Cavour, the cabinet, and the king were already labouring under the penalties of excommunication by the Bull issued in the spring against all who had taken part in the annexation of Romagna. When Prince Charles of Lorraine in 1690 advised the Emperor to withdraw his claims to Spain and concentrate his energies on uniting Italy, he observed that in order to join the kingdom of Naples with Lombardy, it would be necessary to reduce the Pope to the sole city of Rome. This most able statesman of the House of Hapsburg continued: "The services of very learned doctors should be obtained to instruct the people, both by word of mouth and by writing, on the inutility and illusion of excommunications when it is a question of temporalities, which Jesus Christ never destined to His Church, and which she cannot possess without outraging His example and compromising His Gospel." Cavour did not seek the learned doctors, because he knew that the religious side of the matter, however vital it seemed to the young Breton noblemen who enlisted under Lamoricière, left unmoved the Pope's subjects, who had a mixture of scorn and hatred for the rule of priests, such as was not felt for any government in Italy. For the rest, familiarity lessens the effect of spiritual fulminations, and even of those not spiritual. For three months Cavour had sustained the running fire of all except one of the foreign representatives at Turin; as he wrote to the Marquis E. d'Azeglio: "I have the whole _corps diplomatique_ on my back, Hudson excepted; I let them have their say and I go on." He deplored the sad fate of diplomacy, which always took the most interest in bad causes, and was the more favourable to a government the worse it was.[1] If _ces messieurs_ protested or departed, they must; he could not arrest the current. If he tried, it would carry him away with it, "which would not be a great evil," but it would carry away the dynasty also. The Peace of Villafranca had caused the Italians to conceive an irresistible desire for unity--events were stronger than men, and he should only stop before fleets and armies.
[Footnote 1: We are reminded of a remark of Prince Bismarck: "Personne, pas même le plus malveillant démocrate, ne se fait une idée de ce qu'il y a de nullité et de charlatanisme dans cette diplomatie."]