"But what is most extraordinary is, that these women and children who bestowed their charity on the pope, went to do it into halls full of gold, marble, precious stones, velvet, silk, embroidery, paintings, and statues, into the Vatican, that gigantic palace, which occupies a space of fifteen hundred feet in length, and eight hundred in breadth, with twenty courts, two hundred staircases, eleven thousand rooms, galleries and halls full of treasures, and the construction of which has cost hundreds of millions. These children and these women passing through so much wealth never were struck with the idea that Pius IX. ought to be something more than a beggar; that there is no monarch in the world who has an abode like the popes of Rome--the very sight of the gifts sent by all the world to Pius IX. being enough to strike them dumb with astonishment. "Now these women and these children don't comprehend this, and here is the miracle. This Pius IX. ought to go into the cottages of these poor women and take them money, instead of their going to carry it into the luxurious palace of the pope. "The miracle becomes still greater every time that the Pope, replying to those who bring money, talks of Jesus; for Jesus was in a stable, not in a palace of eleven thousand rooms. Jesus would at once have sent away the Swiss, the gensdarmes, the palatine guards, the chamberlains private and not private, etc., and would have said to the people of the Trastevere, and of the quarters of the poor: 'Come here into the Vatican, poor people, leave those wretched cabins where you suffer so much; come to me; I have eleven thousand rooms to offer you, one of which is quite enough for me, and so I will divide these amongst those who have none.' This would have been said by Christ, whom Pius IX. invokes so often, calling himself His vicar or steward. But try, ye poor, to enter into the Vatican, and you will find at once at the door a Swiss, who will chase you away by blows of his halberd. He will let in anyone who comes to bring money, but not a soul who comes to ask for it."--E. "Your fisherman must then have sent five or six hundred thousand men to put these orders in execution?"