No. 277.
Mr. Marsh
to Mr. Evarts.
Rome, June 2, 1877. (Received June 18, 1877.)
Sir: The influx of pilgrims to attend the fiftieth anniversary of Pope Pius IX’s election to the episcopate has ceased, with the exception of the Spanish contingent, which is estimated at something less than 3,000. The total number thus far little exceeds 8,000, as is ascertained from the police records. The pilgrims, therefore, have not formed a body sufficiently strong in numbers to venture upon organized violence in the face of the forces of the government and the municipality. Still, there have been not a few instances of provocative words and acts on the part of the pilgrims, and the zealots of both parties, papal and anti-papal are greatly excited. Notwithstanding this, a numerously attended public meeting, held in this city on Thursday, the 31st of May, to protest against the excesses and usurpations of the clericals, and at which strongly denunciatory language was used by the speakers, was conducted with perfect tranquillity; and I see no serious reason to anticipate any disturbance of the public peace, though some apprehend danger from the excessive zeal of the expected Spanish pilgrims. The pilgrims are in very large proportion ecclesiastics, comprising a large number of cardinals and other dignitaries of the church, who visit Rome, not as pilgrims simply, but for purposes of mutual consultation, and as members of the probably approaching conclave for the election of a successor to the present Pope.
Of course the consultations of these personages are not public, but it is ascertained that, at a recent meeting of the most conspicuous among them, it was decided by a nearly unanimous vote to advise Pius IX to abandon his profaned and desecrated capital, and to retire, with his whole curia, to the purer soil of Lyons, in France. It is vehemently suspected that the coincidence of this resolution with the recent political movement of the chief of the French State was not accidental, and at Rome, where all things are contemplated through a clerical mist, this belief is very general. It is believed that the Pope would have yielded to this advice but for the strenuous opposition of his physicians, who [Page 458] were of opinion that to attempt such a journey would involve his certain and speedy death.
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I have, &c.,