It means, in good French, "before the election of Pius
IX.," or again, "up to the 16th of June, 1846."
Thus also M. de Brosses, if he could have returned to Rome in 1846,
would have found there, by the admission of the Count de Rayneval
himself, the worst government in Europe.
And thus the most absolute of governments, as M. de Tournon calls it,
still existed in Rome in 1846.
Up to the 16th of June, 1846, Catholicity owned the six millions of
acres of which the Roman territory consists; the Pope was the
administrator, the guardian, the steward; and the citizens of the
State seem to have been the ploughmen.
Up to this era of deliverance, a systematic despotism had deprived the
subjects of the Pope, not only of all participation in public affairs,
but of the simplest and most legitimate liberties, of the most
innocuous progress, and even--I shudder as I write it--of recourse to
the laws. The whim of one man had arbitrarily reversed the decisions
of the courts of law. And lastly, an incapable and disorderly caste
had wasted the public finances without rendering an account to any
one, occasionally even without rendering it to themselves. All these
statements must be believed, because it is the Count de Rayneval who
makes them.
Before proceeding, I maintain that this state of things, now admitted
by the apologists of the Papacy, justifies all the discontent of the
subjects of the Pope, all their complaints, all their recriminations,
all their outbreaks previous to 1846.
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