X. "You mean, of the Moderate intellects?" M. "No, I mean the policy of the Moderates, a policy of compromise, between the Holy Father and, and--" X. "Say what you really mean,--between the Holy Father and the Holy Revolution." After this test of M's intellectual calibre, I am not surprised to learn that he is treated throughout with the most contemptuous playfulness. He is horror-struck at learning that, in fact, he is nothing better "than a mediator between Christ and Beelzebub." He is joked about the _fait accompli_; and asked whether he would consider a box on his ears was excused and accounted for by a similar denomination of the occurrence; questioned, whether he would like himself to be deprived of all his property; and at last dumbfounded by the inquiry, whether the reasoning of his beloved pamphlet is anything but rank communism. M, in fact, after this tirade ceases any attempt at argument, and contents himself with feeble suggestions, which afford to X fertile openings for the exercise of his vituperative abilities. For instance, M drops a hint that the Pope might be placed under the guarantee and protection of the Catholic powers; on which X retorts: "The Catholic powers indeed! First of all, you ought to be sure whether the Catholic powers will not co-operate with the Jew, in the disgraceful act of plundering Christ through his Vicar, in order to guarantee him afterwards the last shreds of his garment." (Another somewhat novel view, by the way, of Gospel history.) "Secondly, you should learn whether any tribunal in the world, in the name of common justice, would place the victim under the protection and guarantee of his spoiler." When M expresses a doubt whether there is any career for a soldier or statesman under the Papal Government, his doubts are removed by the reflection that the Roman statesmen are no worse off than the French, and that, if Roman soldiers don't fight, and Roman orators don't speak, it is because the exertion of their faculties would not prove beneficial to themselves or others. Then follows one of those ejaculatory paragraphs, which tract-controversialists generally, and X especially, delight in. "You! yes, you! applaud that Parisian insult-monger, who after having robbed Rome of the provinces, that give her power and splendour, and having left her a city maimed of hands and feet, with a frontier two fingers'-length from the Vatican, then speaks of Rome thus degraded; he, I say, this author of yours--this legislator of yours--this Parisian of yours, speaks in the words of _Le Pape et le Congres_,"--and so on, through a labyrinth of exclamatory parentheses. "Moderate" is overwhelmed by all this; becomes convinced and converted; and, after the fashion of Papal converts, out-Herods Herod in the ardour of his zeal. He volunteers to X the following original view of French politics: "I can understand the anger of the (French) journals because France has been so unfortunate in