"It is astonishing how the Treatise on the Government of the Church and the Authority of the Pope, by Febronius has made so much noise in some of the states of Germany; neither in its depth nor in its form was this book ever capable of impressing men of intellect or such as pretend to the faculty of reasoning. Whatever of truth the author produces is taken from French theologians, particularly from Bossuet, in his _Defense of the Declaration of the Clergy of France of 1682_; his falsehoods and errors are extracted from Protestants and Jansenists, or from those canonists who seek to humiliate the Court of Rome in her time of trouble. Various materials, which were never intended to be taken together, have been maladroitly compiled by Febronius; he has lighted torches which destroy each other; as he never takes his stand upon principles universally admitted, he is continually falling into contradictions; he denies in one place what he affirms in another; he sustains one theory at the very time that he professes to reject it; it would be sufficient to compare the titles of the sections and chapters of his work, to perceive that he either does not understand what he writes, or that he is not in accord with himself." The Abbe thereupon goes on to point out the most glaring contradictions in the work, and to show that to any person not yet blinded by prejudice, the very contention of the author is destroyed by his evident lack of truthfulness. In 1778, through the influence brought to bear upon the Archbishop Elector of Treves by the Papal nuncios, Caprara and Bellisomi, Febronius was led to reconsider his action, and signed a retractation of his errors in a letter sent to Pope Pius VI. Three years later, however, in 1781, he published a _Commentary_ on his _Retraction_, which served to show the spirit of insincerity which dominated him throughout his whole career. He died in 1790. Febronianism was not so disastrous in itself as (it proved to be) in its consequences. Its immediate result was a weakening of that loyalty which Catholic peoples owe to the centre of unity in the Holy See; but through all that, it affected, in a certain way, the very foundations of the social and political life of Europe. Although its immediate effects were almost simultaneous in their action, yet for the sake of brevity we shall notice them in order. 1. The revolt of the Elector archbishops of Germany. 2. The schism of Scipio de Ricci. 3. The final development into Josepheism. _THE CONGRESS OF EMS._