nd of the Holy See, may be converted and live."

(M66) So clear, apparently, was now the political atmosphere, that men
could not avoid accusing themselves of having judged rashly the mighty
conqueror, who, by a word, could restore serenity as easily as he had
disturbed it. It was not yet known by what power he was restrained. In
compliance with the requirements of the treaty of Villafranca, Piedmont,
indeed, withdrew her commissioners from Central Italy. The public,
however, soon learned, to its great astonishment, what, at first, it could
not believe, that provisional governments took the place of the
Piedmontese Commissioners, and that Baron Ricasoli, at Florence, Signor
Farini, at Modena and Parma, and Cipriani, at Bologna, all agents of Count
de Cavour and the revolution, dismissed everywhere such officials as were
suspected of looking seriously to the return of the legitimate sovereigns,
and had recourse to popular suffrage. This, it is no exaggeration to say,
was a mere mockery. The voting directed, expurgated by these parties,
never extended to the landward districts, but, confined entirely to the
towns, was necessarily calculated to produce the result at which they
aimed--a _plebiscitum_ in favor of annexation to Piedmont. In Romagna, for
instance, where there were about two hundred thousand electors, only
18,000 were registered, and of these only one-third presented their votes.
By such means was a national assembly constituted. This assembly met at
Bologna on the 6th of September, and at its first sitting voted the
abolition of the Pontifical government, and invited Victor Emmanuel. This
potentate dared not, at first, to accept, but appointed Signor
Buoncompagni, governor-general of the league of Central Italy. It did not
appear from the state of the polls, if, indeed, the polling of votes was
even made a fashion of, that the people of the Papal States were at all
anxious to do away with the government under which they and their
forefathers had enjoyed so many blessings, together with the surpassing
honor of possessing, as their capital, the metropolis of the Christian
world. They were too happy in being ruled over by the elective monarch
whom they themselves had chosen, to desire, in preference to him, the mere
shadow of a king--the satrap of an Imperial despot. It was not they who, in
a pretended _patriotic_ endeavor to shake off the Pontifical yoke, raised
the standard of rebellion in so many cities and prov