Papacy,--that the way
to strike for liberty was to strike at Rome,--and that till the Papacy
was overthrown, never would the nations of the world be either free or
happy. They assured me that in these sentiments they heartily concurred,
and that they were the very ideas they were endeavouring to propagate.
They gave me, on taking leave, a copy of that morning's paper as a
_souvenir_; and on examining it afterwards, I found that the topic of
its leading article was quite in the vein of our conversation. The great
bulk of the liberal party in Piedmont shared even then the ideas of the
editors of the _Gazetta del Popolo_, and felt that to lay the
foundations of constitutional liberty, they needs must raze those of
Rome. This is a truth; and not only so,--it is the primal truth in the
science of European liberty. This truth only now begins to be
understood on the Continent. It is the main lesson which the re-action
of 1849 has been overruled to teach. All former insurrections have been
against kings and aristocrats: even in 1848 the Italians were willing to
accept the leadership of the Pope. The perfidies and atrocities of which
they have since been the victims have burned the essential tyranny of
the papal system into their minds; and the next insurrection that takes
place will be against the Papacy.

A constitution, a free press, and a public opinion, are but the outward
defences of a divine and immortal principle, which, rooted in the soil
of Piedmont, has outlived a long winter, and is now beginning to bud
afresh, and to send forth goodlier shoots than ever. To this I next
turned. Conducted by M. Malan, I went to the western quarter of Turin,
where, amid the gardens and elegant mansions of the suburbs, workmen
were digging the foundations of what was to be a spacious building. On
this spot the Dominicans in former ages had burned the bodies of the
martyrs; and now the Waldensian temple stands here,--a striking proof,
surely, of the immortality of truth,--to rise, and live, and speak
boldly, on the very spot where she had been bound to a stake, burned,
and extinguished, as the persecutor believed. This church, not the least
elegant in a city abounding with elegant structures, has since been
opened, and is filled every Sabbath with well-nigh a thousand
auditors,--the largest congregation, I will venture to say, in Turin.

In 1851 I could visit the cradle of this movement. It had its first rise
in the labours of Felix Ne