As little did they dare to interrupt Darboy, Archbishop of Paris, when he ascended the tribune and began as follows:--"We are told we are not to make long speeches, but I have a great deal to say. We are told again not to repeat what has been said by others, but at the same time we are kept shut up in this Hall, where for the most part we cannot understand one another; we are not allowed to examine the stenographic reports of our speeches, and the only answer made to our representations is always the same--'The Pope wills it.' I don't know therefore what has been said by the speakers who have preceded me." He then went on to speak of the rights of the Bishops, their degradation by the Roman centralizing system, "the caves, wherein the Roman doctors have buried themselves from the light of day," etc. He spoke in admirable style, and was listened to with rapt attention, though at every word his auditors expected an interruption from the Legate; but it never came. Darboy himself said afterwards that he had done like Condé, and flung his marshal's staff into the ranks of the enemy.
On January 22, Dupanloup made a speech in the same sense, which has already been reported to you, and took occasion to mention those courtiers who have learnt never to tell the truth to the Pope. Courtiers of this sort from various nations sat and stood in crowds around him. He might have added what was said to the Pope--vainly, of course--300 years ago, in a work composed by his order, and is just as true now as then: that the dream of omnipotence and infallibility, so studiously produced and cherished in his soul by flatterers, is the main cause, next to the avarice of the _Curia_, of the decline and corruptions of the Church. Meanwhile it is truly wonderful that so much could be said at all; it was felt to be a moral discomfiture or capitulation of the _Curia_ in its state of siege. Cardinal Schwarzenberg, and after him the Primate of Hungary, had certainly struck the note which still rang on, but the Legates had not dared to silence them with the bell, and so missed the opportunity of _principiis obsta_. Schwarzenberg had already created a great sensation by recommending the periodical recurrence of Councils, afterwards taken up by Strossmayer, and then falling back on the decree of Constance (for decennial Councils), which is an abomination at Rome. No doubt they would have no objection in Rome to Councils every ten or twenty years, suitably modernized, manipulated, and obedient to every wink, like the present majority; but the fatal Opposition embitters this enjoyment, and when once the great work is accomplished, and Infallibility proclaimed, it will be found at Rome that all this machinery is not worth its pay, "que le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle;" for it costs too much money to entertain 300 _Placet_-saying Bishops, to make it worth while often to reproduce the drama, or rather the pantomine.