It appears to be certain that Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria
has placed himself entirely in the hands of the Russian Government. On the 6th inst. his Highness received a tele- gram from the Czar congratulating him upon his "patriotic decision " to introduce his son into the Greek Church, and promising that his representative should attend the ceremony of confirmation. Upon the ith inst. accordingly, Prince Ferdinand made a speech to the Members of his Parliament, who attended at the palace to congratulate hini, saying that he " had made a sacrifice so great, so cruel, and striking so deeply into his heart, as to find no parallel in history." He had loosened all family ties—his mother is as much ashamed of him as his wife—and broken, finally, with the West. "The West has pronounced its anathema against me. The morning light of the East illumines my dynasty, and casts its rays over our future,"—a poetical sentence which certainly lends colour to the report that being ipso facto excommunicate from Rome, he intends himself to enter the Greek Church. The Sultan has now requested the Powers of Europe to recognise the Prince officially, and thus make him a real Sovereign, so that we have the delightful spectacle of a Massulumn overlord conferring a crown upon a Catholic Prince because, in viola- tion of his pledges to his wife, he will bring up his son in the Greek Church. Why cannot men of this type be decently honest, and say at once that they hold the interest of a dynasty to be more important than the religions conviction of any individual. That is what they mean, and it is a sensible though a base opinion.
Previous page
