she may take in hand must not be confined to the Papal States. La Cecilia will impart to you our ideas. Should Rome at once convoke the Constituent, and give the Presidency to Leopold, a double object will be attained; first, the fusion of the two States of Central Italy; and, secondly, a central point for the country, to which Piedmont, and assuredly Naples too, will have to resort. As to the Pope, you should speak him fair. Tell him he has acted well, and is a real restorer of an Evangelical Papacy: and that the removal from Rome for the period of the political reconstruction was a most prudent step, to preclude its being said, that the Head of the Church was under coercion. Give him to understand, it is thought incredible that a Pius IX. should bring himself to have recourse to foreign arms. He has said his will is to reign by affection, not by force. Do not grudge expresses to keep us thoroughly informed; and believe me, "Your attached friend,

"MONTANElli."

de

As soon as Montanelli heard of the Pope's parture, and the confirmation, by Parliamentary Vote, of the Ministry of the 16th of November, he wrote thus to Bargagli:.

"My dear Minister,

He will not have the Beware of him; and draw Unless the movement in

"I am deeply grieved by the letters of this morning. The confirmation of the Roman Ministry is a deadly blow. I suspect Mamiani has an idea in reserve,-to proclaim Charles Albert King of Rome. courage but that is his line. towards Galletti in preference. Italy very soon put on an Italian aspect, our perils must be grave. Our Provinces will act for themselves; the party of reaction will have time to rally; the diplomatists, not finding any consummated results in their way, will uphold, and perhaps impose by the bayonet, the Pope's temporal power. All would be cured by the Constituent: we should then

have a national act done, and that without promulgating any abstract principle that might entangle us. The decadence of the Pope from his prerogatives would not be proclaimed until the Constituent should do it at the proper time, as the actual separation of the civil from the ecclesiastical government would suffice. The Republicans would try no coup-de-main. The Albertists would be controlled in their dynastic aspirations. The whole of Central Italy would meantime find itself combined in a single idea: and although no Piedmontese or Neapolitan Deputies should attend, yet a Congress of Deputies from Central Italy, joined by those of Venice and Sicily, would be an immense result. Talk it over with Galletti. By this time you will have seen La Cecilia. To organise demonstrations in this sense, he is the very man."

Nor was it La Cecilia only that the Tuscan Minister for Foreign Affairs charged to foster his ideas in Rome, for he likewise, by a letter of the 30th of November, recommended to Bargagli two Lombard exiles, Cernuschi and Maestri, as being, he said, men "who might prove most useful in giving an impetus to opinion at Rome, in the sense of the Tuscan Government." Again, on the 5th of December, he recommended a certain Cironi, an agent of Mazzini, "who formed part of a deputation that was repairing to Rome, to lay before the political Club there certain objects desired by that of Florence." Monsignor Giulio Boninsegni, who had been in Rome for some time as Envoy from the Grand Duke, to negotiate arrangements on matters of Church discipline, bears this testimony to the views of La Cecilia :

"The Minister Bargagli, on seeing La Cecilia and the letter that introduced him, inquired what was the special

mission wherewith the new Envoy was charged. La Cecilia made no mystery of it: but declared, without circumlocution, that he was sent to Rome to start a new revolution, having for its object to strip the Pope of his temporal power, now become incompatible with the fortunes of Italy. This new movement, he added, was likewise to have its effects on the Kingdom of Naples. Bargagli, having heard all, protested that he could not lend himself in any manner to such proceedings; and it was then that he called me likewise in, to acquaint me with the letter of Montanelli, and the oral communications of La Cecilia. The disclaimer of Bargagli put him into no sort of embarrassment. The very same day he called on all the Ministers appointed since Rossi's death; he held, too, various interviews with Saliceti, and with the other leading emigrants from Naples. After these introductory steps, he returned to the Palazzo di Firenze shortly before the courier left, and requested a place to write, that he might dispatch his first report to Montanelli. I was at the Legation, and Bargagli was out on business. La Cecilia wrote his report in haste, and then would by all means have me read it. In it he stated, that he had conversed first of all with the Minister Mamiani; that he had found in him a thoroughly aristocratic diplomatist, from whom no good could be expected; that the other Ministers were ciphers, on whom he could not build at all, except the Advocate Giuseppe Galletti, who alone among them took a right view of affairs, and that from him he should get every kind of co-operation. That Saliceti, the leading man of the Neapolitan exiles, despaired of the issue of this attempt; that he, however, was a mere philosopher, who was all abroad in the world of abstractions: that all the rest, both Neapolitans and Lombards, were ready for any thing, and consequently nothing remained but to jog the apathy of the Roman people, which he himself would readily undertake, only he must be supplied with cash."

These and other notions of La Cecilia are set forth

likewise in the following dispatch, addressed by him to Montanelli on the 30th of November:

motions.

"The Roman movement is incomplete, through the default of the existing Ministry, which has not set itself to securing the conquests of the people by enlarging and guiding its first The reason of this inertness of the Government is to be found in the actual characters of its members, and in the supineness of the Chamber of Deputies. Mamiani is a man meaning well, but in action timid; in short, too speculative, and likewise given to trying conciliation upon erroneous data: the best and fittest of Ministers for quiet times, but for rough ones as bad as possible. Sterbini is a man of vagaries, now in the skies and now in the dumps, but fanatical, nay, crack-brained, about the Federation, after the fashion of the Turin Congress, of which he was a member: so rigid in his notions and views that, to bring him to any sort of reason, I was obliged to expend a whole hour. However, he most readily agreed that the Constituent should be summoned to Rome, and under the Presidency of Leopold II. Galletti has virtue and patriotism, but is not good at catching the time as it flies, or even at perceiving his own position as a Minister. He takes his stand upon legality: and dreams that he himself was freely preferred by the Pontiff; nay, he goes the incomprehensible length of holding the present Ministry to be a legal one. He does not recollect the fire of musketry, which extracted the names of the new Ministers from the mouth of the Pope, never from his heart.

"The persons here, who perceive the true bearings of the present juncture, will labour to organise or augment their party among the Deputies of the Chambers, which as yet is undoubtedly slender. Buonaparte, that political morrisdancer, bothers legality right well: and even meant to move in the Chambers for the appointment of a Regency. But, at my intreaty, he will content himself with a protest instead, in which he will declare null and incompetent all proceedings of the Pontiff, as being under coercion and in the hands of enemies

The Club of the People supports the Ministry, but is alive to the precarious position of affairs, should they stop where they now are. All are agreed that a movement should be effected in the kingdom of Naples, and that the first trial should be in the Abruzzi, as being both near and unsettled. Padre Gavazzi, De-Boni, and Buonaparte, will probably repair thither. Mazzini will come himself to Rome. Garibaldi, with his legion, cannot be long away; and then truly legality will be in a pretty pickle."

These and other like proceedings of the Tuscan Government were known to Castellani, the Venetian Envoy, who, on the 13th of December, wrote to his Government, that he had before him a letter of Montanelli, with these words: "We must drive the Parliament to declare the deposition of Pius IX. from the temporal sovereignty." Castellani never busied himself in any matter that was not worthy of his wisdom and honour; and he formed a sound judgment of events and of men. When acquainting his Government with the qualities and the credit of the Ministers, he wrote that "the honourable men of all parties were against Sterbini:" and in conveying the news of the dissolution of the Legislative Councils, and of the convocation of the Constituent, he launched into these exclamations:-"But, where are the arms, the men, the money? where is the popular enthusiasm? where the hatred of the Pope? where the confidence in the future, and the common object of interest ?" The Venetian Government recommended him to keep neutral among conflicting parties, and to employ the utmost prudence and circumspection, directing his counsels and exertions to the paramount object of na