"'That is absolutely true, Most Holy Father: you see how the _Gazette de France_ deals with me,'--for I know that His Holiness reads all our newspapers, not excepting the _Courrier_--'and still the Sovereign Pontiff treats me with extreme kindness; I have reason to believe, therefore, that the _Gazette_ does not make a great impression on him.'--The Pope laughed and shook his head.--'Well, Most Holy Father, there are others like Your Holiness; when the paper tells the truth, the good it says remains; if it lies, it is as though it had said nothing at all. The Pope must expect some speeches during this session: the Extreme Right will maintain that M. le Cardinal Bernetti is not a priest and that his letters on the ordinances are not articles of faith; the Extreme Left will declare that we need not have taken our orders from Rome. The majority will commend the deference of the Privy Council and will loudly praise the spirit of peace and wisdom of Your Holiness.' "This little explanation appeared to charm the Holy Father, who was pleased to meet with some one acquainted with the workings of our constitutional machine. Finally, monsieur le comte, thinking that the King and his Council would like to know the views of the Pope on the present state of affairs in the East, I repeated some news out of the papers, not being authorized to communicate to the Holy See the positive facts of which you informed me in your dispatch of the 18th December touching the recall of our expedition to the Morea. "The Pope did not hesitate to reply; he appeared to me to be alarmed at the imprudence of instructing the Turks in military discipline. I give his own words: "'If the Turks are already capable of resisting Russia, what will their power be when they have obtained a glorious peace? Who will prevent them, after four or five years spent in rest and in perfecting their new tactics, from hurling themselves upon Italy?' "I will confess, monsieur le comte, that, when I recognised these ideas and these anxieties in the mind of the Sovereign most exposed to the effects of the consequence of the enormous error that has been committed, I congratulated myself on having displayed to you in fuller detail, in my Note on Eastern Affairs, the same ideas and the same anxieties. "'Nothing,' added the Pope, 'except a firm resolution on the part of the Allied Powers, can put an end to a misfortune which threatens the future. France and England are still in time to stop everything; but, if a new campaign open, it can set Europe on fire, and then it will be too late to extinguish it.' "'That reflection is the more just,' I answered, 'seeing that, if Europe were to become divided, which God forbid, the presence of fifty thousand Frenchmen would stir up the whole question again.'