On September 7th Count Delia Minerva was sent to Rome to demand, on the part of Victor Emmanuel, the disbandment of the foreign troops which the Papal Government had got together under the command of General Lamoriciere.  The demand was refused.  This refusal the Papal Government was quite competent to give, but whether its policy in upholding its temporal power by the aid of foreign mercenaries was wise or not was another matter.  It was hardly to be expected that Italians, any more than Frenchmen, Germans, or English, would endure such a state of things if they could prevent it.  The Government of Turin now ordered its troops to enter the Papal Provinces of Umbria and the Marches.  On September **nth General Fanti crossed the frontier, easily took possession of Perugia with the aid of the inhabitants, and obliged Colonel Schmidt, the Papal commander, to capitulate.  The General advanced with equal success against Spoleto, and in a few days was master of all the upper valley of the Tiber.  At the same time General Cialdini, operating on the eastern side of the Apennines, marched rapidly to meet General Lamoriciere’s forces, which he encountered and defeated completely at Castelfidardo, compelling the French General to fly to Ancona, which he entered in company with only a few horsemen who had escaped with him from the rout of the Papal army.  The Italian fleet was off Ancona, before which General Cialdini’s troops now appeared, thus completely preventing the escape of Lamoriciere, who was obliged to surrender.  In less than three weeks the campaign was over.  The Sardinian troops having thus occupied Umbria and the Marches, proceeded to cross into the Neapolitan Provinces and march upon Capua and Gaeta.

Austria, Prussia, and Russia protested against the course thus pursued by the Government of Victor Emmanuel.  The Pope excommunicated all who had participated in the invasion of his territory.  Francis II protested with no less earnestness.  The Emperor of the French withdrew his minister from Turin and blamed the proceedings of Victor Emmanuel’s Government; but in other respects Napoleon remained a passive spectator of all that occurred, and maintained the principle of non-intervention—­at least as regarded Umbria and the Marches, Sicily and Naples—­excepting at Gaeta, where his fleet prevented for a time any attack being made against that fortress from the sea.  He also raised the number of his troops in Rome and the province in which it is situated, called the Patrimony of St. Peter, to twenty-two thousand men.  This was now all the territory left to the temporal power of the Pope.  Napoleon determined to preserve that much to the Roman See, defending it from the attacks of Garibaldi, and forbidding its annexation to the kingdom of Italy.