that jurisdiction emanated. Bishop Douglas, the Vicar Apostolic of the London District, constituted the Bishop of St. Pol de Léon his vicar-general in all that related to the French; and it was he who appointed priests to serve the various chapels in London, at Southampton, Lymington, Romsey, Hardway, near Gosport, and Winchester. For an account of these chapels and the zealous labours of the priests we must refer to Canon Plasse. We will say a few words about one that he has passed over. A French chapel was opened in Winchester in 1798, after the breaking up of the King's House community, and was quite distinct from the two chapels used by the clergy there, as well as from the English Catholic Church in St. Peter's Street. It is not mentioned by Dr. Milner in his "History of Winchester," published just before its opening, nor alluded to by Dr. Husenbeth in his "Life of Milner," nor by Canon Plasse; but it is called in the register preserved in the archives in London, "Chapelle Catholique Française à Winchester." It is amusing to see how the priests were sometimes puzzled as to the ecclesiastical position of England. As all acts of baptism, marriage, &c., might be important after the hoped-for return to France, the French priests took care at each entry to repeat in full all that would serve to explain their acts during their exile. M. Auger, the priest in charge at Winchester, declares that he is cure of such a parish in France, that he is cruelly banished for his faith, that he is missionaire apostolique in England, that he is appointed by the Bishop of St. Pol de Léon, whom he calls vicar-general of Monseigneur l'Evêque de Londres; afterwards (finding that this designation is incorrect) Evêque de Centurie et Missionaire Apostolique. It is not till the third year that Bishop Douglas gets his true title of Vicar Apostolic. Two other matters of some interest may be here stated, since there is no mention of them in Canon Plasse, and we have sought in this notice to supplement as well as to abridge his work. One is the appointment of a French army chaplain; the other a mission given to French prisoners of war. A register of baptisms, marriages and deaths was kept in Southampton from December, 1792, at the first landing of the emigrants, to December, 1804. The chapel and register after a year's interval were transferred to Lymington, and date from January, 1806, to December, 1807, and again from July, 1808, to July, 1813. Here several names are English and Irish, since there was no other chapel in that neighbourhood; whereas in Winchester the French priest's jurisdiction was confined to the exiles. With the death of M. Le Tellier, the priest who had served at Southampton and Lymington for ten years, the register ceases; but we then come upon the interesting fact of an army chaplain, though only for the foreign troops in

English pay. In 1814, and to August 28, 1815, the registers are signed by the Prêtre Missionaire Apostolique et Chapelain des Troupes du Foreign Depôt à Lymington. At the final fall of Napoleon and the breaking up of the foreign contingent the chaplain no doubt returned to France. He leaves a note, that all future entries must be made by the Rev. Mr. Brown, resident at Pyle Wells House, near Lymington.

The account of the mission to French prisoners is given by De Lubersac. He does not mention the date, but it was before 1802 when he wrote. Thirty thousand French prisoners filled the prisons of Porchester, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Bristol, Norman Cross, Chatham, &c. Their wretched spiritual condition moved the compassion of the Bishop of St. Pol, who was the first mover in all good works. He gathered a number of experienced and zealous priests, got special leave from the Government, and sent them to the various prisons. Though as priests and as royalists they met with contempt and insult from the majority of the prisoners, on the other hand they had great success and consolation with others. It is a touching incident that when the good missionaries made known to the Bishop and other priests the frightful state of nudity in which they found many of the prisoners, a subscription was opened among the poor banished priests for their relief, and these men, who had scarcely decent clothing for themselves, deprived themselves of all that was not absolutely necessary to clothe their more necessitous fellowcountrymen. This is but one out of many traits of generosity, which we regret to pass over.

Their generosity in assisting each other was only equalled by their gratitude to the English. More than a year before the Government grants, and before any of the great public subscriptions had been made, at the end of the year 1792, the Bishop of Léon thus addressed the French priests in England:

May the God of mercies shower down His chosen blessings on a people who seem chosen by Him to vindicate the violated laws of nature and humanity! In the days of French power and glory England often disputed the field of battle, and her efforts were often crowned with success in asserting her right to the dominion of both seas. But she offers to us a more glorious spectacle, a triumph of a higher nature. She has opened her ports to you, she considers you not as strangers, she sees you are unhappy, and she embraces you as brethren and friends. The English are not startled at your numbers; they think the best use they can make of their great opulence is to afford succour to a greater number of persons in distress. . . . . In the seaports, in cities, in villages, in the isles [Jersey, &c.], and the capital, what an eagerness to anticipate and relieve our wants. Citizens of every rank,

* De Lubersac: "Journal," p. 101.

pressing forward to welcome a colony of unfortunate exiles with a brotherly affection, were more happy in the offer of their services than you in receiving them, anxious to conceal the hand that ministered to your wants, and hurt only by the reserve that hid them. . . These attentions, this liberality, were not confined to any particular description of men, but common to the whole nation, and to every class that composes it: to the corporations, the chapters, the universities, to the palaces of the rich and the humble cottages of the poor.*

We would not, of course, be understood, from what has been said or quoted, to assert that all was peace and charity in this unexpected bringing together of French and English, Catholic priests and prejudiced Protestants. There were some outbreaks of violence, some ebullitions of bigotry. But considering the long enmity between England and France, and the war that was raging at that very time; considering also the ignorance and prejudice that prevailed, and the recent outbreak in the Gordon riots, the forbearance and generosity of England to these outcasts of her old rival, and priests of her discarded faith, were as remarkable as the gratitude of the French priests was sincere and their conduct edifying. The presence of so many priests in England created great alarm in some minds; but good feeling prevailed, and prevented the panic from spreading. There was a Mr. Jones in those days, as there has been a Spooner and a Whalley in our own. In a debate on Monastic Institutions in 1804, Mr. Jones spoke as follows:-" A celebrated character had said of the French Revolution that the age of chivalry was gone. So would he say that the age of Popery had commenced. He could not but think that danger was to be apprehended from 5,000 priests being in the country." But Mr. Jones was answered by Mr. Sheridan:

A foolish alarm had been sent abroad respecting the number of emigrant clergy now in this country. They were said to amount to 5,000, and persons had even been absurd enough to say that in one county alone they had converted 2,000 housemaids. How this wonderful conversion was brought about he could not well conceive. The emigrant priests spoke but little English, and our housemaids spoke as little French.+

Sheridan was right. Not only their ignorance of the language, but the fact that they were enjoying English hospitality prevented the French priests from making any active efforts to spread the Catholic faith. But their Masses, their prayers, their sufferings, and the good odour of their example, have not been without

*Milner's translation.

† Hansard, vol. xxxv.

effect in dispelling prejudice and drawing grace upon the country. Their edifying conduct was readily and universally acknowledged both by friends and enemies at the time. Now that we look back on this episode of the Church's history, we perceive in it, not dimly, the divine purpose, purifying as well as vindicating the Church of France, and giving to England an opportunity of national reparation to that Catholic Church she had so deeply outraged for more than two centuries. Carlyle, in describing the Church in France before the Revolution, writes with admiration of the age of Canossa, "when kings stood barefoot in penance-shirt," but sneers at the Church as changed since then, and making patrons of her kings; and laughs contemptuously at the "Sorbonne, mumbling only jargon of dotage, and no longer leading the consciences of men." As to the latter charge, it ill befits a writer who himself took the role of one crying in the wilderness. Is doctrine that has ceased to be popular necessarily jargon of dotage? Is the disbelief of either fools or "philosophes" an evidence of falsehood? If the Catholic faith ceased, in a great measure, to lead the consciences of men towards the end of the eighteenth century, it certainly had not ceased to hold the consciences of its teachers in France. The sincerity and earnestness of the faith that made them endure spoliation and exile is beyond cavil; and, to us at least, it is a grander spectacle to see 50,000 priests (for that was the number of the non-jurants) going willingly forth to banishment, and living in toil and penury for years, than to see even a proud emperor doing penance against his will. It is for this reason we hope that Canon Plasse's volumes will be read and studied both in England and in France. Written from a French point of view, and consisting in great part of translations into French of English documents, they will not bear translation into English in their present form; but we should welcome an English adaptation, supplemented from English sources, as an important addition to our historical literature, both civil and religious.

T. E. BRIDGETT, C.SS,R.

ART. IX. THE LOST, STRAYED AND STOLEN OF OUR CATHOLIC POOR CHILDREN.

OF

F the many humiliating and distressing sights to be met with daily in the richest and most populous of our large towns, there is none more saddening and more frequent than that of the ill-clad, ill-washed, and ill-fed street arab.

He is indeed ubiquitous, and his presence, with all its afflicting

detail, has long since grown familiar to us. We have, as it were, grown callous to the sight, and look upon his company as an unwholesome necessity. We have been so accustomed to live and work amongst them that their absence would astound us, while their presence has become to us a human landmark in our daily occupations and journeys through life. Yet, with it all, we know little of them, save that they exist and increase in number, that they are living pictures of untold suffering, misery and want; that they are one of a family which lies hidden from our sight in some damp, dark, fetid room or cellar, in a neighbourhood known to us only by name. At times, it is true, their haunts, mode of life and characteristics are set vividly before us by a special correspondent of some great daily newspaper, who, working the subject up into a thrilling and harrowing article, excites our curiosity, awakens our flagging sympathy, and rouses us to make impulsive use of generous resolutions. At other times we read of some great movement being set on foot with the object of reaching and affording relief, spiritual and temporal, to the thousands who fill our courts and alleys by night, and crowd our central thoroughfares by day. Again, our newspapers bring before us heartrending appeals, emanating from philanthropic societies, on behalf of the boy, the orphan, the deaf, the blind, the lame, the fallen, and others of that countless army of poor suffering souls, who eke out a miserable and precarious existence in all our large cities.

There is both instructive and interesting reading to be found in the annual reports published by these societies. The mind becomes enlightened on many subjects concerning which it had long been in darkness. To the superficial reader there is much that is comforting. He is struck with the energy and zeal displayed by "The Boys' Beadle" in his daily rounds in quest of the arab. He is cheered in reading that many have been rescued, that homes have been found for them. He is quite touched with the gratitude evinced by others in return for favours received. Every page glistens with hope, and is heavily laden with good deeds done. The last leaf, which contains the yearly balance sheet, is the only chilling page in the bright little volume. He will close the book with the conviction that the Society is doing a noble and benevolent work-that it should certainly be encouraged and supported.

But reflections far more serious and weighty than these arise from a perusal of these reports. They reveal the existence of an unfathomable social disease in our midst, which has been allowed to grow and spread until it has covered the whole surface of the three kingdoms, with its thousands upon thousands of helpless, abandoned, and neglected victims.