"
"Perhaps, then, you think we ought to send our soldiers to
make war, before employing them as guardians of the peace?"
"It is certain, Monsignore, that whenever one sees an old
Crimean soldier who has strayed into one of the Pope's
foreign regiments, the medal he wears on his breast makes
him look quite a different man from any of his comrades. The
corps of your army which the people has treated with the
greatest respect, is the Pontifical Carabineers, because it
was originally formed of Napoleon's old soldiers."
"My friend, you do not answer my question. Do you require us
to declare war against Europe for the sake of teaching our
gendarmes to keep the peace at home?"
"Monsignore, the government of his Holiness is too prudent
to go in search of adventures. We are no longer in the days
of Julius II., who donned the cuirass, and buckled on the
sword of the flesh, and sprang himself into the breach. But
why should not the Head of the Church do as Pius V., who
sent his sailors with the Spaniards and Venetians to the
battle of Lepanto? Why should you not detach a regiment or
two to Algeria? France would, perhaps, give them a place in
her army; they might join us in advancing the holy cause of
civilization. Rest assured that when those troops returned,
after five or six campaigns, to the more modest duty of
preserving the public peace, everybody would obey them
courteously.
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