rdinia. On the failure
of these negotiations, Victor Emmanuel despatched three high
ecclesiastics on a private mission to the Pope to see if the quarrel
could be made up. This mission, which might have seriously compromised
the king, was not counselled by Cavour, who put a violent end to it
when he authorised Rattazzi to bring in the bill for the suppression
of religious houses. Victor Emmanuel was deeply mortified, and the
Pope protested against this new "horrible and incredible assault of
the subalpine Government." Just at the time that the measure was
discussed in Parliament, the king lost his mother, his wife, his
infant child, and his brother, a series of misfortunes in which the
Church saw "the finger of God." As the two queens and the Duke of
Genoa were devoted Catholics, their last hours were rendered miserable
by the impending sacrilegious act. It is not to be wondered if the
king was almost driven out of his mind.

After the lugubrious interruption of the royal funerals, the debate on
the religious corporations was resumed with new vigour. Much the
most effective speeches on either side were those delivered by the
combatants of the two extremes, Brofferio and Count Solaro de la
Margherita. Brofferio, who regarded all convents as a specific evil,
had proposed their indiscriminate abolition in 1848, directly after
the promulgation of the Statute. Cavour, he said, had then defended
them. Was he therefore, mindful of their old warfare, to vote against
this Bill in order to place difficulties in the way of the Ministry?
Far from it. If the Government were willing to abolish all the
convents, so much the better; if 490, he would vote for that; if 245,
he was ready to approve; if 100, yes; if 10, he would vote for 10; if
one convent, he agreed; if one monk, his vote would be given for the
abolition of one monk. He would not imitate those speakers who had
attempted to conjure up a canonical or theological defence of the
Bill. The Pope was probably a better theologian than he; but he denied
that the Church had any prescriptive rights at all: all her privileges
and property being held on sufferance of the State, which could
withdraw its toleration when it chose. Illustrious Italians, from
Dante downwards, denounced the love of power and money of the Church
as the bane of Italy. Had not Machiavelli said, "If Italy has fallen
a prey not only to powerful barbarians but to whatsoever attack, we
Italians are indebted for it