confirmation of the position assumed by Bishop Fessler, I would refer my readers to M. Cosquin's two notes, which I have translated from the French, and appended to the second chapter of this work.
That Bishop Fessler was really the exponent of the mind of most of the German Bishops, and in particular that his work exercised a special influence on the learned historian of the Councils, Mgr. Hefele, Bishop of Rothenburg, will be sufficiently shown by the following letter, translated from the Germania, the organ of the Catholics of Berlin, whose editor, Herr Majunke, although a deputy in the German Assembly, is now undergoing his sentence, as a confessor for the Faith, in a common German prison.
Extract from the Roman correspondent of the Germania of Berlin, of Nov. 3, 1872:
'The letter of Bishop Hefele, which has lately been published, gave rise to an explanation on the part of this prelate; as a result of which the following information came to my knowledge, which, on account of its high importance, I think I ought not to withhold from your readers, and so much the more as it concerns our lately deceased and universally honored Bishop of St. Polten. Mgr. Fessler, who was on very intimate terms with Dr. Hefele, the Bishop of Rothenburg, sent to him, accompanied with a most affectionate letter, expressive of all those feelings which he entertained towards him as a bro ther in the episcopal office, a copy of the work which he had composed On the True and False Infallibility of
