these points also he freely throws himself on the pious and patriotic wisdom of Cardinal Antonelli.

"Such then, distinguished Sir, are the exact sentiments of His Majesty and of the Government of Piedmont, which you will be pleased to lay with humility and deference before the Holy Father, and with a decided frankness before Cardinal Antonelli. You will likewise observe to both, in the same modes respectively, that the King of Sardinia and his Government have nothing to repent and nothing to excuse in all they have done with reference to the Holy Father, and that, after the mission they have sent, the mediation they have proposed, and the force they have offered, they conceive they were entitled to a different treatment.

"Should the Government of His Holiness be satisfied with these reasons, and should your Excellency's character meet with official recognition forthwith, you will continue to act therein at the Court of the Holy Father; but on the contrary supposition, and should there, after the foregoing reasons shall have been stated, be the smallest delay in acknowledging your character as Envoy Extraordinary, you will quit Gaeta, and will, without any stay in Rome, return to Piedmont."

He further wrote, that nothing but reverence for the Holy See withheld him for the time from regarding the Spanish intervention, which was talked of, or any foreign intervention whatever, as an immediate casus belli; adding, that should the fact be established, His Majesty would make a formal protest before Italy and all friendly Powers.

At the same time, as there was a report that a Spanish squadron was about to reach Gaeta with a land force of a thousand men on board, which would be followed by more ships and more troops, the Government of Piedmont circulated a remonstrance to

the various Courts, which it wound up in these terms:

"In the event of such an armed intervention in Italy on the part of a foreign Government, and in relation to the differences which have arisen between the Pope and his subjects, the King's Government cannot dissemble, that it could not fail to entail the most serious embarrassments, and the most unpalatable consequences, not only on the Papal States, but on all the Peninsula. Accordingly, they feel it a duty to draw the attention of the various Governments concerned to the hazards, with which this new source of complications in Italian affairs must teem. At the same time, and although the intervention in question has not yet come within official cognizance, yet in the view of the weighty considerations just now stated, the undersigned finds himself under the obligation to protest in the most formal manner, before all foreign Governments, against any intervention of such a kind. "GIOBERTI."

The resolute and hardy declarations of the Piedmontese Government, and the representations of France, gained this point, that Martini was at length recognised in his official character, and formally received by His Holiness on the 23rd of the month. The Pope greeted him courteously, and at the time appeared so fully reconciled to Piedmont, and so free of suspicion, that he did not condemn the ideas and endeavours at mediation, but rather seemed to welcome and encourage them; or at the least he said, "he should not interfere," indicating thereby his confidence in King Charles Albert. But afterwards, whenever the conversation fell on Italy and her nationality, he reiterated the sentiments he had on previous occa

sions expressed about the universality of the Church, and said, that however much he might love Italy, it was his duty to invoke and employ, in defence of the Church's territories, the arms of all Catholics, and not of Italians only.

Prussia, too, advanced counsels of her own, and her Envoy at Gaeta exerted himself to procure an agreement between Austria and France, as he thought it a good plan that the Austrians should occupy the North of the Papal States, and the French the South. But the Duc d'Harcourt did not lend a ready ear to such proposals, and Martini kept him steady to the liberal views. About that time Tuscany also had sent a Minister, Bargagli, to Gaeta. He made known there the protests of his Government against a Spanish intervention, at the same moment when Martini produced those of the Government of Piedmont. Two Spanish men-of-war had now reached Gaeta, the frigate Mazzaredo, and the brig Veladore; but they had no land forces on board. They brought, however, a General, come to announce to the Holy Father the early arrival of fresh vessels with 1,200 soldiers.

Of the protest of Piedmont, Cardinal Antonelli spoke thus to Martini: "that Spain had no intention of interfering in the affairs of Italy, nor in the political affairs even of Rome, but only of placing at the disposal of the Holy Father, with a delicate tact, some amount of force, which might attend him whithersoever he should wish to go." But of the protest of the Tuscan Government he used very warm language to Bargagli, subjoining, "that the succours from Spain

were not the only ones expected, for Count Esterhazy would speedily arrive at Gaeta as ambassador of Austria, and with the announcement of others." Afterwards the Holy Father himself told Bargagli "that he did not doubt the Austrians would interfere within the States of the Church, for they regarded the Constituent' of Rome as placing their own interests in jeopardy." The ill blood between the Papal Court and the Tuscan Government had been. exasperated, since the latter had determined to send Deputies to Rome to sit along with the Romans in a Constituent Assembly for Italy. Whether it were that Bargagli had instructions not to brook the upbraidings he got on this score, or from some other cause, at the end of the month he set out from Gaeta, in the direction of Rome. The Duc d'Harcourt, too, who was not much in favour, went off to Naples, whither the other foreign Ministers at the Papal Court repaired, to attend the Session of Parliament, then on the eve of being opened. The Papal Court dispatched Monsignor Bedini into France, under a feigned name, to devise arrangements with the Catholic party there for foiling the opposition of the Government to its designs.

Encouragements reached Gaeta not only from the Catholic powers, but likewise from the heterodox, as appears by the following paragraph of a Russian note, which I translate textually from the French:

"The affairs of Rome have been a source of serious reflection to the Government of H. M. the Emperor of the Russias; and it would be a gross error to suppose that we

feel a less lively interest, than the Catholic Governments, in the actual situation of Pope Pius IX. It is beyond doubt, that the Holy Father will find in H. M. the Emperor a cordial ally, for the re-establishment of his power, temporal and spiritual; and that the Russian Government will freely concur in all the measures that may conduce to such an end; for it does not cherish towards the Court of Rome any sentiment of rivalry, or any religious animosity."

Whatever laudable efforts, then, Martini might make to restrain the Roman Court from throwing itself into the arms of the enemies of Italian freedom and independence, matters had now reached such a point that such efforts could not but fail. If at times the Holy Father showed himself not disinclined to mild counsels, he would unsay them afterwards, and Cardinal Antonelli would wrest his words to a doubtful or contrary sense; while the Court of Naples applied itself adroitly to rekindling suspicion and stimulating alarm in his mind, using all diligence to engender the belief, that every proffer of Piedmont veiled a design to gain possession of a great slice of the Papal States. The Neapolitan Ministers averred, that they had proofs of it; and the Prince Cariati himself disseminated the statement, not at Naples and Gaeta only, but in France. On learning this, the Piedmontese Government was so indignant, that they determined on recalling from Naples the Senator Plezza, whose rank and mission that Court had not yet thought fit to recognise, and sent the Neapolitan Envoy resident in Turin his passports, thus breaking off all diplomatic intercourse. Gioberti wrote in these terms: —