§ MR. DARBY GRIFFITHsaid, he would beg to ask the noble Lord the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he has received any account that the Senator Heckeren has lately arrived at Paris from Vienna as the bearer of a secret and confidential proposition from the Emperor Francis Joseph to the Emperor Napoleon, to the effect that the two Emperors will co-operate to form an independent Army for the protection of the temporalities of the Pope, and will engage to prevent Piedmont from entering the States of the Church; and whether a Letter, published as from Baron Ricasoli, is authentic, in which, without denying the report, he is stated to say, "I am confident we shall checkmate all intrigues; my inflexibility and calmness are equal to the right which I defend"?
§ LORD JOHN RUSSELLI cannot say that the Foreign Office has received any information to this effect, but I should not be giving a complete answer to the question of the hon. Gentleman if I were not to state that I have received a communication from the French Ambassador in London, informing me that a proposal has been made to French Government by the Austrian and Spanish Ambassadors in Paris, in general terms, that the Roman Catholic Powers should act in concert with regard to the, temporal power of the Pope. There was no mention of armies, or of protecting by arms the temporalities of the 1328 Pope. It was a general proposal, and to that proposal an absolute negative was given by the Government of France. I may, perhaps, state that the ground on which the proposition was refused was that the general arrangements with regard to the temporalities of the Pope were settled at Vienna by Great Britain, Prussia, and Sweden, as well as by the Roman Catholic Powers.