papal thraldom and rusty feudalism. For the first time modern Italians heard a great man outlining the future of a united Italy. At Loretto were found the relics which made that place one of the holiest of shrines. The very house in which Mary, the mother of Jesus, had received the visit of Gabriel was at Loretto. Had you asked how came it there, the answer would have been that the angels carried it from Nazareth to Dalmatia to keep the Saracens from getting it. From Dalmatia the angels, for reasons equally good, had carried it to Loretto. Within this holy hut was a wooden image of Mary, old, blackened, crudely carved. The angels had carved it. In times of clerical distress this image of Mary was seen to shed tears. As there had been quite an access of clerical woe recently, in consequence of Napoleon’s brutal disregard of papal armies led by priests with crucifixes in their hands, the wooden Virgin had been weeping profusely. Napoleon had doubtless familiarized himself with the methods by which pagan priests had kept up their stupendous impostures, and he had a curiosity to see the old wooden doll which was worshipped by latter-day pagans at Loretto. He found a string of glass beads so arranged that they fell, one after another, from the inside, athwart the Virgin’s eyes, and as she was kept at some distance from the devotees, and behind a glass case, the optical illusion was complete. Napoleon exposed the trick, and imprisoned the priests who had caused the recent tears to flow. To add to the sanctity of the shrine at Loretto, there was a porringer which had belonged to the Holy Family, and a bed-quilt which had belonged to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Thousands of devout Catholics prostrated themselves every year before these relics, and countless were the rich offerings to the shrine. Napoleon took from the church pretty much all the treasure which the priests had not carried off; and the wooden Madonna was sent to Paris. In 1802 he restored it to the Pope, and it was put back in its old place in the Virgin’s hut. Many of the French priests who had refused the oath of allegiance to the new order of things in France had taken refuge in the papal States. The Directory wished Napoleon to drive these men out of Italy. He not only refused to do that, but he gave them the benefit of his protection. In a proclamation to his troops he directed that the unfortunate exiles should be kindly treated; and he compelled the Italian monasteries, which had indeed grown weary of these come-to-stay visitors, to receive them and supply all their wants. The breadth and depth of Napoleon’s liberalism was also shown by the protection he gave to the Jews. These people had, at Ancona, been treated with mediæval barbarity. Napoleon relieved their disabilities, putting them upon an exact political equality with other citizens. In favor of certain Mohammedans, who resided there, he adopted the same course.