i2 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS. 



reflections to take a more accurate view. In refusing 

 to allow the Holy Father to reassure the public 

 mind by explanations and promises, they have pro- 

 bably contributed to intensify the unexpected resist- 

 ance which our expedition has encountered. They 

 trust to the Pope being brought back to his States by 

 foreign aid, but have they taken any thought of the 

 future which they are preparing for him by urging 

 him to take this deplorable course ? "Will the excuse 

 of an ill-omened success, of an attempt at reform 

 made in the most deplorable conditions, have more 

 weight than all the arguments of reason, backed up 

 by so many examples borrowed from the history of 

 these recent times ? 



" Be this as it may, what we are now doing for the 

 pacification of the States of the Church, the sacrifices 

 which an undertaking of this kind entails upon us, 

 and the moral responsibility which it imposes upon 

 us, unquestionably justify us in urging that a line of 

 conduct which would so intensify that responsibility 

 shall not be persisted in. 



" The desire which we thus express does not, more- 

 over, go beyond what might legitimately be expected. 

 We only ask for what has up to the present time 

 been promised us without any difficulty. It is the 

 realisation of a line of conduct which up till the other 

 day did not seem to be at all questioned. We were 

 repeatedly being told that a return to the ancient 

 regime was impossible ; that the present state of 



