To give
way, is to prove that we are afraid. To admit fear, is to
double the strength of the enemy, to open the gates to
revolution, and to take the road to Gaeta, where the
accommodation is none of the best. Don't let us leave home.
I know the house we live in; it is not new, but it will last
longer than your Holiness--provided no attempt is made to
repair it. After us the deluge; we've got no children!"
"All very true," replies the Pope.
"But the sovereign who is entreating me to do something, is
an eldest son of the Church. He has rendered us great
services. He still protects us constantly. What would become
of us if he abandoned us?"
"Don't be alarmed," says the Cardinal. "I'll arrange the matter
diplomatically." And he sits down, and writes an invariable note, in a
diplomatically tortuous style, which may thus be summed up:--
"We want your soldiers, and not your advice, seeing that we
are infallible. If you were to show any symptom of doubting
that infallibility, and if you attempted to force anything
upon us, even our preservation, we would fold our wings
around our countenances, we would raise the palms of
martyrdom, and we should become an object of compassion to
all the Catholics in the universe. You know we have in your
country forty thousand men who are at liberty to say
everything, and whom you pay with your own money to plead
our cause.
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