ucation. The prince, cousin of the Emperor, Napoleon III., and the
Senator and Academician, Sainte Beuve, held heathenish orgies in the
Lenten season, even on Good Friday. To crown the list of evil, apostacy
was not wanting. It was of little consequence that one who fell away,
although a vehement declaimer, was a shallow theologian; his loss was,
nevertheless, to be deplored. The progress of a low sect in Belgium called
Solidaires, the success of a new revolution in Spain, under favor of which
the members of religious communities, both of men and of women, were
driven from their homes in the name of liberty, together with the opening
of revolutionary clubs in Paris, caused Pius IX. to dread catastrophes in
the near future. Severe domestic affliction came this year (1869) to
aggravate the sorrows of Pius IX. His brother, Count Gabriel Mastai, met
with an accident which, at his advanced age, ninety, proved to be serious.
The Holy Father, immediately traversing Rome, ascended on his knees the
_scala sancta_. A few days later the death of the patient was intimated to
him. He shut himself up several hours in his private apartment, in order
that none might witness the tears which grief made him shed. Finally, he
repaired to the Vatican Basilica, where he prayed for a long time, both
before the Holy Sacrament and at the tomb of the apostles.

AN EXERCISE OF SOVEREIGNTY.

Those states which formed the monetary division of Western Europe--France,
Belgium, Switzerland and the Holy See, agreed at this time to refound
their silver coinage. A model was chosen, which Greece, Portugal, Roumania
and some other countries adopted in their turn, and it was understood that
the new coinage for each state should be in proportion to its population.
Hence it behooved the Pontifical State to issue forty millions of livres
or thereby, for a population numbering from three to four millions of
souls, including Romagna and Umbria, which the Pope still claimed. The
Florence government remonstrated against the issue of forty million
livres, on the ground that the Pontiff could not now actually count more
than from 600,000 to 700,000 subjects. Napoleon III., always inclined to
gratify the revolution, summoned Pius IX. to suspend the issue of his
exaggerated coinage, three-fourths of which, it was insisted, should be
cast anew with the effigy of Victor Emmanuel. This interference of
Napoleon was considered inopportune and unacceptable, the operation of