The Piedmontese government, which had been for some time established at Florence, now resolved to avail itself of the disasters of France to seize the city of the Popes, and to constitute it the capital of regenerated Italy. The minister, Visconti Venosta, in a circular letter, renewed his calumnies, pretending that a hostile power existed in the centre of Italy, and hypocritically declared that it had become necessary that the government of his master should assume the protection of the Holy See. They would not wait, he said, moreover, till the agitation at home should lead to the effusion of blood between the Romans and foreign forces, but would proceed, as soon as they could learn that the opportune time had come, to occupy what remained to the Holy Father of the Roman States. The information which the minister sought came with remarkable rapidity. The day after the circular alluded to was written, another minister, Signor Lanza, declared that the solemn moment had arrived when the government of his king was called upon, in the interest of the Holy See and of Italy, to take measures for the national safety. An envoy was despatched to Rome, with a letter to the Pope, assuring him that the king’s government was firmly resolved to give the necessary guarantees for the spiritual independence of the Holy See, and that these guarantees would be hereafter the subject of negotiations with the Powers that were interested in the Papacy. In addition to this mockery of diplomacy, Victor Emmanuel himself wrote to the Pope, expressing his filial devotedness, while at the same time he was preparing, from an excess of affection, to bombard his city and slay his defenders, to rob him from an excessive zeal for justice, to imprison him in order to set him free, and, finally, that he ought to allow all this to be done without complaint, and even thank the good king who took so much care of him.