residence of the wealthy heretics who refuse to stop anywhere where they cannot have clubs and churches and papers of their own.  The expulsion of M. Gallenga, the Times correspondent, was in reality no exception to this policy.  It was not as the correspondent of an English newspaper, but as an ex-Mazzinian revolutionist and the author of Fra Dolcino, that this gentleman was obnoxious to the Papal authorities.  Though a naturalized English subject, he had not ceased to be an Italian, and his personal influence amongst Roman society might have been considerable, though the effect of his English correspondence, however able, would have been next to nothing.

From all these causes it is very hard to learn anything at Rome, and harder yet to learn anything with accuracy.  It is only by a process of elimination you ever arrive at the truth.  Out of a dozen stories and reports you have to take one, or rather part of one, and to reject the eleven and odd remaining.  It has been my object, therefore, in the following descriptions of the scenes which marked the period of my residence in Rome, to give as much as possible of what I have known and seen myself, and as little of what I heard and learnt from others.  What my narrative may lose in vividness, it will, I trust, gain in accuracy.

CHAPTER XVII.  THE PAPAL QUESTION SOLVED BY NAPOLEON I.

About half a century ago the Papal question was the order of the day.  Another Napoleon was seated on the throne of France, in the full tide of success and triumph of victory; another Pius was Pontiff at the Vatican, under the patronage of French legions, and, strange to say, another Antonelli was the leading adviser of the Pope.  The city of Rome, too, and the Papal States were in a condition of general discontent and disaffection; but, unfortunately, this latter circumstance is one of too constant occurrence to afford any clue as to the date of the period in question.

In the year of grace 1806, the enemies of Napoleon were ipso facto our friends; and in consequence the Pope, who was known to be hostile to France, became somewhat of a popular character amongst us.  Indeed Pius VII. was looked on at home rather in the light of a martyr and a hero.  It is only of late years that this feeling has worn off, and that we, as a nation, have begun to doubt whether, in his struggle with the Papacy, the Corsican usurper, as it was the fashion then to style him, may not have been in the right after all.  Considerable light has been thrown upon this question by the recent publications of certain private State papers, which remained in the possession of Count Aldini, the minister of Italian affairs under the great Emperor.

There had long been subjects of dissension between the Papal and the Imperial Governments.  At last, in 1806, these dissensions came to an open rupture.  On the 1st of June in that year, Count Aldini wrote a despatch, by order of the Emperor, to complain of the avowed hostility displayed by the Papal Court against the system of legislation introduced into the Kingdom of Italy, and of the private intrigues carried on by Cardinal Antonelli.  In this despatch occur these words, which at the present day read strangely appropriate:—­