# Petri Privilegium/III/Chapter 1

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THE VATICAN COUNCIL
AND
ITS DEFINITIONS.
CHAPTER I.
THE WORLD AND THE COUNCIL.
Reverend and dear Brethren,
From the opening of the Council until the close of the Fourth Public Session, when leave was given to the Bishops to return for a time to their flocks, I thought it my duty to keep silent. It was not indeed easy to refrain from contradicting the manifold errors and falsehoods by which the Council has been assailed. But it seemed for many reasons to be a higher duty, to wait until the work in which we were engaged should be accomplished. That time is now happily come: and the obligation which would have hitherto forbidden the utterance of much that I might have desired to say has been by supreme authority removed.
To you therefore, Reverend and dear Brethren, I at once proceed to make known in mere outline the chief events of this first period of the Council of the Vatican.
​I shall confine what I have to say to the three following heads:—First, to a narrative of certain facts external to the Council, but affecting the estimate of its character and acts; secondly, to an appreciation of the internal spirit and action of the Council; and thirdly, to a brief statement of the two dogmatic Constitutions published in its third and fourth Sessions.
First, as to the external history of the Council. As yet, no narrative, or official account of its proceedings, has been possible. The whole world, Catholic and Protestant, has been therefore compelled to depend chiefly upon newspapers. And as these powerfully preoccupy and prejudice the minds of men, I thought it my duty, during the eight months in which I was a close and constant witness of the procedure and acts of the Council, to keep pace with the histories and representations made by the press in Italy, Germany, France, and England. This, by the watchful care of others in England and in Rome, I was enabled to do. In answer to an inquiry from this country as to what was to be believed respecting the Council, I considered it my duty to reply: 'Read carefully the correspondence from Rome published in England, believe the reverse, and you will not be far from the truth.' I am sorry to be compelled to say that this is, above all, true of our own journals. Whether the amusing blunders and persistent misrepresentations were to be charged to the account of ill will, or of want of common knowledge, it was often not easy to say. Two things however were obvious. The journals of ​Catholic countries, perverse and hostile as they might be, rarely if ever made themselves ridiculous. They wrote with great bitterness and animosity: but with a point which showed that they understood what they were perverting; and that they had obtained their knowledge from sources which could only have been opened to them by violation of duty. Their narratives of events which were passing under my own eyes, day by day, were so near the truth, and yet so far from it, so literally accurate, but so absolutely false, that for the first time I learned to understand Paolo Sarpi's 'History of the Council of Trent:' and foresaw how perhaps, from among nominal Catholics, another Paolo Sarpi will arise to write the History of the Council of the Vatican. But none of this applies to our own country. I am the less disposed to charge these misrepresentations, in the case of English correspondents, to the account of ill will, though they abundantly showed the inborn animosity of an anti-Catholic tradition, because neither correspondents nor journalists ever willingly expose themselves to be laughed at. I therefore put it down to the obvious reason that when English Protestants undertake to write of an Œcumenical Council of the Catholic Church, nothing less than a miracle could preserve them from making themselves ridiculous. This, I am sorry to know, for the fair name of our country, has been the effect produced by English newspapers upon foreign countries. Latterly, however, they seemed to have learned prudence, and to have relied no longer on correspondents who, hardly knowing the name, nature, use, or purpose of anything ​about which they had to write, were at the mercy of such informants as English travellers meet at a table-d'hôte in Rome. Then appeared paragraphs without date or place, duly translated, as we discovered by comparing them, from Italian and German newspapers. They were less amusing, but they were even more misleading. By way of preface, I will give the estimate of two distinguished Bishops, who are beyond suspicion, as to the truthfulness of one notorious journal.
Of all the foreign sources from which the English newspapers drew their inspiration, the chief, perhaps, was the 'Augsburg Gazette.' This paper has many titles to special consideration. The infamous matter of Janus first appeared in it under the form of articles. During the Council, it had in Rome at least one English contributor. Its letters on the Council have been translated into English and published by a Protestant bookseller, in a volume by Quirinus.
I refrain from giving my own estimate of the book, until I have first given the judgment of a distinguished Bishop of Germany, one of the minority opposed to the definition, whose cause the 'Augsburg Gazette' professed to serve.
Bishop Von Ketteler, of Mayence, publicly protested against 'the systematic dishonesty of the correspondent of the "Augsburg Gazette."' 'It is a pure invention,' he adds, 'that the Bishops named in that journal declared that Döllinger represented, as to the substance of the question (of infallibility), the opinions of a majority of the German Bishops.' And this, he said, 'is not an isolated error, but part of a system ​which consists in the daring attempt to publish false news, with the object of deceiving the German public, according to a plan concerted beforehand.' … 'It will be necessary one day to expose in all their nakedness and abject mendacity the articles of the "Augsburg Gazette." They will present a formidable and lasting testimony to the extent of injustice of which party men, who affect the semblance of superior education, have been guilty against the Church.' Again, at a later date, the Bishop of Mayence found it necessary to address to his Diocese another public protest against the inventions of the 'Augsburg Gazette.' 'The "Augsburg Gazette,"' he says, 'hardly ever pronounces my name without appending to it a falsehood.' 'It would have been easy for us to prove that every Roman letter of the "Augsburg Gazette" contains gross perversions and untruths. Whoever is conversant with the state of things here, and reads these letters, cannot doubt an instant that these errors are voluntary, and are part of a concerted system designed to deceive the public. If time fails me to correct publicly this uninterrupted series of falsehoods, it is impossible for me to keep silence when an attempt is made, with so much perfidy, to misrepresent my own convictions.'
​Again, Bishop Hefele, commenting on the Roman correspondents of the 'Augsburg Gazette' says: 'It is evident that there are people, not Bishops, but ​having relations with the Council, who are not restrained by duty and conscience.' We had reason to believe that the names of these people, both German and English, were well known to us.
Now the testimony of the Bishop of Mayence, as to the falsehoods of these correspondents respecting Rome and Germany, I can confirm by my testimony as to their treatment of matters relating to Rome and England. I do not think there is a mention of my own name without, as the Bishop of Mayence says, the appendage of a falsehood. The whole tissue of the correspondence is false. Even the truths it narrates are falsified: and through this discoloured medium the English people, by the help of Quirinus and the 'Saturday Review,' gaze and are misled.
To relieve this graver aspect of the subject, I will add a few livelier exploits of our English correspondents. On January 14, an English journal announced that the Bishops were unable to speak Latin; and that Cardinal Altieri (who laid down his life for his flock in the cholera three years ago), in whose rooms the Bishops met, 'was beside himself.' 'What is there,' the correspondent of another paper asked, 'in seven hundred old men dressed in white, and wearing tall paper caps?' 'The Oriental Bishops,' he says, 'refused to wear white mitres:' reasonably, because they never wear them. 'The Bishop of Thun attacked the Bishop of Sura with a violence which threatened personal collision.' There is no Bishop of Thun. The same paper, July 7, says, 'I was positively shocked, yesterday, at finding that the Roman ​Catholic Hierarchy of my own country is a sham; at least, so far as regards its territorial and independent pretensions. Every one of them, including the Archbishop, is in charge of a Vicar Apostolic, Cardinal Maddalena, titular Archbishop of Corfu, within whose diocese, it would appear, our island is situated.' This has more foundation in fact than the other statements, for until the Archbishop of Corfu could find a carriage, we used daily to go together to the Council.
A leading journal, in May last, announced: 'At a recent sitting of the Council, Cardinal Schwarzenberg made a speech which created even a greater uproar than the former one of Bishop Strossmayer.' In this speech he defended Protestants with such vigour that 'the presiding Legate, Cardinal De Angelis, interrupted the speaker, and a warm dispute between the two Cardinals ensued. The President strove repeatedly, but in vain, to silence the Cardinal with his bell: and at length the Bishops drowned his protest in a storm of hisses, in the midst of which the Cardinal was carried from the tribune, half fainting with excitement, to his seat.' The Cardinal was indeed called to order, but no such tragedy was ever acted. 'The Papal authorities,' says another journal, 'have housed the Bishops with discriminating hospitality. Those who could not be absolutely trusted have been lodged with safe companions, in the proportion of one weak brother to half-a-dozen strong.' 'The Jesuits have had the manipulation of the flock and have done it well.' The distribution of the Bishops was made by the Government, and months before the Council opened, with as much ​theological manipulation as the filling of a train from Paddington. Again, we hear on May 17, that 'Cardinal Bilio, the Prefect of the Deputation for Dogma, and author of the Syllabus, has passed over to the opposition.' When the Holy Father heard of this defection 'he was seized with faintness,' and told the Cardinal 'to go on a tour for the benefit of his health.' The 'Times' at last confessed: 'To find out the truth of what is going on … is difficult beyond conception.' … 'Every day, even every hour, brings up its story, … which, in nine cases out of ten, will prove an ingenious hoax.' Therefore nine-tenths of these histories are labelled 'hoaxes.' The 'Times' adds: 'To pick one's way amidst these snares, without becoming the victims of delusions, is what no man can feel quite sure of.' A warning of which I hope the readers of newspapers will fully avail themselves.
The 'Standard,' wiser than its fellows, said in February: 'It is a thousand pities that English correspondents should childishly swallow cock-and-bull stories of what never did and never could have occurred in the Council, and thus damage their own reputation for accuracy, as well as inferentially that of their colleagues.'
Another journal damaged something more than its reputation for accuracy, when, after having announced that the Roman Clergy, that is, the Parish Priests of Rome, had, all but eight, declined to petition in favour of the definition, it was again and again called upon to publish the fact that the Roman Clergy unanimously petitioned for the definition, in a form ​so explicit that the Clergy of England and Scotland afterwards adopted it as their own and presented it to the Holy Father. The newspaper in question was never pleased to insert the correction.
But these are flowers plucked at random.
I will now endeavour to give shortly a more connected outline of the Vatican Council, as drawn by the newspapers of the last eight or nine months; and as their representations will be one day read up as contemporaneous records for a future history, I wish to leave in the Archives of the Diocese a contemporaneous record of their utter worthlessness, and, for the most part, of their utter falsehood.
As the highest point attracts the storm, so the chief violence fell upon the head of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. On this I shall say nothing. Posterity will know Pius the Ninth; and the world already knows him now too well to remember, except with sorrow and disgust, the language of his enemies. 'If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household?' No one has this privilege above the Vicar of the Master; and it is a great joy and distinct source of strength and confidence to all of the household to share this sign, which never fails to mark those who are on His side against the world.
The Council was composed, at first, of 767 Fathers. We were told that their very faces were such as to compel an enlightened correspondent, at the first sight of them, to lament 'that the spiritual welfare of the world should be committed to such men.'
Then, by a wonderful disposition of things, for the ​good, no doubt, of the human race, and above all of the Church itself, the Council was divided into a majority and a minority: and, by an even more beneficent and admirable provision, it was so ordered that the theology, philosophy, science, culture, intellectual power, logical acumen, eloquence, candour, nobleness of mind, independence of spirit, courage, and elevation of character in the Council, were all to be found in the minority. The majority was naturally a Dead Sea of superstition, narrowness, shallowness, ignorance, prejudice; without theology, philosophy, science, or eloquence; gathered from 'old Catholic countries;' bigoted, tyrannical, deaf to reason; with a herd of 'Curial and Italian Prelates,' and mere 'Vicars Apostolic.'
The Cardinal Presidents were men of imperious and overbearing character, who by violent ringing of bells and intemperate interruptions cut short the calm and inexorable logic of the minority.
But the conduct of the majority was still more overbearing. By violent outcries, menacing gestures, and clamorous manifestations round the tribune, they drowned the thrilling eloquence of the minority, and compelled unanswerable orators to descend.
Not satisfied with this, the majority, under the pretext that the method of conducting the discussions was imperfect, obtained from the supreme authority a new regulation, by which all liberty of discussion was finally taken from the noble few who were struggling to redeem the Council and the Church from bondage.
From that date the non-œcumenicity of the Council was no longer doubtful. Indeed, 'Janus' had told ​the world in many tongues, long before it met, that the Council would not be free. Nevertheless, the minority persevered with heroic courage, logic which nothing could resist, and eloquence which electrified the most insensible, until a tyrannous majority, deaf to reason and incapable of argument, cut discussion short by an arbitrary exercise of power; and so silenced the only voices nobly lifted up for science, candour, and common sense.
This done, the definition of new dogmas became inevitable, and the antagonism between the ultra-romanism of a party and the progress of modern society, between independence and servility, became complete.
Such is the history of the Council written ab extra in the last nine months. I believe that every epithet I have given may be verified in the mass of extracts now before me.
A leading English journal, ten days after the Definition of the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff, with great simplicity observed, 'It is curious to compare the very general and deep interest taken by all intelligent observers in the early deliberations of the Council with the equally marked indifference to the culmination of its labours. Every rumour that came from Rome six or seven months ago was canvassed with great eagerness, even by men who cared little for ordinary theological disputations: while the proclamation of the astonishing dogma of papal infallibility has produced in any but ecclesiastical circles little beyond a certain amount of perfunctory criticism.'
The main cause of this contrast is, of course, ​not far to seek. The writer proceeds to assign the cause, and in so doing passes at once, with a gravity befitting the occasion, to a disquisition on Sir William Hamilton's theory of perception, and on 'the gigantic gooseberry.'
Such is the earnestness and the sincerity with which English journals, even of high repute, have treated the subject of the Œcumenical Council.
Let me, also, assign the cause why the un-Catholic and anti-Catholic world took so clamorous an interest in the opening of the Council, and in the end affected so ill-sustained a tone of indifference. I know of no public event in our day the explanation of which is more transparent and self-evident. It is this.
When the Council assembled, it was both hoped and believed that the 'Roman Curia' and the 'Ultramontane party' would be checked and brought under by the decisions of the Bishops. A controversy had been waged against what was termed 'Ultramontanism,' or 'Ultra-Catholicism,' or 'Ultra-Romanism,' in Germany, France, and England. When I last addressed you I used the following words, which I now repeat, because I can find none more exact. They have been fulfilled to the very letter.
'Facts like these give a certain warrant to the assertions and prophecies of politicians and Protestants. They prove that in the Catholic Church there is a school at variance with the doctrinal teaching of the Holy See in matters which are not of faith. But they do not reveal how small that school is. Its centre would seem to be at Munich; it has, both in France and in England, a small number of adherents. They ​are active, they correspond, and, for the most part, write anonymously. It would be difficult to describe its tenets, for none of its followers seem to be agreed in all points. Some hold the infallibility of the Pope, and some defend the Temporal Power. Nothing appears to be common to all, except an animus of opposition to the acts of the Holy See in matters outside the faith.
'In this country, about a year ago, an attempt was made to render impossible, as it was confidently but vainly thought, the definition of the infallibility of the Pontiff, by reviving the monotonous controversy about Pope Honorius. Later we were told of I know not what combination of exalted personages in France for the same end. It is certain that these symptoms are not sporadic and disconnected, but in mutual understanding, and with a common purpose. The anti-Catholic press has eagerly encouraged this school of thought. If a Catholic can be found out of tune with authority by half a note, he is at once extolled for unequalled authority and irrefragable logic. The anti-Catholic journals are at his service, and he vents his opposition to the common opinions of the Church by writing against them anonymously. Sad as this is, it is not formidable. It has effect almost alone upon those who are not Catholic. Upon Catholics its effect is hardly appreciable; on the theological Schools of the Church, it will have little influence; upon the Œcumenical Council it can have none.'
Many publications had appeared in French, Eng​lish, and German, from which it became evident that a common purpose and plan of co-operation had been formed. Certain notorious letters published in France, and the infamous book 'Janus,' translated into English, French, and Italian, proclaimed open war upon the Council within the unity of the Catholic Church. This alone was enough to set the whole anti-Catholic world on fire with curiosity, hope, and delight. The learning, the science of the intellectual freemen of the Roman Church were already under arms to reduce the pretensions of Rome.
A belief had also spread itself that the Council would explain away the doctrines of Trent, or give them some new or laxer meaning, or throw open some questions supposed to be closed, or come to a compromise or transaction with other religious systems; or at least that it would accommodate the dogmatic stiffness of its traditions to modern thought and modern theology. It is strange that any one should have forgotten that every General Council, from Nicæa to Trent, which has touched on the faith, has made new definitions, and that every new definition is a new dogma, and closes what was before open, and ties up more strictly the doctrines of faith. This belief, however, excited an expectation, mixed with hopes, that Rome by becoming comprehensive might become approachable, or by becoming inconsistent might become powerless over the reason and the will of men.
But the interest excited by this preliminary skirmishing external to the Council, was nothing compared to the exultation with which the anti-Catholic opinion and anti-Catholic press of Protestant countries, ​and the anti-Roman opinion and press even of Catholic countries, beheld, as they believed, the formation of an organised 'international opposition' of more than a hundred Bishops within the Council itself. The day was come at last. What the world could not do against Rome from without, its own Bishops were going to do against Rome, and in the world's service, from within. I shall hereafter show how little the world knew the Bishops whom it wronged by its adulation, and damaged by its praise. They were the favourites of the world, because they were believed to be fighting the Pope. In a moment, all the world rose up to meet them. Governments, politicians, newspapers, schismatical, heretical, infidel, Jewish, revolutionary, as with one unerring instinct, united in extolling and setting forth the virtue, learning, science, eloquence, nobleness, heroism of this 'international opposition.' With an iteration truly Homeric, certain epithets were perpetually linked to certain names. All who were against Rome were written up; all who were for Rome were written down. The public eye and ear of all countries were filled, and taught to associate all that is noble and great with 'the international opposition;' all that is neither noble nor great, not to say more, with others. The interest was thus wrought up to the highest pitch; and a confident expectation was raised, and spread abroad, that the Council would be unable to make a definition, and that Rome would be defeated. I can hardly conceive a keener or more vivid motive of interest to the anti-Catholic world than this. For this cause Rome was full of correspondents, 'our ​own,' 'our special,' and 'our occasional.' Private persons forsook great interests and duties, to reside in Rome for the support of the 'international opposition.' A league of newspapers, fed from a common centre, diffused hope and confidence in all countries, that the science and enlightenment of the minority would save the Catholic Church from the immoderate pretensions of Rome, and the superstitious ignorance of the universal Episcopate. Day after day, the newspapers teemed with the achievements and orations of the opposition. The World believed that it had found its own in the heart of the Episcopate, and loved it as its own. There was nothing it might not hope for, expect, and predict. In truth, it is no wonder that a very intense interest should be excited in minds hostile to Rome by such a spectacle as the outer world then believed itself to see. And such, we may safely affirm, were the chief motives of its feverish excitement, at the opening and during the early period of the Council.
But how shall we account for the indifference with which the World affects to treat its close?
By two very obvious reasons. First, because it became gradually certain that the World had not found its own in the Council; and that the 'opposition' on which it counted were not the servants of the World, but Bishops of the Catholic Church, who, while using all freedom which the Church abundantly gave them, would in heart, mind, and will, remain faithful to its divine authority and voice. And secondly, because it became equally certain, indeed was self-evident, that no opposition, from without or ​from within, could move the Council a hair's breadth out of the course in which it was calmly and irresistibly moving to its appointed work.
The hopes and confidence of the miscellaneous alliance of nominal Catholics, Protestants, rationalists, and unbelievers, received its first sharp check when some five hundred Fathers of the Council desired of the Holy See that the doctrine of the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff should be defined. This event manifested a mind and a will so united and so decisive, as to reduce the proportions of the opposition, both numerically and morally, to very little. Still it was confidently hoped that some event, in the chapter of accidents, might yet hinder the definition; that either the minority might become more powerful by increase, or the majority less solid by division.
This expectation again was rudely shaken by the unanimous vote of the third public Session. The first Constitution De Fide had been so vehemently assailed, and, as it was imagined, so utterly defeated, that if ever voted at all it would be voted only by a small majority, or at least it would be resisted by an imposing minority. It was therefore no small surprise that the whole Council, consisting then of 664 Fathers, should have affirmed it with an unanimous vote. I well remember that when the 'Placets' of the 'opposition leaders' sounded through the Council Hall, certain high diplomatic personages looked significantly at each other. This majestic unanimity, after the alleged internal contentions of the Council, was as perplexing as it was undeniable. The World began to fear that, after all, the international opposition ​would neither serve its purposes nor do its work. A sensible change of tone was then perceived. The correspondents wrote of everything but of this unanimity. The newspapers became almost silent. The leading articles almost ceased. From that time they exchanged the tone of confidence and triumph for a tone of irritation and of no little bitterness.
Nevertheless, a new hope arose. Governments were acted upon to make representations, and all but to menace the Holy Father. For a time, confidence revived. It was thought impossible that the joint note of so many Powers, and the joint influence of so many diplomatists, could fail of their effect. It did not seem to occur to those who invoked the interference of the Civil Powers that they were thereby endeavouring to deprive the Council of its liberty: which, in those who were complaining, in all languages, that the Council was not free, involved a self-contradiction on which I need not comment. Neither did they seem to remember that those who invoke the secular power against the spiritual authority of the Church, whether to defeat a sentence already given, or to prevent the delivery of such a sentence, are ipso facto excommunicate, and that their case is reserved to the Pope. This, ​which applies to any ordinary ecclesiastical judge in matters of law, surely applies in an eminent degree to an Œcumenical Council in matters of faith. Be this as it may, for a time the interest of the World was reawakened by the hope that Rome would be in some way baffled after all.
But this hope also was doomed to disappointment. The distribution by the Cardinal Presidents of the Additamentum, or additional chapter on the doctrine of Infallibility; the introduction of the Schema de Romano Pontifice before the Schema de Ecclesia; the closing of the general discussion by a vote of the Council; all alike showed that the Council knew its own mind, and was resolved to do its duty. It became unmistakably clear how few were in opposition; and equally certain that, when the definition should be completed, all opposition would cease. The interest in the Council, manifested by the anti-Catholic World, at once collapsed. The correspondents became silent, or only found reasons why nobody cared any longer for the Council. A period of supercilious disdain followed; and then the correspondents of the English journals, one by one, left Rome. The game was played out: and the last hope of an intestine conflict in the Church was over. A ​more disappointing end to the high hopes and excited anticipations with which the adversaries of the Catholic Church cheered on the opposition at the opening of the year, cannot be conceived. They little knew the men whom they were mortifying and dishonouring by their applause. They forgot that Bishops are not deputies, and that an Œcumenical Council is not a Parliament. And when, of the eighty-eight who on the thirteenth of July voted Non placet, two only repeated their Non placet on the eighteenth, proving thereby that what two could do eighty might have done, the World was silent, and has steadfastly excluded the Constitution De Romano Pontifice from the columns of its newspapers.
Here is the simple and self-evident reason of this pretended loss of interest in the Council. It is the affected indifference of those who, having staked their reputation on the issue of a contest, have been thoroughly and hopelessly disappointed.
Before I conclude this part of the subject, I will give one passage as a supreme example of what I have been describing. I take it from the chief newspaper in England. It is from an article evidently written by a cultivated and practised hand. It appeared when the definition was seen to be certain and near. It was intended to ruin its effects beforehand. The writer could not narrate what had taken place, because it was before the event; nor what would really take place, because nothing was known: but what he thought would excite contempt, that he pleased to say would take place. Nevertheless, he spoke as if the events were certain, and already so ​ordered; which truth forbade: and he taxed his ingenuity to make the whole account in the highest degree odious or ridiculous; which revealed his motive. The reader will bear in mind that not one particle of the following elaborate description is true, or had even a shadow of truth. But nobody would perceive the fine verbal distinctions on which the writer would defend himself from a charge of deliberate falsehood.
On June 8, we read as follows:—
'The British public have some reason to regret that the pressure of subjects nearer home, and more directly concerning this country, has put their interest in the Œcumenical Council somewhat in abeyance. A great event is at hand. There can no longer be any doubt that at the approaching Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, the 29th instant, the priceless blessing of Papal Infallibility will be vouchsafed to the world. The day is the Feast of St. Peter in our Calendar, and it is usually called St. Peter's Day at Rome, the Apostle to the Gentiles having been associated only to disappear. The day is on this occasion to be observed as a day of days, and the era of a new revelation. Fireworks, illuminations, transparencies, triumphal arches, and all that taste and money can do to demonstrate and delight, are already in hand, and, whoever the guests, the marriage feast is in preparation. … An extraordinary effort is to be made. Rome is to excel herself in her mimic meteors, her artistic transfigurations, her new heavens and new earths, her angelic radiance, her divine glories, and infernal horrors. ​If the Council has been chary of its utterances and coy in its appearances, that will be made up by explosions and spectacles of a more intelligible character. We can promise that it will be worth many miles of excursion trains to go and see. The Campagna will be deserted, that all the Pope's temporal lieges may be there in their picturesque costumes. They and the astonished strangers will there see with their own eyes the Pope of Rome, the actual successor of St. Peter, invested with absolute authority over all souls, hearts, and minds. They will see him welcoming the faithful "Placets" and consigning the "Non-Placets" to the flames of a Tartarean abyss. They will see hideous forms, snakes, dragons, hydras, centipedes, toads, and nondescript monsters under the feet, or the lance, or the thunderbolt of conquering Rome; and they will not fail to recognise in them the Church of England, the Protestant communities, and the German philosophers. It will be a grand day, and great things will be done on that 29th of June. We will not believe it possible that a single mishap will disturb the sacred programme—that the lightnings may miss their aim, or the Powers of Darkness prevail. We cannot doubt all will go off well, for the simple reason that all is ready and forecasted, down to the very Dogma. Artists of surpassing skill and taste are working hard on the upholstery of the Divine manifestation, not knowing whether to think it a blasphemy or a good joke. It is their poverty and not their will that consents to the task. As we see the illuminations expiring, the Roman candles lost in smoke, ​and the exhibitors taking the old properties back to the vast magazines of Rome, we cannot help thinking of the poor fathers put off with glare and noise in place of conviction or peace of mind. Think of poor MacHale exhausting in vain his logic, his learning, and his powerful style, and taking back to his poor flock on the Atlantic shore a strange story of Chinese lanterns, fiery bouquets, showers of gold, and transparencies more striking even than the illustrations of our prophetic almanacks.'
When it is borne in mind that the definition of the Infallibility of the Head of the Christian Church is a subject of deep religious faith to the most cultivated nations of the world, and that a fifth part of the population of our three kingdoms was profoundly interested in the subject, I shall not refrain from saying that this article from the leading newspaper of England has as little decency as truth.
I will now endeavour briefly to sketch the outline of the Council as viewed from within. As I was enabled to attend, with the exception of about three or four days, every Session of the Council, eighty-nine in number, from the opening to the close, I can give testimony, not upon hearsay, but as a personal witness of what I narrate.
Cardinal Pallavicini, after relating the contests and jealousies of the Orators of Catholic States assembled in the Council of Trent, goes on to say that to convoke a General Council, except when absolutely demanded by necessity, is to tempt God. I well ​remember, at the time of the centenary of St. Peter's Martyrdom, when the Holy Father first announced his intention to convene the General Council, one of the oldest and most experienced of foreign diplomatists expressed to me his great alarm. He predicted exactly what came to pass in the beginning of the Council. His diplomatic foresight fully appreciated the political dangers. They were certainly obvious and grave; for no one perhaps, at that time, could anticipate the majestic unity and firmness of the Council, which exceeded all hopes, and has effectually dispelled all fears.
For three hundred years, the Church dispersed throughout the world has been in contact with the corrupt civilisation of old Catholic countries, and with the anti-Catholic civilisation of countries in open schism. The intellectual traditions of nearly all nations have been departing steadily from the unity of the Faith and of the Church. In most countries, public opinion has become formally hostile to the Catholic religion. The minds of Catholics have been much affected by the atmosphere in which they live. It was to be feared and to be expected that the Bishops of all the world, differing so widely in race, political institutions, and intellectual habits, might have imported into the Council elements of divergence, if not of irreconcilable division. Some had indeed met before, at the Canonizations of 1862 or 1867: but for the most part the Bishops met for the first time. The Pastors of some thirty nations were there, bringing together every variety of mental and social culture and experience: but in the midst of this variety there ​reigned a perfect identity of faith. On this, three centuries of separation and divergence in all things of the natural order, had produced no effect. Nothing but the Church of God alone could have lived on immutable through three hundred years of perpetual changes, and under the most potent influences of the world. Nothing has ever more luminously exhibited the supernatural endowments of the Church than the Council of the Vatican. In these three centuries it had passed through revolutions which have dissolved empires, laws, opinions. But the Episcopate of the Catholic Church met again last December in Rome, as it met in Trent, Lyons, or Nicæa. At once it proceeded to its work; and began as if by instinct, or by the prompt facility of an imperishable experience, to define doctrines of faith and to decree laws of discipline. Such unity of mind and will is above the conditions of human infirmity; it can be traced to one power and guidance alone, the supernatural assistance of the Spirit of Truth, by Whom the Church of God is perpetually sustained in the light and unity of faith.
To those who were within the Council, this became, day by day, almost evident to sense. It was no diminution from this, that a certain number were found who were of opinion that it was inopportune to define the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. This was a question of prudence, policy, expedience; not of doctrine or of truth. It was thus that the Church was united twenty years ago in the belief of the Immaculate Conception, while some were still to be found who doubted the prudence of defining it. Setting aside ​this one question of opportuneness, there was not in the Council of the Vatican a difference of any gravity, and certainly no difference whatsoever on any doctrine of faith. I have never been able to hear of five Bishops who denied the doctrine of Papal Infallibility. Almost all previous Councils were distracted by divisions, if not by heresy. Here no heresy existed. The question of opportunity was altogether subordinate and free. It may truly be affirmed that never was there a greater unanimity than in the Vatican Council. Of this the world had a first evidence in the unanimous vote by which the first Constitution on Faith was affirmed on the 24th of April.
I should hardly have spoken of the outward conduct of the Council, if I had not seen, with surprise and indignation, statements purporting to be descriptions of scenes of violence and disorder in the course of its discussions. Having from my earliest remembrance been a witness of public assemblies of all kinds, and especially of those among ourselves, which for gravity and dignity are supposed to exceed all others, I am able and bound to say that I have never seen such calmness, self-respect, mutual forbearance, courtesy and self-control, as in the eighty-nine sessions of the Vatican Council. In a period of nine months, the Cardinal President was compelled to recall the speakers to order perhaps twelve or fourteen times. In any other assembly they would have been inexorably recalled to the question sevenfold oftener and sooner. Nothing could exceed the consideration and respect with which this duty was discharged. Occasionally murmurs of dissent were audible; now and then a ​comment may have been made aloud. In a very few instances, and those happily of an exceptional kind, expressions of strong disapproval and of exhausted patience at length escaped. But the descriptions of violence, outcries, menace, denunciation, and even of personal collisions, with which certain newspapers deceived the world, I can affirm to be calumnious falsehoods, fabricated to bring the Council into odium and contempt. That such has been the aim and intent of certain journals and their correspondents is undeniable. They at first endeavoured to write it down; but an Œcumenical Council cannot be written down. Next, they endeavoured to treat it with ridicule; but an Œcumenical Council cannot be made ridiculous. The good sense of the world forbids it. But it may be made odious and hateful; and thereby the minds of men may be not only turned from it, but even turned against it. For this in every way the anti-Catholic world has laboured; and no better plan could be found than to describe its sessions as scenes of indecent clamour and personal violence, unworthy even in laymen, criminal in Bishops of the Church. I have read descriptions of scenes of which I was a personal witness, so absolutely contrary to fact and truth, that I cannot acquit the anonymous writer on the plea of error. The animus was manifest, and its effect has been and will be to poison a multitude of minds which the truth will never reach.
It has been loudly declared, that a tyrannical majority deprived the minority of liberty of discussion.
Now it is hard to believe this allegation to be sincere, for many reasons.
​First, there was only one rule for both majority and minority. If either were deprived of liberty, both were; if both were, it might be unwise, it could not be unjust; but if both were not, then neither. The majority spontaneously and freely imposed upon itself the same conditions it accepted for all.
But secondly, the mode of conducting the discussions afforded the amplest liberty of debate.
The subject matter was distributed in print to every Bishop, and a period of eight or ten days was given for any observations they might desire to make in writing.
These observations were carefully examined by the deputation of twenty-four; and when found to be pertinent were admitted, either to modify or to reform the original Schema.
The text so amended was then proposed for the general discussion, on which every Bishop in the Council had a free right to speak, and the discussions lasted so long as any Bishop was pleased to inscribe his name.
The only limit upon this freedom of discussion consisted in the power of the Presidents, on the petition of ten Bishops, to interrogate the Council whether it desired the discussion to be prolonged. The Presidents had no power to close the discussion. The Council alone could put an end to it. This right is essential to every deliberative assembly; which has a two-fold liberty, the one, to listen as long as it shall see fit; the other, to refuse to listen when it shall judge that a subject has been sufficiently discussed. To deny this liberty to the Council is to claim for ​individuals the liberty to force the Council to listen as long as they are pleased either to waste its time or to obstruct its judgment. In political assemblies, the house puts an end to debates by a peremptory and inexorable cry of 'question' or 'divide.' The assemblies of the Church are of another temper. But they are not deprived of the same essential rights; and by a free vote they may decide either to listen, or not to listen, as the judgment of the Council shall see fit. To deny this is to deny the liberty of the Council; and under the pretext of liberty to claim a tyranny for the few over the will of the many.
Obvious as is this liberty and right of the Council to close its discussions when it shall see fit, there exists only one example on record in which it did so. With exemplary patience it listened to what the House of Commons would have pronounced to be interminable discussions and interminable speeches. On the general discussion of the Schema De Romano Pontifice some eighty ​Bishops had spoken. Of these, nearly half were of what the newspapers called the Opposition; but the proportion of the Opposition to the Council was not more than one sixth. They had therefore been heard as three to six. But further, there still remained the special discussion on the Proœmium and the four chapters; that is to say, five distinct discussions still remained, in which every Bishop of the six or seven hundred in the Council would, therefore, have a right to speak five times. Most reasonably, then, the Council closed the general discussion, leaving to the Bishops still their undiminished right, if they saw fit, still to speak five times. No one but those who desired the discussion never to end, that is, who desired to render the definition impossible by speaking against time, could complain of this most just exercise of its liberty on the part of the Council. I can conscientiously declare, that long before the general discussion was closed, all general arguments were exhausted. The special discussion of details also had been to such an extent anticipated, that nothing new was heard for days. The repetition became hard to bear. Then, and not till then, the President, at the petition not of ten, but of a hundred and fifty Bishops at least, interrogated the Council whether it desired to prolong or to close the general discussion. By an overwhelming majority it was closed. When this was closed, still, as I have said, five distinct discussions commenced; and were continued so long as any one was to be found desirous to speak. Finally, for the fifth or last discussion, a hundred and twenty inscribed their names to speak. Fifty at least were heard, ​until on both sides the burden became too heavy to bear; and, by mutual consent, an useless and endless discussion, from sheer exhaustion, ceased.
So much for the material liberty of the Council. Of the moral liberty it will be enough to say, that the short-hand writers have laid up in its Archives a record of discourses which will show that the liberty of thought and speech was perfectly unchecked. If they were published to the world, the accusation would not be of undue repression. The wonder would be, not that the Opposition failed of its object, but that the Council so long held its peace. Certain Bishops of the freest country in the world said truly: 'The liberty of our Congress is not greater than the liberty of the Council.' When it is borne in mind that out of more than six hundred Bishops, one hundred, at the utmost, were in opposition to their brethren, it seems hardly sincere to talk of the want of liberty. There was but one liberty of which this sixth part of the Council was deprived, a liberty they certainly would be the last to desire, namely, that of destroying the liberty of the other five. The Council bore long with this truthless accusation of politicians, newspapers, and anonymous writers; and never till the last day, when the work in hand was finally complete, except only the voting of the public session, took cognisance of this mendacious pretence. On the 16th of July, after the last votes had been given, and the first Constitution De Ecclesia Christi had been finally approved, then for the first time it turned its attention to this attempt upon its authority. Two calumnious libels on the Council had appeared; the one entitled, ​Ce qui se passe au Concile, the other, La dernière heure du Concile: in both, the liberty of the Vatican Council was denied, with a view to denying its authority. The General Congregation by an immense majority adopted the following protest, and condemned these two slanderous pamphlets, thereby placing on record a spontaneous declaration of the absolute freedom of the Council.
'Most Reverend Fathers,
'From the time that the Holy Vatican Synod opened by the help of God, a most bitter warfare instantly broke out against it; and in order to diminish its venerable authority with the faithful, and, if it could be, to destroy it altogether, many writers vied with each other in attacking it by contumelious detraction, and by the foulest calumnies; and that, not only among the heterodox and open enemies of the Cross of Christ, but also among those who give themselves out as sons of the Catholic Church; and what is most to be deplored, among even its sacred ministers.
'The infamous falsehoods which have been heaped together in this matter in public newspapers of every tongue, and in pamphlets without the author's name, published in all places and stealthily distributed, all men well know; so that we have no need to recount them one by one. But among anonymous pamphlets of this kind there are two especially, written in French, and entitled, Ce qui se passe au Concile, and La dernière heure du Concile, which for the arts of calumny and the license of detraction bear away ​the palm from all others. For in these not only is the dignity and full liberty of the Council assailed with the basest falsehoods, and the rights of the Holy See overthrown, but even the august person of our Holy Father is attacked with the gravest insults. Wherefore we, being mindful of our office, lest our silence if longer maintained, should be perversely interpreted by men of evil will, are compelled to lift up our voice, and before you all, Most Reverend Fathers, to protest and to declare all such things as have been uttered in the aforesaid newspapers and pamphlets to be altogether false and calumnious, whether in contempt of our Holy Father and of the Apostolic See, or the dishonour of this Holy Synod, and on the score of its asserted want of legitimate liberty.
'From the Hall of the Council, the 16th day of July, 1870.
'Philip, Cardinal De Angelis, President. 'Antoninus, Cardinal De Luca. 'Andreas, Cardinal Bizzari. 'Aloysius, Cardinal Bilio. 'Hannibal, Cardinal Capalti.'
We have thus carried down our narrative to the eve of the Definition, and with one or two general remarks I will conclude this part of the subject.
A strange accusation has been brought against the Council of the Vatican, or, to speak more truly, against the Head of the Church, who summoned it; namely, that its one object was to define the Infallibility of ​the Pope. With the knowledge I have, in common with a large part of the Episcopate, I am able to give to this a direct denial. But this denial is not given as if the admission of the charge would be in any way inconsistent with the wisdom, dignity, or duty of the Council. It is simply untrue in fact. Even though it were true, I should have no hesitation in undertaking to show that the Council, if it had been assembled chiefly to define the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff, would have been acting in strict analogy with the practice of the Church in the eighteen Œcumenical Councils already held.
Each several Council was convened to extinguish the chief heresy, or to correct the chief evil, of the time. And I do not hesitate to affirm that the denial of the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff was the chief intellectual or doctrinal error as to faith, not to call it more than proximate to heresy, of our times.
It was so, because it struck at the certainty of the pontifical acts of the last three hundred years; and weakened the effect of pontifical acts at this day over the intellect and conscience of the faithful. It kept alive a dangerous controversy on the subject of Infallibility altogether, and exposed even the Infallibility of the Church itself to difficulties not easy to solve. As an apparently open or disputable point, close to the very root of faith, it exposed even the faith itself to the reach of doubts.
Next, practically, it was mischievous beyond measure. The divisions and contentions of 'Gallicanism' and 'Ultramontanism' have been a scandal and a ​shame to us. Protestants and unbelievers have been kept from the truth by our intestine controversies, especially upon a point so high and so intimately connected with the whole doctrinal authority of the Church.
Again, morally, the division and contention on this point, supposed to be open, has generated more alienation, bitterness, and animosity between Pastors and people, and what is worse, between Pastor and Pastor, than any other in our day. Our internal contests proclaimed by Protestant newspapers, and, worse than all, by Catholic also, have been a reproach to us before the whole world.
It was high time to put an end to this; and if the Council had been convened for no other purpose, this cause would have been abundantly sufficient; if it had defined the Infallibility at its outset, it would not have been an hour too soon; and perhaps it would have averted many a scandal we now deplore. But this last I say with submission, for the times and seasons of a Council are put in a power above our reach.
In the midst of all these graver events and cares, there were, now and then, some things which gave rise to hearty, and I hope harmless, amusement. Of these, one was what may be called the panic fear lest the definition of the Infallibility of the Pope should suddenly be carried by acclamation; and the amusing self-gratulation of those who imagined that with great dexterity and address they had defeated this intention. The acclamation, like the rising of a conspiracy, was to have taken place first on one day, then, being ​frustrated, on another. The Feast of the Epiphany was named, then the Feast of St. Joseph, then the Feast of the Annunciation. But by the masterly tactics of certain leaders, this conspiracy could never accomplish itself. Janus first announced the discovery of the plot. The minds of men from that time, it seems, were haunted with it. They lived in perpetual alarm. They were never safe, they tell us, from a surprise which would create an article of faith before they could protest. I refrain, out of respect, from naming the distinguished prelates of whom our anonymous teachers speak so freely, when they affirm that at the first general congregation Papal Infallibility was to be carried by acclamation, but that 'the scheme was foiled by the tact and firmness of' such an one: and that 'a similar attempt was projected for a later day (March 19), when the prompt action of four American prelates again frustrated the design.'
Now the truth is, that nobody, so far as my knowledge reaches, and I believe I may speak with certainty, ever for a moment dreamed of this definition by acclamation. All whom I have ever heard speak of these rumours were unfeignedly amused at them. The last men in the Council who would have desired or consented to an acclamation were those to whom it was imputed; and that for a reason as clear as day. They had no desire for acclamations, because acclamations define nothing. They had already had enough of acclamations in the Council of Chalcedon, which cried unanimously, 'Peter hath spoken by ​Leo;' and in the Council of Constantinople which acclaimed, 'Peter hath spoken by Agatho;' and in the address of the five hundred Bishops at the centenary of St. Peter in 1867, in which they unanimously declared that 'Peter had spoken by Pius:' for they well knew that many, even of those who joined most loudly in that acclamation, denied that these words ascribe infallibility to the Successor of Peter. Experience therefore proved, even if theology long ago had not, that an acclamation is not a definition; and that an acclamation leaves the matter as it found it, as disputable after as it was before. Nothing short of a definition would satisfy either reason or conscience; and nothing but this was ever for a moment thought of.
Such, then, is a slight outline of the internal history of this protracted contest. It passed through nine distinct phases: and it must be confessed that they who desired to avert the definition held their successive positions with no little tenacity.
The first attack came from the World without, in support of a handful of professors and writers, who denied the truth of the doctrine: the second position was to admit its truth but to deny that it was capable of being defined: the third, to admit that it was definable, but to deny the opportuneness of defining it: the fourth, to resist the introduction of the doctrine for discussion: the fifth, to render discussion impossible by delay: the sixth, to protract the discussion till a conclusion should become physically impossible before the summer heats drove the Council to disperse: the seventh, when the discussion closed, to ​defer the definition to the future: the eighth, after the definition was made, to hinder its promulgation: the ninth—I will not say the last, for who can tell what may still come?—to affirm that the definition, though solemnly made, confirmed, and published by the Head of the Church in the Œcumenical Council, and promulgated urbi et orbi according to the traditional usage of the Church, does not bind the conscience of the faithful till the Council is concluded, and subscribed by the Bishops.
This last is the only remnant of the controversy now surviving. I can hardly believe that any one, after the letter of Cardinal Antonelli to the Nunzio at Brussels, can persist in this error. Nevertheless it may be well to add one or two words, which you will anticipate, and well know how to use.
1. A definition of faith declares that a doctrine was revealed by God.
Are the faithful, then, dispensed from believing Divine revelation till the Council is concluded, and the Bishops have subscribed it?
I hope, for the sake of the Catholic religion in the face of the English people, that we shall hear no more of an assertion so uncatholic and so dangerous.
2. But perhaps it may mean that the Council is not yet confirmed, because not yet concluded.
The Council may not yet be confirmed because not yet concluded; but the Definition is both concluded and confirmed.
The Council is as completely confirmed, in its acts hitherto taken, as it ever will or can be. The future confirmation will not add anything to that which is ​confirmed already. It will confirm future acts, not those which are already perfect.
3. But perhaps some may have an idea that the question is not yet closed, and that the Council may hereafter undo what it has done. We have been told that 'Its decrees may have to be corrected,' and that two years elapsed before the Œcumenical pretensions of the Latrocinium of Ephesus were formally superseded. Some have called it 'Ludibrium Vaticanum.'
Let those who so speak, or think, for many so speak without thinking, look to their faith. The past acts of the Council are infallible. No future acts will retouch them. This is the meaning of 'irreformable.' Infallibility does not return upon its own steps. And they who suspend their assent to its acts on the plea that the Council is not concluded, are in danger of falling from the faith. They who reject the Definitions of the Vatican Council are already in heresy.
* ↑ The Vatican, March 4, 1870, p. 145.
* ↑ The Vatican, June 17, 1870, p. 319. 'The Archbishop of Cologne has condemned a pretended Catholic journal in which the dogma of the Infallibility is attacked, and the proceedings of the Council misrepresented and vilified. The sentence of the Archbishop on this matter derives the greater weight from the fact of his having, as he states, formed part of the minority in the memorable vote of July 13. The Archbishop says: "The clergy of this Diocese are aware that a weekly paper, the Rheinischer Merkur, constantly attacks, in an odious manner, and with ignoble weapons, the Holy Church, in the person of its lawful chiefs the Pope and the Bishops, and in its highest representative the Œcumenical Council; so that men's minds are disturbed, and the hearts of the faithful alienated from the Church. It also openly advocates the abolition, by the secular authority, of the Church's liberty and independence. I therefore hold it to be my duty, in discharge of my pastoral office, to expose the anti-Catholic character of the said paper; not because I regard it as of any greater importance than those other more noisy organs of the press which are the exponents of hatred against religion, but simply because the paper above-named pretends to be Catholic. It is on that account that, as Catholic Bishop of this city, I feel called upon to denounce the falsehood of the assumption of the name of Catholic by a journal which is labouring to overthrow the unity of the Church by separating Catholics from that rock on which she is founded. This declaration is also due from me to those my Right Reverend Brethren in the Episcopate who belonged with me to the minority in the Council. The journal in question assumes to be the exponent of the sentiments of that minority, but it never was in any way, directly or indirectly, recognised by it or any of its members; it has been, on the contrary, repeatedly blamed and denounced. Wherefore I exhort all the Rev. Clergy of the Archdiocese to be mindful of their duty as sons of the Catholic Church; and not countenance in any way whatsoever, either by taking it in or reading it, the journal above-named, which outrages our holy Mother, rejects her authority, and desires to see her enslaved. I also exhort you on all fitting occasions to warn your flocks of the dangerous and anti-Catholic character of that journal, so that they may be dissuaded from buying or reading it, and may escape being deluded by its errors. I had resolved to order an instruction to be given from the pulpit upon the more recent decisions of the Council, and especially upon the infallible teaching of the Pope, and to explain therein the true sense of the Dogma; and thus to remove the prejudices that have been raised against it, as if it were a novel doctrine or one in contradiction to the end of the Church's constitution, or to sound reason; and to meet generally the objections raised against the validity of the Council's decision."'
* ↑ The Vatican, March 4, 1870, p. 145.
* ↑ Pastoral on 'The Œcumenical Council, 1869,' &c. pp. 132, 133.
* ↑ See Appendix, p. 163.
* ↑ See Appendix, p. 173.
* ↑ Appellantes seu recurrentes ad curiam sæcularem ab ordinationibus alicujus judicis ecclesiastici excommunicationem incurrant Papæ reservatum ex cap. 16 Bullæ In Cœna Domini, sive illi judices ecclesiastici sint ordinarii sive delegati, ut patet in eadem Bulla: et multi dicunt hoc procedere, etiamsi sic appellantes et recurrentes nulla decreta poerialia aut inhibitiones contra eosdem judices ecclesiasticos obtineant; alii tamen contrarium tenent. Vide interpretes super dicta Bulla cap. 19, et Bonacina de Censur. in partic. disp. 1, q. 17, punct. 1, num. 28, qui auctores pro utraque parte allegat. Et continet etiam judices seculares, qui ea occasione decernunt contra dictos judices ecclesiasticos, et eos qui illa decreta exequuntur; et continet dantes consilium, patrocinium, et favorem in eisdem, ut patet ex eadem Bulla. In hac materia vide plures pœnas infra verb. Curia, c. 8, et verb. Jurisdictio, et procedit etiam in tacita, seu anticipata appellatione ad procurandum impediri futuras ordinationes judicii ecclesiastici, ut Bonac. num. 23, juxta probabiliorem.—Giraldus de Pœnis Eccl. pars ii. c. iii. vol. v. p. 96.
* ↑ Hist. Conc. Trid. lib. xvi. c. 10, tom. ii. p. 800, Antwerp, 1670.
* ↑ I cannot help here marking a historical parallel. Those who had been invoking the anti-Catholic public opinion, and even the civil governments of all countries, to control the Holy See and the Council, complained of oppression and the violation of their liberty. When Napoleon held Pius VII. prisoner at Fontainebleau, and by every form of threat and influence had deprived him of liberty, the following warning was given by Colonel Lagorse to Cardinal Pacca, then in attendance on the Pope: 'That the Emperor was displeased with the Cardinals, for having, ever since their arrival at Fontainebleau, continually restricted the Pope from a condition of free agency; that provided they were desirous of remaining at Fontainebleau, they must abstain from all manner of interference in matters of business. … Failing in the above conditions, they would expose themselves to the hazard of losing their liberty.'—Memoirs of Cardinal Pacca, vol. ii. p. 192.
* ↑ See Appendix, p. 181.
* ↑ Saturday Review, Aug. 2, 1870.