Count Trautmansdorff and M. Beust have received from Antonelli one of those quieting and entirely conciliatory answers that clerical statesman is so fond of pouring forth in all directions.(62) Its substance is as follows: in theory, and as regards what the scholastics called universals, where high and far-reaching principles have to be established, the Church is inexorable; there she cannot abandon an iota of her claims, and must draw and force home the sword of anathema. She must therefore necessarily pronounce modern civilisation, with its freedoms, a medley of soul-destroying errors, must raise the banner of coercion and forcible suppression, and accordingly condemn freedom of religious profession and of the press. But in practice—in Concordats and special Indults and concessions of graces—the Pope is not so strict and inexorable; there he is open to negotiations, and the separate Governments can obtain from him as a favour the actual toleration of what in theory he most solemnly condemns, of course only _durante beneplacito_, so long as it pleases him and the Governments behave well and don’t deserve to be punished by the withdrawal of their indults and privileges. And that is so long as circumstances remain unaltered, for it is self-evident that, as soon as the temper of public opinion and the political situation become such as to offer any prospect of an ecclesiastical pretension being successfully urged, the indult will be abrogated and the practice conformed to the theory. Antonelli always has both pockets full of such distinctions between the strict and hard theory and the mild and indulgent pliability in practice, and no diplomatist leaves him without such consolation. De Banneville has always been satisfied with the fare thus set before him by the Secretary of State. Trautmansdorff has so far the advantage, that the doctrines of Church and State imposed by the Court of Rome on the Council give the Austrian Government a very convenient handle for declaring the legal abolition of the Concordat, which is practically torn to pieces already; for with a Pope who has become infallible and feels himself called to be the supreme judge of right and wrong, though there may indeed be an armistice, no real and genuine peace and no treaty is possible.