"You mean, of the Moderate intellects ?" M.

"No, I mean the policy of the Moderates, a policy of compromise, between the Holy Father and, and--" X.

"Say what you really mean,--between the Holy Father and the Holy Revolution." After this test of M's intellectual calibre, I am not surprised to learn that he is treated throughout with the most contemptuous playfulness.

He is horror-struck at learning that, in fact, he is nothing better "than a mediator between Christ and Beelzebub." He is joked about the _fait accompli_; and asked whether he would consider a box on his ears was excused and accounted for by a similar denomination of the occurrence; questioned, whether he would like himself to be deprived of all his property; and at last dumbfounded by the inquiry, whether the reasoning of his beloved pamphlet is anything but rank communism.

M, in fact, after this tirade ceases any attempt at argument, and contents himself with feeble suggestions, which afford to X fertile openings for the exercise of his vituperative abilities.