his existence in the exercise of the most
meritorious works. He said Mass in some small village before he was
made the cure of a canton. He has preached, confessed, distributed
alms to the poor, borne the viaticum to the sick, committed the dead
to their last narrow home.

The Roman prelate is often a great hulking fellow who has just left
college, with the tonsure for his only sacrament. He is a Doctor of
something or other, he owns some property, more or less, and he enters
the Church as an amateur, to see if he can make something out of it.
The Pope gives him leave to style himself _Monsignore_, instead of
_Signore_, and to wear violet-coloured stockings. Clad in these he
starts on his road, hoping it may lead him to a Cardinal's hat. He
passes through the courts of law, or the administration, or the
domestic service of the Vatican, as the case may be. All these paths
lead in the right direction, provided the traveller pursuing them has
zeal, and professes a pious scorn for liberal ideas. The
ecclesiastical calling is by no means indispensable, but nothing can
be achieved without a good stock of retrograde ideas. The prelate who
should take the Emperor's letter to M. Edgar Ney seriously, would be,
in vulgar parlance, done for; the only course open to him would be--to
marry. At Paris, a man disappointed in ambition takes prussic acid; at
Rome, he takes a wife.

Sometimes the prelate is a cadet of a noble house, one in which the
right to a red hat is traditional. Knowing this he feels that the
moment he puts on his violet stockings, he may order his scarlet ones.
In the meanwhile he takes his degrees, and profits by the occasion to
sow his wild oats. The Cardinals shut their eyes to his conduct, so he
does but profess wholesome ideas. Do what you please, child of
princes, so your heart be but clerical!

Finally, it is not uncommon to find among the prelates some soldiers
of fortune, adventurers of the Church, who have been attracted from
their native land by the ambition of ecclesiastical greatness. This
corps of volunteers receives contingents from the whole Catholic
world. These gentlemen furnish some strange examples to the Roman
people; and I know more than one of them to whom mothers of families
would on no account confide the education of their children. It has
happened to me to have described in a novel[8] a prelate who richly
deserved a thrashing; the good folks of Rome have named to me three or
four whom t