Page:History of Freedom.djvu/457

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DÖLLINGER'S HISTORICAL WORK 413

be no deliverance \vithout unity, or calculated that political loss might be religious gain. Passaglia, the most celebrated Jesuit living, and a confidential adviser of the pope, both in dogma and in the preparation of the Syllabus, until Perrone refused to meet him, quitted the Society, and then fled from Rome, leaving the Inquisition in possession of his papers, in order to combat the use of theology in defence of the temporal power. Forty thousand priests, he said, publicly or priyately agreed with him; and the diplomatists reported the naines of nine cardinals \vho \vere ready to make terms \\Tith I talian unity, of \vhich the pope himself said: "Ce serait un beau rêve." In this country, Newman did not share the animosity of conservatives against Napoleon III. and his action in Italy. When the flood, rising, reached the papal throne, he preserved an embarrassed silence, refusing, in spite of much solicitation, to commit himself even in private. An impatient M.P. took the train down to Edgbaston, and began, trying to dra\v hinl: ""That times we live in, Father Ne\vman! Look at all that is going on in Italy."-" Yes, indeed! And look at China too, and New Zealand!" Lacordaire favQured the cause of the Italians more openly, in spite of his Paris associates. He hoped, by federation, to save the interests of the Holy See, but he wa<; reconciled to the loss of provinces, and he required religious liberty at Rome. Lamoricière was defeated in September 1860, and in February the fortress of Gaëta, which had become the last Roman oUÌ\vork, fell. Then Lacordaire, dis- turbed in his reasoning by the logic of events, and by an earnest appeal to his priestly conscience, as his biographer says: "ébranlé un moment par une lettre éloquente," broke away from his friends :-

Que l\Iontalembert, notre an1i comn1un, ne voie pas dans ce qui se passe en Italie, sauf Ie mal, un progrès sensible dans ce que nous avons toujours cru Ie bien de l'église, cela tient à sa nature passionnée. Ce qui Ie domine aujourd'hui c'est la haine du gouvernement français. - Dieu se sert de tout, mê1l1e du despotis1l1e, même de l'égoïs1l1e; et il y a mên1e des choses qu'il ne peut accomplir par des mains tout à fait pures. - Qu'y