The Savannah morning news., 1903-12-13
LOVE STORY OF A POPE.
Destiny of n Missing Bridegroom
Romance of Pope Plus TX Cut
short by "Friends of the Church."
From the London Mail.

snort by "fr1enus OF the Church.'
From the London Mail.
Plus X is not, after all, to leave the
Vatican, and the world will not witness
the unwonted spectacle of Pope walk
ing the streets of Rome. The new
Pope, daring almost to audacity in
setting aside convention. has not dared
to break the bonds which keep him
a prisoner in the Vatican, and it would
have been amazing had he resolved to
break through the tradition which
makes the Pope of Rome a prisoner
king in his own palace. Nothing so
sensational as that has happened, per-
haps, in Rome since the day when Gil
ovanni Mastai Ferretti became Plus
TX.
1t was not. it is true, a sensation which
the newspapers blaZed abroad; but
there still lives to-day, not a hundred
miles from Windsor Castle, a gentle
man whose mother knew Piux TX in
other and humber circumstances than
as Pope, whose mothers sisters life
was bound up in a mystery which was
only solved when the name of the last
Pope Plus was shouted nom the ball
cony to the waiting crowds in Rome.
The Irish peasants of Fillmore have
not vet forgotten the story. 1t was a
daughter of Bishop Foster of Kilmore
who married the Count de Sails and
her sister who stood at an altar wait
ing for the bridegroom who never
came, and of whom she never heard
again until his name was known to
all the world. There are those who say
that the Countess de Sails was unhap-
py in her married life and that she
lived to deplore the marriage which
took her from her own to a foreign
land, and cut her off from the home
and friends among whom she had been
brought up And there are those who
say that the charges against the Count
de Sails had no foundation in truth.
Let us take the story as we will; what
matters here and now is that the Coun-
tess de Sails, who had left Ireland a
fair and beautiful girl famed for her
cleverness and charm of manner, came
back to Ireland haggard and ill, worn
with grief, widow, with sorrow and
anguish as her daily companions. Hers
was rare kind of hypochondria, the
doctors said. and they prescribed a
daring remedy as the only one which
had in it any hope. The Countess could
not rest they said, because the room
in which she had endured her miser-
able life abroad was stamped upon
her brain. The only chance to save
her life was that she should live in
the room again, and connect it with
happier scenes.
IL was TOO hard a remedy and the
Countess would not go-she would not
go, at least without her sister-and
the Bishop and Mrs Foster. broken
hearted by the change in their mar
ried daughter, would not consent trat
Miss Foster should leave their home
But the Countess de Sails grew worse,
and In the end, swearing solemnly
that in no circumstances should her
sister marry a foreigner, she took Miss
Foster with her back to Florence
where, as they crossed the threshold
OF the room they were to share the
Countess fell insensible, and for weeks
II seemed that she must die Then she
came back TO health and strength. the
room In which she had suffered he
came the scene of a happier life. the
old memories receded further and
further back, and her salon became as
one who knew her said the most at
tractive in Florence.
Then there came a day when the
salon ceased to be the meeting place
for all the best people in Florence.
those who came 10 II found that the
sisters had gone. The young Count
who had shown unbOunded devotion
20 Miss Foster Was the most disap-
pointed OF all whom they had left he
hind, and little did he guess that his
dsYotion had driven the sisters from
their home. They went 20 Rome and
me Countess hoped that amid new
Iaces ara new scenes her sister would
forget the Count who had already won
h9f heart But love laughs AZ boun-
oafies and Il mattered not 70 Miss