daily discovering its unfitness for the Church in the new and difficult relations with European States upon which she had entered since the Reformation. The Consistory was not, and could not be expected to be, equal to the task of transacting the immense amount of business which now fell to its share. And, besides, a great portion of that business was, from its being of a partially political character, totally unsuited to a Court which, though composed of the highest ecclesiastical dignitaries, yet always inevitably represented various rival nationalities.

In the reign of Sixtus the Fifth, short and troubled though it unhappily was, all this was changed. The banditti were either captured and brought to justice, or driven, terrorstricken, out of Italy. Law became so potent that, "to quell a street-row, it was enough to whisper that Sixtus the Fifth was Pope." St. Peter's was completed. The Obelisk of Nero was raised up once more, and fixed in the great piazza of the great Cathedral of the world. The waters of the Latin Hills again came down to the Eternal City. "Monuments, streets, piazzas, fountains, aqueducts, obelisks, and other wonders, all the work of Sixtus V., have almost made me fail to recognize Rome," writes a contemporary of the Pontiff. (Vol. ii. p. 135.) "If I were a poet, I would say *** that, thanks to the power of that fervent and exuberant spirit, a new Rome has arisen from its ashes." The great Roman congregations came to transact the business of the Church with that masterly ease which comes of method and divided labour. And all this was substantially the Pope's own work. What he did not formally do he did virtually by that wonderful energy which was not merely an example but an inspiration to all around him. Into his short reign of five years he compressed the work of fifty. It looks as if what Baron Hübner says (Vol. i. p. 227) were literally true, that "Sixtus, foreseeing death, wished to replace time by the extent of his will, and called upon hours to give him what years seldom grant to ordinary mortals." And that his almost superhuman activity was always guided by the very highest principle which should rule one in his position, even his bitterest enemy, Olivarez, King Philip's ambassador, has to admit in confidence to his master. "Appeal specially," writes Olivarez, in a secret letter to Philip (Vol. ii. p. 154), "appeal specially to the religious sentiments of His Holiness, for he is full of zeal for all that concerns the faith." All this Baron Hübner narrates with a clearness of arrangement and fulness of detail that leave nothing to be desired.

But naturally it is to Sixtus's political relations with the various European powers, and especially to his relations with

France and Spain, that the author pays most attention. It is this portion of the Pope's history which has been supposed to be peculiarly damning, and it is on this portion that Baron Hübner was specially enabled to throw light. The popular impression about the Pope's Franco-Spanish policy has been that he was, at the same time, most selfish and most suicidal, most crafty and most absurd. He wished to destroy heresy by a general coalition of the Catholic Powers; he wished to destroy the Catholic Powers by submitting them entirely to himself; and he wished to destroy himself by thus constituting himself, not the Common Father, but the common tyrant of all. To attain these ends, he used all manner of means unscrupulously. He hoarded up money to fit out armies and fleets. He instigated Philip to sail against England. He tried to instigate Venice to sail against Turkey. One day he favoured the League, and the next he advised Henry the Third to murder the Guises. Now he planned with Philip the dismemberment of France, and presently he abandoned Philip when he feared that the plan would fail. At first he called down on Henry of Navarre the curses of heaven; he shortly after gave him his secret support; and, had he lived long enough, would have probably commissioned him to cross the Pyrenees and ruin Spain. Baron Hübner, of course, had heard all these accusations. He had, however, too slight a turn for controversy, perhaps too high a sense of a historian's dignity, to honour them with formal notice. But he gives them their answer. And the answer is taken, not from hearsay or from partizans of the Pope, but from the extant correspondence of the Pope's enemies, who would hardly tell a lie in his favour, and of the foreign ambassadors, whose very existence in office depended on their narrating events to their Courts with the most perfect precision. And what is the answer? It not only exculpates the Pope, but forces the admission that (Vol. ii. p. 372) "Sixtus the Fifth saved France from incalculable miseries, and has deserved well of the Church and of humanity." Were it only for this one portion of it, the book of Baron Hübner would be of the highest value. The case is made out so perfectly, the grand old Pontiff comes out so triumphantly, that the question may be considered as put to rest for ever. We must be very brief; but we shall try to give, in the author's own words when we find it possible, the Baron's conclusions regarding the Franco-Spanish policy of Sixtus the Fifth. They will be found explained and defended in the chapter with which the Baron's book concludes.

In presence of the events of which France was the theatre, Sixtus aimed at two things: the preservation of the Catholic VOL. XIX.-NO. XXXVII. [New Series.]

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religion, which was seriously compromised, and the maintenance of France in the rank of the first power of Europe. He was convinced that if the new creed should be enthroned in France it was all over for some time, nay perhaps for generations, with the Catholic religion in Europe. He was equally convinced that even though France remained Catholic, still if she lost her position as a leading power, the Catholic Church in Europe, even the centre and focus of the faith," Rome itself, would lose its independence, and the Catholic religion, thus mortally struck, must then have slowly but inevitably perished. Here then are the conclusions at which those had arrived who were interested in the maintenance of the Catholic religion, and naturally no one was more interested in it than the Head of the Church. Religion and France must both be saved; if this cannot be done, then France must be sacrificed to save religion.

Now the future of France was hardly more important for the Pope himself than it was for Philip of Spain. The vast kingdom to which Philip had succeeded was made up of many disconnected and dissatisfied provinces. In the centre of the great European movement-so hostile to Spanish interestslay the Spanish tributaries of Flanders, Franche Comté, Milanese, and the kingdom of Naples. To hold these in proper subjection the road to them from the Iberian Peninsula should lie open, and that road lay through France. In India and America were Spanish provinces of immense wealth and importance, but separated from Spain by many leagues of sea. To maintain a power over her European provinces, and not to lose, sooner or later, her transatlantic possessions, two things were necessary for Spain, the possession of France, and the dominion of the seas. No one understood this better than Philip himself. "I must have the power," he said, "which God has given me; to possess that power I must have France and the sea." And hence, all through the negotiations with Sixtus, Philip insisted on the dismemberment, which meant the destruction, of France. Sixtus wanted to save the Church, Philip wanted to save Spain. Both the Church and Spain were to be saved through the medium of France. But the Church was to be saved through France Catholic and independent; Spain was to be saved by making France, Catholic if you will, but a Catholic province under the dominion of Philip II.

The policy just ascribed to Sixtus was the policy which throughout the struggle he constantly and consistently pursued. His changes of conduct were all simple necessities of his pursuing that policy. When he was made Pope, France was really divided into only two camps, the Calvinists and

Catholics. It was the policy of the Pope to prevent the success of the former, and hence does Sixtus issue his privatory' bull against the King of Navarre. But after awhile he clearly perceived that the Catholic camp was really divided into two irreconcilable factions, and that over either of these, or over both of them, the King of Navarre would be sure to triumph. Then came the murder of the Guises, to widen still more the breach in the Catholic party. And, lastly, came the murder of the king and the abandonment of the League by many of its firmest adherents, apparently insuring the success of Navarre. But the success of Navarre meant the Calvinizing of France. To save France from being Calvinist, Navarre must be beaten, and there was no one to beat him but Philip of Spain. Accordingly the Pope proposed at Madrid, that he and Philip should in concert attack the King of Navarre. That exposed France to dismemberment, but, in the eyes of Sixtus, national dismemberment is better than national apostasy. Philip, who had long resolved to have France, with or without papal permission, jumped at the offer. To give France one chance more, Sixtus determined that in the projected war he should have the whip-hand of Philip. The papal troops were to be in a majority, and the commander of the entire army was to be the nominee of the Pope's.

But another change took place. It soon became certain, not only that France would not resign her Catholicity, but that, if Henry of Navarre wished to be her king, he must be a Catholic. The Catholic spirit of the country showed itself with such force that the conversion of the future sovereign was no longer a useful means of success, but an actual condition of his accession to the throne. Even in his army the parts were changed. The Huguenots were in a minority, and were fast dwindling down to the rank of mere auxiliaries. All this the Pope was perpetually hearing, and with it came constant assurances that the king, possibly from conviction, possibly from expediency, was about to recant. There was just one way in which the Sixtus policy of saving both France and the Church might still be successful. That way Sixtus saw. He followed it. He got rid of his engagements with Spain, certain, as he now was, that France would issue from the crisis both Catholic in religion and independent as a nation. Was he wrong in so doing? We have stated the facts almost entirely in Baron Hübner's own words, and we leave the reader to form his own conclusion. But Baron Hübner's conclusion is expressed in the words quoted already-"Sixtus the Fifth saved France from incalculable miseries, and has deserved well of the Church and of humanity." And in the justness of that conclusion we fully concur.

We cannot conclude this article without making a remark which this book of Baron Hübner's has very pointedly suggested. We all believe that the more we hear of the truth the more the Church will profit by it. But that belief does not always haunt us when we think of the Church's rulers. We are shy of speaking about such men as Sixtus the Fifth and Alexander the Sixth. Yet the book which we have just been reading shows cause for glorying in the memory of the one, and hints a suspicion that if the history of the other were pro perly known, he too would come out triumphantly as, if not a splendid figure among Popes, certainly a splendid figure among Kings. The Baron's book does more than hint it. At p. 50 of the first volume, the Baron writes:-" Even Alexander the Sixth himself was looked upon by his contemporaries as a great Pope, unfortunate though his memory is to us. The history of his reign, which has still to be written, must have come down to us in a very altered form, or the moral sense of his generation must have been strangly perverted since Ariosto, in his poem published under Leo the Tenth, and while Lucrezia Borgia was still alive, could sing the praises of the latter without offending the public conscience." The history of Alexander has indeed to be written. And when it shall have been written by a man with the honesty, ability, and opportunities of Baron Hübner, we dare prophesy a vindication of Roderick Borgia, not less splendid than our author's vindication of Felix Peretti.

ART. VIII.-CATHOLIC PRIMARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND.

Education to be Real must be Denominational. By FREDERICK CANON OAKELEY, M.A. London Burns, Oates, & Co.

Three Letters to the "Tablet," of May 4, May 18, and June 1, 1872. By FREDERICK CANON OAKELEY.

YANON OAKELEY has published a criticism of the remarks which we made in April, on the educational position of English Catholics under Mr. Forster's Act. It will be more satisfactory, if we begin by reprinting his three letters in extenso :

SIR,-The writer of the article on Education in the new number of the DELIN REVIEW has done me some unintentional injustice, in supposing