The prohibition to hold large episcopal meetings, communicated to the French Bishops only through Cardinal Bonnechose, is not obeyed either by the French or Germans, who continue to take counsel together. The united Germans and Hungarians have accepted in substance an address drawn up by Cardinal Rauscher, and on Sunday, January 9, bound themselves by a reciprocal obligation, with forty-three signatures, to vote against and combat in all conciliar methods the erection of Papal Infallibility into a dogma. The Austrian Prelates stand foremost in clearness, decision, and courage. Rauscher, Schwarzenberg, Haynald, and Strossmayer know what they want, are full of true love for the Church, understand the greatness of the danger, and are perfectly aware that no positive gain, nor any of the important reforms so urgently needed, can be expected from this Council—the Spanish and Italian phalanx is too strong and impenetrable for that,—but they hope, at least, by energetic resistance to ward off positive mischief from the Church. The French on their part are active; Cardinal Mathieu, who returned to Rome, January 5, has opened a saloon in his house for the deliberations. Next to Dupanloup, Bishop Place of Marseilles, Meignan of Châlons, Landriot of Rheims, and Ginoulhiac of Grenoble, speak most decidedly. There are some thirty-five like-minded with them, and the inopportunists among them and the Germans are gradually coming to perceive that their position is quite untenable, and that to persist in treating Infallibility as a mere question of time and convenience, is to give their adversaries a safe and easy victory. But the Germans are further advanced in this conviction than the French. The now famous Infallibilist Address seems to have been simultaneously hawked about from two quarters, viz., by the trio of Manning, Deschamps, and Spalding, and by Martin and Senestrey. Who composed it, and how many Bishops have signed it, is still uncertain; the movement has come to a dead-lock, perhaps because the Spaniards, who talk of presenting an address of their own, don’t want to sign it. Several Italians too refused to sign, and so the result has not been as satisfactory as was hoped, although it can hardly be doubted that the dogma will have 450 or 500 votes when it is laid before the Council.