Excerpt from Life of Pius IX: Down to the Episcopal Jubilee of 1877 It became thenceforth a passion with the author to read every thing that could throw light on the state of Italy, and enable him to trace out the causes of the chronic discontent and unrest to which her populations were a prey, breaking out, as they did, periodically, into sanguinary violence and the fierce manifestations of a spirit so anti Catholic, so anti-christian, so unholy, that it seemed unaccountable to most people, while by others it was asserted to be the natural growth of a soil cursed by priestly government. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.