d the city, and by a few sharp strokes beat down all
forcible opposition to the sovereignty of the united Italian nation.
Pope Pius IX. refused absolutely to acquiesce in the loss of his
temporal dominion, but he was powerless to prevent it. His sole hope
of indemnity lay in a possible intervention of the Catholic powers in
his behalf--a hope which by Prussia's defeat of France and the
downfall of the Emperor Napoleon III. was rendered extremely
unsubstantial. The possibility of intervention was, however,
sufficiently considerable to occasion real apprehension on the part of
Victor Emmanuel and of those attached to the interests of the young
nation. In part to avert complications abroad, as well as with an
honest purpose to adjust a difficult situation, the Government made
haste to devise what it considered a fair, safe, and honorable
settlement of its relations with the papal authority. The result was
the fundamental statute known as the Law of the Papal Guarantees,
enacted March 21, 1871, after a heated parliamentary contest (p. 388)
lasting upwards of two months, and promulgated under date of May 13
following.[564]

[Footnote 564: Text in Coglio e Malchiodi, Codice
Politico Amministrativo. An English version is
printed in Dodd, Modern Constitutions, II., 16-21.]

*427. The Law of Papal Guarantees, 1871: Papal Prerogatives.*--This
important measure, which remains to this day unchanged, falls into two
principal parts. The first is concerned with the prerogatives of the
Supreme Pontiff and of the Holy See; the second regulates the legal
relations of church and state within the kingdom. In a series of
thirteen articles there is enumerated a sum total of papal privileges
which constitutes the Vatican an essentially sovereign and independent
power. First of all, the Pope is declared sacred and inviolable, and
any offense against his person is made punishable with the same
penalty as a similar offense against the person of the king. In the
second place, the Italian Government "grants to the Supreme Pontiff,
within the kingdom, sovereign honors, and guarantees to him the
pre-eminence customarily accorded to him by Catholic sovereigns."[565]
Diplomatic agents accredited to him, and envoys whom he may send to
foreign states, are entitled to all the prerogatives and immunities
which international law accords to diplomatic agents generally. In
lieu of the revenues