of like state and importance. Even Protestant Prussia maintains a
Minister Plenipotentiary to the Holy See. Russia has her diplomatic
agent to the Vatican, and several of the smaller powers keep up two
distinct legations. It is naturally neither possible nor intended that
these diplomatists should never meet on friendly terms, though they are
strictly interdicted from issuing official invitations to each other.
Their point of contact is another grey square on the chess-board.

The foreigner, too, is generally a neutral individual, for if his
political convictions lean towards the wrong side of the Tiber his
social tastes incline to Court balls; or if he is an admirer of Italian
institutions, his curiosity may yet lead him to seek a presentation at
the Vatican, and his inexplicable though recent love of feudal princedom
may take him, card-case in hand, to that great stronghold of Vaticanism
which lies due west of the Piazza di Venezia and due north of the
Capitol.

During the early years which followed the change, the attitude of
society in Rome was that of protest and indignation on the one hand, of
enthusiasm and rather brutally expressed triumph on the other. The line
was very clearly drawn, for the adherence was of the nature of personal
loyalty on both sides. Eight years and a half later the personal feeling
disappeared with the almost simultaneous death of Pius IX. and Victor
Emmanuel II. From that time the great strife degenerated by degrees into
a difference of opinion. It may perhaps be said also that both parties
became aware of their common enemy, the social democrat, soon after the
disappearance of the popular King whose great individual influence was
of more value to the cause of a united monarchy than all the political
clubs and organisations in Italy put together. He was a strong man. He
only once, I think, yielded to the pressure of a popular excitement,