State in which rights are sacred, in which the independence of the two orders is a fundamental and essential principle, in which property is secured, and in which government usurps no social functions ; where, in short, the Episcopate is safe in the discharge of its duties and in the enjoyment of its rights, from the encroachments of a hostile or patronising sovereign and from the changes and caprices of popular will ; and where the sphere of religion is removed from the interference of the legislative as well as of the executive power, in that State, if such there be, it would be possible for the Holy See to enjoy perfect independence and immunity from even the suspicion of influence, supported by a system of domains and guaranteed by the public faith of Europe.
But Piedmont was more remote than many foreign countries from the character of freedom. The spirit of her institutions was profoundly hostile to the Church, and she did great injury more by her laws than by her policy : of these Cavour was not the author ; Azeglio and others are as deeply responsible as he. It is the common policy of foreign Liberals, founded on those ideas of 1789, which are in irreconcilable opposition with liberty and with religion. Unfortunately those among the Italian clergy who, considering religious interests, ardently desire an extensive change, seem hardly aware of the real nature of that constitutional government which promises so much but commonly fulfils so imperfectly its promise ; and there is as much to deplore in the partiality of one party of Catholics for the internal policy of Cavour as in the injustice of others towards his feelings of religion.
Cavour had seen the clergy in alliance with a tyrannical government, and he dreaded their influence in the State. He deemed that the Austrian supremacy and the temporal power must stand and fall together, and he united them in the same attack. He was a stranger to that fierce animosity which inflames so many of his countrymen, and especially that party whom he most resolutely opposed. But he did much of their work for them, impelled by very different motives, and aiming at a widely
