The scene at Milan, and that at St. Peter's, similar to the ardent Ultramontane, would strike us rather by contrast. On the former threshold we see a Christian pastor guarding the Lord's Table. On the latter, a king, and an aspirant after universal political supremacy, guarding the secret of his own counsels. Outside the Milan threshold we see one sinner in purple, while the common Christians are free to approach. Outside the Vatican are all members of Churches whom the king in purple and scarlet acknowledges as members of his own Church. The people are disfranchised with the princes at their head. The priests had long been losing their franchise in the election of their bishops. More recently they had been losing their freehold in their parishes. When the Jesuits obtained possession of Pius IX, the parish priest had a life interest in his parish subject to good behaviour. But this formed too much of a tie to the nation. The parochial clergy had to be mobilized. So, gradually, they had been put into berths only by temporary appointment, and held the place _ad nutum_, at the nod of the bishop. They had been glad that the sword _in the hand_ of the king should not be in his power, but at the nod of the priest. It was scarcely so pleasant that the parish, in the hand of the priest, should be at the nod of the bishop. The making of it so had already to a large extent been accomplished. It was now to be completed; but those tyrannous kings might attempt to check the move by what they would call protecting the lower clergy, what the Vatican would call destroying the liberty of the Church. The whole spirit of the Jesuit Press at this period indicated that the Modern State had so wearied out the Vatican that the only chance for kings to make their peace with it would lie in separating their cause from that of parliaments and constitutions. If they meant to be tolerated long after the Council, they must not only reign but govern--govern Catholic States under the Syllabus. A ruler by divine right--which among the baptized means one instituted by the Pope and corrected by him--is the essence of the matter. "THE POPE AND THE PEOPLE!" is the last exclamation of M. Veuillot, on the eve of the day when the nations were to come to judgment--on the eve of the day when the salutary conspiracy recommended by the _Civiltá_ with its first breath was to hold its crowning conclave, when the holy Crusade, heralded with the same breath, was to receive both its legal warrant and its world-wide impulse. A triumphal arch was to mark the completion of a stage of toil and the entrance upon a stage of transformation. "THE POPE AND THE PEOPLE. I believe that these words are invisibly written on the door of this Vatican Council, which door forms the entrance to a _new world_; rather is it a triumphal arch erected on the rediscovered highway of the human race."[195]