Everyone knows the history of that year, when one Emperor, several Kings, and numerous princes and ministers scattered in all directions, like men running away from a fire that is just going to reach a quantity of explosives. The fire was the reaction after long inactivity. Pius the Ninth fled like the rest, when his favourite minister, Count Rossi, had been stabbed to death on the steps of the Cancelleria. Some of the sovereigns got safely back to their thrones. The Pope was helped back by France and kept on his throne, first by the Republic, and then, with one short intermission, by Louis Napoleon. In 1870, the French needed all their strength for their own battles, and gave up fighting those of the Vatican. During that long period, from 1849 to 1870, Pius the Ninth governed Rome in comparative security, in spite of occasional revolutionary outbreaks, and in kindness if not in wisdom. Taxation was insignificant. Work was plentiful and well paid, considering the country and the times. Charities were enormous. The only restriction on liberty was political, never civil. Reforms and improvements of every kind were introduced. When Gregory the Sixteenth died, Rome was practically a mediaeval city; when the Italians took it, twenty-four years later, it was a fairly creditable modern capital. The government of Pius the Ninth was paternal, and if he was not a wise father, he was at all events the kindest of men. The same cannot be said of Cardinal Antonelli, his prime minister, who was the best hated man of his day, not only in Europe and Italy, but by a large proportion of Churchmen. He was one of those strong and unscrupulous men who appeared everywhere in Europe as reactionaries in opposition to the great revolution. On a smaller scale--perhaps because he represented a much smaller power--he is to be classed with Disraeli, Metternich, Cavour and Bismarck. In palliation of many of his doings, it should be remembered that he was not a priest; for the Cardinalate is a dignity not necessarily associated with the priesthood, and Antonelli was never ordained. He was a fighter and a schemer by nature, and he schemed and fought all his life for the preservation of the temporal power in Rome. He failed, and lived to see his defeat, and he remained till his death immured in the Vatican with Pius the Ninth. He used to live in a small and almost mean apartment, opening upon the grand staircase that leads up from the court of Saint Damasus. When the Italians entered Rome through the breach at the Porta Pia, Italy was unified. It is a curious fact that Italy was never at any time unified except by force. The difference between the unification under Julius Caesar and Augustus, and the unification under Victor Emmanuel, is very simple. Under the first Caesars, Rome conquered the Italians; under the House of Savoy, the Italians conquered Rome.