bed by numerous writers, we shall not further refer to it.

The Marquis of Segur, a zealous Catholic, relates that, in 1866, when
the Pope was seriously ill, Mdlle. Leautard, a lady of Marseilles,
resolved to offer up her life in place of his Holiness, and sought his
permission to do so. The Pope, after long silence, placed his hand on
her head, and said, "Go, my daughter, and do what the Spirit of God
has suggested to you." Next day, on receiving the consecrated wafer,
the lady fervently expressed her desire to die, and was immediately
seized with a sharp pain, which carried her off three days afterwards.
The Pope, on hearing of her death, exclaimed, "So soon accepted!" The
Marquis believes this sacrifice accounted for the Pope's prolonged
life.

A Hohenzollern legend was brought to mind in Germany through a serious
illness of the Emperor, who, however, fortunately recovered, and
continues to adorn his exalted position. The legend runs thus:--

Many years ago there was a Hohenzollern Princess (a widow with two
children), who fell in love with a foreign Prince--rich, handsome, and
brave. She sent him a proposition of marriage; but the Prince declined
her suit, explaining that "four eyes" stood between him and
acceptance. He referred to his parents, whose consent he could not
obtain. But the Princess understood him to refer to the four eyes of
her two children--to his unwillingness, in fact, to become a
stepfather. So she suffocated the infant obstacles, and wrote to her
lover that the way was clear. He was stricken with horror at the cruel
deed, and died cursing her bloodthirsty rashness. The Princess, in her
turn, became overwhelmed with remorse. After lingering a day or two in
indescribable anguish, she too died, and was buried under the old
castle at Berlin; but not to rest quietly in her unhappy grave. At
rare intervals she appears at midnight, clad in white, gliding, ghost
like, about the castle; and the apparition always forebodes the death
of some member of the Hohenzollern family. The white lady has been
seen, we are assured, three times within about a year--once just
before the death of Prince Albrecht; again, to announce the end of
Prince Adalbert; and the last time while Queen Elizabeth lay on her
deathbed.

We have shown that the great Napoleon Bonaparte was superstitious in
the highest degree; and so was his mother before him. Both believed in
fate or destiny. She was surrounded by luxury and pomp; but