A ROMAN IMPOSTOR.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 45, 28 February 1890, Page 11

A ROMAN IMPOSTOR.

A BAD affair, says our (Catholic Review) Roman correspondent, hu just taken place, A handsome young man of aristocratic appearance and bearing, announcing himself as Prince de la Tour d'Auvergne, Domestic Prelate of his Holiness, clad in the most approved ecclesiastical garb, arrived and registered at the Minerva Hotel, the jreneral headquarters of foreign prelates and clergy visiting Borne.— He waa received with the courtesy due to bis apparent ecclesiastical and Bocial rank. Of finished address and manners, irreproachable ai to pralatial costume, he readily made friends, among them two bishops from Australia, guests at the Minerva, with whom, and in company likewise of two young priests, alumni of one of the foreign national colleges, he made the journey to Loreto. On the return of the party to the Hotel Minerva the police were awaiting the pseudo prince and prelate, whom they immediately arrested on a mandate of requisition from the police authorities of France and Belgium on the oharge of swindling and robbery committed in the Trappist monastery of Westermael, near Antwerp, where he had entered as a seminarian, and had fled thence, taking with him 2,600 florins and the gold watch of the Father Prior. Closely pressed by the chief of police, he waß forced to own himself a mere adventurer, by name Michael John Hallaii, twenty-one years of age, son of a small farmer of Monville, France. He was conveyed to the prison in Via GulU, known as Careers Nuove, still wearing his full prelatial attire. The arrest took place Saturday morning, November 9, and that night the unfortunate youth strangled himself with his purple stock and was discovered by the roundsman about daybreak cold in death, his eyes starting from their sockets and his face a deep violet colour. It is openly surmised that his conscience must have been burdened with some far more heinous crime than that of which he was accused to have induced suicide rather than the extradition which would have been his ultimate fate. A judicial perquisition in hia rooms at the Minerva resulted in the recovery of 1,300 florins and the gold watch robbed from the Trappist Monastery. After the autopsy the remains were placed in deposit in the cemetery of 8. Lorenzo fuori le mura. A strange feature in oonntction with the mournful occurrence :— Daring the jonrney to Loreto the pfeiido-ptel&lQ related to his fellowtravellers that "he was not a priest, not even in minor orders ;" in fact, it was noted he displayed no tonsure, " but tbat in his family," —naturally Tour d'Auvergne— "there was a prelacy which had fallen to his lot." To one of the young priests above mentioned he further observed in conversation : "1 do not know how to explain it, but something tells me I shall die in Borne." The matter passed uncommented, but the night of the suicide the priest to whom the remark had been made and who was wholly unaware of what bad befallen his quondam companion, was suddenly awakened in his bed at his college home, in the dead of night and heard distinctly a voice which he immediately recognised as that of the supposed prelate, his fellowtraveller of the day previous, which voice said audibly : " (Test vrai I " The next morning he learned of the death by suicide of the phantom speaker. This is no mere hearsay tale, but comes from an authorised source.

Letters from Belgium furnish farther tidings relative to the unfortunate adventurer. August 6th, a young ecclesiastic, untonsured, presented himself a guest at the celebrated Cistercian Abbey of Westermael, near Antwerp. He spoke French and Latin, and announced himself as Michael John Le Hallais, son of the Maiquis of that name, born at Muneville sur Mer, near Normandj. Prior Aerts courteously ceded bis own room to the visitor, who remained at the abbey till October 15, passing his time between prayer and study, generous, affable and a general favourite. On his departure, he promised a speedy return visit, but immediately he had left, Prior Aerts, resuming his cell, discovered he bad been robbed by the clever adventurei, who had drawn from the wall a heavy wardrobe, broken the rear planks, and appropriated some 5,500 francs in money and bank-bills, together with a gold watch fonnd therein, and replaced the piece of furniture. The police of Antwerp were at once informed of the robbery, and they, in their turn, applied to the police of Borne, who had meantime been warned from the Vatican tbat the list of domestic prelates included no one of the name of de la Tour d'Aavergne, which family, furthermore, numbered no ecclesiastic among its members. Consequently, the pteudo Prince-prelate must be a suspicious character. The result is already known,

We hear, says the Times of India, that 400 Portugese troops quarteied at Goa, are now being embarked for Moiambiqne. This is not a very " large order," but gives as, none the less, a fair measure of the impending "crisis." And now Goa is left defenceless.

It is noteworthy that St. Andrew is held in great veneration in Russia as well as in Scotland, having been, accordingjto tradition, the first preacher of the Gospel in that region ; and there are Orders bearing his name in both countries. That of Scotland, with the national emblem of the thistle, and the characteristic motto, " Nemo me impv/ne laeestit," is of very ancient origin. The Abbot Justinian states that it was instituted by Achaius 1., of Scotland, in the year 809, when this monarch entered into an alliance with Charlemagne, and then took for his device the thistle. It is said that King Hungus, the Pict, had a dream that St. Andrew made a midnight visit, and promised him a sure victory over his foes, the Northumbrians ; that on the next day St. Andrew's cross appeared in the air, and that, sure enough, tht Northumbrians were defeated. On this story, it is added, Achaius framed the Order more than 700 years before James V., to whom alternatively, has been awarded the honour of having founded the Order in 1540. It then consisted of himself as sovereign, and twelve knights, in imitation of Christ and His twelve apostles. In 1642 James died, and the Order was discontinued about the time of the Beformation. It was renewed by James VII. of Scotland, and 11. of England by making eight knights in 1687. The number was increased to twelve by Queen Anne in 1703, and to sixteen by George IV. in 1828,— Liverpool Catholic Times,