A POPE'S LOVE ROMANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 November 1916, Page 10

A POPE'S LOVE ROMANCE.

BRIDE FORSAKEN AT THE ALTAR.

Tlie_ appointment of Count do Salis as British Minister to the Vatican, in succession to Sir Henry Howard, recalls to a writer in the Star a love romance of a Pope. This Pontiff was Pius IX., and the lady, Miss Foster, daughter of Dr. Foster, Bishop of Kilmore, and sister to a Countess de Salis, third wife of the present Count's great-grandfather, Jerome Count de Salis.

Miss Foster and her sister w ere nieces «f John Foster, last Speaker of the Iris)' House of Commonß, who was created T.ord Oriel and is represented to-day by Wei Massereene and Ferrard.

Pius IX. has gone down to posterity as a liberal and enlightened occupant of the Papal throne, but few admirers here—admirers of a great clerio who carried out his own liberal views—are aware- that but for a love affair, wild which his family interfered and deliberately upset, he would never have entered the Church.

A young Italian, of good family, Count Giovanni Mastai-Ferretti, as he was then, entered the Guardia Nobile, and naturally mixed in the most exclusive Italian society. Miss Foster, a lovely girl, went to Italy to stay with her sister, Countess de' Salis, and there met tne handsome young Italian officer, Count Giovanni Mastai-Ferretti. the coU' pie being mutually attracted. The Count —an chivalrous, generous, and disinterested man, as his whole life showed—proposed, was accepted, and th* wedding-day fixed. But when the day arrived the Count was not at the church. The would-be bride waited for a long time, but he never arrived, and not for years afterwards did she learn the reason, and Know that he had after all been faithful.

Tho explanation was simple. The Count came of a Jesuit family who had estimated his value to the Church, and determined that it should possess, him. Letters were intercepted, and being per suaded that the beautiful Irish girl had ceased to love him, he took Orders, and was sent to tho West Indies. His true worth soon told; lie became a Bishop, and Archbishop, and Pope on the death of Gregory XVI. He learnt (how it i« not stated) of his family's deceit, and on the day be ascended the Papal throne he revealed the fact that he was the Count -Mastai-Fcrretti, who had failed to keep his wedding-morn engagement wi.li Miss Foster. Thus was the truth revealed to th? woman who had loved him so well.