The Pope’s reply to Napoleon’s letter of 31st December is of some length. Elegant in expression, forcible in reasoning, it can only be briefly reviewed. “I am under the necessity of declaring to your majesty that I cannot cede the legations without violating the oaths by which I am bound, without causing misfortune and disturbance in the other provinces, without doing wrong and giving scandal to all Catholics, without weakening the rights of the sovereigns of Italy, unjustly despoiled of their dominions, but also the sovereigns of the whole Christian world, who could not see with indifference great principles trampled under foot.” The Emperor had insisted that the cession of the legations by the Pope was necessary, in order to put an end to the disturbances, which, according to him, although he knew that such disturbances proceeded wholly from foreigners, had, for the last fifty years, caused embarrassment to the Pontifical government. “Who,” said the Pope, “could count the revolutions that have occurred in France during the last seventy years? And yet, who would dare maintain that the great French nation is under the necessity, in order to secure the peace of Europe, to narrow the limits of the Empire? Your argument proves too much. So I must discard it. Your majesty is not ignorant by what parties, with what money, and with what support, were committed the spoliations of Bologna, Ravenna, and other cities.” The Imperial letter was communicated to all the newspapers. The reply of the Pope was carefully withheld from them. It only became known in France, some time later, through a German translation in the Austrian _Gazette_. Pius IX. was anxious, meantime, that the public should hear both sides of the question. He therefore brought to the knowledge of the Catholic world the principal points of his answer to Napoleon in the Encyclical, _nullis certe verbis_, of date 19th January, in which he declared that he was prepared to suffer the last extremities rather than betray the cause of the church and of justice. He also invited all the bishops to join with him in praying _that God would arise and vindicate his cause_.