These criminals are very numerous:  the geographer Balbi enumerates some six hundred millions of them on the surface of the globe.  The Pope continues to damn them all conformably with the tradition of the Church; but he has given up levying armies to make war upon them here below.

Things are improved when we daily find the Head of the Roman Catholic Church in friendly intercourse with the foes of his religion.  He partakes of the liberality of a Mussulman Prince; he receives a schismatic Empress as a loving father; he converses familiarly with a Queen who has abjured Catholicism to marry a Protestant; he receives with distinction the aristocracy of the New Jerusalem; he sends his Majordomo to attend upon a young heretic prince[11] travelling incognito.  I hardly know whether Gregory VII. would approve this tolerance; nor can I tell how it is judged in the other world by the instigators of the Crusades, or by the advisers of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew.  For my own part, I should award it unbounded praise, if I could believe it took its source in a spirit of enlightenment and Christian charity.  I should regard it differently, if I thought it was to be traced to calculations of policy and interest.

The difficulty is to penetrate the secret thoughts of the Sovereign Pontiff; to find a key to the real motive of his tolerance.  Natural mildness and interested mildness resemble each other in their effects, but differ widely in their causes.  When the Pope and the Cardinals overwhelm M. de Rothschild with assurances of their highest consideration, are we to conclude that an Israelite is equal to a Roman Catholic in their eyes, as he is in yours or mine?  Or are we to conclude that they deem it expedient to mask their real sentiments because M. de Rothschild has millions to spare?

This delicate problem is not difficult to solve.  We have but to seek out a Jew in Rome who is not the possessor of millions, and to ask him how he is considered and treated by the Popes.  If the Government really make no difference between this citizen who is a Jew, and another who is a Catholic, I will say the Popes have become tolerant in earnest.  If, on the contrary, we find that the administration accords this poor Jew a social position somewhere between man and the dog, then I am bound to set down the fine speeches made to M. de Rothschild, as proceeding from calculations of interest, and as inferring a sacrifice of dignity.

Now mark, and judge for yourselves.  There were Jews in Italy before there were Christians in the world.  Roman polytheism, which tolerated everything except the kicks administered by Polyeucte to the statue of Jupiter, gave a place to the God of Israel.  Afterwards came the Christians, and they were tolerated till they conspired against the laws.  They were often confounded with the Jews, because they came from the same corner of the East.  Christianity increased by means of pious conspiracies; enrolled slaves braved their masters, and became master in its turn.  I don’t blame it for practising reprisals, and cutting the pagans’ throats; but in common justice it has killed too many Jews.