The Bavarian note did not elicit a practical response from other Cabinets. The reply of Austria was, perhaps, influenced by the fact that Count Beust, then Prime Minister, was a Protestant. His despatch bears marks either of non-appreciation of the import of terms and acts, proceeding from the Vatican, such as would be natural in one not trained to watch them, or of a desire to evade the gravity of the question. He thought it best to wait and to be on his guard.[141] On behalf of Prussia, Bismarck also took up an attitude of observation, but with more insight into the reasons for the suggestion of Prince Hohenlohe. The Italian Government had expressed itself in favour of common action, but practically let things take their course. England naturally declined to interfere. As to France, she thought herself protected by the Concordat against all eventualities--another proof that her statesmen handled affairs without mastering ideas. Perhaps not one of them had read what Rome had lately been teaching as the true doctrine of Concordats.
The _Unitá Cattolica_ (June 23), however, put this tranquil attitude of France in a different light--
Hohenlohe is sold to Prussia, and torments the Catholics of Bavaria to push them to throw themselves into the arms of Prussia, where Catholicism enjoys the utmost liberty, thanks to the fox-like policy of Bismarck. This is known in Paris, and hence Napoleon is said to have looked darkly on the perfidious proposals of the Bavarian Minister.
[Footnote 140: _Priv. Pet._, Part III. p. 37.]
Indulgences--Excitement--The Two Brothers Dufournel--Senestrey's Speech--Hopes of the Ruin of Germany--What the Council will do--Absurdity of Constitutional Kings--The True Saviour of Society--Lay Address from Coblenz--Montalembert adheres to it--Religious Liberty does not answer--Importance of keeping Catholic Children apart from the Nation--War on Liberal Catholics--Flags of all Nations doing Homage to that of the Pope.
On April 11, 1869, was issued another of those Bulls proclaiming indulgences on which the world has almost ceased to look as one of the forces of history. Nevertheless each of them is a monument to an authority obeyed by disciplined millions, as holding executive power both in this world and the other. Once more were long Latin sentences filled out to tell the faithful that he who had power to bind and to loose proclaimed to them, on the occasion of the Council, full remission of their sins, and indulgence, on condition of their visiting certain basilicas, and saying certain prayers.[142] "This pardon," says the Archbishop of Florence, "was to extend not only till the opening of the Council, but through the whole of its continuance."[143] Millions were thus put under the necessity of imbibing the conviction, that sin against our neighbour and our God admits of being cancelled in such a way, or else of seeming to believe what they did not believe, or of bowing and not asking themselves whether they believed it or not.