y age, and too diffident, if not too timid, for the age in which he
lived. His private virtues made him a model to the Christian world,
while his political weakness made him the sport of his enemies. The only
stable thing in him was his goodness; everything else was in perpetual
vacillation. In every true account of every political action of Pius the
Ninth, the first words are, 'the Pope hesitated.' And he hesitated to
the last--he hesitated through a pontificate of thirty-two years, he
outreigned the 'years of Peter,' and he lost the temporal power.

The great movement came to a head in 1848. A year of revolutions, riots,
rebellions and new constitutions. So perfectly had it been organized
that it broke out almost simultaneously all over Europe--in France,
Italy, Prussia and Austria. Just when the revolution was rife Pius the
Ninth proclaimed an amnesty. That was soon after his election, and he
vacillated into a sort of passive approval of the Young Italian party.
It was even proposed that Italy should become a confederation of free
states under the presidency of the Pope. No man in his senses believed
in such a possibility, but at that time an unusual number of people were
not in their senses; Europe had gone mad.

Everyone knows the history of that year, when one Emperor, several
Kings, and numerous princes and ministers scattered in all directions,
like men running away from a fire that is just going to reach a quantity
of explosives. The fire was the reaction after long inactivity. Pius the
Ninth fled like the rest, when his favourite minister, Count Rossi, had
been stabbed to death on the steps of the Cancelleria. Some of the
sovereigns got safely back to their thrones. The Pope was helped back by
France and kept on his throne, first by the Republic, and then, with one
short intermission, by Louis Napoleon. In 1870, the French needed all
their strength for their own battles, and gave up fighting those of the
Vatican.

During that long period, from 1849 to 1870, Pius the Ninth governed Rome
in comparative security, in spite of occasional revolutionary outbreaks,
and in kindness if not in wisdom. Taxation was insignificant. Work was
plentiful and well paid, considering the country and the times.
Charities were enormous. The only restriction on liberty was political,
never civil. Reforms and improvements of every kind were introduced.
When Gregory the Sixteenth died, Rome was practically a mediaeval city;
when the