having successfully sought in the Chief of the victorious army of cannon's mouth the bubble reputation, Versailles from offering the last tribute but after having found it harden in his of his allegiance when the grave was grasp into an orb of empire as solid closing over his imperial master in his and real as in any golden regalia. If honored exile at Chiselhurst. The his scabbard was empty on his return Marshal remembered that while the as a prisoner of war from Germany, a great prince to whom he owed everySword of Honor was eagerly presented thing was no more, the dead Cæsar had to him by his brother Frenchmen. left an heir to his fortunes. Hence, Hardly was the formidable wound in upon the morrow of Napoleon's obhis thigh healed when he was placed sequies there, upon the steps of the anew at the head of the army as overturned throne, at Versailles, MacCommander-in-Chief. Upon the mor- Mahon was still standing, with the row of his restoration to authority, sword of France in his grasp, ready there devolved upon him the lamenta- for any emergency. There he yet ble, yet in some sense also the enviable remains in the same attitude, only in a responsibility of subjugating in the higher position-no longer upon the leaders of the Commune a horde of steps of the throne merely, but upon miscreants exactly resembling those of the very place where the throne itself whom Lord Macaulay had long before stood, and where at any moment it spoken prophetically as "heathens in may again be standing. The opporthe midst of Christianity and savages tunity he awaits is the one for which in the midst of civilization." Having he has all along been prepared, namely, extinguished the flames that threatened that of proving his loyalty to the will at one time to reduce to ashes the of France whenever that will may be stateliest capital in Europe, he stood again pronounced. Not the will of a there, as it were upon the very steps little gang of half a dozen intriguers, of the throne, or at any rate close to like the men of the Fourth of where the now subverted throne had September, but of ten millions of adult been standing but yesterday. Awhile Frenchmen. Meanwhile, pending its ago he had been there as one of its coming, let us glance for a moment at chosen Paladins one of the Dukes, the gallant history of the man whose one of the Senators, one of the Grand chivalrous form stands forth so conCrosses of the Legion of Honor spicuously in the gap of the present created by the Emperor before the interregnum. floodgates of disaster had opened from Marie Edme Patrick Maurice, heaven above France. The storm of Comte de MacMahon, Duc de Magenta, misfortune having exhausted its fury, Marshal of France, Grand Cross of the Napoleon III having bent before it Legion of Honor, Knight Grand Cross with a noble and affecting submission of the most honorable Order of the -the bravest and trustiest of all the Bath, and wearer of a large number Satraps of the Second Empire had of other knightly decorations, exbeen debarred by the very responsi- Senator of France, and President of bility of his position as Commander-in-the French Republic, was born at

Sully, just sixty-five years ago, on marriage with a lady of the ducal Wednesday, the 13th July, 1808. At house of Caraman, he became the the time of his birth Napoleon the parent of four sons and four daughters. Great dominated over nearly the whole As a younger son, the now chief of continent of Europe. At that moment the state in France was destined even also, the prince, who was afterwards in his boyhood for the military profor twenty years to reign over France fession. His preliminary education

as Napoleon III, was then living, as an for the service was at the academy of infant of three months old, in his birth- Saint Cyr. At seventeen he began place and his familiar home so long af- his career, in 1825, as a soldier, first terward—the now ruined palace of the entering the corps d'état major. When Tuileries. Upward of a hundred years twenty, he, in 1830, crossed the Medibefore the dawn of the century, the terranean into Algeria. There he sigprogenitors of the Marshal, having nalized his prowess by many radiant chivalrously risked everything in the exploits, giving evidence not merely hazard of war, out of a loyal devotion of his gallantry, but of his intelligence. to the cause of the Stuarts, passed At twenty-four he took part as aideover as exiles into France from their de-camp of General Archard in the native land, Ireland. Carrying with joint expedition of France and them their ancestral traditions (for the England against Antwerp. There he race of the MacMahons was at once so far won his spurs, that he gained a proud and historical) these Jacobite right to the title afterwards accorded forefathers from whom the Duke of to him of Captain. Returning to Magenta has descended, soon became Africa, he there, in that practical naturalized in the country of their school of fighting, assumed to himself adoption. Centuries previously their a conspicuous position among the house had won distinction to itself gallant body of horsemen then first among Irishmen. Received now called into existence, and since famous among Frenchmen with the sympathy all over the world as the Chasseurs due to a patrician race in misfortune, d'Afrique. In appearance and bearing they allied themselves by marriage he exactly answered Sydney Dobell's now with one, now with another, of animated description of that typical the ancienne noblesse. It was one of French soldier:

the earlier of these gallicized MacMahons who together with the hand of

Oh, a gallant sans peur
Is the merry Chasseur,

an heiress, obtained the ancient castle With his fanfarron horn and his rifle ping! pang! and the vast estates of Sully. Lineally

And his grand haversack
Of gold on his back,

descended from him, the President's And his pistol, crick! crack! and his sword cling!

clang!

father was himself in many ways noteworthy. He was a peer of France, an While the Citizen King, with a officer of high rank in the royal army, cynicism beyond even the reckless a Grand Cross of the Order of Saint" cœur legér" of Emile Ollivier, was Louis, and a personal friend of King saying with a chuckle, "I love to Charles the Tenth. Through his listen to the cannon in Algeria-it is

not heard in Europe!" young Mac- notably in May, 1869, the cross of the Mahon, in 1837, was distinguishing Danish order of the Elephant, and himself in the assault on Constantine. more recently in the July of 1873, the He was aide-de-camp to a succession Persian Order of the Sun emblazoned of African generals. Invited by with diamonds. Mac Mahon's advance Archard to carry to Colonel Rullières forms part and parcel of the History a critical order for a sudden change of of the Second Empire. His name is march, he disdained the proffered associated with many of the most reescort of a squadron of light dragoons, splendent exploits of the reign of and putting spurs to his horse started Napoleon III. On Canrobert's quitting off alone to Blidah. When half a mile the Crimea, in 1855, he was selected from his destination he found himself to succeed him in the command of a all but surrounded by the enemy's Division. When the allied army on horsemen. Immediately in front of the 8th September, made its final him, as he knew, was a terrific chasm, assault upon Sebastopol, he it was formed by two confronting precipices who, sword in hand, carried by a of enormous depth, called the "Ravine dazzling coup de main the formidable of Blidah." Happily MacMahon be- works of the Malakoff. For this he strode a noble charger. Dashing for- was at once made Grand Cross of the ward, he lifted his destrier at the Legion and immediately after, in 1856, appalling gap, which his steed just Grand Cross of the Bath. Three cleared, breaking both its fore legs, years later, in 1859, he was handed however, in its tenacious grasp of the the truncheon of a Marshal and was rocky brink. The desperate leap set created Duke by the Emperor on the at defiance the valor even of the field of Magenta, as signal tokens of Arabian horsemen; and the young his prowess and of the approval of chasseur, constrained to abandon his his imperial master in Napoleon III's charger, reached Blidah on foot with twofold character as Sovereign and his despatches. Colonel of the Foreign Generalissimo. Legion in 1842, and of the 41st Regiment in the April of 1845, the future Marshal was on the 12th of June, 1848, promoted to be General of Brigade, and as such for some time administering the province of Tlemcen.

During the November of 1861, it is curious to remember now, that the Duke-Marshal represented France at Berlin, on the coronation of William as King of Prussia. Ten years afterwards the latter was crowned Emperor On the 6th July, 1852, he was of Germany in the palace at Versailles. gazetted as a General of Division. Reverting to MacMahon, however, it The dates of his decoration with the was on the 14th October, 1862, that Legion of Honor were as follows: he was appointed to the command of November, 1837, officer; July, 1849, the Third Corps d'Armée, and it was commander; 10th August, 1853, grand on the 1st September, 1864, that he officer; 22d September, 1855, Grand was nominated Governor-General of Cross. Other insignia have since Algeria. His abortive attempt to adorned his breast in abundance, establish there an Arab kingdom was

the prelude only to a disastrous famine, | resistance of many hours were utterly and a still more disastrous immigration routed by the Crown Prince Fritz. of the colonists, in sheer disgust, to Upon the 1st September, 80,000 men Brazil. MacMahon's mistaken policy laid down their arms at Sedan, at the was formally denounced by the Bishop behest of General Wimpffen who had of Algiers, Monseigneur de Lavigerie. succeeded to the command immediately Eventually at the turn of 1868 and MacMahon, sorely wounded, had been 1869 the bungling project of the Arab carried from the battle-field. Having kingdom was abandoned, and the on the 3d April, 1871, been appointed regular principles of colonization Commander-in-Chief of the army of reverted to, greatly to the satisfaction Versailles, MacMahon, on the 24th at once of France and Algeria. As May, 1873, was by 390 votes of the to subsequent events, immediately Assembly, proclaimed in succession to following the outbreak of the terrible M. Thiers, President of the French Franco-German war, those are too Republic. Imperialist as he has been painfully within the recollection of us for twenty years and upward, soldier all to require enumeration. Three as he is and always must be aux dates glare upon the remembrance of points des ongles-it yet remains to all out of the gloom and terror of the be seen whether the Emperor's Marturmoil in which the destinies of shal and Duke, whether the Republic's France were (and for that matter still President and Commander-in-Chief, are) perilously involved. Upon the will emulate his Highness the Lord 6th August, 1870, at Woerth, 50,000 Protector, or his Grace the Duke of men under MacMahon after a stubborn Albemarle.

A PLEA FOR THE POOR.

'Tis most true, madam! the poor wretch you turn'd
Forth from your door was not of aspect fair;
His back was crooked, his eye, boa-like, burn'd,
Wild and inhuman hung his matted hair;
His wits unmannerly, uncouth his speech,
Awkward his gait, but, madam, pray recall
How little Fate hath placed within his reach,
His lot in life-that may account for all.
His bed hath been the inhospitable stones,
His canopy the weeping mists of night;
Such savage shifts have dwarfed his mind and bones,
And sent him all unseemly to your sight.
Want is no courtier-Woe neglects all grace;
He hunger'd, and he had it in his face!

-Thomas D'Arcy McGee.

GALILEO AND THE INQUISITION.

There are few subjects on which more | a plain and true statement of them, as has been written, and less understood, may suffice to refute these calumnies than the story of Galileo and his far- whenever they are repeated.

famed persecution. Every one knows It has been asserted, for instance, that he was a very celebrated mathe- by some authors, that, as a punishment matician and astronomer, who flourished for his heterodoxy, this distinguished in Italy about two centuries and a half philosopher was put to the rack; others ago, and who taught what was then have even gone so far as to say that called the Copernican theory about the his eyes were put out, so that he is motion of the earth round the sun, in entitled to be considered a martyr of opposition to the Ptolemaic theory, science; and a very large number which had almost universally prevailed tell us that he was imprisoned in the before his time, and according to which dungeons of the Inquisition, either for it was believed that the earth was station- five years, or for three years, or for ary, and that the sun was continually one year; for the period is made to in motion; finally, it is known that vary according to the boldness of inthis doctrine of Galileo's, which subse-vention, the bigotry, or the caprice of quent investigations and discoveries the writer. Then, again, those who have confirmed, met with considerable have been honest enough to tell the opposition and contradiction at the truth about the punishment which was time that he propounded it—that he inflicted on Galileo, yet have not failed to was denounced more than once to the draw all sorts of false conclusions from Roman Inquisition for teaching it, and the acknowledged fact of his condemthat by that tribunal he was eventually nation; either they represent it, for condemned and punished. All this is instance, as one example among many perfectly true; and if it were all that which serve to indicate a temper of Protestants are in the habit of saying jealousy and opposition to science on about Galileo and his history, I should the part of the Catholic Church, or else have had no occasion to write this tract they urge it as a strong and indeed in about them. Unfortunately, however, superable objection against our doctrine Protestant historians have been guilty of the infallibility of the Church's teachof such extravagant exaggerations in ing: "The Church," they say, their narratives of the event, they have demned Galileo's doctrine as false; she so ingeniously distorted and misrep- now admits it as true: what more need resented all the real facts of the case, be said?" that it seems very desirable to put In what follows, I propose to take within the reach of all Catholics such each of these points in order; and

con