m more deserving of victory. Accordingly, a
fast of three days was proclaimed for the fleet, beginning with the
Nativity of our Lady; all the men went to confession and communion, and
appropriated to themselves the plentiful indulgences which the Pope
attached to the expedition. Then they moved across the foot of Italy to
Corfu, with the intention of presenting themselves at once to the enemy;
being disappointed in their expectations, they turned back to the Gulf
of Corinth; and there at length, on the 7th of October, they found the
Turkish fleet, half way between Lepanto and the Echinades on the North,
and Patras, in the Morea, on the South; and, though it was towards
evening, strong in faith and zeal, they at once commenced the
engagement.

The night before the battle, and the day itself, aged as he was, and
broken with a cruel malady, the Saint had passed in the Vatican in
fasting and prayer. All through the Holy City the monasteries and the
colleges were in prayer too. As the evening advanced, the Pontifical
treasurer asked an audience of the Sovereign Pontiff on an important
matter. Pius was in his bedroom, and began to converse with him; when
suddenly he stopped the conversation, left him, threw open the window,
and gazed up into heaven. Then closing it again, he looked gravely at
his official, and said, "This is no time for business; go, return thanks
to the Lord God. In this very hour our fleet has engaged the Turkish,
and is victorious." As the treasurer went out, he saw him fall on his
knees before the altar in thankfulness and joy.

And a most memorable victory it was: upwards of 30,000 Turks are said to
have lost their lives in the engagement, and 3,500 were made prisoners.
Almost their whole fleet was taken. I quote from Protestant authorities
when I say that the Sultan, on the news of the calamity, neither ate,
nor drank, nor showed himself, nor saw any one for three days; that it
was the greatest blow which the Ottomans had had since Timour's victory
over Bajazet, a century and a half before; nay, that it was the
turning-point in the Turkish history;[71] and that, though the Sultans
have had isolated successes since, yet from that day they undeniably and
constantly declined, that they have lost their _prestige_ and their
self-confidence, and that the victories gained over them since are but
the complements and the reverberations of the overthrow at Lepanto.

Such was the catastrophe of this long and anx