By the time he has drunk all the contents of the intoxicating beverage, he will begin to mutter between his teeth that the French clergy does not get its deserts, and that we are a long time in restoring to it the property taken away by the Revolution.
I actually heard this argument maintained on board the steamer which brought me back to France.

The principal passengers were Prince Souworf, Governor of the province of Riga, one of the most distinguished men in Europe; M.de la Rochefoucauld, attached to the French embassy; M.de Angelis, a highly educated and really distinguished _mercante di campagna_; M.Oudry, engineer of the Civita Vecchia railway: and a French ecclesiastic of a respectable age and corpulence.

This reverend personage, who was nowise disinclined to argumentation, and who had just left a country where the priests are never wrong, took to holding-forth after dinner upon the merits of the Pontifical Government.

I answered as well as I could, like a man unaccustomed to public speaking.

Driven to my last entrenchments, and called upon to relate some fact which should not redound to the Pope's credit, I chose, at hazard, a recent event then known to all Rome, as it was speedily about to be to all Europe.