Manifestly, however, his anger was specially aroused at the thought of religious toleration, which, looked at from the papal standpoint, meant the loss of monarchical power and, consequently, heresy. With this tremendous combination confronting them--composed, as it was, of the papacy, the allied sovereigns, and the Jesuits--what other remedy but revolution was within reach of the people? How else could they prevent the continued union of Church and State, the complete triumph of monarchism, and the crushing defeat of constitutional and popular government? Nobody needs to be told to what extremities the allied sovereigns were ready and willing to go to accomplish these results; and when supported by a pope like Pius VII, and he by the Jesuits, whose society he had re-established for that express purpose, they possessed an organization of such a character, so formidable and vast in its proportions, that there was left to the multitude no other possibility of escape than by asserting, as the people of the United States had done, their natural right to civil and religious liberty. No question about the form of religious faith was involved, except in so far as the pope, the allied sovereigns, and the Jesuits were united in maintaining that the only true religion was that based upon the joint monarchism of Church and State--in other words, that the faculties of the human mind should remain undeveloped in order to fit the people for inferiority and passive obedience to authority. Hence, when the Roman Catholic populations came to realize what Protestantism had done in a few centuries to enlighten and elevate multitudes of people, it required but little intelligent thought to see that the combination which threatened to deprive them of liberties essential to their welfare was violative of the true faith of the Church they revered, and from whose proper teachings they were unwilling to depart. They could readily understand that it was the papacy, and not the Church, that had led them to the very edge of a fearful precipice. They were animated by the inspiring influence of liberty--always broad, generous, conciliatory. Yielding, therefore, to the instinctive teachings of nature, they found themselves no less desirous than others to enjoy the protection of constitutional government, and no less willing than others to resort to the ultimate remedy of revolution when assured that their just rights could not otherwise be obtained. Thus only are we enabled to account intelligently for the revolutions in the Roman Catholic States--organized, as they were, to resist the tremendous conspiracy of European monarchists, in both Church and State, to defeat the formation of popular constitutional governments, and to overthrow them where they had been formed.