A. B. R.
Belmont.
THE IMPERIAL EAGLE OF FRANCE.
On reading the Times of the 7th ult. at our city library, in which the following translation of a paragraph in the French journal, Le Constitutionnel, appeared, application was made to me for an explanation of that part where the Emperor Napoleon is represented as stating, among other advantages of preferring an eagle to a cock as the national emblem or ensign, which, during the ancient dynasty of France, the latter had been—
"that it owes its origin to a pun. I will not have the cock, said the Emperor; it lives on the dunghill, and allows itself to have its throat twisted by the fox. I will take the eagle, which bears the thunderbolt, and which can gaze on the sun. The French eagles shall make themselves respected, like the Roman eagles. The cock, besides, has the disadvantage of owing its origin to a pun," &c.
Premising that the French journalist's object is to authorise the present ruler of France's similar adoption and restoration of the noble bird on the French standard by the example of his uncle, I briefly stated the circumstance to which Napoleon, on this occasion, referred; and as not unsuited, I should think, to your miscellany, I beg leave to repeat it here.
In 1545, during the sitting of the Council of Trent, Peter Danes, one of the most eminent ecclesiastics of France, who had been professor of Greek, and filled several other consonant stations, appeared at the memorable council as one of the French representatives. While there, his colleague, Nicholas Pseaume, Bishop of Verdun, in a vehement oration, denounced the relaxed discipline of the Italians, when Sebastian Vancius de Arimino (so named in the "Canones et Decreta" of the Council), Bishop of Orvietto (Urbevetanus), sneeringly exclaimed "Gallus cantat," dwelling on the double sense of the word Gallus—a Frenchman or a cock, and intending to express "the cock crows;" to which Danes promptly and pointedly responded, "Utinam et Galli cantum Petrus resipisceret," which excited, as it deserved, the general applause of the assembly, thus turning the insult into a triumph. The apt allusion will be made clear by a reference to the words of the Gospels: St. Matthew, xxvi. 75.; St. Mark, xiv. 68. 72.; St. Luke, xxii. 61-2.; and St. John, xviii. 27., where the ἀλεκτοροφωνία of the original is the "cantus galli" of the Vulgate, and where Petrus represents the pope, who is aroused to resipiscere by the example of his predecessor St. Peter.
This incident in the memorable assembly is adverted to in the French contemporary letters and memoirs, but more particularly in the subsequent publication of a learned member of Danes's family, La Vie, Eloges et Opuscules de Pierre Danes, par P. Hilaire Danes, Paris, 1731, 4to., with the the portrait of the Tridentine deputy, who became Bishop of Lavaur, in Languedoc (now département du Saone), and preceptor to Francis, the short-lived husband of Mary Stuart, before that prince's ascent to the throne. So high altogether was he held in public estimation, that he was supposed well entitled to the laudatory anagram formed of his name (Petrus Danesius), "De superis natus."
In the Council of Trent there only appeared two Englishmen, Cardinal Pole and Francis Gadwell,[1] Bishop of St. Asaph, with three Irish prelates, (1) Thomas Herliky, Bishop of Ross, called Thomas Overlaithe in the records of the Council; (2) Eugenius O'Harte, there named Ohairte, a Dominican friar, Bishop of Ardagh; and (3) Donagh MacCongal, Bishop of Raphoe: Sir James Ware adds a fourth, Robert Waucup, or Vincentius, of whom, however, I find no mention in the official catalogue of the assisting prelates. Deprived of sight, according to Ware, from his childhood, he yet made such proficiency in learning, that, after attaining the high degree of Doctor of Sorbonne in France, he was appointed Archbishop of Armagh, or Primate of Ireland; but of this arch-see he never took possession, it being held by a reformed occupant, Dr. George Dowdall, appointed by Henry VIII. in 1543.
[1] [Query, Thomas Goldwell.]