observance of this law is to be enforced, and can give no answer, on
which X bursts into the most virulent abuse of all liberal governments in
terms commensurate with the offence. "Praised be God, the days of Henry
the VIIIth are passed, and Catholics and Bishops, and all men of great
and free intellects need no longer lose their heads beneath the British
axe. But are you ignorant that the 'most catholic France' has had
proclaimed from her tribunes, that the law is of no creed? Are you
ignorant of the Josephian laws of Austria? Glory be now to her young and
most devout of catholic sovereigns! but are you not aware, that in the
reign of Joseph the bishops in that empire were not allowed to write to,
or correspond freely with, the Pope? . . . I suppose, forsooth, you
expect observance of the law from those liberal governments of yours,
which make the first use of their liberty to destroy liberty itself; who
exile bishops, and who, in the face of all the world, break the plighted
faith of treaties and concordats--oh yes, those governments, who spy into
the most secret recesses of family life, and create the monstrous and
tyrannical _Loi des suspects_, oh yes, _they_ are sure to respect the
liberty and the independence of the Bishop of Rome! and are you baby
enough to believe or imagine it?" D cowers beneath the moral lash; and
hints rather than proposes, that if one country did not respect the
Pope's freedom, he could move into another, though he admits at the same
time, he can see grave difficulties in the project. Even this admission
is unavailing to protect him from X's savage onslaught, who winds up
another torrent of vituperation with these words: "Yes! This is no
question of the Pope and the Pope's person, but of the liberty of all the
Church, and of all the Episcopate, of your liberty and mine, of the
liberty of princes, peoples, and all Christian souls. Miserable man,
have you lost all common sense, all catholic sense, even the ordinary
sense of language?" In vain D confesses his errors, owns that he is
converted, and implores mercy. "No," X replies in conclusion, "this is