“Well, go on.”

“Well, that’s the state of England.  Practically everybody is a Catholic—­from the King downwards.  The last remains of Church property was only actually given back to us last year.  That’s why the monks haven’t come back to Westminster yet.”

“What about the rest of the world?”

“Well, first Rome.  Austria drove out the House of Savoy nearly twenty-five years ago; and the Holy Father——­”

“What’s his name?”

“Gregory the Nineteenth.  He’s a Frenchman.  Well, the Holy Father is Temporal Ruler of the whole of Italy; but the Emperor of Austria administers it.  Then France is, of course, a very small country.”

“Why small?”

“Well, you know the European War of 1914 . . .?” Monsignor interrupted by a large sigh.

“Good heavens!” he said.  “How I shall have to read.  I’m sorry.  Go on, please.”

“Well, France is a very small country, but intensely Catholic.  The Church is re-established there,——­”

“Is it a monarchy too?”

“Certainly.  The Orleans line came back after the war.  Louis XXII is king.  I was saying that the Church is re-established there, and is practically supreme.  That is traceable entirely to Pius X’s policy.”

“Pius X!  Why——­”

“Yes, Monsignor?”

“I know all about that.  But I thought Pius X simply ruined everything.”

“So they said at the time.  His policy was to draw the lines tight and to make no concessions.  He drove out every half-hearted Catholic by his regulations, and the result was a small but extraordinarily pure body.  The result has been that the country was re-evangelized, and has become almost a land of saints.  They say that our Lady——­”

“Well, go on with the other countries.”

“Spain and Portugal are, of course, entirely Catholic, like France.  The Monarchy was re-established in both of them in about 1935.  But Germany—­Germany’s the weak spot.”

“Well?”

“You see the Emperor isn’t a Christian yet; and Socialism lingers on there with extraordinary pertinacity.  Practically Berlin is the Holy City of Freemasonry.  It’s all organized from there—­such as it is.  And no one is quite comfortable about Germany.  The Emperor Frederick is a perfectly sincere man, but really rather uneducated; he still holds on to some sort of materialism; and the result is——­”

“I see.”

“But there are hopes of his conversion.  He’s to be at Versailles next week; and that’s a good sign.”

“Well, what about America?”

“Oh!  America’s chiefly English; and very like England.”

“You mean she isn’t republican?”

“Of course not.  My dear Monsignor——­”

“Please go on, as I asked you.  Tell me when she ceased to be republican.”

“Why, I scarcely know,” murmured the priest.  “It must have been about 1930, I suppose.  I know there was a lot of trouble before that—­civil wars and so forth.  But at any rate that was the end.  Japan got a good deal of the Far West; but the Eastern States came in with Canada and formed the American Colonies; and the South of course became Latinized, largely through ecclesiastical influence.  Well, then America asked England——­”