My honourable interlocutor met my statement with the most unqualified, formal, and unhesitating denial.

He accused me of impudently calumniating an innocent administration, and of propagating lies fabricated by the enemies of religion.

His language was so sublimely authoritative, that I felt confounded, overpowered, crushed, and, for a moment, I asked myself whether I had not really been telling a lie.
The story I had related was that of the boy Mortara.
But I return to Rome and our travellers in the trumpery line.

Those we overheard before are already gone.

But their places have been quickly filled.