THE POPE'S BODYGUARD.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 200, 8 May 1902, Page 4

THE POPE'S BODYGUARD.

The Papal Noble Guard, the most important of the military bodies of the Vatican, has lately celebrated the centennial of its foundation. Much has been said about these young 'afis* tocrats, and many jokes have beea cracked at their expense, but the fact remains that they are an important ornamental element in all Papal functions, and are unique as the bodyguard of the Pope. Their* predecessors were a body of men constituted as a Papal guard in 1484, in the time of Innocent VIII. They were however, disbanded in 1794, when Pius VI. was carried off to France, whence he never returned. In 1801 an agitation was started in Rome, among the aristocracy not to leave their temporal sovereign any longer without a guard which ended in an address to Pius VII. offering their services gratuitously, if he would give his consent to the formation of a new corps, to which he replied by a despatch through his [Secretary of State, dated May 11, 1801, which may be called their act of foundation, and which established that they were to be 62 individuals men and officers. The Pope also accorded the new corps the important privilege of carrying the red zuchetto to those cardinals who cannot be present in Rome for the ceremony of their creation.