Note 4 — Chapter V · EARLY LIFE OF FATHER MASTAI
Reading edition
In a former volume I stated that Pius IX had for a short time served in the Noble Guards. This was an error, for he never obtained admittance, although I believe a portrait of him in the uniform was extant in the earlier years of the nineteenth century. It may have been altogether a “fake” or else taken to please his father when there appeared to be some hope of the latter’s ambition being fulfilled.