We have received the following interesting information from a trustworthy person, who is returned to Germany after a long sojourn in Rome, where he was in a position, among other things, to get to know the projects for the Council. The relations of Pius IX. to the _Civiltà_ may be fully understood from the fact—attested by the officials of the Chancery—that the editors are regularly admitted to an audience with the Holy Father, like the prime minister, usually once a week, never less often than every fortnight. At these audiences the manuscripts prepared for the next number are laid before the Pope, who reads them, and, according to his interest in the contents, comments on them or returns them unaltered to the Chancery. The ideas of the _Civiltà_ are therefore not only not unknown to the Pope, but are published with his express and personal approval. The chosen model of Pius IX. is Gregory VII., and his favourite notion is to discharge that _rôle_ in the present Church which Gregory did in the middle ages. He is therefore thoroughly given up to theocratic tendencies in the contest against the modern State, and the attacks of the _Civiltà_ upon it and the whole system of modern civilisation express his innermost thoughts. Even the General of the Jesuits is said often to be uneasy about the language used by members of his Order in their journal, and unable to avoid the apprehension that it may seriously prejudice the Order hereafter. In the Chancery, where Antonelli’s confidant Mgr. Marini revises the _Civiltà_, it very seldom happens that any alterations are made in the articles, partly because the Cardinal Secretary of State would at no price get into bad odour with the Jesuits. Only the record of contemporary events (_Cronaca Contemporanea_) is submitted _pro formâ_ to the Dominican Spada, the Master of the Palace, for inspection. But although there can be no shadow of doubt that in all its utterances about the approaching Council the _Civiltà_, is simply the organ of the Holy Father himself, Antonelli does not cease to give the most reassuring answers to questions addressed to him on the subject by the various diplomatic agents. Rome, he assures them, will not take the initiative in making either the propositions of the Syllabus or Papal Infallibility into dogmas. Many representatives of foreign Governments have been deceived by these declarations, and have written home in that sense, the immediate consequence of which was seen in the reception accorded in some Courts to the despatch of the Bavarian Government. But they will not allow at Rome that they mean themselves to give the first impulse for these solemn dogmatic decisions. That only proves the confidence felt in the Vatican that a considerable number of the Bishops will come forward to demand it. It is a secret already pretty well published in Rome, how the play is to be put on the stage, and who is to be the protagonist. Nor does any one