Jane T Stoddart
Published: 2013-09
Total Pages: 82
Get eBook
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 edition. Excerpt: ... for the high positions of the earth. Often one reaches them only by treading on one's own heart. I have sadly changed my views on such points, and I ask myself whether the good things of this world are worth the trouble we take to preserve them." A less personal but not less real trouble for the Empress was the defeat of the Papal forces at Castelfidardo, on 18 September. From the Italian war onwards she disliked and distrusted her husband's policy towards the Vatican, and we have MerimeVs testimony that many disputes arose between husband and wife on this question. There may be no truth in the rumour that Eugenie said to Napoleon, "If you do not protect the Pope, your son will never reign"; nor need we accept all the stories of her fanatical devotion to the priests and the influence they won over her mind. It was not mere bigotry which made her desire that France should prop up the tottering power of Pius IX. She saw that an anti-Papal policy meant the alienation from the Empire of the powerful Catholic party. There is a letter written to the Empress by Mgr. Dupanloup, the great Bishop of Orleans, in which he thanks her for defending the Pope. This prelate's address on the "martyrs of Castelfidardo" rang through France like a trumpet. Speaking of those who had fallen in the Pope's quarrel, he said, "We lay upon their distant tombs, not our tears, but our praises and our prayers. Over their mortal remains, the precious deposit of their blessed ashes, we say to their immortal souls: "You are happy indeed, for all that earth has of honour and glory rests upon you, with the virtue of God." At the close he apostrophized the hills of Castelfidardo, and said that they were consecrated by the blood of...