The contest between the Papacy and the French Govern- ment
is evidently going farther, but it has not gone very far yet. M. Delcasse, considering the discourteous rebuke recently addressed to the President for visiting Italy an unwarrantable interference in French affairs, has recalled the Ambassador to the Vatican; but the Nuncio has not received his passports, and communication cannot therefore be said to have been broken off. The Liberals of the Assembly are eager that advantage should be taken of the opportunity; but the Government evidently shrinks from a step which it thinks must be followed by the abolition of the Concordat, and the consequent adoption of some new method of controlling the Church, which if left free would immediately become the centre
of resistance to Republican authority. The lay rulers of France, in fact, though they could easily suppress all monasteries, do not like to surrender the right of nominating the Bishops. It is worth while noticing that no one proposes the adoption of a step which during the controversy between Henry VIII. and the Papacy had a great effect,—viz., to forbid the transmission of money to Rome. That could not be stopped in our day without an interference with banking arrangements which the whole financial world would resent.
