onings--such arguments as are termed paralogisms or
involuntary sophisms, which escape the notice of their authors." The
government, in unison with the press, sought to stifle the importunate
voice of the Pontiff. The council of ministers went so far as to resolve
on prosecuting any journals that should dare to publish the Papal
allocution. But they found it was too late. The obnoxious document was
already printed in France, and, consequently, open to the civilized world.
So the wrath of the ministry was allowed to cool. It sought, nevertheless,
to be revenged. The minister of justice, accordingly, addressed a circular
to the procurators-general, in which he denounced the language of Pius IX.
as "excessive and violent." The Pope himself he railed was a factious
person, as a fomenter of sedition and revolt. He also charged him with
ingratitude. For what was he ungrateful? Had they not robbed him of his
sovereignty and his property? Did they not now hold him closely guarded in
the Vatican? They spared his life, indeed, but made him understand that he
was their prisoner, as, in reality, he was. To have gone farther would
have been to outrage all Italy, which they were so anxious to conciliate,
and the great Powers, whose forbearance they so much needed. Cardinal
Simeoni, who had succeeded Antonelli as Secretary of State, in a circular
addressed to the Papal nuncios, pointed out the weakness and gross
injustice of Mancini's letter. The secret societies, on the other hand,
congratulated their most dear and most active _brother_, and expressed the
hope _that he would not stop until he reached the end to which he so nobly
tended_. The minister of justice fully acceded to the wishes of the
_brethren_, and they could rely upon it that he would persevere until he
compassed the destruction of the Papacy. Such good resolutions deserved a
reward. They awarded him, accordingly, what they called a _diploma of
honor_.

The _Mancini law_, notwithstanding all the efforts of its supporters,
never became law. There is not much in this history to be placed to the
credit of Victor Emmanuel. Nevertheless, he, all of a sudden, opposed the
enactment of the odious law which he had allowed to be prepared and
presented in his name to the representative chamber. By expressing his
repugnance to it, he caused it to fail in the Senate. It is related that
it was on the representation of his daughter, the Princess Clotilde, that
he so acted.

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