vidual men were shaken. We have seen before how governments and diplomatists were already in motion conspiring against the Council. "Janus" had told the world what the Council would do, and the civil powers were invoked by the same hands and voices to prevent its acts, or even to hinder its meeting.
When, therefore, at the outset of the Council, it was heard that a certain number of bishops had formed themselves into an opposition, the world and the newspapers, the non-Catholics outside the unity of the Church, and a small number of discontented or pretentious minds within it, thought that the Council was divided, and that Rome would be defeated. From that moment the press teemed with eulogies of the bishops who were supposed to be in opposition. They were learned, eloquent, far-sighted, noble-minded, manly, independent. The majority was a herd of ignoble, uncultured, servile, ignorant flatterers. The bishops of the opposition were mortified, day after day, by praise for words and acts they had neither done nor spoken; they were dishonoured by commendations for conduct which, as Catholic bishops, they abhorred. It was hardly possible for them to clear themselves without violation of the secrecy of the Council. They had to bear what members of Privy Councils and of Cabinets have to suffer—the eulogies which dishonour them at the expense of their colleagues
