upon these seats sat each crowned with a white mitre, the 700
Bishops in Council. Here all day long rolled forth, in sonorous
Latin, the interminable periods of episcopal oratory; but it was
not here that the issue of the Council was determined. The
assembled Fathers might talk till the marbles of St. Peter's
themselves grew weary of the reverberations; the fate of the
Church was decided in a very different manner-- by little knots
of influential persons meeting quietly of a morning in the back
room of some inconspicuous lodging-house, by a sunset rendezvous
in the Borghese Gardens between a Cardinal and a Diplomatist by a
whispered conference in an alcove at a Princess's evening party,
with the gay world chattering all about. And, of course, on such
momentous occasions as these, Manning was in his element. None
knew those difficult ropes better than he; none used them with a
more serviceable and yet discreet alacrity. In every juncture he
had the right word, or the right silence; his influence ramified
in all directions, from the Pope's audience chamber to the
English Cabinet. 'Il Diavolo del Concilio' his enemies called
him; and he gloried in the name.

The real crux of the position was less ecclesiastical than
diplomatic. The Papal Court, with its huge majority of Italian
Bishops, could make sure enough, when it came to the point, of
carrying its wishes through the Council; what was far more
dubious was the attitude of the foreign Governments--
especially those of France and England. The French Government
dreaded a schism among its Catholic subjects; it disliked the
prospect of an extension of the influence of the Pope over the
mass of the population of France; and, since the very existence
of the last remnant of the Pope's Temporal Power depended upon