of the great Prince Metternich, Emperor
Francis-Joseph has experienced the utmost difficulty in reconciling
his religions belief with his obligations as a constitutional monarch,
for he has been repeatedly obliged to give his sanction as a sovereign
to reforms enacted by the legislature of Austria, and particularly
of Hungary, which were strongly opposed by the Roman Catholic Church,
fiercely denounced by the clergy, and condemned by the Vatican. That
he should in matters such as these have sacrificed his religious
prejudices and conscientious scruples to what he conceived to be his
duty as a constitutional monarch, speaks volumes for his strength of
character, and for his uprightness as a ruler. There is only one thing
that he has declined to do, in spite of all the pressure brought to
bear upon him by his ministers and by his allies: he has absolutely
declined to visit Rome so long as the Pope remains deprived of his
temporal sovereignty. Ordinarily the most chivalrous and courteous
of monarchs, and extremely punctilious in the fulfilment of all the
obligations imposed by etiquette, he has up to the present moment
refrained from returning the visit paid to his court at Vienna by King
Humbert and Queen Marguerite nearly twenty years ago. Leo XIII., like
his predecessor, has intimated that he would regard any visit paid to
the King of Italy in the former Papal Palace of the Quirinal at Rome,
by a Catholic sovereign, as a cruel affront to the occupant of the
chair of St. Peter. The only Catholic ruler who has visited King
Humbert at the Quirinal, in spite of this papal protest, is Prince
Ferdinand of Bulgaria, who was at the time subject to the ban of
the church, in consequence of the conversion of his little son from
Catholicism to the Greek orthodox rite, in order to insure his
own (Ferdinand's) recognition by Russia as ruler of Bulgaria. But
Francis-Joseph has never consented to set his foot in Rome, although
it has been pointed out to him that the existence of the triple
alliance was imperilled by this slight placed upon King Humbert and
Queen Marguerite. He did not hesitate to declare that he would rather
forego the alliance than affront the Pope by visiting Rome under the
present circumstances.

One little scene, in conclusion, which I witnessed at Vienna, has
always remained impressed upon my mind, illustrating as it does the
democracy of the Catholic Church, if I may use that expression, and
demonstrating the g