" Every convict,as the saying is, is allowed twenty-four hours to curse tho judge who sentenced him," remarks De Narfon; '" the cardinals who had been foremost in opposi tion to Cardinald Pecci did not wait so long to express their joy at the judgment the con clave had given against him." " This is not an election, but a divine In spiration," proclaimed Cardinal Ferrieri, who had boasted only a few hours before of lowering young Pecci's pride by getting the better of him in debate at the Academy of Theology. Another opponent, Cardinal Pietro, found a pithy phrase to express his devotion to Leo the Thirteenth: " We desire to be thy mouth and thy flesh," he said in his address as sub-dean of the Sacred College at the coronation of the new Pope. Despite all rumours to the contrary, the health of the Pope is excellent when one con siders his age. During the recent crisis which he passed through when he had to sub mit to a surgical operation, every one at the Vatican seemed uneasy, except himself: He insisted on being shown the bulletins signed every morning *and evening by his doctors, and he expressed surprise at so much alarm having been caused by these bagatelles! Sometimes he greeted the astonished doctors by reciting 1 rorn memory a canto of the " Divine Comedy," or some poetry he had composed during the night, in spite of his medical attendants' order that he was not to do any kind of work. On several occasions he expressed an intention of com posing satires at the expense of those who believed him to be half dead, and were in dulging, rather too early in the day, in prog nostications as to his successor in the Holy. See. The Pope, M. de Narfon says, is a trifle superstitious about tho number of years he -ill still live : His grandfather died at 96, and he firmly believes that he will die at the same age. This confidence, or superstition as some may call it, does not prevent him from preparing for death every morning, as if the visitor who will not be denied were sure to knock at his door before the evening. " Yes," he once said to a French cardinal, " you are right ;my health is very good. 