Curiously enough, he was speaking of the arch-priest of priests, renowned above all others in this Peking world, Monseigneur F——­, Vicar Apostolic of the Manchu capital—­almost Vicar of God to countless thousands of dark-yellow converts.  It is Monseigneur F——­’s letter of the 19th May, written but five days ago, and already locally famous through leakage, which was the subject-matter of his impromptu oration.  Monseigneur F——­ wrote and demanded a guard of marines for his cathedral, his people and his chattels—­quarante ou cinquante marins pour proteger nos personnes et nos biens, were his exact words, and his request has been cruelly refused by the Council of Ministers on the ground that it is absurd.  The Vicar Apostolic, however, gave his grounds for making such a demand calmly and logically—­depicted the damage already done by an anti-foreign and revolutionary movement in the districts not a thousand miles from Peking, and solemnly forecasted what was soon to happen....

The French Minister was irate and raised his fat hands above his fat person, took a discreet look around him, and then hinted that it was this Legation, the British Legation, which stopped the marines from coming.

The French Minister was quite irate, and after his discourse was ended he slipped quietly away—­possibly to send some more telegrams.  The crumbs of his conversation were soon gathered up and distributed and the conviviality somewhat damped.  As yet, however, the Boxers are only laughed at and are not taken quite seriously.  They have killed native Christians, it is true, and it has been proved conclusively now that it was they who murdered Brooks, the English missionary in Shantung.  But Englishmen are cheap, since there is a glut in the home market, and their government merely gets angry with them when they get into trouble and are killed.  So many are always getting killed in China.

So the Boxers, with half the governments of Europe, led by England, as we know by our telegrams, seeking to minimise their importance—­in fact, trying to stifle the movement by ignoring it or lavishing on it their supreme contempt—­have already moved from their particular habitat, which is Shantung, into the metropolitan province of Chihli.  Already they are in some force at Chochou, only seventy miles to the southeast of Peking—­always massacring, always advancing, and driving in bodies of native Christians before them on their march.  Nobody cares very much, however, except a vicar apostolic, who urgently requests forty or fifty marines or sailors “to protect our persons and our chattels.”  Foolish bishop he is, is he not, when Christians have been expressly born to be massacred?  Does he not know his history?