7HE MISSION TO ROME. 29 



" When the two questions were submitted to the 

 Assembly, there were a few timid members who 

 thought that the proclamation of the Eepublic might 

 be premature and dangerous in the present state 

 of Europe, but not one to vote against the down- 

 fall of the Papacy, right and left uniting to declare 

 that the temporal power of the Pope was for ever 

 abolished. 



" With such a people what can be done ? Is there 

 a single free government which, without committing 

 a crime and contradicting its essence, can assume the 

 right to impose upon it a return to the past ? 



" Kemember that a return to the past means neither 

 more nor less than organised disorder, a renewal of 

 the struggle of secret societies, the uprising of anarchy 

 in the heart of Italy, the inoculation of vengeance 

 into a people which is only desirous of forgetting, a 

 brand of discord permanently implanted in the midst 

 of Europe, the programme of the extreme parties 

 supplanting the orderly Kepublican Government of 

 which we are now the organs. 



" This surely cannot be desired by France, by her 

 Government, by the nephew of Napoleon ; especially 

 in the presence of the double invasion of the 

 Neapolitans and Austrians. 



" An attitude of hostility against us just now 

 would recall in some measure the hideous concert 

 of 1772 against Poland. Such a design would, more- 

 over, be impossible to realise, for the flag hauled 



