Let there be prayer with confidence and perseverance, and this great and powerful nation may obtain what it desires. Depart, my children; I impart to you my benediction, and with it my wish that it may attend you throughout the journey of life. Think not that you leave me here alone and deprived of all resource. God remains with me; in Him I place my trust!” Pius IX., in a more private communication, said: “Yes, God sustains His vicar and aids his weakness. He may permit him to be driven away, but only in order to show, once more, that he can bring him back. I have been exiled; I returned from exile. If banished anew, I will again return. And if I die—well! if I die, Peter will rise again!” Thus did Pius IX. clearly foresee the danger but was not on that account less confident. Nor did his confidence lessen his foresight. What, indeed, he said publicly, “The revolution will come here,” everyone capable of reasoning said in secret. The September convention left the small Pontifical sovereignty surrounded on all sides by its enemies, just as the government of Napoleon III. would have been if isolated in Paris and the two neighboring departments, all the rest of the French territory being in the power of a republic, or a Bourbon Monarchy. In vain did M. Rouher endeavor to demonstrate to the Chambers that a stable equilibrium was established, and which was of such a character as to remain by itself for an indefinite period. Nobody was convinced by his reasoning. But the Imperial majorities, recruited as they were by the system of official candidatures, asked not of the complaisant minister reasons which he had not to give. They sought only pretexts which should allow them to vote, with a show of decency, according to the wishes of the master.