15 DECEMBER 1866, Page 1

NEWS OF THE WEEK.

TliE event of the week, and it may be the event of the year, is the evacuation of Rome. The Due de Mon- tebello, Commander-in-Chief of the expeditionary force, re- ceived his final orders on Saturday, and on Sunday presented an address to the Pope declaring that the Holy See would still remain under the moral protection of France. His Holiness replied, with some dignity and much bitterness, that all Catholic hearts were alarmed at their departure, and that he himself believed the Revolution would enter Rome. Then. suddenly throwing up his arms with a gesture which, it is said, awed the sceptical Frenchmen, he burst out against the Emperor,—" They say his health is not very good ; I pray for his health. They say his mind is not at ease ; I pray for his soul. The French are a Christian nation ; their Chief ought to be Christian also," words which, the French newspapers have been forbidden to reprint. Despite this utterance, on Tuesday, the 11th inst., the French flag came down from the Castle of St. Angelo, and the French troops quitted Rome. Within next week they will all have quitted Civita Vecchia also, and Italy will at last be free of the foreigner. For the present, the mot d'ordre in Rome is, "Order, and our municipal liberties." The Pope has not fled, and no disorders have occurred.