We Italians call the proceeding, _fare una infornata di Santi_, making an ovenful of saints. But under the reign of Leo XII., in 1826, a much more scandalous profanation took place. Saints being wanted by some town or other (almost every Italian borough has got one), and the Congregation of Relics, who dispense those Beati, having none at hand, one of the counsellors, we suppose, thought of a very expeditious way of making saints, and supply what was wanted. A sort of catacomb having been discovered at the church _S. Lorenzo fuor delle mura_, in which some skulls were found, five of them were extracted, and declared to be the skulls of martyrs. The Pope, with the advice of the Congregation of Rites, by his apostolic authority and certain knowledge, _Apostolicâ auctoritate ac certâ scientiâ_, declared that they were martyrs; and, two or three months after, they were exposed to the public worship in the _Apollinare_, the ancient Collegio Germanico, which had belonged to the Jesuits, and where now met the Congregation of the Relics. I have myself seen them thus exposed. Those having been disposed of, other skulls were dug up, and other martyrs made; till, at last, a learned antiquarian (I do not remember whether French or German) proved almost to a certainty that the place where these skulls were found had been a Pagan burial-place. The noise was great, and so great the scandal, that the Pope ordered the catacomb to be shut, and no more martyrs to be made. One may still see the excavation, and some bones may be seen through an iron grating, but they are called martyrs no more. If these were not facts which happened in our own days, and of which all Rome is witness, I would hardly have dared to mention them, so incredible do they appear. We hope we shall be excused for this digression. The canonisation of Loyola and Xavier took place in 1623. We shall spare the recital of all the feasts, all the gorgeous ceremonies, all the pagan pageantry exhibited on the occasion. At Douay, above all, the whole of this theatrical representation was on a great and magnificent scale. Two galleries, supported by a hundred columns adorned with tapestry, and with no less than four hundred and forty-five paintings, were erected in the two streets leading to their college. The panegyrics in honour of the saints were not only ridiculous, but impious in the highest degree. In one of them it was said that “Ignatius,” by his name written upon paper, “performed more miracles than Moses, and as many as the apostles!” And again, “The life of Ignatius was so holy and exalted, even in the opinion of heaven, that only Popes like St Peter, empresses like the Mother of God, some other sovereign monarchs, as God the Father and his holy Son, enjoyed the bliss of seeing him.” We do not comment on these words; even the Sorbonne, now in league with the Jesuits, condemned them.