from Paris even a single copy of so Christianly liberal a paper as the Revue Chrétienne. For the rest, it is not I who can or will condemn the Papal management of the States of the Church; but what I have seen of the condition of the people leads me to believe the statement of the conscientious and devout son of the church, Count Cesare Balbo, in his Summario della Storia d'Italia, p. 452.
“Rome and Modena, ill-reinstated in the year 1814, have with each succeeding year become worse governed. Wretched police and persecutions have been common to both states; in the Papal especially, financial disorder, foreign arms, ecclesiastical government in the most temporal affairs, result in a position in which the Pontifical rule loses all its dignity. Every one who contemplates and compares the condition of the various Italian states, must clearly see that if any actual improvement is to take place, if any great impulse is to arise for the advancement (progress) of Italy, it must come from Piedmont. The other states have—even in the best which they possess—remained stationary. On the contrary, Piedmont has, even in the worst which she possesses, made an ascending, improving movement, and no further advance can be expected but through such a movement.”
The above was written in 1851.
The ancient Sybils wrote, as people know, in a
somewhat different style, and there has been a great
deal of brain-puzzling to discover the meaning of their
oracular sentences. However, in this, all are agreed, that
they, the Sybils, every one of them proclaimed, “One
