THE VATICAN COUNCIL
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diplomacy at the cost of displeasing the Pope. The Minister of Foreign Affairs and his chief secretary were counted by the Court of Rome among its friends; and the ordinary ambassador started for his post with instruc- tions to conciliate, and to run no risk of a quarrel. He arrived at Rome believing that there would be a speculative conflict between the extremes of Roman and German theology, \vhich would admit of being reconciled by the safer and more sober wisdom of the French bishops, backed by an impartial embassy. His credulity was an encum- brance to the cause \vhich it \vas his mission and his ,vish to serve. In Germany the plan of penetrating the Council with lay influence took a strange form. I t ,vas proposed that the German Catholics should be represented by King John of Saxony. As a Catholic and a scholar, who had sho,vn, in his Commentary on Dante, that he had read St. Thomas, and as a prince personally esteemed by the Pope, it was conceived that his presence would be a salutary restraint. It \vas an impracticable idea; but letters \vhich reached Rome during the winter raised an impression that the King regretted that he could not be there. The opinion of Germany would still have some weight if the North and South, which included more than thirteen millions of Catholics, worked together. It was the policy of Hohenlohe to use this united force, and the ultramontanes learned to regard him as a very formidable antagonist. When their first great triumph, in the election of the Commission on Doctrine, was accomplished, the commentary of a Roman prelate was, "Che colpo per i1 Principe Hohenlohe!" The Bavarian envoy in Rome did not share the views of his chief, and he was recalled in November. His successor had capacity to carry out the known policy of the prince; but early in the winter the ultramontanes drove Hohenlohe from office, and their victory, though it \vas exercised with moderation, and was not followed by a total change of policy, neutralised the influence of Bavaria in the Council. The fall of Hohenlohe and the abstention of France
