The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-27 00:00:00

humiliated, which would not rather feel honoured,
in forming part of a kingdom of which Rome was
the capital. This itself proves the truth of the
Count's words—" We—ltaly, have a right to our
capital—that right, be it remembered, being backed
by the most hearty recognition of it on the part of
the Romans themselves. The assertion of the right
under such circumstances is the gaining of it.
The Count is confident that he shall in the end
convince all " sincere Catholics" that the Church
will be a gainer by the POPE'S loss of his temporal
power, and affirms that the union of the spiritual
and the temporal power has always and everywhere
been a source of evil. We do not know whether
by ":everywhere" he had an eye to the Royal Head
of our Church and our Bishops in the House of
Lords; if he had, we can assure him that he
shares the views of a great many sincere Church-
men here. We , have got rid of an eccle-
siastical Parliament. Our Convocation is but a
ghost ; but our QUEEN makes bishops, and bishops
are Legislators, and few will deny that they have
been 'the worst class of Legislators—always in the
way of progress, and of liberty, civil or religious,
especially the latter. They are there, and it is
hard to get rid of them; yet, we verily believe
that men of all parties in England, if they
uttered their real sentiments, would adopt that
of Count CAVOUR, and only wish that the tem-
poral power of our bishops was as near its end
as that of the Bishop of Rome seems to be.
The Count with perfect sincerity, we may be sure,
promises the Church ample liberty when the
Italians take possession of Rome as their capital,
and promises to guarantee it by special statute.
We should think it probable that, as Bishop of
Rome, the Pontiff will enjoy an ecclesiastical free-
dom he has not known for many years, when he
no longer has to square his doings to the necessities
imposed on him by temporal rule, even though that
rule be a despotism. The freedom, however, seems
likely now to be forced upon him; and obstinacy,
as the Count tells him, will but throw on the Papacy
the responsibility of any consequent schism. We
can only hope that France will quickly consent, and
that the French garrison will quickly withdraw ;
the Romans will then make very short work with
the temporal power of their old oppressor, and the
pious old POPE will be left to his prayers and his
Episcopal work in his own palace.

As we fully expected, and dreaded, and predicted
all along would be the case in regard to the country
of the Lebanon—has been the case : the French
military occupation of Syria bas been prolonged.
The period originally decided upon by the agree-
ment of the European Powers we have now seen
extended from early spring to midsummer. A
supplementary quarter has been tacked on to the
end of the half year first fixed upon as the maximum
interval for the continuance:of the soldiers of NAPO-
LEON in that ill-fated Asiatic province of Turkey,
which has been desolated now for years and years
past by the contentions of the two implacably
and fanatically antagonistic races of the Druses
and the Maronites. When the six months selected
for the presence of the French troops upon
those bloodstained shores of the Mediterranean
was but just upon the eve of expiring, it was found
that scarcely anything whatever had been doing
all the while in the way of bringing the two
great inimical tribes to a condition bearing any
even the smallest resemblance to reconciliation.
On the contrary the sympathies of Catholic
France as represented there in the soldiers of the
Empire having been exclusively on the side of
the Maronites, who no less than the French
themselves are entirely a Roman Catholic popu-
lation—the stipulated half year appears to have
witnessed little more all this while than the rigor-
ous dealing out among the murderous Druses, the
instigators, ringleaders, and actual perpetrators
of the late appalling massacres, the rigorous and
pitiless dealing out amongst them of the most
dreadful retribution. So that actually, when the
original period set apart by the Powers of Europe
for the work of reconciliation, and, through recon-
ciliation, of secure and permanent pacification—the
mere initial attempt at that reconciliation—the
mere inaugural hint at that eventual and permanent
pacification—has absolutely yet to be com-
menced ! Hence the excuse for this lengthen-
ing out by another quarter of the wholly inadequate
because wasted, period of the French organisation.
Hence the plea advanced for the postponement
yet a little while longer, from March until June,
of the embarkation of the soldiers of NAPOLEON on
their return homeward across the Mediterranean.
It is literally, as though there had been some won-
derful political significance in the solution of that
pretty air composed by the reigning EMPEROR'S
mother, the beautiful and accomplished Queen
HORTENSE—in the selection of that charming
melody, composed by her in her youth, for the
national air of France at the epoch of the Imperial
Restoration. It is as if all the while, from 1852
until 1860, almost from 1848 until 1880,
the policy of the present ruler of France
had been blown through the trumpets, and clashed
on the cymbals, and hammered on the drums of his
army—Partant pour la Syrie ! At the first visible
excuse for the realisation of that policy, Europe
was persuaded by the new French Empire to con-
nive at the occupation of Syria by French troops.
Immediately the frightful news of the massacre of
the Maronites startled Christendom with its tale of
horrors, the mot d'ordre went forth from the
French Foreign-office—Syria was to be occu-
pied by French soldiers, say (to begin with), for
six months—for no more than six months. At the
expiration of those six months the troops of France
were to be re-embarked and faithfully carried back,
leaving behind them as the happy souvenir of their
temporary apposition in Syria the whole of the
lately desolated provinces restored to order, and the
Druses and the Maronites beneficently reconciled
with each other, Row many, we wonder, believed
here in England in those amiable assurances of the
French Government ? Certainly we did not our-
selves. Under any circumstances it would have
appeared improbable that the Councils of the Em-
peror NAPOLEON 111. would in this matter remain
true to their agreement with the other powers of
Christendom. Within the recent recollection of
those disgraceful political untruths, those diplomatic
chicanries which had resulted in the shameful
annexation to France of Savoy and Nice, with all the
live stock on those provinces in the shape of Nizzarde
and Savoyards —it appeared to every rational
observer about the most unlikely thing in the world
that France under the regime of NAPOLEON 111.
would remain true to her promises, would faith-
fully at the end of the stipulated six months, re-
embark the soldiers sent out for that interval for
the occupation and pacification of Syria, and con-
duct them honestly back again to France, leaving the
Syrians to themselves. No—the French have all
those last ten or twelve years past (as the

national air has been incessantly dinning into our

ears) " Going to Syria." And having gone there
fully armed and equipped, it was hardly probable
they would be in such haste to return homewards.

At any rate, there they unquestionably are to this
expired—the moment—the six months having

period of their occupation there having been pro-
longed.

It was one among the many memorable sayings