A TOPE'S LOVE STORY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXI, Issue 13326, 4 January 1904, Page 3

A TOPE'S LOVE STORY.

(Daalij Mail.) Pim, X. is not, after all, to leave the Vatican, and the world will not witness the unwonted spectacle of a Pope walking the streets of Rome. The new Pope, daring almost to audacity in setting aside convention,' has not dared to 'break the bonds ■which keep him a prisoner in the Vatican, and it would have been amazing had he resolved to break through the tradition whidh makes the Pope of Rome a prisoner-king in his own palace. Nothing so sensational as that has happened, perhaps, in Rome since .the days when Giovanni Mastai Ferretti became Pius IX. , It was not, it isHrue, a sensation which the newspapers blazed abroad ; but there still lives to-day, not a hundred l miles from Windsor Castle, a gentleman whose mother knew Pius IX. in other and humbler' cir-cura-stances than .as Pope, whose mother’s sister’s life was bound up in a mystery which was only solved when the name of the last Pope ’Pius was shouted from the balcony to the waiting crowds in Rome. The’ Irish peasants of ICilmore have not yet forgotten the story-. It was a daughter of Bishop Foster, of ICilmore, who married the Count de Salis, and her sister who stood at an altar waiting for the bridegroom who never came, and of whom she never heard again until his name was known to all the world. There are those who say that the Countess de Salis was unhappy in her married life, and that she lived to deplore the mar-ringe whidh took her from her own to a foreign land,_ and cut her off from the home and friends among whom she had been brought up. And there are those who say that the charges against the Count de Salis had no foundation in truth. Let us take the story as w© will; what matters here and now is that the Countess de Salis, who had left Ireland a fair and beautiful girl, famed for her cleverness and charm of manner, came back to Ireland haggard and ill, worn with grief, a widow, with sorrow'- and anguish as her daily companions. ‘ Here was a rare kind of hypochondria, the doctors said, and they prescribed a daring, remedy as the only one which had in it any hope. The Countess could not rest, they said, because the room in which she had endured hen miserable life abroad was stamped upon her brain. The only chance-to save her life was that she should live in the room again, and connect it with happier scenes. . It w'us too hard a remedy, and the countess would not go —she would not- go, at least, without her sister —and the bishop and Mrs Foster, broken-hearted by the change in their married daughter, -would not consent that Miss Foster should leave their home. But the Countess de Salis grew -worse, and in the end, swearing solemnly that in no circumstances should her sister marry a foreigner, she took Miss Foster with her back to Florence,, where, as they crossed the threshold of the room they were to share, the countess fell insensible, and for weeks it seemed that she must die. Then she came back to health and strength, the room in which she had suffered became the scene of a happier life, the old memories receded farther and farther back, and her salon became, as one who knew her said, the most attractive in Florence. Then there came a day when the salon ceased to be the meeting place for all the best people in Florence ; those who came to it found that the sisters had gone. The young count, who had shown unbounded devotion to Miss Foster, was the most disappointed of all whom they had left behind, and little did he guess that his devotion had driven the sisters from their home. They went to Rome, and the countess hoped that, amid now faces and new scenes, her sister would forget the count, who had already won her heart. But love laughs at boundaries, .and it mattered not to Miss Foster that she was in Rome ; her heart was every day and every hour in the city she had left. She grew ill as the Countess tie Sails grew well, and soon the invalid and the nurse changed places. Miss Foster sank slowly, until only one thing could save her, and two courses were open to the Countess de Salis. Either she could keep her promise to her parents, and lei her sister die, or she could break her promise and bring Miss Foster back to health. She broke her solemn word, the young count was summoned to Miss Foster’s side, the wedding day was fixed, the bride was

at the altar, but the bridegroom was not there. Miss Foster never saw him again. The time came when there was a famine among , the peasants of Italy. Thousands perished of starvation and disease. Panicstricken priests left their flocks, and the poor' were left to die. • In that _ sad time one young bishop stood by his people, came back from Switzerland to be among them, sold his books, his carriages, and the episcopal ring ho wore, and distinguished himself by his sacrifice and devotion when nearly all who could were seeking safety and comfort elsewhere.„ When the famine passed away, the young Bishop of Imola was made -first Archbishop of Spoleto and a cardinal. Pope Gregory XVI. lay dying, and not a soul in the . capita] of the Popes knew who would next rule over Rome. In the streets ot the Eternal City a carriage passed by the French Ambassador bearing the cardinal- who had been Bishop of Imola, the bishop ■ whose name had rung through Italy when the peasants • died for lack of bread. , TT« Ambassador was tbe most

owerful man in Romo, and when he determined, as ho saw the cardinal in his carriage, that the young bishop should he Pope, the election was but a nominal thing. Cardinal Ferretti became Pius IX., and on the day he was raised to his-throne it was made known to Miss Foster that the new Pope was the count for whom she had waited at the alt-ax! He had been appointed to a Jesuit mission, from which no member of bis Church could shrink; his letters had been intercepted by his friends, and he had been persuaded by those who valued his services to the Church to believe that Miss Foster had ceased ; to love him. There is still living a lady, bearing a high place in society, 1 who heard the story from the lips of Miss 1 Fos-' ter’s sister, and the facts were told by Dr Hawtrey, the Provost of Eton,. to Mr Augustus Hare, in whose diaries they are set down. “Recollect,” said Dr Hawtrey,, “ that it is no mere story I have heard ; it is part of my own life. Madame de Sails and her sister were my relations, and I was most intimate with them. T was there when Madame do Salis made her miserable marriage; I was there when she came back so terribly changed. I shared in the consultations as to whether her sister 'should go with her. I was with Dr and Mrs Foster when they received the letter about Count Mastai; I was there when they heard of the disappearance of the mysterious bridegroom; and I have lived to think of him as Pope.”