revolution in France and Belgium, which they had imitated from the beginning, the events transpiring in Portugal and Spain proved to them that their cause would become hopeless only by ignominious surrender. In Portugal, revolution had ended in civil war and the complete subjugation of the retrogressive papal party, the _suppression of the Jesuits_, and the confiscation of their property. Gregory XVI, in the supposed plenitude of his spiritual power, had attempted to interfere, and threatened the authors of this revolution with excommunication and other forms of pontifical malediction. But his curses only intensified the determination to put an end to retrogression, so that Portugal could take her place among the progressive nations. In Spain events of the same character were also transpiring. The Jesuits _were again suppressed_, because they were the reputed authors of all public calamities, and even the nuncio of the pope was expelled from the country. Such examples as these, occurring among kindred populations of the same religion, could not fail to incite fresh hopes in the minds of those Italians who were not becoming timid and in renewing the courage of those who were. Nevertheless, the presence of the Austrians compelled them still longer to await the coming of future events, some of which were then beginning "to cast their shadows before." We now reach a period when the scenes began to shift, and new actors appeared--of whom thousands yet living have formed favorable or unfavorable opinions, according to the standpoint from which they have considered them. Gregory XVI died in 1846, leaving the revolution unsuppressed--the storm still raging. He had been enabled, by the presence of the Austrian army, to prevent any formidable outbreak in the disaffected provinces, but could accomplish nothing more than to leave to his successor, Pius IX, the inheritance of temporal power, not merely threatened, but seriously imperiled. The condition of things existing at the time of the latter's election can not be more aptly described than in the language of a distinguished author who has written the life of Pius IX. He says: