“Prepare, then, I say, for the coming day; the great campaign is about to open, and neither you nor I, Michel, will live to see the end of the battle. On this side the Alps, all has happened as we wished. Italian Liberalism is crushed and defeated. The Piedmontese are driven back within their frontier, their army beaten, and their finances all but exhausted, and Austria is again at the head of Northern Italy. Rome will now be grander and more glorious than ever. No more truckling to Liberalism, no more faith in the false prophets of Freedom. Our gorgeous 'Despotism' will arise reinvigorated by its trials, and the Church will proclaim herself the Queen of Europe! “It is an inestimable advantage to have convinced these meek and good men here that there is but one road to victory, and that all alliance with what are called politicians is but a snare and a delusion. “The Pope sees this at last, but nothing short of wounded pride could have taught him the lesson. “Now to your last query, my dear Michel, and I feel all gratitude for the warm interest with which you make it. What is to be done I know not. I am utterly ignorant of my parentage, even of my birthplace. In the admission-book of Salamanca I stand thus: 'Samuel Eustace, native of Ireland, aged thirteen years and seven months; stipendiary of the second class.' There lies my whole history. A certain Mr. Godfrey had paid all the expenses of my journey from Louvain, and, up to the period of his death, continued to maintain me. From Louvain I can learn nothing. I was a 'Laic' they believed,----perhaps No. 134 or 137--they do not know which; and these are but sorry facts from which to derive the baptismal registry of a future cardinal. And yet something must be done, and speedily too. On the question of birth the Sacred College is peremptory. You will say that there ought to be no difficulty in devising a genealogy where there are no adverse claims to conflict; and if I could go over to Ireland, perhaps the matter might be easy enough. At this moment, however, my presence here is all-essential, while I am not without a hope that accident may afford me a clew to what I seek. A few days ago I was sent for from Malgherra to attend the dying bed of a young officer, whose illness had so completely disordered his brain that he forgot every word of the foreign language he was accustomed to speak, and could only understand or reply in his native English. Although I had other and more pressing cases to attend to, the order coming from an archduke made obedience imperative, and so I hastened over to Verona, where the sick youth lay. Conceive my surprise, Michel, to discover that he was the same Dalton,--the boy whom I have so often adverted to, as