A LEGEND OF THE POPE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5233, 31 December 1877, Page 3

A LEGEND OF THE POPE.

Writing of the reports regarding Pio Nono’s health, the Paris correspondent of the Melbourne Argus says: —Those about him do not hesitate to affirm that he will live beyond his hundredth year, and they found their trust upon the following story:~-Xu 1866 a pious girl of Marseilles, Mdlle. Amelie Leautard, came to Rome to see the Pope, and felt inspired to dose her life by a supreme and heroic sacrifice. Pio Nono was,seriously ill. Mdlle. Leautard resolved to offer herself up as a victim to God in the place of His vicar, but fearful lest it should be an act of presumption, she resolved to obtain the authorisation so to do from the Pope himself. On her laying before him her pious wish, Pius IX. remained for a few moments and silent. At length, as if was obeying a voice which had spoken to him in secret, be laid his hand upon the head of the Christian heroine, and said, “ Go, my daughter ! Go, my daughter, and do what the Spirit of God has inspired yon to do.” The next day Mdlle. Leautard, as was her wont, heard the first mass at St. Peter’s. She there received the communion, and, having in her heart the lamb of love, she offered her life for the Pope to Him who had offered His for mankind. Her prayer was scarcely expressed, when seized with a fearfully sudden pain, she fell to the ground with a loud cry. A physician was called in, who declared that his skill was powerless against this strange distemper. Three days later she expired. When the tidings of this miraculous death were borne to the Vatican, Pins IX. heard it without evincing any surprise. But, raising, his eyes to_ Heaven, be murmured, in a voice fraught with emotion— Cosi tosta accettata ! (So soon accepted.) Such is the legend related by Monsignor de Segur, a fervent Catholic, in a small publication very little known. I have reproduced it word for word as I found it in a correspondence Lorn Rome to the Journal dcs Debats.