and supreme, subject only to the cardinal or his secretary, who never interfere except in some rare instance to support the rector's authority.

All this may appear discursive, but it is not so. I wish to make it plain how the Cardinal Prefect may, and usually does, hold himself entirely aloof from the ordinary life of the students, and, on the other hand, how he may cultivate, if so disposed, a certain intimacy with them, and appear among them. casionally. His position entitles him to take upon himself the functions of the rector, the spiritual father, the professor, acting the part of one or other, or all, even though only for a brief moment. This the regular Cardinal Prefect rarely or ever does. But Cardinal Barnabò often did so, to the immense enjoyment and profit of the whole college. This is why I have called him the Students' Cardinal. I have, of course, no experience of those who preceded or succeeded him. But I have known, as a visitor to Rome in after days, every one of the latter and have held converse with them-Cardinals Franchi, Simeoni, and Ledochowski-and I know from students of their time that they confined themselves wholly to the work of the Sacred Congregation and rarely appeared on the college side of the quadrangle.

And now, to come to particulars of Cardinal Barnabò's intercourse with the college, in recounting which I shall be excused, I hope, if the above paltry pronoun obtrude itself occasionally. These are reminiscences, not oral or written tradition. Memories can neither be recalled nor recorded without the interference of the inevitable ego.

With these, perhaps unnecessary, remarks I proceed to give my impressions of the great cardinal and relate the incidents. connected with him that came under my notice.

I first met Monsignor Barnabò, as he then was, in the private sitting-room of his predecessor, Cardinal Franzoni. This was on the bright morning of my first arrival in Rome in early September, 1855. I had already gone straight from the stagecoach station (there were no railways then in the Papal States, scarce any in all Italy) to St. Peter's and had heard Mass there in the Capella Borghese. On entering Propaganda I found the college deserted. Not a sound, not a footfall but my own, awaked the echoes in those sombre corridors. All the students, superiors, servants, were away in Frascati for the

summer holidays, not to return till October. For about two hours I roamed those empty halls.

At length a person appeared whom I took for a sort of under-sacristan. His soutane, quite plain in cut, was glossy and greenish with age and use. There was no vestige of dignity or authority about him. How well I knew and admired him later on as Don Domenico Veglia, the learned, kindly, wise, and witty Vice-Rector of Propaganda! Where is the student of those days, among the few now living, who, seeing these lines, will not bare and bow the head to his memory and breathe a prayer for his eternal rest? Through devious ways he led me up the grand staircase through the silent halls, up another mean and narrow stair leading, as I afterwards knew too well, to the infirmary. Opening a side door at the top we found ourselves in a narrow passage, then suddenly in the great consistory room, then in the ante-room, and finally in the cardinal's private sitting-room or study. There Don Veglia, retiring, left me. It was a small room but lofty. At the head of an oblong table in its centre sat his Eminence Cardinal Franzoni. At each of the sides was an ecclesiasticunder secretaries or minutarets. At the other end, facing the cardinal, sat a distinguished-looking priest in plain, black cassock, without a vestige of the purple. His torso was massive, and the head even larger proportionately. As he sat, one would take him for a tall man when on his feet, but he really was somewhat under the middle height. His brow was broad and high beyond the common, the nose long, thin, and slightly aquiline, the mouth wide, compressed, and firm, the eyes light gray and rather small, hair light brown turning gray, complexion of a healthy pallid hue. This man, then Monsignor Secretary, became in two months from that date Cardinal Barnabò, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda.

Cardinal Franzoni received my letters and put me a few questions, not searching nor embarrassing. He was a spare, feeble-looking man nearing, probably, his seventieth year. He had finely chiselled, patrician features, and looked the saint he was and all Rome held him to be. Neither in the spirit nor the flesh did he show kindred with this earth. He was tender and paternal to me, and dismissed me soon, saying, with a subtle smile, "Now you know French well enough; go, learn Italian." I never saw him again. About two months after

this interview all the other students, torches in hand, followed his bier in the dead of the night, amid a pelting rain storm, out beyond the city walls to the Campo Santo at San Lorenzo, where Pius IX. also lies at rest with many a saint and martyr. The cardinal died of low fever turning into that dread disease, the scourge and terror of Rome in those days, called "febbre perniciosa" in Italian; in English, more forcibly, "black death."

When we returned from vacation in Frascati in October, no appointment of Cardinal Prefect had yet been made. This, however, was not permitted to interfere with the ordinary routine of our college life. Yet a vague sense of uneasiness, a strong ripple of conjecture pervaded the whole house. So much depended for us on the character and the personal connections of the new Cardinal Prefect. He himself might be a kind of hidden Divinity to us, confined to his consistorial shrine and leaving the college to plod its way under the care of the Rector. But he would assuredly call around him new assistants, trusted and tried servants in his former office and household. Among those would be a new secretary who would be ex-officio moderator of our studies and president of the professorial staff. Almost as certainly there would be a new Cardinal Economo, whose influence would reach the refectory and govern the supply system-a matter of supreme interest to all students in all colleges under the sun. There was but one sentiment throughout Propaganda as to the election of the new Cardinal Prefect. Monsignor Barnabò was the man we all wanted, from rector and professor down to cook and scullery man. But the election to this office, though consultatively in the hands of the members of the Sacred Congregation, is really in the hands of the Pope alone. It was not usual to nominate him from the body of the Cardinals of the Sacred Congregation. It was unheard of to uplift the monsignor secretary, whose sole ecclesiastical titles, in the case of Barnabò, were those of monsignor, an honorary title at best, and Canon of St. John in Lateran (a high rank but conveying no official status outside that church), at one bound to the dignity of Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda. The position of secretary of Propaganda is, indeed, what is called a "cardinalitial post," and sooner or later leads to the red biretta. But it does not, even then, in

volve membership, much less prefecture, of this Sacred Congregation. Usually the secretary, having become cardinal, is transferred to some other Congregation of Cardinals. Besides, the secretary of Propaganda is almost always either an archbishop or a bishop. The cardinal prefects have always before, without exception I believe, held episcopal rank. This rank Monsignor Barnabò did not possess when secretary, and could never be induced to accept after he became Cardinal Prefect. He remained always a simple priest in orders and cardinal priest of the title of Santa Susanna. Not even Pius IX., his beloved master, intimate friend, and fellow-townsman (they were both Umbrians from about Sinigaglia and true types of the Romagnuolo), could induce him to change his resolve in this matter. So his chances seemed slight. But all at once the college was electrified with joy when his appointment as Prefect was made and proclaimed.

We had a grand fête that day. The new cardinal came to dine with us. Jacovacci, our maestro di capella, a composer whose name would be immortal only that his modesty was immeasurable, had a grand hymn ready for the occasion. The professor of rhetoric, who was a poet, composed the words. Our select choir tried to sing it, but the body of the students struck in, spoiled its harmony and scattered its beauties to the winds.

After this came the cardinal's reception to the élite of Rome in the grand rooms connected with the consistorial hall. We were present at this too in turns of cameratas-just a walk through to see the brilliant display and no more. The cardinal was in undress; that is, in society dress. He wore a very dark brown-not black-dress-coat with large lappets trimmed with gold lace and with a single row of gilt buttons. A regular eighteenth century coat it was, with its regular accompaniments, silk stockings (red of course) and buckled shoes. He remained all the time uncovered, and never moved from a pillar against which he kept his back, and behind his back his hands. This, to prevent the hand-kissing universal in Rome from all below to all above-even from children to parents when they meet at morning and part at night. Thus ended the cardinal's appointment and installation. Next day all were at work, he harder than any, as though nothing had happened. I shall have no more to say of him in his official capacity.

Before long the cardinal began to mingle amongst us students. It was his delight and his frequent custom to celebrate the Communion Mass for us on a Sunday or special holiday. Immediately after Communion he would address us in what the Romans call a "fervorino"; that is, a devout and ardent appeal to the heart on the greatness and grace of the Blessed Sacrament. In this particular style of address I never met his equal anywhere, though I heard the best and holiest men in Rome of my day. His knowledge of the Sacred Scriptures and the Fathers, and his manner of welding them into his own discourse without effort or display, was amazing. The man himself seemed on fire with devotion, and I never witnessed any one celebrate Mass with such vivid faith and complete absorption of soul and body in the great act. Once, at least, he practically conducted the whole annual retreat for us in Frascati. Padre Pio, the saintly Passionist of those days, was appointed for the work. But, on the second day, out came the cardinal from Rome and took up the morning and afternoon instructions (two practical lectures called in Rome "Riforme"), leaving to the padre only the night and early morning meditations. Here the cardinal was in his element, and soon made it our element also. In nothing was he more eminent than in common sense, knowledge of men and affairs, and experience of the human soul and its devious ways. I used to take down those discourses in writing in my room while they were fresh in my mind. I bitterly regret they are not to hand, but hidden somewhere among the débris of a life's memoranda. While, in the chapel in Rome, the cardinal could melt the heart by the suavity and sweetness of his word, here, on retreat, he was engaged in forming our spirits for the coming conflict of life, and he was all power, prudence, and pith. At all times, outside his hours of devotion, there was something about him of the military commander-the French commander, whose soldiers are "mes enfans" and he to them "mon capitaine" or "mon colonel." And for this feature of his character there was an excellent reason. When a mere boy-scion of a noble family of the Romagna-he formed one of many such young lads taken hostages by Napoleon I. to extort compliance from Pius VI. with certain points of the Emperor's policy, particularly that of the exclusion of England from all commerce with the territories of the Holy See.