These burning words of the eminent and patriotic French bishop must have pierced the soul of Napoleon III. To any other man, at least, an Orsini shell would have been less terrible. But, “_Perversi difficillime corriguntur_.” No reproaches, however severe and well deserved, no remonstrance, however well founded, could move the French Emperor. A greater power than that of words had impelled him towards the evil courses which the great majority of the French nation, together with the whole Catholic world, condemned. The bishops, meanwhile, continued to protest. The Archbishop of Sens, Mellon-Jolly, dared to say, in accents of sorrow: “Events, alas! are far beyond all that we feared.” De Prilly, Bishop of Chalons, Dean of the French Episcopate, thus wrote a few days before his death: “Ah! who deserved less than Pius IX. to be attacked by so many enemies! If the tears which he sheds are so bitter for himself, they are terrible to those who cause them! A poor bishop, at the point of death, so assures him and craves his benediction.” The expiring prelate, one would say, had foreseen the humiliation of Sedan. The courageous language of the bishops was so much feared that it was thought necessary to silence them. Napoleon, having endeavored in vain to remove their disquietude by renewing his hollow protestations, denounced them as violent agitators, abandoned them to the jeers of the infidel press, for which alone there was liberty in those days, and finally forbade all journals whatsoever to publish episcopal writings that bore any relation to the Roman question. Thus did he think to escape the danger with which he was threatened by silencing the tongues which warned him.