The Sun.
London, England, 1848-12-02 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2 1848

The telegraphic dispatch which tells us of the
secret departure from Rome of the Sovereign PONTIFF
is the best justification that could possibly have been
afforded to General CA.VAIGNAC'S Government. It
proves that the fears entertained as to the perils by
which Pro No No was surrounded, were far indeed,
from being without foundation. When we are in-
formed that the PoPE hastened from the Quirinal so
soon after its bombardment, and proceeded to the sea-
port of Gaeta, to take shelter in one of the French
vesels dispatched to his assistance, there can no
longer be any doubt as to the position in which that
illustrious but unfortunate Prince stood in reference
to the rabble of Roman murderers.

Never was any race so degraded in the eyes of the
whole world as the people of the Papal States are at
this moment, and especially the infamous population
of the Eternal City. Acts of such cold-blooded
atrocity as those which have polluted the streets of
Rome have never been witnessed even in the sacred
precincts of Mecca, or in the holy purlieus of Benares.
So much brutality, ingratitude, callousness, and
cowardice have never been displayed with more
atrocious unanimity in the most infamous of all
the Rebellions recoriel in the pages of History.
It was with profound r ason that the Na-
tional Assembly of the French Republic ex-
pressed its abhorrence of the crimes and the
turpitude which have just emanated from Italian So-
cialism. It was with reason that the representatives
of France, on hearing that the Roman Deputies con-
tinued their sitting impassable to the events occurring
around them, and without mentioning the assassination
of the Chief Minister of the Government, although that
unfortunate statesman had been murdered most bar-
barously on the threshold of the very building in
which they were assembled--it was with reason
thatnolin n
the representatives of France greeted the an-
ent of that cowardly fact with groans of hor-
ror and 'indignation.
The Roman Deputies have by this
one proceeding stamp:od:heir names for ever and ever
with infamy. And
the Deputies, but the
whole mass of the population, with a few brilliant ex-
ceptions. Saving by a few :nest; and about a hundred
Swiss soldiers, the Sovereign
by every one in the hour of da:T:FP was deserted
a man
had the
whose
amongst the whole rabble of coureerparrila.
t) stand forward in defence of a
culpability was his excessive gentleness, and
only blunder was his ever having conceived for an,
moment that the Roman mob was capable of regenera.
lion. It has been well said by the Count Da
MoeiraeemueuT that the whole of this most excel-
lent and most innocent man's political career might
be summed up in the two words amnesty and re-
form. And yet Pio Nom), with the exception of the
little domestic group already mentioned, was entirely
abandoned when the murderers of Rossi came with
cannon and muskets to storm the palace of their
MONARCH, their Father, and their Religious Chieftain.
The Roman Legion, the infantry of the line, even the
dastardly members of the Civic Guard were not
Paha ned to join issue with the band of assassins
and to sit down with colours flying and bands
play'ng lively tunes before the walls of the Quirinal,
to discharge their artillery for three hours against a
building defended by a handful of fai hful soldiers,
end containing merely a few ecclesiastics and a vene-
rable and noble-hearted SOVEREIGN. As if to cap
the climax of these atrocities, the assailants cheered
up tl-eir hearts during the fighting by singing a
dosigrel"couplet from an opera, by which they called
upon GOD to bless the hand of a murderer :
" Benedetti que/la mana
Che it tiranno pupal() .1"
It is well to know that instead of finding sympathy
beyond the limits of their own degraded crew, the
ruffians of Rome have only elicited the execrations of
the Europeans. Besides the 3500 French soldiers
itcoompaniedbyALDßCoaceLLEs, there is the British