28 JANUARY 1984, Page 18

Unseated reason

Sir: The interestingly informative letter from Mr Colin Brown (14 January), elaborating the distinctions between individuals, objects and places that are all dignified by the prefix 'Saint', put me in mind of the nervous francophone personage who blushingly realised, as he was leaving the Vatican after a private audience with a Pope (a surprisingly awesome, even awful, experience as I recall from having once had to go into extra time en tete-a-tete with Pius XII), that he had throughout addressed the Pontiff as 'Saint Siege' instead of 'Saint Pere'.

Alastair Forbes

Château d'Oex, Switzerland