Note 26 — Chapter XXV · ALL IS LOST!-THE PROSPECT BRIGHTENS.

A partisan or well-wisher has tried to represent Napoleon as an edifying Catholic. The Univers of January 25, 1873, has a curious panegyric, in which it is affirmed that he loved our Lord Jesus Christ. In the Gospels, our Lord has taught us a rule for judging those who love him and do not love him: By their fruits you shall know them (Matt. vii. 16). Now, the long and crafty war of Bonaparte against Christ in his vicar, and the unbridled license given to Renan and to irreligious papers to blaspheme at will the divine majesty of Jesus Christ, while he severely punished those who offended his own imperial majesty, give the true measure of his love for Jesus Christ. By the argument of facts constant, public, and notorious, Napoleon III. is judged. He has been for the church and for Christian society a great scourge of God, one of the worst precursors of Antichrist. We shall believe in his pretended conversion when we have seen a single action which shall disclaim and make amends for the immense scandal of his Julianic persecution of Catholicity. His repentance at the hour of death, of which we have no solid proof, we leave to the infinite mercy of God, who certainly could inspire him with it. But it is not out of place to remember the words of S. Augustine about similar conversions: Of certain examples we have but one—the good thief on Calvary. Unus est ne desperes, but solus est ne præsumas.