others, in his speech, to the Consistory, in his answer to the first
address of the Council. In these he declared that, when there was
conflict between the priest and the man, he always meant to be the
priest; and that he preferred the wisdom of the past to that of the
future.

Still, times went on bending his predeterminations to the call of the
moment. He _acted_ wiselier than he intended; as, for instance, three
weeks after declaring he would not give a constitution to his people,
he gave it,--a sop to Cerberus, indeed,--a poor vamped-up thing that
will by and by have to give place to something more legitimate, but
which served its purpose at the time as declaration of rights for the
people. When the news of the revolution of Vienna arrived, the Pope
himself cried _Viva Pio Nono!_ and this ebullition of truth in one so
humble, though opposed to his formal declarations, was received by his
people with that immediate assent which truth commands.

The revolution of Lombardy followed. The troops of the line were sent
thither; the volunteers rushed to accompany them. In the streets of
Rome was read the proclamation of Charles Albert, in which he styles
himself the servant of Italy and of Pius IX. The priests preached the
war, and justly, as a crusade; the Pope blessed their banners. Nobody
dreamed, or had cause to dream, that these movements had not his
full sympathy; and his name was in every form invoked as the chosen
instrument of God to inspire Italy to throw off the oppressive yoke of
the foreigner, and recover her rights in the civilized world.

At the same time, however, the Pope was seen to act with great
blindness in the affair of the Jesuits. The other states of Italy
drove them out by main force, resolved not to have in the midst of
the war a foe and spy in the camp. Rome wished to do the same, but the
Pope rose in their defence. He talked as if they were assailed as a
_religious_ body, when he could not fail, like everybody else, to be
aware that they were dreaded and hated solely as agents of despotism.
He demanded that they should be assailed only by legal means, when
none such were available. The end was in half-measures, always the
worst possible. He would not entirely yield, and the people would
not at all. The Order was ostensibly dissolved; but great part of
the Jesuits really remain here in disguise, a constant source of
irritation and mischief, which, if still greater difficulties had
not arisen,