The King of Piedmont must have been sadly blinded by revolutionary teachings not to see—if, indeed, he did not see—that such professions of loyalty and devotedness were positively derisive. Pius IX. so viewed them, and gave the intriguing monarch to understand that he did so. The moderation of his language is but slightly indicative of the sorrow and indignation which he must have experienced. “The idea which your majesty has thought fit to lay before me is highly imprudent, unworthy, most assuredly, of a king who is a Catholic and a member of the house of Savoy. You may read my reply in an Encyclical which will soon appear. I am deeply affected, not on my own account, but by the deplorable state of your majesty’s soul. You are already under the ban of censures, which, alas! will be aggravated when the sacrilegious act which you and your accomplices are meditating shall have been consummated. May the Lord enlighten you and give you grace to understand and to bewail the scandals which have occurred, and the fearful evils with which unfortunate Italy has been visited through your co-operation.” (M69) About this time diplomatists discovered the convenient political doctrine of non-intervention. It was, like most diplomatic devices, a fallacy. But it served its purpose. The Catholic Powers, however friendly to the Holy See, were unable to intervene. The greatest of them all, Austria, was put _hors de combat_ at Solferino. Prussia had intervened, as far as its policy required, when it forbade further hostilities after the great battle which made France the mistress of the destinies of Italy. England, which, as a Protestant Power, had no great friendship for the Holy See, found it suitable to preach non-intervention, as an excuse for not being able or for not daring to aid her ancient and faithful ally, the Pope, in opposition to her new friend, the Emperor of the French. England, at least, was consistent, for, while she proclaimed and practised non-intervention in favor of the French Emperor’s subversive intervention in Italy, she adhered most devoutly to the doctrine when there was question, a little later, of aiding France against the crushing power of Prussia.