Those states which formed the monetary division of Western Europe—France, Belgium, Switzerland and the Holy See, agreed at this time to refound their silver coinage. A model was chosen, which Greece, Portugal, Roumania and some other countries adopted in their turn, and it was understood that the new coinage for each state should be in proportion to its population. Hence it behooved the Pontifical State to issue forty millions of livres or thereby, for a population numbering from three to four millions of souls, including Romagna and Umbria, which the Pope still claimed. The Florence government remonstrated against the issue of forty million livres, on the ground that the Pontiff could not now actually count more than from 600,000 to 700,000 subjects. Napoleon III., always inclined to gratify the revolution, summoned Pius IX. to suspend the issue of his exaggerated coinage, three-fourths of which, it was insisted, should be cast anew with the effigy of Victor Emmanuel. This interference of Napoleon was considered inopportune and unacceptable, the operation of coining being almost completed. Cardinal Antonelli maintained the right of the Holy See. The French and Italian governments agreed to exclude from their circulation, and consequently from that of the whole monetary union, all silver coins which bore the meek and noble likeness of Pius IX. This they did without offering to the public any explanation. The revolutionary party, however, were too honest not to supply this want. They at once gave circulation to the rumor that the coinage of the Pope was of inferior quality. He was pointed out as a money-counterfeiter by the thousand organs of the infidel press. The people, grossly deceived, repelled with indignation, as if it were that of a robber, the likeness of the representative of justice on earth. The Catholics, meanwhile, observed with pain that while this storm of calumny was raging, one of their own number, once a champion of the temporal power, held in the French government the portfolio of finance. The Pontifical treasury subjected itself to considerable sacrifices, in order to diminish the losses and silence the recriminations of those who were compelled to stop its money, which could no longer be circulated. Chemists, in the interest of truth, analyzed the depreciated metal, and declared that it was exactly of the same value as the coinage of Napoleon III. But neither the officious nor the official press took the pains to publish this fact, and the calumny remained. The time was even then at hand, as French writers observe with pain, when France, in her downfallen and exhausted condition, would have been glad to possess this Pontifical money and dispense with worthless paper. THE VATICAN COUNCIL—PURPOSE OF THE POPE IN CONVENING A GENERAL COUNCIL.