Once the "Ave" has closed Christmas Day we must wait for New Year's Day, when the real festivities take place. It is then the goose has gabbled its last and the presents are handed round. The services are a miniature of those of Christmas Day. When the Epiphany, or Befana, dawns, one feels that the Romans are really in earnest about it this time. Your slumbers are broken about five o'clock by a confused braying of trumpets in all parts of the city, increasing in volume as the numbers grow and as the morning repast adds strength to the lungs. If you have nerves, don't go through the Piazza Navona. It is there that from time immemorial the Roman people have awaited the coming of the Three Wise Men, and it is there the blare of the trumpets is the fiercest. I have seen greybeards contending with the yet unbreeched in the production of soul-rending melody. If you pass through and have not a trumpet, your ears will be assailed by crowds that flock about you, doing their best to confound and deafen your precious organs. Such is the reception of the Wise Men by the Romans: a simple people, a race of sportive children these. The Octave of Epiphany is signalized partly by the presence of a litter of broken trumpets lying in every street, partly by a week of ceremonies of a very striking character. The Epiphany being the feast of the Gentiles as represented by the Three Wise Men, the Church of Saint Andrew (della Valle) is set apart for a series of services that show the loving conquest of Christianity over the Gentiles. Each day High Mass is celebrated in a different rite-Ambrosian, Greek, Maronite, each in their turn. On the day itself sermons are delivered by many ecclesiastics in as many different languages. It is not uncommon for thirty languages to be heard in the great building. In the evenings solemn Benediction is given by a Cardinal and at least half-a-dozen different nationalities constitute the servers on each occasion. Christmastide is now over. You feel like a guest that has dined both well and wisely; this has been a genuine birthday party and God has looked down like the loving Father that He is, and smiled and blessed His simple happy children. You feel that it is well to be a child in His eyes and to gaze in wonder at the rich treasures which He presented to you on that first Christmas Day. You rejoice with ancient Mother Church and feel proud to join in that crowd of Gentiles in offering homage, each in his own tongue, but with one heart, to the new-born Infant. One cannot refrain from wishing that for that one day at least there were a Rome in every country, wherein every soul would be happy and exultant and aglow with true joy: the joy that comes from Christian peace CHRISTOPHER FLYNN. IN RETREAT (In a Convent of the Cenacle.) As in a nest, beyond the great world's sorrow, But swift and unrelenting dawns the morrow— O Convent peace, and Sacramental gladness, That bravely I may meet and walk with sadness, Come with me, friends! so beautiful I find you I have no will to part: My one desire is to possess and bind you Against my heart! MAUDE ROBERTSON HICKS. A NEW LIFE OF MONSIGNOR THE DUPANLOUP By the Rev. WILLIAM P. H. KITCHIN, Ph.D. 'HE Librairie Hachette of Paris has been publishing for some time past lives of famous Frenchmen from the Renaissance down to the nineteenth century. The general title of the series is Figures du Passé; each monograph, written by a thoroughly competent littérateur, aims at giving a succinct and substantial account of its hero in some 300 pages, much like the Men of Letters Series, or the Heroes of the Nations Series, that we are acquainted with in English. One of the most recent additions to the Hachette library is a brief and most interesting life of Félix Dupanloup (18021878), the great Bishop of Orleans, from the pen of the wellknown professor and academician, M. Emile Faguet. There was already in existence an exhaustive life of Dupanloup written by his friend and Vicar-General, Mgr. Lagrange, but it would appeal almost exclusively to Catholic readers. The fact of Dupanloup's being accorded a place in the Hachette collection is proof positive that he has made a shrine for himself in the hearts of all Frenchmen, and that he is looked upon by men of all shades of opinion, as one of whom the Patrie may be justly proud. The future bishop's antecedents gave no presage of coming greatness; indeed they were particularly unfortunate. His mother, Anne Dechosal, was a poor peasant girl whom a common scamp took advantage of. She was on her way to the Maternity of Chambéry when sickness overtook her. Obliged to stop in the tiny village of St. Félix, Savoy, she called her child after its patron saint. The poor little mite ushered thus irregularly into a scornful world, must surely have been blessed with a fairy godmother, for no fond parent's soaring • Mgr. Dupanloup, par Emile Faguet, de l'Académie française. 251 pages in 8vo carré (Hachette). ambition could have dreamed for him a more glorious destiny than the one Providence had actually in store for him-a famous writer, a magnificent orator, a Member of the Academy, a Bishop of the Church, and, better still, a champion of the Faith not unworthy to stand beside Ambrose or Augustine. He was idolised by his mother; she toiled and slaved for him incessantly, and by the time he was seven she had saved money enough to take herself and him to Paris, and to send him to school. There the Rohan-Chabot family, one of the noblest in France, happened to hear their story; they took the desolate pair under their protection, the Abbé Duc de Rohan made the boy his protégé, and the young man, after a brilliant course at St. Sulpice, was ordained priest in 1825. Launched on his career, Dupanloup's first thought was to provide for his mother, to make some compensation to her for the toil and penury of past years. He wished always to have her near him, he spoke of her always without the slightest embarrassment, he never failed, no matter how busy, to devote to her some part of his day; she died in his arms and left him heartbroken. It is sad to relate that the young Abbé had to swallow many an insult and sneer, many a sly inuendo on account of his doubtful parentage; some good people thought that, while being kind to his mother, he would be wiser to keep her somewhat in the background. But he himself did not think so, and he allowed nothing interfere with what his heart dictated, or what his conscience presented to him as a sacred duty. And herein lies one of the most beautiful traits of Dupanloup's character, his absolute devotion to principle. All his life principle was his guiding star; he sustained the bitterest attacks, he surrendered the most coveted honours rather than deviate a hair's breadth from the high and rigid principles he had set before himself. The young priest would not forsake the old mother who had reared him, even though unwittingly her presence might create for him an awkward situation; the Canon declined the most flattering offers of the King of Sardinia, because he felt his place was still in Paris; the academician resigned his seat among the Immortals rather than sit with atheists and sceptics; the Bishop declined the Red Hat rather than obtain it at the price of an unworthy silence. Shortly after his accession Leo XIII. offered Dupanloup the Cardinalate. At that time no French ecclesiastic could receive any church dignities without the permission of the Government. The Executive demanded as a sine qua non of Dupanloup's acceptance that he abstain from protesting against the official celebration of Voltaire's centenary. But, true to his principles, he refused to allow himself to be gagged; he did protest, and so vigorously that the project failed. Another trait equally honourable to the prelate was his horror of luxury, parade, or pretence of any kind. Associated from the beginning with the highest personages in Europe, tutor before his thirtieth year to the Orleans princes, he ever retained the practice of that poverty in which he had been brought up. His clothes were shabby and ill-kept; so that persons meeting him readily mistook him for "un curé de village un peu negligé"; his study was furnished like the room of a poor student; and last, but not least, he gave the strictest orders that no funeral oration should be pronounced over his remains. "I could not bear to think," he used to say, "that they would come there to praise me and do injury to the truth, which God knows." Even the first year of his priesthood Dupanloup made his mark as a catechist by the interest he knew how to infuse into his lessons and the enthusiasm he inspired in his pupils. But it was as superior of the Petit Séminaire of St. Nicolas that he really acquired fame. During the eight years of his rule (1837-45), the college advanced by leaps and bounds; dozens of brilliant pupils were congregated there under his aegis, several of whom afterwards became bishops, and four reached the Sacred College itself. One pupil of rather unfortunate fame was drawn from obscurity and given a bourse at the college by his care, namely, Ernest Renan. Renan years after, while criticising severely the system of instruction given at his alma mater, yet bore eloquent testimony to the character of its president. It is interesting to know that when Renan, now a seminarian of St. Surplice and nearing ordination, had lost the faith, he revealed his equivocal position to his former teacher. Dupanloup immediately pointed out that honour and principle required Renan's instant with |