ulted, in time,
the complete emancipation and regeneration of Italy. Time, however, was
not granted, and as we shall presently see, anarchy resumed its dismal
reign.

Anterior to the accession of Count Rossi's Ministry, the Legislative
Chambers had only wasted their time in unprofitable debates. It was
appointed that they should meet on the 15th of December, 1848, and the
minister prepared a bold and energetic, but conciliatory address. The
representatives of the people, it was designed, should now hear no longer
the ambiguous and factious harangues of a weak-minded demagogue, but the
true and candid utterances of a Constitutional Government. Rossi showed
himself on this occasion, to which melancholy circumstances have added
extraordinary solemnity, a grave and resolute minister, determined to
appear as the counsellor of his Sovereign and the exponent of his views,
not as the slave of the people and the organ of their blind passions. This
discourse was not destined to be delivered. It commenced as follows:

"Scarcely had his Holiness ascended the Pontifical throne when the
Catholic world was filled with admiration at his clemency as a
Pontiff and his wisdom as a temporal Sovereign.... The most
important facts have shown to mankind the fallacy of the
groundless predictions of that pretended philosophy which had
declared the Papacy to be, from the nature of its constitutive
principle, the enemy of constitutional liberty. In the course of a
few months, the Holy Father, of his own accord, and without aid,
accomplished a work which would have sufficed for the glory of a
long reign. History, impartially sincere, will repeat--and not
without good reason--as it records the acts of this Pontificate,
that the Church, immovable on her Divine foundations, and
inflexible in the sanctity of her dogmas, always intelligently
considers and encourages with admirable prudence, such changes as
are suitable in the things of the world."

The oration was, throughout, a bold and luminous exposition of the ideas
and policy which M. Rossi was charged to carry into effect. It was, at the
same time, an earnest appeal to the representative body in order to obtain
the aid, which was so necessary, of their loyal concurrence, and the
minister held himself bound in honor to abide strictly by the provisions
of the constitution. The constitution, meanwhile, was in presence of very
determi