THE POPE AND THE LATE QUEEN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 12, 21 March 1901, Page 20

THE POPE AND THE LATE QUEEN.

On the ISth Sept"mb'r, IS4H (says the I oce del/a Verita), the di ceased Qu. en Victoria of hngland. with Albert, Prince Consort, di*ein barked at Osteml to pay a visit to Leopold 1., King of the Belgians, her affectionate uncle, and then to honor with her presence the princip il cities in Belgium, which were preparing a splendid reception for her, beginning with Brussels, where in the programme of the festivities figured as an extraordinary item the prod 'Ction at the Royal Theatre of the opera ' Moses,' the work of our immortal Rossini. When the Queen arrived in the Belgian capiti.l, the Diplomatic Corps accredited to King Leopold went to the palace to tender their homage to the Royal guest, and at their head wai Mgr. Gioacchino Pecci, then Apostolic Nuncio at Brussels, who in the namu of the representatives of the Powers addressed to the Queen appropriate words expressing their homage and good wishes. Afterw<m's a brilliant official banquet took place at the Court. Mgr, Pecci was one of the guests with the Queen, and she was pleased to convert witti him long and affably, asking 1 him many questions about Home and lope Gregory XVI. We mentioned in a recent i>sue how three years subsequently, Mgr. Pecci, on his return from the Belgian Nunciature visited England and had a cordial audience with the Queen. In June, 1887, on the occasion of the celebration of the Queen's Jubilee in London, hia Holiness L°o XIII. sent to her Majesty through Mgr. Ruffo Scilla a letter containing congratulations and good wishes, and the Queen in an audience granted to the special envoy of his Holiness spoke in detail of the incidents to w Inch we have referred, and of how at Brussels she had made the acquaintance of Mgr. Gioacchino Pecci, of whom she had always bad a distinct and pleasant remembrance. With the letter of congratulation the Pope t-ent a magnificent mosaic as a presenc, and for the Jubilee of his Holiness, which occurred about the same tim^, her Majesty a°ked him to accept a souvenir which she charged the Duke of Norfolk to present to him. It was a copy she had made of an ancient piece of plate in her collection at Windsor. In a letter to his Holiness, after assuring him how much she had been touched by his felicitationa and thanking him for his present, she congratulated his Holinesß on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his entrance into the Church in which he had so highly distinguished himself by his zeal in maintaining peace and goodwill amongst men, in appeasing 1 civil discords, and, above all, in honoring the God Whom he and she both served.