My friends insisted on visiting the building: I dissuaded them, however, from attempting it, assuring them that no one of its inmates would open the doors to us, without our using a degree of violence which would be highly unbecoming. The monk had already left us, and we descended the stairs we had previously mounted. The great gateway of entrance was no longer unoccupied: the porter was there with some other persons; among them I recognised one of the gaolers, whom I well remembered, as he was the same that kept me in custody, in the year 1842. Two others also I knew, who were spies of the Inquisition. The gaoler was courteous enough in his way. "Good day, Signor, how fares it with you?" "And how fares it with you?" I returned. "Are you still gaolers of the Inquisition? Have they not yet dismissed you?" "No, we have not been dismissed, we are still in the exercise of our functions; we are all paid as usual, and as long as that is the case, you know, we are bound to continue our service." "It is an evil employment: how is it that you are not ashamed to be found in it? Besides, it is a dangerous one now. The very name of the Inquisition is sufficient to compromise any one, at the present juncture. Take my advice, my friend, and before you are turned out by force, depart of your own accord. Should the people be given to understand that the Inquisition still continues, that all its officials are still in this place, judges, commissioners, clerks, keepers, spies, and consequently dungeons and prisoners, I assure you, the building would soon be set fire to, and those consumed who belong to it." I have entered into this minute detail, to show that the Inquisition, as it existed in former times, still continued under Pius IX.; and that when he took flight with his cardinals, he left it on the same footing as usual. Indeed, I am not wrong in asserting that Pius IX. and the cardinals gave strict orders that no one belonging to the Inquisition should quit his post on pain of certain expulsion. A further proof of this is, that after our visit to the Inquisition all the inmates remained at their post, until the Triumvirate sent to turn them out by force, and took possession of the place with all that it contained. It is a fact, then, that Popery is always the same; barbarous, as in the middle ages, in which it took its rise; ferocious, as in the time of Gregory VII.; increasing in cruelty more and more, as under Innocent III., Boniface VIII., Paul IV., Pius V.; and stolid, as since the restoration in 1815: always seeking to connect itself with kings, and to model its cabinet on the plan of that of Austria and of Russia. Popery always has the same spirit, and the same laws; though, with respect to its habits and temper, it not unfrequently wears a mask. Thus, Pius IX. put on the show of liberality; but this pope, believed so liberal by many, was always secretly combined with the Jesuits and the Inquisition.