Is there a Council of Ministers?  Yes, whereat the Ministers attend to receive the Cardinal’s orders.

Are the public finances publicly administered?  No.

Does the nation vote the taxes, or are they taken from the nation?  The old system still exists.

Are municipal liberties at all extended?  They were greater in 1816 than they are at present.

At the present day, as in the days of the most extreme pontifical despotism, the Pope is all in all; he has all; he can do all; he exercises a perpetual dictatorship, without control or limit.

I own no systematic aversion to the exceptional exercise of a dictatorship.  The ancient Romans knew its value, often had recourse to it, and derived benefit from it.  When the enemy was at the gates, and the Republic in danger, the Senate and the people, usually so suspicious, placed all their rights in the hands of one man, and cried, “Save us!” Some grand dictatorships are to be found in the history of all times and all peoples.  If we examine the different stages of humanity, we shall find almost at every one a dictator.  One dictatorship created the unity of France, another its military greatness, and a third its prosperity in peace.  Benefits so important as these, which nations cannot acquire alone, are well worth the temporary sacrifice of every liberty.  A man of genius, who is at the same time an honest man, and who becomes invested with a boundless authority, is almost a God upon earth.

But the duties of the dictator are in exact proportion to the extent of his powers.  A parliamentary sovereign, who walks in a narrow path traced out by two Chambers, and who hears discussed in the morning what he is to do in the evening, is almost innocent of the faults of his reign.  On the contrary, the less a dictator is responsible for his actions by the terms of the Constitution, the more does he become so in the eyes of posterity.  History will reproach him for the good he has failed to do, when he could do everything; and his omissions will be accounted to him for crimes.

I will add, that under no circumstances should the dictatorship last long.  Not only would it be an absurdity to attempt to make it hereditary, but the man who should think of exercising it perpetually would be insane.  A sick patient allows himself to be bound by the surgeon who is about to save his life; but when the operation is over he demands to be set at liberty.  Nations act in a like manner.  From the day when the benefits conferred by the master cease to compensate for the loss of liberty, the nation demands the restoration of its rights, and a wise dictator will comply with the demand.

I have often conversed in the Papal States with enlightened and honourable men, who rank as the heads of the middle class.  They have said to me almost unanimously:—­