350 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE -XXIV 



can skill. In it he referred to what he claimed was his 

 natural position as a peacemaker on earth, dwelling 

 strongly on this point. 



The reading of these papers was received in silence, 

 and not a word was publicly said afterward regarding 

 them, though in various quarters there was very deep 

 feeling. It was felt that the Dutch Government had taken 

 this means of forestalling local Dutch opposition, and 

 that it was a purely local matter of political partizanship 

 that ought never to have been intruded upon a confer 

 ence of the whole world. 



I had no feeling of this sort, for it seemed to me well 

 enough that the facts should be presented ; but a leading 

 representative of one of the great Catholic powers, who 

 drove home with us, was of a different mind. This 

 eminent diplomatist from one of the strongest Catholic 

 countries, and himself a Catholic, spoke in substance as 

 follows: &quot;The Vatican has always been, and is to-day, 

 a storm-center. The Pope and his advisers have never 

 hesitated to urge on war, no matter how bloody, when the 

 slightest of their ordinary worldly purposes could be 

 served by it. The great religious wars of Europe were 

 entirely stirred up and egged on by them; and, as 

 everybody knows, the Pope did everything to prevent 

 the signing of the treaty of Minister, which put an end 

 to the dreadful Thirty Years War, even going so far 

 as to declare the oaths taken by the plenipotentiaries at 

 that congress of no effect. 



&quot;All through the middle ages and at the Eenaissance 

 period the Popes kept Italy in turmoil and bloodshed for 

 their own family and territorial advantages, and they 

 kept all Europe in turmoil, for two centuries after the 

 Eeformation, in fact, just as long as they could, in the 

 wars of religion. They did everything they could to stir 

 up the war between Austria and Prussia in 1866, thinking 

 that Austria, a Catholic power, was sure to win ; and then 

 everything possible to stir up the war of France against 

 Prussia in 1870 in order to accomplish the same pur- 



