from his Easter visit to France, and is said now to belong decidedly to the minority. Among the 24 Bishops who voted _juxta modum_, were the Archbishops of Cologne and Salzburg, and the Bishop of Mayence. An interval of two days was given them to put into shape the condition on which they wanted to make their vote dependent. But we have already seen that, when the time was come, the Legates preferred not calling for any definitive vote. Are we to infer from the collapse of so weighty and pregnant a question as this of the Catechism that henceforth everything will be settled much quicker? I cannot say. But as early as January 22 the Pope declared, in a Brief addressed to M. de Ségur, that the delay in the proceedings of the Council was due to the powers of Hell, for as it was to inflict on them their inevitable death-blow, they wished to protract it as long as they could. Pius is persuaded that, as soon as the Council produces its fruits, all faults and vices will at once disappear from human society, and all who are in error be led into the truth. That is expressly stated in the Brief; and these are no mere phrases, such as the _Curia_ frequently indulges in, but are uttered in sober earnest. Pius really holds his infallibility to be the divinely ordained panacea for effecting a thorough cure of mankind, who are now sick unto death. He is convinced that the fount of unerring inspiration, which will henceforth flow incessantly from the holy Father at Rome, will fructify all Christian lands like a supernatural Nile stream, and overflow all human science for its purification or its destruction. The Jesuits make the decrees, who are not indeed themselves infallible, but whose compositions, directly the Pope has signed his name to them, become inspired and free from every breath of error.