whatever else he was, was not independent) by laughing at the entreaties of France to relieve that advanced nation from the annoyance of having set up a government fit for the Middle Ages.  He rated at its correct value the support of Napoleon, and believing it to be purely interested, he believed in its permanence.  The President had thought of nothing in the world but votes, and he thought of them still.  The Roman Expedition secured him the services of M. de Falloux as minister, and won over to him the entire Clerical Party, including Montalembert and the so-called Liberal Catholics.  Thus, and thus only, was the leap from the Presidential chair to the Imperial throne made possible.  The result was flattering, but still there are reasons to think (apart from Prince Jerome Napoleon’s express statement to that effect) that Napoleon III. hated the whole business from the bottom of his soul, and that of his not few questionable acts, this was the only one of which he felt lastingly ashamed.  Seeing that the communications of his ministers failed in their object, he tried the expedient of writing a private letter to his friend Edgar Ney, couched in the strongest terms of disapproval of the recalcitrant attitude of the Papal Government.  This letter was published as it was intended to be, but in the Roman States, except that its circulation was forbidden, no notice was taken of it.  Though the incident may be regarded as a stroke of facing-both-ways policy, the anger expressed was probably as sincere as any of Napoleon’s sentiments could be, and the letter had the effect of awakening the idea in many minds that something of the former Italian conspirator still existed in the ruler of France.  The question arose, What sort of pressure would be needed to turn that germ to account for Italy?

In the kingdom of Naples, where the laws, to look at them on paper, were incomparably better than those in force in the Roman States, the administration was such as would have disgraced a remote province of the Turkish Empire.  The King’s naturally suspicious temperament was worked upon by his courtiers and priests till he came to detect in every Liberal a personal antagonist, whose immunity from harm was incompatible with his own, and in Liberalism a plague dangerous to society, which must be stamped out at all costs.  Over 800 Liberals were sent to the galleys.  The convictions were obtained, in a great proportion of cases, by false testimony.  Bribes and secret protection in high quarters were the only means by which an innocent man could hope to escape; 50,000 persons were under police supervision, to be imprisoned at will.  The police often refused to set at liberty those whom the judges had acquitted.  The government had a Turkish or Russian fear of printed matter.  A wretched barber was fined 1000 ducats for having in his possession a volume of Leopardi’s poems, which was described as ‘contrary to religion and morals.’