not guilty of causing rebellion, which was now, in their estimation, so deplorable in Sicily, Naples, the Grand Duchies, &c. Napoleon remained, as was his wont, undecided. He would neither assist the Poles nor give them to understand that he would not assist them. A word from him would have shortened, by eighteen months, a hopeless struggle of two years, which ended by exhausting them. There was one, however, who protested. Pius IX. denounced the oppressor as fearlessly as if he had been the least of the princes of the earth. He wrote to him, at first, in a tone of mild remonstrance, on the 22d of April, 1863. But finding that his representations were not heeded, he renewed them more pressingly. He did not confine himself to merely official acts. He sent Cardinal Reisach on a confidential mission to Vienna, and addressed a warm and feeling letter to the Emperor Francis Joseph, in order to induce him to take action energetically in common with France. He invited the whole Christian world to join with him in praying for the suffering nation which he nobly declared to be “the soldier of civilization and of faith.” Such as were at Rome, at the time of these prayers, will never forget how enthusiastically the Roman people responded to the call of Pius IX. In praying for the defenders of a distant country, they seemed to pray, at the same time, for their own, which was now, more than ever, threatened. But the time of mercy had not yet come, and persecution was redoubled. Ecclesiastics were deported or put to death, simply for not having refused the aid of religion to the dying on the field of battle. Families and whole populations were doomed to choose between exile and apostacy. All the bishops, without exception, were driven from their dioceses, and some of them perished on the way to Siberia. Pius IX. could no longer contain his grief and indignation. On the 27th of April, 1864, in replying to the postulators in the cause of blessed Francis of the five wounds, he said: “The blood of the helpless and the innocent cries for vengeance to the throne of the Almighty against those by whom it is shed. Unhappy Poland! It was my desire not to speak before the approaching consistory. But I fear lest, by being silent any longer, I should draw down upon myself the punishment denounced by the prophets against those who tolerate iniquity. No, I would not that I were forced to cry out, one day, in presence of the Sovereign Judge: ‘Woe to me because I have held my peace!’ (_Va mihi quia tacui._) I feel inspired at this moment to condemn a sovereign whose vast Empire reaches to the Pole. This potentate, who falsely calls himself the Catholic of the East, but who is only a schismatic cast forth from the bosom of the true church, persecutes and slays his Catholic subjects, and by his ferocious cruelty has driven them to insurrection. Under the pretext of suppressing this insurrection, he extirpates the Catholic religion. He deports whole