eventful 18th of July, Dupanloup's reflections were interrupted by a sudden exclamation from his travelling companion, Archbishop Haynald, who sat at the opposite corner of the carriage. "Monseigneur," said Haynald, "we have made a great mistake." Dupanloup had no heart for further discussion. He made a sign that he wished to say his Office. Archbishop Haynald was right. If, as Dupanloup told the clergy, Bishops united in council with the Pope "decide questions as witnesses of the faith of their Churches, as judges by divine right"[1] it would seem to be not only their right, but their very awful duty and inalienable responsibility to allow no sentiment of respect for the office of another to silence their convictions and frustrate their decisions. Thus it is true that the minority melted away, and that the ultimate proclamation was made with practical unanimity; but this was due to a regard for sentiment which was, under the circumstances, wholly out of place. The Bishop who told his diocese that the definition of such prerogatives demanded other considerations than sentiment or filial piety, could not consistently withdraw his testimony to the faith of the Church just in the most critical moment that ever awaited him.
Meanwhile in Rome the final declaration was made. In the presence of his faithful majority, in the midst of one of the fiercest storms ever known to break across the city, accompanied by thunder and lightning, while rain poured in through the broken glass of the roof close to the spot where the Pope was standing, Pius IX. read in the darkness, by the aid of a candle, the momentous affirmation of his own Infallibility. Variously explained by friend and foe, the storm and the darkness are by the one compared to the solemn legislation on
- ↑ Letter to his Clergy (1868), p. 11.
