The above incident is the first related in the sumptuous volume of Cecconi, written by command of the Pope, who, after it appeared, conferred on the author the archbishopric of Florence. That volume exclusively narrates the secret proceedings of the five years which intervened between this meeting and the opening of the Vatican Council. But, while telling us what took place on December 6, the Court historian passes in dead silence over the eighth. On that day, however, the Vatican launched manifestoes which had been for years in preparation, and which have been mentioned every day since. These summed up all the past policy of Pius IX, and formed a basis for the future government of the world. They furnished to the Vatican Council, still five years distant, the kernel of its decrees, both those passed and those only presented. They are, in fact, printed with the Freiburg edition of its _Acta_ as preparatory documents. December is to Pius IX, as it is to the Bonapartes, a month of solemn anniversaries. On the eighth of that month, ten years previously to the time of which we are writing, surrounded by two hundred bishops, he proclaimed the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary as a doctrine of the Church. In his own imagination, this act formed an epoch of glory, to the lustre of which three distinct triumphs contributed. In the first place, a darling bye-belief was lifted from the humble posture of pious opinion, to that of a dogma binding on all, who must admit changes into their creed with every change of Rome. In the second place, a new and mighty advance in the power of the Papacy was achieved, for a formal addition to the creed was made without the sanction of a General Council. Those bishops who attended manifestly acted, not as members of a co-ordinate branch of a legislature, but as councillors of an autocrat. The absent were placed under the necessity of accepting the _fait accompli_, or of attempting to undo it in the face of the Pontiff, the Curia, and the majority of the prelates. "Gallicanism," said the _Civiltá Cattolica_, "was, in fact, bruised under the heel of the Immaculate, when Pius IX., by his own authority, laid down the definition."[5] Thirdly, an impression of the personal inspiration of Pius IX was conveyed, with embellishments, so as to prepare the way for the recognition of his infallibility.