Gladstone allowed himself to become convinced, and Lord Acton
began to hope that his efforts would be successful. But, he had
forgotten one element in the situation; he had reckoned without
the Archbishop of Westminster. The sharp nose of Manning sniffed
out the whole intrigue. Though he despised Lord Acton almost as
much as he disliked him--'such men,' he said, 'are all vanity:
they have the inflation of German professors, and the ruthless
talk of undergraduates'--yet he realised clearly enough the
danger of his correspondence with the Prime Minister, and
immediately took steps to counteract it. There was a semi-
official agent of the English Government in Rome, Mr. Odo
Russell,
and around him Manning set to work to spin his spider's web of
delicate and clinging diplomacy. Preliminary politenesses were
followed by long walks upon the Pincio, and the gradual
interchange of more and more important and confidential
communications. Soon poor Mr. Russell was little better than a
fly
buzzing in gossamer. And Manning was careful to see that he
buzzed on the right note. In his dispatches to the Foreign
Secretary, Lord Clarendon, Mr. Russell explained in detail the
true nature of the Council, that it was merely a meeting of a
few Roman Catholic prelates to discuss some internal matters of
Church discipline, that it had no political significance
whatever, that the question of Infallibility, about which there
had been so much random talk, was a purely theological question,
and that, whatever decision might be come to on the subject, the
position of Roman Catholics throughout the world would remain
unchanged.