bute to reconcile Catholic interests and national aspirations, which are being mixed up confusedly in the agitations at Rome.

Reverential towards the religion of our fathers, which is also the religion of the greater part of the Italians, I render homage at the same time to the principles of liberty that inform our institutions, which, applied with sincerity and breadth of judgment, will help to remove the old causes of difference between the Church and State. These our provisions, reassuring Catholic consciences, will, I hope, assist in the fulfilment of my desire, that the Supreme Pontiff should remain independent at Rome.

General Pettinengo having resigned his post as Minister of War, in the belief that the king was dissatisfied with him, Victor wrote as follows :—

Victor Emmanuel to General Pettinengo.

I am vexed to see in a letter from you, directed to the Count Verasis, that you imagine that I am ill-disposed towards you. If such were the case, I must very soon have forgotten the many services rendered by you to the State, the special merit of having accepted, solely to oblige me, the portfolio of War in difficult times, and finally the zeal which you showed for the army when it was put on a war footing. If some things have not gone as I desired, I certainly did not mean to blame you, dear general; I attributed it rather to an old system, which has need of modifications.

Ingratitude is, for the most part, the reward of those who labour for the public good. I also have had hard experience of this for a long time; and, less fortunate than you, I cannot yet ask my dismissal. These lines I hope will be sufficient to prove to you, dearest general, that you preserve always the esteem and the friendship of

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE KING AND POPE.-FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES.MARRIAGE OF PRINCE AMADEUS. A.D. 1867.

THE French army being withdrawn from Rome, the Pope had no other defenders than his foreign mercenaries; his little state was hemmed round on all the land sides by the possessions of the robber-king, who had undertaken to defend him against foreign aggression and protect him in the exercise of his spiritual authority. As temporal sovereign he was tottering on his throne; his subjects were thoroughly disaffected, and in that ancient seat of priestly power which once ruled Christendom, the Pope could not now command the willing obedience of other than his Swiss guards and ecclesiastics. Not daring to trust himself without the protection of a large military force, he again raised a foreign legion, to take the place of the French troops. This proceeding irritated the Romans more than ever; and instead of practising that patience which the king recommended, they lost all hope in diplomacy, and took to their old expedient of conspiracy.

'The internal tempest which rages in Rome,' writes

Castelar, 'is at once perceptible to the stranger. There are 400 persons now in prison for political offences. A priest of high position, and an intimate friend of the Pope, assures me that there are in Rome now 70,000 Garibaldians. A state which scarcely contains 600,000 souls keeps a standing army of 20,000. These 20,000 are men of different nations, languages, and

customs.'

Meantime it was necessary for the court of Florence and that of Rome to hold some communication with reference to ecclesiastical preferments. A dispute arose about the Archbishopric of Milan, the Pope not approving of the king's nomination, and vice versa. At last the matter was amicably settled to the satisfaction of all parties. Several letters were exchanged between the heads of the Church and State on these ecclesiastical matters. The Pope's missives, when not treating of the political questions of the day, were courteous and not unfriendly; and he was heard to say at this time that he preferred dealing with Victor Emmanuel than with the Bourbons of Naples or Leopold of Tuscany.

Victor Emmanuel's communications, it is needless to say, always breathed a profound reverence for the Head of the Church, as such; and as it was in this ́character he now approached him, the correspondence between the two illustrious rivals merged into a kindlier tone than one would have believed possible between the excommunicated monarch and the offended Pontiff. The correspondence was of a private nature; but Victor

Emmanuel communicated the general contents to his confidential advisers. Pio Nono in one of his letters explained why he could not recognise him nor bless Victor as 'King of Italy,' though in his own person, and in his quality of King of Sardinia, he did so willingly.

The king, in speaking of this letter, said :—

I replied to the following effect:-I have often read in books approved of by the Roman Church, that the Almighty sometimes avails himself of a king to castigate a pope, or a pope to castigate a king. If your holiness cannot recognise nor bless the King of Italy, as such, you can at least bless in him the instrument of which Divine Providence avails himself for ends beyond our penetration.

Meantime the question of the separation of the Church and State, and the readjustment of ecclesiastical property, was before Parliament, and the government being defeated with a motion of censure, resolved to appeal to the country in a general election.

The king's speech on opening the new Parliament, March 22, will give a general idea of the state of affairs. The nation was now on the verge of bankruptcy, and nothing but the secularisation of Church property could save its credit.

The King's Speech.

Gentlemen Senators,—Gentlemen Deputies,-For the good of Italy, which has confided her destinies to me, I esteemed it well that the representation of the country