It is significant that Joseph II. much as he had encouraged the Electors, one of whom, Maximilian, was his brother, in their hostility to the Holy See, nevertheless he received the acts of the Congress coldly; it was not his policy to permit so much power to the German bishops when he had already decided that all ecclesiastical authority in his dominions was to reside in his own hands. Nor was the King of Prussia, Protestant as he was, any more enthusiastic in support of the rebellious Electors. On the contrary he accorded to the Papal nuncio, Mgr. Pacca, every reasonable service, even receiving the latter, with all the formalities due to his ambassadorial character, at Wesel, in 1788. In fact the advent of this great representative of the Holy See proved a God-sent blessing to the Catholic people of the German States; for the spirit of revolt so obstinately settled in the minds of the ecclesiastical princes, found no echo in the hearts of their subjects, always as loyal to the Holy Father as they were disgusted and humiliated by the time-serving attitude of those to whom they had the right to look for guidance and example. The anger of the four archbishops against Mgr. Pacca increased despite all reverses. In 1788 they petitioned the Diet of Ratisbonne to cause the framing of a law suppressing altogether the nunciatures. The German princes, however, had no intention of issuing thus a formal insult to the Court of Rome, and the law was not passed. Moreover, the archbishops had by this time discovered that their suffragans had taken umbrage at the fact that they were not officially notified as to the proceedings of the Congress of Ems, thus weakening the effect of that assembly in its most vital point, the adhesion of the episcopate to the repudiation of Papal authority. Finally, after various vain attempts to gain the aid of the secular princes, three of the archbishops, those of Salzburg, Treves, and Cologne, yielded a tardy obedience to the authority of the Pope; the Archbishop of Mayence, von Erthal, held obstinately to his position until after seeing himself abandoned by his quondam friends, he was at length driven from his See by the advent of the French revolutionary troops in 1793. By this event Febronianism lost, for a time at least, the influence it had exerted for thirty years over the Church in Germany. _THE SYNOD OF PISTOIA._