§ 189.1. =Preliminary History of the Council.=--When Pius IX. on the centenary of St. Peter made known to the assembled bishops his intention to summon a general council, they expressed their conviction that by the blessing of the immaculate Virgin it would be a powerful means of securing unity, peace, and holiness. The formal summons was issued on the day of St. Peter and St. Paul of the following year, June 29th, 1868. The end for which the council was convened was stated generally as follows: The saving of the church and civil society from all evils threatening them, the thwarting of the endeavours of all who seek the overthrow of church and state, the uprooting of all modern errors and the downfall of all godless enemies of the apostolical chair. In Germany the Catholic General Assembly which met at Bamberg soon after this declared that from this day a new epoch in the world’s history would begin, for “either the salvation of the world would result from this council, or the world is beyond the reach of help.” This hopefulness prevailed throughout the whole Catholic world. Fostered by the utterances of the _Civiltà Cattolica_, the excitement grew from day to day. The learned bishop _in partibus_ Maret, dean of the theological faculty of Paris, now came forward as an eloquent exponent of the Gallican liberties; even the hitherto so strict Catholic, the Count Montalembert, to the astonishment of everybody, assumed a bold and independent attitude in regard to the council, and energetically protested in a publication of March 7th, 1870, six days before his death, against the intrigues of the Jesuits and the infallibility dogma which it was proposed to authorize. But the greatest excitement was occasioned by the work “_Der Papst und das Konzil_,” published in Leipzig, 1869, under the pseudonym _Janus_, of which the real authors were Döllinger, Friedrich, and Huber of Munich, who brought up the heavy artillery of the most comprehensive historical scholarship against the evident intentions of the curia. The German bishops gathered at the tomb of St. Boniface at Fulda in September, 1869, and issued from thence a general pastoral letter to their disturbed flocks, declaring that it was impossible that the council should decide otherwise than in accordance with holy Scripture and the apostolic traditions and what was already written upon the hearts of all believing Catholics. Also the papal secretary, Card. Antonelli, quieted the anxiety of the ambassadors of foreign powers at Rome by the assurance that the Holy See had in view neither the confirming of the syllabus nor the affirming of the dogma of infallibility. In vain did the Bavarian premier, Prince Hohenlohe, insist that the heads of other governments should combine in taking measures to prevent any encroachment of the council upon the rights of the state.