The Moniteur announces that, at the request of,tbe Sovereign Pontiff,
the French troops have retreated from Rome to Civita. Vecchia, having thus actually begun the evacuation of the ponti- cal states. They have done so without awaiting the result of Lord Cowley's negotiations at Vienna, a fact which casts some doubts upon the assurances given last week as to the perfect understanding that was to prevent a breach of the peace. In- deed the admission which Lord Malmesbury made on Mon- day night, that the information of the Government was not so precise as the public had been led to infer from Mr. Disraeli's reply on the previous Friday, had al- ready abated the public confidenoe ; and for our own part we must say that our own advices from the Continent do not tend to render our assurance more absolute. A well-informed Parisian contemporary, understood to represent Austrian views in Paris, the Memorial Diplomatique, tells us at once that it is some months since Pins the Ninth intimated to his powerful allies in Paris and Vienna his wish for the withdrawal of their troops, and that, " with a just regard for his dignity and the indepen- dence of his Government, the Holy Father thought himself bound to defer the reforms which it is his intention to accord, until the departure of the last foreign soldier." His Reform Bill, there- fore, is to be introduced and enacted in the interval between tb,Q. foreign occupation and domestic tunalli...tvai of inappre- ciable duration.
People at Vienna French reports vernme "
in some surprise at the English and continued preparations by the Austrian Go- ,•ecause the Austrian Government is always prepared .orself-defence on any scale that may be necessary. There is some truth in this ; though as we have already stated, the dis- tribution of Austrian forces has for a long time past, been of a kind to justify the keenest jealousies for even so much of inde- pendence as the Italian Governments have down to this moment retained ; and the latest reports are still of continued military movements.
The most important fact, however, which results from these later explanations is, that although there has been a general understanding that the Sovereign Pontiff, in form at least, was to take the initiative by requesting the withdrawal of the troops, he has not actually arranged the preliminaries which would be essential to secure peace in his own dominions ; that although Austria has some time since intimated her readiness to withdraw from the Papal States should France do so, there has not been any definite arrangement of the bases on which Lord. Cowley's negotiations are to be conducted ; and that, although the British Government has seen the necessity of sending Lord Cowley, clothed with a French as well as English authority, to find out what that joint influence can do in bringing Austria to reason, there is no reason to suppose that the relative bearing of Austria, France, Piedmont, Rome, and despotic Governments in Italy, has materially changed within the last month. The one person who seems to have taken time by the forelock, to have prepared his combinations, and to be at once moderating the impatience of the Italians, yet ready to guide the storm, is the Emperor Na- poleon.