The Times correspondent in Paris evidently apprehends, as we do,
that the Vatican will fight the French Government upon the question of the investitures, and reports a new plan suggested by M. Clemenceau for bringing the Papacy to terms. This is the withdrawal of the French Ambassador from the Vatican, which would be followed, of course, by the withdrawal of the Nuncio from Paris. Except as a clear advertisement of the bitterness of the quarrel, we do not see precisely what that innovation would effect. The Pope would lose nothing except a certain amount of honour, and would readily find another supreme agent among the Bishops of France. The suspension of the Budget of Public Worship, which would involve a suspension of Peter's Pence, would be more effective, and this, we take it, the Vatican is prepared to face. It is not so easy to crush a power that works through the mind alone, and we see no proof that the masses in France are prepared to dispense with the usual offices of their religion. If they are, cadit quaestio ; but are they ? They certainly were not during the Revolution, for Napoleon, who understood his countrymen, made it his first business on assuming the Imperial Crown to restore the hierarchy and the freedom of public worship.
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