1889] Vatican Politics 27 



(as French woods are) with straight rides or rather drives of grass 

 cut through them, and though there is no old timber, all having been 

 levelled with the ground in 1814, the oak trees grown up again from 

 the stub are very beautiful, and the place is full of woodpeckers, jays, 

 and magpies, besides game. There is a stone recording the death of 

 the late Prince's first roebuck : lei mon fils a tue son premier chevreuil, 

 with the date 1826. This was Wagram's father, who went on till 1888, 

 killing something every day in season and out of season, partridges on 

 their nests if he could find no other, dogs, and sometimes beaters. All 

 is recorded in a book; and he might have been the original of Carlyle's 

 Baron : qui centum mille perdices plumbo confecit et statim in stercore 

 convertit. (I am not sure of the Latinity.) He died at the beginning 

 of last year, being about eighty years old, but shooting on to the last 

 week of his life. 



" I have received a nice letter from Kidderminster in answer to 

 mine, and the ' Pall Mall Gazette ' announces my retirement publicly 

 from political life. The Princess is triumphant at this retirement, as 

 she was always opposed to my politics." 



All this was very demoralizing from a public point of view. On the 

 25th I was joined by my family at Paris, and on the 2nd November we 

 moved on to Rome and Egypt. At Rome, where we spent a month, 

 I found myself once more within the sphere of the serious life of two 

 years before, having many friends among the Irish clergy, who formed 

 so strong an element at the Vatican, and I find many entries in my 

 diary connected with Irish politics, some of which are worth transcribing 

 here. 



" 4th Nov. — To see Monsignore Stonor, who has inherited much of 

 Cardinal Howard's position, being a sort of diplomatic go-between with 

 the Papal court as well as having been made an archbishop. He tells 

 me that Lintorn Simmons is coming here on an official mission to the 

 Vatican. When he, Stonor, saw Lord Salisbury in London this sum- 

 mer, Lord Salisbury told him that diplomatic relations would have to 

 be established with the Pope, but that there was such fear of opposition 

 from the Non-conformists that it would have to be done cautiously. 

 Rosebery had told him much the same thing. Now the pretext is a 

 settlement of ecclesiastical disputes at Malta. This, Stonor says, is 

 a pretext only, as the disputes were settled some time ago through 

 himself. He also told me what happened between the Pope and the 

 German Emperor. There was no rudeness intended by the Emperor 

 nor offence taken by the Pope. An arrangement had been come to 

 between the Emperor and Prince Henry, that Prince Henry and 

 Herbert Bismarck should come to the Vatican half an hour after the 

 Emperor, but owing to the slow pace of the Emperor's carriages Prince 

 Henry arrived too soon by ten minutes. Herbert Bismarck thereupon 



