War with Austria soon became the popular cry; and when the people of the provinces were apprised that the pope did not favor it, they began at once to look in another direction for assistance. The relations between Austria and Sardinia had long been hostile, and it was natural that they should look to an alliance with Piedmont, then armed, for the protection the pope refused. When Pius IX became sufficiently composed to anticipate even the possibility of such a step as this, he, probably for the first time, was made to realize how rapidly dangers were gathering and thickening around the papacy, and how incompetent he would be to encounter them, if the popular vengeance, aroused by his indifference and neglect, should be turned against him. He was, accordingly, induced to yield again to the better impulses of his nature, and attempted to turn away the public wrath by additional measures of reform. There were some political prisoners who had not been included in his amnesty, and these were pardoned. He also had the walls pulled down which separated the Jews from the other parts of the population. But these measures, although important, were of slight consequence so long as the Jesuits were permitted to remain in Rome. Their society, was regarded as a cankerous sore eating at the heart of society, with an appetite too voracious to be appeased. They had been driven from every city in the provinces, and were followed by a degree of popular odium which would have dispirited any other body of men. But so far from that effect having been produced upon them, their knowledge of the disrepute in which they were held had the effect only to intensify their hatred of everything that tended to aid the cause of the people in their efforts to secure a constitution. Having found shelter in Rome, they crowded around the pope, practicing all their arts in playing upon his vanity, inciting his passions, and turning him against the people. At last the measure of popular odium which rested upon them became so great that Pius IX was awakened to a consciousness of their dangerous presence, and he _drove them out of Italy_. It required some courage to do this, but it would have required infinitely more not to do it, inasmuch as the detestation in which they were held was well-nigh universal among the people, large numbers of whom were disposed to attribute to their influence alone much of what was done by the pope. Their expulsion, under the circumstances, was, therefore, creditable to Pius IX, not alone because it was done in deference to public opinion, but because it indicated that he had become apprised of their evil influences, and was desirous to avoid them.