THE THRONE IN THE TIME OF STORMS
fidelity of a Catholic, with the reliability of a king, and with the senti- ments of an Italian." The Pope read the letter and threw it aside saying, "belle parole, ma brutti fatti" Ponza sought to create a better feeling, "I do not trust you," said Pius. "You are all whitened sepulchres."
On the 2oth of September Cadorna's cannon thundered and soon the green-white-red flag was afloat on the heights of the Capitol. The Pope had wished no other defence than a statement of protest to the effect that a deed of violence was being done. The militia was dis- armed and the Vatican was protected against the mob by troops which occupied the Leonine quarters of the city, concerning which negotia- tions were still in progress. After the comedy of a plebiscite the Kingdom celebrated the incorporation of Rome on October 9, 1870. On June 2d of the following year Victor Emmanuel took up his resi- dence in the Quirinal, and the Pope imprisoned himself in the Vatican. This voluntary imprisonment was a protest against an act of robbery and against the Laws of Guaranty passed by the state, which assured him the free exercise of his sovereign rights, an annual income of three and one half million francs, and the extra-territoriality of the Vatican, the Lateran, and Castel Gandolpho. Personally a broken man, Pius and the Popes who followed him up to the year 1929 were comforted by the unceasing opposition of the Catholics of all countries to Italy's attitude in the Roman question. The ancient dream of unity, the dream of Dante, Rienzi, Machiavelli, Cesare Borgia, Napoleon, Man- zoni, Cavour and Gioberti had been fufilled; but shortly before the moment of its realization the Papacy, whose temporal power was totter- ing, emerged as if from a corrupted and bursting pod to new spiritual life.
As a declaration of war upon all manifestations of the time spirit, which knowingly or unknowingly ran counter to the nature of the Church or the authority of the Popes, the Encyclical Quanta cura (1864) had been issued, with an appendix known as the Syllabus which listed sixty sentences that were condemned. The origins of this Syllabus go back to the year 1849, w ^en it had been suggested by Joachim Pecci, later on Pope Leo XIIL The last of these con- demned theses reads: "The Roman Pontiff can and should reconcile
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