The Times' correspondent in Paris publishes and vouches for an
account of the means by which M. de Freycinet compelled the Pope to give up his project of sending a Legate, and afterwards a Nuncio, to Pekin. The Legate, Mgr. Agliardi, was actually appointed and instructed, when the French Premier forwarded to Leo XIII. a despatch threatening that if an Envoy of any description were sent to Pekin, "the French Ambassador to the Vatican would be at once withdrawn, the Concordat would be abolished, Church and State in France would be separated, and the State grant of 50,000,000 fr. a year to the Catholic religion would be suppressed." The despatch was received on Sunday, the 12th inst., and the Pope, reflecting on the position of French Catholics, on the same day informed the Ambassador that, reserv- ing the rights of the Church, the Embassy would be postponed. Even M. de Freycinet, the least scrupulous Premier in Europe, has hitherto done nothing like this. To coerce an independent Sovereign, as France acknowledges the Pope to be, may be justifiable ; but to coerce one who had done nothing but propose to send a messenger to a distant State, by threatening to strip all his friends in the territory sending the menace, is outrageous. France desires to pose as protector of the Catholic Church in
Asia, and to prove her right, threatens the Head of that Church, if he attempts to help in protecting her converts in China, with a fine to be levied on his priests of e2,000,000 a year. And then the French Church is accused of unreasoning prejudice because it says the Republic is unfriendly !
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