petuation of some ancient ceremony designed to show that
the monarch is the father of all his people, and hence is personally
interested in their individual troubles. But yet it appears that the
emperor _does_ listen to the harangues, for he is occasionally known to
affix his initials to some documents; which act is always interpreted as
a good sign, it being equivalent to a special recommendation to the
secretaries, indicating that _prima facie_ the cause has seemed to the
sovereign to be just. However, the precaution of a written statement is
always taken, because it would be impossible for him to remember all the
oral explanations. Only a few weeks after each of these audiences the
suitors are individually notified of the result. The emperor's sense of
etiquette does not allow him to give any sign of impatience during the
interview, though some of the visitors are as long-winded and
importunate as Mark Twain pretends to have been at one of President
Grant's receptions. The emperor answers the German, Hungarian, Tzech,
Croat or Italian each in the suitor's own tongue. It is quite possible
that in the preliminary registry of the names and condition of suitors
care is taken that the emperor shall not be subjected to too great
annoyance from any abuse of this curious and interesting privilege.

Among the canonizations of the past few months a notable place must be
assigned to that of the beatified Benoit Labre. That he was faithful in
doctrine needs hardly be said, but it was his manner of life which
procured him this posthumous honor, in order that those who read of his
career may rank him among those saints who, as in Tickell's line, have
both "taught and led the way to heaven," and may seek to imitate his
example. The decree of canonization, in reciting his characteristic
virtues, says that though of very honorable birth, yet, scorning earthly
things as dross, he clothed himself in rags, and ate and drank only what
chanty gave him. His shelter was the Coliseum or the doorways or desert
places of Rome. He washed not, neither did he yield to the effeminacy of
the comb; his hair and nails grew to what length Nature wished: in short
(for some of the additional details are better fancied than described),
he so utterly neglected his person that he became an object of avoidance
to many or all. But his neglected body was after death placed under a
glass shrine in the church of the Madonna del Monti. The decree calls
upon other