NAPOLEON III. AND THE BISHOP.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 49, 6 December 1900, Page 10

NAPOLEON 111. AND THE BISHOP.

A Parisian npwspaper recently recalled one of the inoidenta of the misunderstanding which the illustrious Bishop of Poitiers, Cardinal Pie, had with the Emperor, Napoleon 111., over a pastoral letter, which, at the time, made a deep impression in France. The letter displeaaed the Emperor, who gave orders for the arrest of the bishop. The latter having had wind of the day and hour that he was going to be arrested, put on his full pontificals, with crosier and mitre. He then surrounded himself with his canons, also clothed in their insignia, and waited patiently for the police offioen in the large drawingroom of the palace. At the hour appointed the officers arrived, and were shown into the drawingroom. But they were thoroughly abashed in the presence of so strange a spectacle, and the officer in charge muttered out: 'My Lord, I can hardly arrest your Lordship under these conditions. 1 'Itis as a Bishop lam accused,' replied the prelate. ' I shall not leave this place unless clothed ns a Bishop.' In their discomfiture the offloen left the palace and wired to Paris the story of their reoeption at Poitiers. The Emperor answered, ' Let me alone, and that Tartar of a Bishop too I' A pleasant ending to the misunderstanding was an invitation extended the following year to the Biahop to give the Lenten course at the Tuilleries. At the end of the season the Emperor presented the Bishop with £5000 for his Cathedral. This anecdote shows that the powers that be can sometimes get themselves out of an awkward pass by using their wits.