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Show I THE NEW KING OF ITALY AND POPE LEO THE XIII. : Rome, Aug. It. Victor Emmanuel is small. His legs are short, his jaw enormous, his chin projecting. - The upper part of his face he takes from his mother, the bushy mustache front his father. Reticent and mysterious, it is not easy to know his inner thoughts. Brought up affectionately and carefully by Queen Margherita he is the product of her mind. In his early youth he was a good student; they say that his hobby is numismatics. numismat-ics. He has had nothing so far that could attract attention. After the defeat de-feat at Adaua he compelled his father to send Signor Crispi into retirement; behind the curtain stood Agrippina. Never will the queen forgive the Sicilian Sicil-ian for the brutal rudeness to which she was subjected. j Margherita has instilled deep re- j ligious feelings in her son .fi7 his reign j they will try to square the circle, that is to say they will seek to solve the j Italo-Papal question on the basis of the i status quo. His physical homeliness, j hjs silence and concentration in him- j self, the emptiness of his life have im- j pressed on diplomats the assurance j that he is insignificant. While Queen i Margherita was scouring the courts of j Europe to find a wife for the Prince ! of Naples the Ambassadors kept notifying noti-fying their governments. Everywhere I an evasive answer was given. He owes j his wife, the Princess of Montenegro j to the kind intervention of Czar Nicho- las II. At the coronation festival the new Czar .said one day to the Prince of ! Naples: "You must get married; marriage mar-riage makes a man happy. Look at me. I used to be melancholy. I am happy now since I have taken a wife." Nicholas II had the young person at hand, the beautiful Princess of Montenegro. Monte-negro. For a while it had been believed be-lieved that there would be a match between be-tween her and Nicholas II. Very much attracted by her relative she had counted on having him; as a makeshift make-shift the Czar married her to the young heir to the crown of Italy. A Queen today, she has no children. Spiteful tongues assert that she will never have any. Victor Emmanuel II was the "Father of the Country" the "Re galantuomo." Humbert I was the do-nothing King. Victor Emmanuel III will be the silent si-lent King. But behind him will rule a supple and strong hand, a proud, am-j am-j bitious and restless soul, a heart whose pride and feelings have been wounded an unsubduable and persevering na ture, Queen Margherita. She ruled with discretion under Humbert, she will rule absolutely under Victor Emmanuel. Em-manuel. The son is the reflection, the echo, the image of his mother. King Humbert sometimes thwarted the plans of his wife; the son will be more obedient, obe-dient, for he lives in and through his mother. It is the dynastic union of two obstinate obsti-nate beings. Pious and hones-t, the Queen mother nevertheless hates the Pope; the Roman question irritates and excites her.- She looks on the house of Savoy as Louis XIV looked on the Bourbons. She still believes in the divine rights of Kings. The Pope and his socialistic policy hamper the inclinations in-clinations and the ambitions of the Queen and of the woman. She suffers i on account of the dissidio. She looks on the policy of the Holy Father as a personal insult. Tnat is the origin of the Triple Alliance, of the naval engagements en-gagements to England, of the permanent perma-nent war against the Pope, of the reaction re-action in all other interests to the preservation pres-ervation of the dynasty. That is the source of the megalomania, of the crushing taxes, of the general poverty. of an external military policy out of; all proportion to the resources of th. j country. I A policy of vengeance against the Pope, a purely dynastic policy against ! tiie people, a policy of false greatness i toward foreigners, such is the charae-j charae-j ter of the Italian State. Th House of ! Savoy with its present programme has been fashioned by Margherita. Thar, j is why we perceive in the Italian gnv-! gnv-! ernrnent a feminine timidity throuirh-i throuirh-i out the duration of any scheme. If she hated Crispi it was because tho "dictator" believed only in himself, hut in spite of his unbounded pride he was obliged to make concessions to 'the, woman in order to maintain himself in power. Signor t'rispi will never return. I At the same time she pulled every wire of politics to preserve the status quo against the Pope, against France and against democracy. That is the reason, too. why the Quirinal and its ministers have directed direct-ed the whole literary, intellectual, scientific sci-entific and ar'istic movement toward England and Germany. It is from there that models were taken, it m thither that the. pew generation has been sent. From France and from th-United th-United States republican and democratic demo-cratic countries, everything caus-d alarm, everything was rejected; th.-republic, th.-republic, because its reflex action war feared, democracy, because populnr interests in-terests and democratic principles am the opposite of a purely dynastic policy. It is the fatal destiny of the House of Savoy; in order to last it sacrifices a whole people, and this people begin to feel it and to grow angry at it. i Bresci's bullet did not come, as the censorship cen-sorship would have people heliev(, from an American pistol; it came from a dynastic pistol. The programme of the House of Savoy has created an at- mosohere in which despair flourishes and from which criminal electricity flashes. It seems, therefore, ingenious to ta'k as people are talking of the changes which the crime of Monza and the new reign will introduce in the dynastic rule. The programme of the House of Savoy is a solid block. Tt rests on the Roman question on hatred of democracy democ-racy on the selfish preservation of th dynasty. Th hand that framed ir will apply it with greater passion than ever. What will be new, perhaps, in the reign of Victor Emmanuel III will be the redoubling of efforts to bring about a reconciliation between Vatican and Quirinal on the basis of the status quo and the abolition of the non- expedit. But the inflexible firmness of the Pope will permit no deviation from the present policy: thi.-. too, is a block. Ir. is true that the House of Savoy, with the aid of the Triple Alliance, is working work-ing to create the coming Pone bv preparing pre-paring a complaisant conclave. Th: i mere blindness. Their intrigues would ' suffice in themselves to assure the independence in-dependence of the Roman senate an 1 to confirm the Papacy in its unchangeable unchange-able programme. The next Pone will continue more emphatically the work of Leo XIII. At the Quirinal it is the reign of a woman that is beginning. In closing this letter I must tell of the wonderful success of Mgr. Ireland's journey to Rome. Leo XIII and Cardinal Car-dinal Rampol'a have received him lika an old friend and a power. They have wished to affirm aloud that there never have existed and that there do not exist ex-ist dissensions between the Archbishop of St. Paul and the Vatican. After the meetiners between Mgr. Ireland and the Holy Father few can say that a sponge has been passed over what is called the unpleasant incident of "Americanism." Innominato. in the New York Sun. |