E-text prepared by Curtis Weyant, Keith M. Eckrich, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
by
Translated From The French By H. C. Coape
New York:D. Appleton and Company,346 & 348 Broadway
1859
It was in the Papal States that I studied the Roman Question. Itravelled over every part of the country; I conversed with men of allopinions, examined things very closely, and collected my informationon the spot.
My first impressions, noted down from day to day without any especialobject, appeared, with some necessary modifications, in the MoniteurUniversel. These notes, truthful, somewhat unconnected, and sothoroughly impartial, that it would be easy to discover in themcontradictions and inconsistencies, I was obliged to discontinue, inconsequence of the violent outcry of the Pontifical Government. I didmore. I threw them in the fire, and wrote a book instead. The presentvolume is the result of a year's reflection.
I completed my study of the subject by the perusal of the most recentworks published in Italy. The learned memoir of the Marquis Pepoli,and the admirable reply of an anonymous writer to M. de Rayneval,supplied me with my best weapons. I have been further enlightened bythe conversation and correspondence of some illustrious Italians, whomI would gladly name, were I not afraid of exposing them to danger.
The pressing condition of Italy has obliged me to write more rapidlythan I could have wished; and this enforced haste has given a certainair of warmth, perhaps of intemperance, even to the most carefullymatured reflections. It was my intention to produce a memoir,—I fearI may be charged with having written a pamphlet. Pardon me certainvivacities of style, which I had not time to correct, and plungeboldly into the heart of the book. You will find something there.
I fight fairly, and in good faith. I do not pretend to have judged thefoes of Italy without passion; but I have calumniated none of them.
If I have sought a publisher in Brussels, while I had an excellent onein Paris, it is not because I feel any alarm on the score of theregulations of our press, or the severity of our tribunals. But as thePope has a long arm, which might reach me in France, I have gone alittle out of the way to tell him the plain truths contained in thesepages.
May 9, 1859.