3-021-228 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Monsignore De Mérode, lately the Pope's Minister of War, 1865. 'The dismissal, or retirement...of the late Minister of War at Rome, Monsignore Xavier de Mérode...has caused a certain amount of discussion. It appears that not only Cardinal Antonelli, the all-powerful Secretary of State, but the whole Court of Rome, feared to have Mérode in office at a moment when the evacuation of the Pontifical States by the French was commencing, as, with his impulsive character, it was felt that he might provoke a collision. A very considerable deficit, too, was discovered by the Minister of Finance in the accounts of the War Department...[The Monsignor said:] "let the Pope dismiss me if he dare."...A very remarkable scene is then said to have ensued...The Belgian prelate ordered all his property to be carried to the Ministry of War, for fear of being replaced by a successor; intrenched himself within the apartment, and formed a kind of barricade with all the different articles which belonged to him. A species of insanity had taken possession of Monsignore...At last...a note from the Secretary of State, in the name of his Holiness, signed Antonelli, relieved Monsignore from his duties, or, to speak clearly, dismissed him'. From "Illustrated London News", 1865.