the extension of infallibility to all that is thought necessary for the defence of revealed truths, and consequently to facts, whether historical, philosophical, or scientific, external to revelation: as also the absolute subordination to the supreme authority of the Church of the constituent principles of civil society; of the rights and duties of Government; of the political rights and duties of citizens, whether electoral or municipal; of all that relates to the judicial and legislative order, as well in respect of persons as of things; of the rules of public administration; of the rights and duties of corporations, and, in general, of all the rights of the State, not excluding the rights of conquest, peace, and war.
Next the minister passes on to note the profound impression which the simple enunciation of such doctrines must produce in the entire world; and asks at the same time how it could be possible for the bishops to consent to abdicate their episcopal authority, concentrating it in the hands of one alone; and how it could have been imagined that princes would lower their sovereignty before the supremacy of the Court of Rome.
Lastly, concluding, from all that has been set forth, that political and not religious interests are being discussed in the Council, Count Daru demands that the Governments be heard, or at least admitted to bear testimony to the characters, dispositions, and spirit (disposizioni di spirito) of the peoples they represent; and in particular that since France, by reason of the special protection which for twenty years she has exercised over the Pontifical State, has quite special duties to perform, he demands that the Government of that nation be permitted to exercise its right of receiving communication of projected decisions touching politics, and of requesting the delay necessary for bringing its observations before the Council, before any resolution be adopted by the same.
This is an abstract of the dispatch communicated to me by the Marquis de Banneville. I have thought proper to inform your Lordship of it; with the view, moreover, of communicating to you some short considerations which I think necessary to put in a clearer light the points touched upon by the minister, and to reply to the deductions made by him with respect to the points submitted to the deliberations of the Council.
And first, I cannot dispense myself from manifesting to your Lordship the satisfaction with which the Holy Father received the declaration expressed at the beginning of Count Daru's despatch, and repeated in the sequel, of the fixed intention of the
