At the commencement of the year a great attempt was made by the Government to get up addresses of loyalty and devotion to the Pope.  Not even Pius the Ninth himself believed one single word in any of these purchased testimonials.  Indeed, on one occasion, when an address was presented by the officers of the army, he informed the deputation with more candour than prudence, that he knew perfectly well not one of them would raise his hand to save the Papacy.  But abroad, and more especially in France, it was conceived that such addresses would be accepted as genuine testimonials to the contentment of the Roman people with their rulers.  In obedience to these tactics, it was resolved to have an address from the students of the Sapienza.  Such an address, containing the stock terms of fulsome adulation and unreasoning reverence, was drawn up by the authorities.  Only a dozen students out of the 400 to 500 of whom the college consists volunteered to sign it.  The students were then summoned in a body before the rector, and requested to add their signatures.  For this purpose the address was left in their hands, but instead of being signed it was torn to pieces, and the fragments scattered about the lecture-room, amidst a chorus of shouts and groans.  With the sort of senile folly which characterized all the proceedings of the Vatican at this period, the affair, instead of being passed unnoticed, was taken up seriously, and assumed in consequence an utterly uncalled-for notoriety.  The college was closed for the day, several of the pupils were summoned before the police, an official inquiry was instituted into the demonstration, and the matter became the talk of Rome.

Of course at once a dozen contradictory rumours were in circulation, and it was with considerable difficulty that I obtained the above narrative of the occurrence, which I know to be substantially correct.  As a curious instance of how facts are perverted at Rome by theological bias, I would mention here that when I made some inquiries on the subject from an English gentleman, a recent convert, and I need hardly add a most virulent partizan of the Papal rule, who was in a position to know the truth about the matter, I was told by him, that there had undoubtedly been a demonstration at the Sapienza, but that the truth was, the students were so indignant at the outrages committed against his Holiness, that they drew up an address of their own accord, expressive of their devotion to the Pope, and that upon the rector refusing his consent to the presentation of the address, on the ground that they were too young to take any part in political matters, they vented by tumultuous shouts their dissatisfation at this somewhat ill-timed interference.  Now, not only was there such an inherent improbability about this story, to any one at all acquainted with Roman feelings or Papal policy, that it scarcely needed refutation, but subsequent events proved it to be entirely devoid of foundation in fact, and yet it was told me in good faith by a person who had every means of knowing the truth if he had chosen.  The anecdote thus forms a curious illustration of the manner in which stories are got up and circulated in Rome.