"What things are these? what service do these private chamberlains render? what is the use of this cloak and sword? We will undertake to say that they do not know themselves. Let us proceed. Then come next a quarter-master major, a correspondent general of the post, and one hundred and thirty fresh private chamberlains of the sword and cloak! Oh! it is a labor to count them! Next come two hundred and sixty-five honorary monsignori _extra urbem_, six honorary chamberlains of the sword and cloak, then eight private chaplains. What a number of _private_ affairs must the pope have? Then eighty-one honorary chaplains _extra urbem_; then--but enough, enough, enough! "No! not enough for the pope. Then come two private monsignori of the tonsure--still private!--then eighteen supernumeraries: two adjutants of the chamber, a private steward--again private!--then nineteen ushers, participants, and twenty-four supernumeraries. Then--ah! there are no more. Let us cast up those we have named; they amount only to a bagatelle of one thousand and twenty-five persons! And take note, that there are not included in this list the palatine administration, and the tribunal of the majordomo, the Swiss guards, the gensdarmes, etc., etc. "If it be difficult for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven, how shall he who inhabits the Vatican enter there?--who has treasures of all sorts, money, precious gems, precious and countless works of art, vessels of silver and gold, and who has on his head not one crown but three? who causes himself to be borne on the shoulders of men; who causes them to kiss his feet; who has millions of income, and a thousand persons to attend upon him? "There is, in fact, nothing to be compared with the effrontery with which the Vatican enacts the comedy of poverty. Yes, it has reason to believe still in miracles; it is an actual miracle which the Roman court works, in drawing from the pockets of the poor the obolus necessary to buy them bread, to spend it before their faces in Sybaritic luxury, in a palace of _The Thousand and One Nights_. On the day of Epiphany, the Jesuits sent to the Vatican some hundreds of women and children of the Trastevere, to carry to the pope a gift of money. The children to succor the poverty of the pope, who consumes on himself and household enough to maintain a whole city, gave him the money which they had received in gifts from their parents, and the women of the Trastevere, the few pence that they had laid aside for the needs of their families.