The Express.
London, England, 1861-06-24 00:00:00

LLTEST INTELLIGENCE.

FRANCE AND ROME.

On Thursday evening Lord John Russell,
in replying to Mr. D. Griffith,stated that France had
refused to accede to a proposition made by Austri►
and Spain, that the Roman catholic powers should
act together in support of the temporal power of
the Pope. We now subjoin the despatch addressed
on this occasion by M. Thouvenel to the Austrian
and Spanish ambassadors, who had been com-
missioned by their governments to make the pro-
position referred to. The notes presented by the
two diplomatists being identical, M. Thouvenel
sent a common reply. It is as follows :

Park, June 6.

Sir,—l have received the note which your Excellency has
done tne the honour to address to me, dated the 28th of
May, in which you express the desire of your government
to come to an understanding with the government of the
Emperor, with a view of securing in a definitive manner,
and as the result of an agreement between the catholic
powers, the maintenanceot the temporal power of the Holy
Sea M. Ambassador was estrusted by his govern-
ment with a similar mission. My first duty wan to place
before the eyes of his Majesty these important communi-
cations, sod I now find myself in a position to reply.
The sentiments inspired in the government of —by the po-
sition of the Holy Father, are in entire conformity with those
of the government of the Emperor. That government has
equally lamented and condemned the aggression directed
against the Pontifical states, and if the grave political con-
derations, which Austria nod Spain have both taken into
account, at this epoch, have not allowed it further to
oppose accomplished events, it has neglected nothing in
order to limit their consequences. The corps of occupation
at Rome was augmented without delay, and the Pope
being able to dwell with security in his capital in the midst
of the turmoil which agitated Italy, has been indebted to
the French troops for the preservation of a part of his ter-
ritory.
The government of the Emperor by some seta, of which,
as I ascertain with satisfaction, the government of
does not hesitate to express approval, has testified, and
ecostantly testifies, to the profound and invariable
sympathies which animate it in relation to the
chief of the church. The precarious situation is
which circumstances have placed the temporal power

of the Holy See, do not excite less distressing
sentiments among the catholic nations, and as it
concerns the peace of consciences that such serious questions
should not remain for a long period in suspense,
it is certainly the duty of governments to unite their
efforta, in order to simplify them and facilitate their
solution.

I do not believe, however, M. —, that it would be useful to
discuss here, with the necessary fulness, the system accord.
log to which the States of the Pope ►al the city of Rome
would establish, so to speak, a mortmain property appro-
priated entirely to catholicism, sad in virtue of an un-
written law, placed above the rights which regulate the
condition of other sovereignties. I confine myself to mind-
ing the fact that neither the most ancient nor the most
recent historical traditions appear to sanction this doctrine,
and that England, Prussia, Russia, and Sweden—powers
separated from the church—signed at Vienne, with the
rum authority as France, Austria. Spain, and Portugal,
the treaties which restored to the Pope the possessions he
had lost.

The highest expediency—l haste° to proclaim it—agrees
with the greatest social intermits in requiring that the chief
of the church maintain himself on the throne occu-
pied by his predecessors for so many centuries ; the
opinion of the Emperor's government is very firm on
this point, but it thinks also that the wise exercise of the
suprotne authority and the consent of populations are in the
Homan states, es elsewhere, the first oonsidemtioas of the
solidity of power. The gravest dangers which now menace
the temporal sovereignty of the Holy See proceed, it is true,
from without, and if the occupation of Rome provides for
the necessities of the present, the future remains exposed
to hasarde which we sincerely wish to avert. •
Austrieand Spain, H. —, agree with ns in this task; but
they do not at the same time indicate the means to be em-
ployed for accomplishing it, and moms explanations on their
part, moreover, become the nine, necessary, as their position
towards Italy differs, under a certain aspect, from that of
France. We have seen with regret the stipula-
tions of Villafrsnca and of Zurich fail of com-
plete execution, and we should have wished that the
monarchy of the Two Sicilia bad not been overthrows;
nevertheless, the match of events, while contrary to its
wishes, has not affected the imperial governaseat m =oh a
direct way as the courts of Vienna and Madrid. With-
out giving our approbation to what has passed;
without wishing to cover with our guarantee the existence
of the new state of things, no dynastic interest prevents
us from effecting normal relations with the kingdom of Italy,
and the obstacle to its acknowledgment rests, as far as we
are concerned, simply in the difficulties inherent in affairs
at Rome.

_
May we be permitted to hope that Anstrie and Spain will
from the present time be disposed to take this point of view,
and that their solicitude for the Holy See willibe superior to
any private consideration? The foregoing is a question which I
pat to myself rather than to your Excellency ; but the

doubt even which it excites, and the consequences which
result from it, do not allow me to appreciate with as much
exactitude aa is required, the nature of the common action
proposed by the government of —.
I do not conceal, M. —, that the principle of non-
intervention which has saved the peace of Eumpe, ex-
cluding to-day, as it did • year ago, the em-
ployment of force, there exists in our eyes a
strict connexion between the regularisation of the
facts which have so considerably modified the situation
of the Peninsula, and the solution to be given to
the Roman question. The government of the Emperor will,
then, be very happy to learn that Austria and
Spain deem it possible to enter also in the only
path which, as seems to it, mu conduct without
new shocks to a practical result; but it does not
hesitate in any hypothesis to give the assurance that for it.
part it will not adhere to any combination which is incom.
Wilde with the respect it professes for the independence
and dignity of the Holy Pee, and which would be at
variance with the object of the presence of its troops at
Rome.—Receive, ke.,

(Signed) TUOITVIMEL

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)
ITALY.
MILAN, Jinn 22, Er=Esc.
The Perateeranza of to-day says :—" We learn
from a reliable source that on the 20th instant, in
view of the approaching death of the Pope, apart-
ments wore prepared at Verona for the Austrian
Cardinals and Saufediste, who would fly from
Rome ou the death of Pius IL, and would elect a
new Pope."

311e3SINA, June 23.
120 Bourbonians having disembarked near Syra-
cuse, were 'surrounded by Italian troops and
arrested. 23 of thew were shot.
Tranquillity now prevails.