This refers to the Cavaignac Government’s attitude towards the new revolutionary upsurge in Italy that began in the autumn of 1848. Though Cavaignac declared a policy of non-interference, he actually rendered diplomatic aid to the ruling circles of the Kingdom of Naples and Austria in their struggle against the Italian national liberation movement. When Pius IX fled to the Neapolitan fortress of Gaeta after the popular uprising in Rome on November 16, which started a series of events that resulted in the proclamation of the Roman Republic on February 9, 1849, Cavaignac offered him asylum in France. Incited by the French Government, Pius IX called on all Catholic states on December 4, 1848 to intervene against the Roman revolutionaries, and Naples and Austria immediately responded to this call. By his policy Cavaignac in effect prepared for the dispatch of a French expeditionary corps against the Roman Republic undertaken later by President Louis Bonaparte.