the conscience of his majesty and all who co-operate with him in such iniquity the fatal consequences which flow therefrom. Finally, he hopes that the king, in reperusing his own letter, will find grounds for repentance. The Pope, far from being actuated by feelings of resentment, prays God to give his majesty the grace he stands so much in need of in such difficult circumstances. The letter is dated at the Vatican, 2nd April, 1860. It is related that Victor Emmanuel bedewed with tears this letter, which so gently and tenderly rebuked him. It must have reached him at one of those moments of remorse which, more than once, interrupted his scandalous career. It hindered him not, however, from fulfilling the promise which he had given to the revolution, when, at the beginning of the war of 1859, placing his hand on his sword and looking towards Rome, he said: “_Andremo al fondo_” (“we shall go on to the end”). On the 26th of March of the same year, Pius IX. issued a Bull, excommunicating all who took part in wrenching from him so great a portion of the patrimony of the church. Some parties received the intimation of this sentence with such noisy demonstrations of delight as to cause their sincerity to be doubted. Others, and of the number was King Victor Emmanuel, were struck with indescribable fear. Napoleon III. insisted that the organic article of the Concordat, forbidding the publication in France of Bulls, Briefs, &c., should be enforced. But he could not, any more than his uncle, forbid the excommunication to take effect. The first Napoleon was at the height of his greatness when struck with excommunication. He received the sentence with jeers. Would it make the arms fall from the hands of his soldiers? How literally this question was answered, let the snows of Russia tell. There are other ministers of the wrath of heaven besides the frosts of a Northern winter. Napoleon III. was in the zenith of his power when he heard the sentence which he vainly tried to stifle. His great political wisdom, and the wonderful success of all he undertook had hitherto astonished the world. There was now a manifest change. But it need not here be said with what unspeakable humiliation his star went down. The revolutionary party could not have more effectually shown their dread of the Papal sentence, than by their endeavors to suppress it. They went so far as to publish in its place a forged document, as odious as it was extravagant, appended there to the signature of Pius IX., and exposed it to the jeers of the ignorant multitude. The bishops did their best in order to make known the truth; with what difficulty it will be easily understood, when it is remembered that an Imperial decree forbade the newspapers to publish a word in their interest.