On rencontre sa destinee
Souvent par les chemins qu'on prend pour l'eviter."

La Fontaine tells us this, and the Pope proves it to us. In spite of
the attention paid to religious instruction, the sermons, the good
books, the edifying spectacles, the lottery, and so many other good
things, faith is departing. The general aspect of the country does not
betray the fact, because the fear of scandal pervades all society; but
the devil loses nothing by that. Perhaps the citizens have the greater
dislike to religion, from the very fact of its reigning over them. Our
master is our enemy. God is too much the master of these people not to
be treated by them in some degree as an enemy.

The spirit of opposition is called atheism, where the Tuileries are
called the Vatican. A young ragamuffin, who drove me from Rimini to
Santa Maria, let slip a terrible expression, which I have often
thought of since: "God?"--he said, "if there be one, I dare say he's a
priest like the rest of 'em."

Reflect upon these words, reader! When I examine them closely, I start
back in terror, as before those crevices of Vesuvius, which give you a
glimpse of the abyss below.

Has the temporal power served its own interests better than it has
those of God? I doubt it. The deputation of Rome was Red in 1848. It
was Rome that chose Mazzini. It is Rome that still regrets him in the
low haunts of the Regola, on that miry bank of the Tiber, where secret
societies swarm at this moment, like gnats on the shores of the Nile.

If these deplorable fruits of a model education were pointed out to
the philosopher Gavarni, he would probably exclaim, "Bring up nations,
in order that they may hate and despise you!"

CHAPTER XVII.

FOREIGN OCCUPATION.

The Pope is loved and revered in all Catholic countries--except his
own.

It is, therefore, perfectly just and natural that one hundred and
thirty-nine millions of devoted and respectful men should render him
assistance against three millions of discontented ones. It is not
enough to have given him a temporal kingdom, or to have restored that
kingdom to him when he had the misfortune to lose it; one must lend
him a permanent support, unless the expense of a fresh restoration is
to be incurred every year.

This is the principle of the foreign occupation. We are one hundred
and thirty-nine millions of Catholics, who have violently delegated to
three millions of Italians the honour of boarding and lodging