Page:On papal conclaves (IA a549801700cartuoft).djvu/204

 188 the rising in the Romagna, which was indeed suppressed forthwith, but only to revive in a far more effective shape—in the famous pamphlet I casi delle Romagne, which, written and acknowledged by Massimo d'Azeglio, circulated as the testament of a new political gospel throughout the peninsula. Then there came the memorable visit of the Czar Nicholas to Rome, and those interviews in which the Pope had dared to speak to the dreaded Autocrat words of firm protest against the treatment to which he subjected the Catholic Church in Russia. The interest excited in the political world at the time by this remarkable conference was very great, for on the one hand the religious agitation in Poland had assumed serious proportions, while speculation was stimulated by the mystery surrounding this interview, at which only two witnesses had been allowed to be present. Finally, there had happened the startling nomination as French ambassador of M. Rossi, a born subject of the Pope, fugitive professor from Bologna, and notoriously compromised Liberal, who came avowedly to obtain from the Holy See