There is nothing, apparently, which M. Renan likes so much
as to be interviewed. We do not know how many times he- has been interviewed of late years, or how many quaintly depreciatory opinions he has expressed concerning his con- temporaries ; but certainly the most grotesque of these was contained in the Times' correspondent's interview with him, as. reported in the Paris letter of yesterday. After speaking of the Concordat and the recent cathedral scandals, the Times' correspondent said :—" But do you not regard Pope Leo XIII.. as a great Pope and an eminent diplomatist ?" "I think," re- plied M. Renan, "that there is a popular misconception in that direction. He is a leitre Iialien, nothing more. Beyond that I am afraid he has been over-appreciated. I might even compare bun to a bluebottle fly continually buzzing about with a desire to alter all things under the pretext of putting new life into the Church." We should have said that Leo XIII. has done his best to discourage the buzzing-about of a good many blue- bottle flies, both Royalist and Republican, and that that perhaps may be the explanation of M. Renan's grudge against
him. These reiterated " interviews " of his have certainly a good deal of the fussy and noisy character of the buzzing of bluebottle flies about them. A less appropriate witticism at the expense of Leo XIII. can hardly be imagined.
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