'There is,' said Ampère, 'but it is torpid. It punishes bad priests, but does little else.'
'If a Roman,' I asked, 'were an avowed infidel, would it take notice of him?'
'Probably not,' said Ampère, 'but his curé might—not for his infidelity, but for his avowing it. The curé who has always the powers of a commissaire de police, might put him in prison if he went into a café and publicly denied the Immaculate Conception, or if he neglected going to church or to confession: but the Inquisition no longer cares about opinions.'
'Is there much infidelity,' I asked, 'in Rome?'
'Much,' said Ampère, 'among the laity. The clergy do not actively disbelieve. They go through their functions without ever seriously inquiring whether what they have to teach be true or false. No persons were more annoyed by the Mortara[1] business than the clergy, with the exception of Antonelli. He hates and fears the man who set it on foot, the Archbishop of Bologna, and therefore was glad to see him expose himself, and lose all hope of the Secretaryship, but he took care to prevent the recurrence of such a scandal. He revived an old law prohibiting Jews from keeping Christian nurses. But he could scarcely order restitution. According to the Church it would have been giving the child to the Devil, and, what is worse, robbing God of him. The Pope's piety is selfish. His great object is his own salvation. He would not endanger that, to confer any benefit upon, or to avert any evil from Rome; or indeed from the whole world. This makes him difficult to negotiate with. If anything is proposed to him which his confessor affirms to be dangerous to his soul, he listens to no arguments. As for Mortara himself, he is a poor creature. A friend of mine went to see him in his convent. All that he could get from him was:
'"Sono venuti i Carabinieri."
'"And what did they do to you?"
'"M' hanno portato quì."
'"What more?"
'"M' hanno dato pasticci; erano molto buoni."