concessions; but he also knew how to
win through these concessions the reality of power. It was he who
initiated and firmly followed the policy of alliance between the Papacy
and the Catholic sovereigns.[33] Instead of asserting the interests of
the Church in antagonism to secular potentates, he undertook to prove
that their interests were identical. Militant Protestantism threatened
the civil no less than the ecclesiastical order. The episcopacy
attempted to liberate itself from monarchical and pontifical authority
alike. Pius proposed to the autocrats of Europe a compact for mutual
defence, divesting the Holy See of some of its privileges, but requiring
in return the recognition of its ecclesiastical absolutism. In all
difficult negotiations he was wont to depend upon himself; treating his
counselors as agents rather than as peers, and holding the threads of
diplomacy in his own hands. Thus he was able to transact business as a
sovereign with sovereigns, and came to terms with them by means of
personal correspondence. The reconstruction of Catholic Christendom,
which took visible shape in the decrees of the Tridentine Council, was
actually settled in the Courts of Spain, Austria, France and Rome. The
Fathers of the Council were the mouthpieces of royal and Papal cabinets.
The Holy Ghost, to quote a profane satire of the time, reached Trent in
the despatch-bags of couriers, in the sealed instructions issued to
ambassadors and legates.

[Footnote 33: Soranzo, _op. cit._ p. 75, says: 'Con li principi tiene
modo affatto contrario al suo predecessore; perche mentre quello usava
dire, il grado dei pontefici esser per mettersi sotto i piedi
gl'imperatori e i re, questo dice che senza l'autorita dei principi non
si puo conservare quella dei pontefici.']

We observe throughout the negotiations which crowned the policy of this
Pope with success, the operation not only of a pacific and far-seeing
character, but also of the temper of a lawyer. Pius drew up the
Tridentine decrees as an able conveyancer draws up a complicated deed,
involving many trusts, recognizing conflicting rights, providing for
distant contingencies. It was in fact the marriage contract of
ecclesiastical and secular absolutism, by which the estates of Catholic
Christendom were put in trust and settlement for posterity. In
formulating its terms the Pope granted points to which an obstinate or
warlike predecessor, a Julius II. or a Paul IV., would never have