During the forty-seven years war, when pope and emperor were respectively bidding for their affiance, and offering concessions to secure their support, the communes grew in self-reliance, strength and liberty.
The clergy were bidden to exhort their hearers to the " works of charity, mercy and faith, specially prescribed and commanded in Scripture, and not to repose their trust or affiance in any other works devised by men's phantasies beside Scripture; as in wandering to pilgrimages, offering of money, candles or tapers to images or relics, or kissing or licking the same, saying over a number of beads, not understood or minded on, or in such-like superstition."
During the whole tenure of office the Marquis di San Giuliano was an ardent believer in the Triple Affiance, on which he thought that Italy's foreign policy should be based, and attached the greatest importance to a good understanding with Austria, an attitude not calculated to win him popularity in many circles; under his guidance consequently Italy opposed Serbia's desire for a port on the Adriatic and Greece's aspirations in Epirus, and supported the policy of creating an independent Albanian State.
A pamphlet by him, entitled The Crime against Ireland and how the War may right it, appealing for a German-AmericanIrish affiance, was disseminated in the United States as part of the German propaganda.
Between Ledru-Rollin and Odilon Barrot with the other chiefs of the "dynastic Left" there were acute differences, hardly dissimulated even during the temporary affiance which produced the campaign of the banquets.
