But it was all in vain. Our magic failed us; a more powerful magician than we intervened, and everywhere the reaction gained ground against us. Austria, whom we thought we had disposed of, rose Antæus-like from the ground; the Giobertians, predominant in the Subalpine kingdom, would not own us. Florence was deserting us; Venice held out, indeed, but Lombardy was chained by old Radetzky. Great Britain wished us well, gave us good advice, but came not to our aid; and Spain and Portugal, that we thought dead, suddenly started into life against us. Russia, though she loved not the Papacy, detested us, and was ready to interpose to bring Prussia to her senses, and to assist Austria. And last of all, the French Republic, which we had been the principal agents in creating, fearing the preponderance of Austria, and anxious to have an outpost in the Eternal City, sent her troops against us. It was in vain to struggle. I saw clearly that the battle was against us, and that we should never succeed, by political and social revolutions, in effecting our purpose; and I made up my mind at once to have nothing more to do with them. I resolved to return home, and fall back on what I have hinted as an ulterior project. It was in the Autumn of 1849. The abortive attempt to reorganize the German Empire had failed, and not to our regret, since we saw, if reorganized at all, it would not be on democratic principles; the authority of St. Peter was reëstablished at Rome; the Magyars were forever prostrated in Hungary, and our friend Kossuth had taken refuge with his friends the Mussulmans, and France was becoming an orderly government under the Presidency of Louis Napoleon and the conservative majority of the Legislative Assembly. There was nothing more that we could do. It is true, that many of our friends thought differently from me, and wished to continue the struggle; but I told them that, if they did, they must do so without my active coöperation; that I should leave them to their simple human strength, and they would find all their plans miscarry. The time is not opportune. Christianity has yet a stronger hold on the European populations than you or I had calculated, and the Christian party can no longer be duped and made to fight for us. They thrill with horror now to hear us say, “Christianity is democracy, and Jesus Christ was the first democrat.” They are beginning to see, as clearly as we do, that all this is at best absurd, and that our movement is essentially anti-Christian. They see, they admit, they deplore a certain number of political and social abuses; but they believe these abuses more tolerable than the reforms we would effect.