The fifteen years' pontificate of Gregory XVI. ended on the 1st June of 1846. In spite of the care taken by those around him to keep the aged pontiff in a fool's paradise with regard to the real state of his dominions, a copy of _The Late Events in Romagna_ fell into his hands, and considerably disturbed his peace of mind. He sent two prelates to look into the condition of the congested provinces, and their tour, though it resulted in nothing else, called forth new protests and supplications from the inhabitants, of which the most noteworthy was an address written by Count Aurelio Saffi, who was destined to pass many honourable years of exile in England. This address attacked the root of the evil in a passage which exposed the unbearable vexations of a government based on espionage. The acknowledged power of an irresponsible police was backed by the secret force of an army of private spies and informers. The sentiment of legality was being stamped out of the public conscience, and with it religion and morality. 'Bishops have been heard to preach civil war--a crusade against the Liberals; priests seem to mix themselves in wretched party strife, egging on the mob to vent its worst passions. There is not a Catholic country in which the really Christian priest is so rarely found as in the States of the Church.'
If Gregory XVI. was not without reasons for disquietude in his last hours, he could take comfort in the fact that he had succeeded in keeping railways out of all parts of his dominions. Gas and suspension bridges were also classed as works of the Evil One, and vigorously tabooed. Among the Pope's subjects there was a young prelate who had never been able to make out what there was subversive to theology in a steam-engine, or why the safety of the Papal government should depend on its opposing every form of material improvement, although in discussing these subjects he generally ended by saying: 'After all I am no politician, and I may be mistaken.' This prelate was Cardinal Mastai-Ferretti, Bishop of Imola. Born in 1792 at Sinigaglia, of a good though rather needy family, Count Giovanni Maria Mastai was piously brought up by his mother, who dedicated him at an early age to the Virgin, to whom she believed that she owed his recovery from an illness which had been pronounced fatal. Roman Catholic writers connect the promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception with this incident of childhood. After entering the priesthood, young Mastai devoted most of his energies to active charity, and remained, as he said, 'no politician,' being singularly ignorant of the world and of public affairs, though full of amiable wishes that everyone should be happy. Some years spent in missionary work in South America failed to enlarge his practical knowledge, the limits of which he was the first to recognise--a fact that tended to make him all his life the instrument, not of his own will, but of the wills of men whom he honestly thought cleverer and more experienced than himself. His chief friends in his Romagnol diocese, friends on the intimate basis of social equality and common provincial interests, were sound patriots, though not revolutionists, and the future Pio Nono involuntarily adopted their ideas and sympathies. He saw with his eyes certain abuses so glaring that they admitted of no two opinions, and these helped to convince him of the truth of his friends' arguments in favour of a completely new order of things. One such abuse was the encouragement given by government to the Society of the Centurioni, the latest evolution of the Calderai; the Centurions, recruited among roughs and peasants, were set upon the respectable middle classes, over which they tyrannised by secret accusations or open violence: it was well understood that anyone called a Liberal, or Freemason, or Carbonaro could be beaten or killed without inquiries being made.