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The Count de Rayneval, after having proved that all is for the best in the dominions of the Pope, winds up his celebrated _Note_ by a desponding conclusion. According to him, the Roman Question is one which cannot possibly be definitively solved; and the utmost that can be effected by diplomacy is the postponement of a catastrophe.
I am not such a pessimist. It appears to me that all political questions may be solved, and all catastrophes averted. I am sanguine enough to believe that war is not absolutely indispensable to the salvation of Italy and the security of Europe, and that it is possible to extinguish a conflagration without firing guns.