Revolutionary Types

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904. Excerpt: ... THE ROMAN TRAGEDY OF '48 'There is a sovereign, ' wrote Lord Rosebery, 'whose pretensions soar far above empire, who is as much above terrestrial thrones, dominations, and powers, as these in their turn are above their subjects. The Pope exerts an authority short only, if it be short, of the Divine government of the world.' In the middle of the last century the representative of the claims thus--not without exaggeration--described, appeared in the eyes of friends and foes alike to have placed himself at the head of that movement variously designated as Reform or Revolution. Of the view taken by hostile critics of the attitude assumed by Pius ix. on his elevation to the Pontificate a pamphlet published in England and entitled 'The Pope the future head of revolutionary Europe' may be accepted as representative. 'Who would ever have imagined that God would find out another General Lafayette, ' exclaimed a spectator of one of the popular demonstrations in his honour, 'and that He would make of him a Pope!' The brief space of time during which the head of Catholic Christendom stood forth as a leader of reform, and the place he occupied for that period 191 in public estimation, makes the story of what unhappily proved to be no more than an episode in his life a fitting one to be included in the present series of sketches. It was in 1848 that Pius ix. made his great failure--a failure which, in the eyes of many, took on the complexion of a treachery. He had entered upon a path without a just appreciation of its goal. Like the man in the parable, he had engaged in an enterprise without a preliminary calculation of its cost. And he turned back from the path, relinquished the enterprise. For the space of more than two years he had seemed destined to disprove Metterni...