really seems almost superfluous to adduce
proof of a fact of such wide notoriety as the
sentiments of the Pope's subjects towards their
government. Is a French army needed in Rome
to repress the sedition of "a handful of factious
individuals?" Are all the other men in Rome,
except this handful, so helpless, and utterly
imbecile, that the Pope and cardinals themselves
acknowledge that, were that army withdrawn,
they must quit the city in their suite. "If you
leave us, general," said a most reverend cardinal
to General Guyon, "be assured that we must be
off the day after." "If your eminence will
permit me to offer a suggestion," is said to have
been the general's reply, "it would be that you
should go the day before we do." Is it for fear
of the machinations of a "few factious
reprobates" that the English in Rome are putting
clauses into the leases of their apartments,
providing that the departure of the French troops
shall put an end to the agreement? Have we
not imperial testimony (for those who think that
better than any other) as to the probability of
what would follow the recal of the French
force?

But we have some special and very curious
testimony of a kind rarely to be got at in such
cases to offer to any who have been staggered in
their belief respecting the nature of the relations
between the Pope and his subjects, by the
unblushing falsehoods on the subject put forth by
Rome's defenders in this country. Most readers
have heard of the little book by Massimo Azeglio,
entitled The Events of Romagna. Though the
scope and the results of the little work were of
a very wide kind, it was especially suggested by
a trial which took place at Ravenna, on which
occasion a mass of evidence was judicially
recorded and put forth at Florence by Signor A.
Gennarelli, an advocate of the Roman bar. The
witnesses, it will be observed, are officials of the
government, and their testimony as to the
number of "the few factious persons" in that
part of the Ecclesiastical States is irrecusable. A
"political inspector" deposes that "all the
population at Ravenna is most determined in its
enmity to the government." The "political
registers" he further declares, "indicate about
thirty individuals, who may be said to be
well affected to the Holy See." Another
witness, also an officer of political police,
declares that "all the inhabitants are Liberals, as
they call themselves." A police director testifies
that the people were so hostile to the government
that "the latter had become a mere name,
without any moral force. Another similar official
gives evidence to the effect that "three-quarters
of the population are enemies of the government,
of law, order, and the gendarmes." He adds
also the very remarkable and significative
information, that such persons as wished to attend