Xavier de Mérode  Xavier de Mérode (Frédéric François Xavier Ghislain; Brussels, 1820 – Rome, 1874) was a Belgian prelate, archbishop and statesman of the Papal states. Xavier de Mérode was the son of Count Félix de Mérode-Westerloo, who held in turn the portfolios of foreign affairs, war, and finances under Leopold I of Belgium, and of Rosalie de Grammont. He was allied through the House of Mérode to the aristocracy of France. He lost his mother at the age of three and was raised at Villersexel, in Franche-Comté, by his aunt Philippine de Grammont, Xavier was the brother-in-law of Charles Forbes René de Montalembert, and the grand-nephew of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette. After attending the Jesuit High School of Namur for a time, he entered the Collège de Juilly presided over by de Salinis and then beginning in 1839 the Military Academy of Brussels. He graduated with the rank of second lieutenant, In 1844, after a short period serving at the armoury of Liège, he joined the staff of Maréchal Bugeaud in Algeria as foreign attaché and in his service in action against the Kabyle, won the cross of the Légion d'honneur. In 1847, he abruptly abandoned his military career and went to study for the priesthood at the Gregorian University in Rome, where he was ordained in September 1849. There he became friends with Count de Woelmont. The Roman Republic was declared in February 1849. The Republic was openly hostile to the Catholic Church, celebrating Good Friday with huge fireworks on Saint Peter's Plaza and desecrating Saint Peter's Basilica on Easter Sunday with a secular Republican victory celebration. Pope Pius IX responded from his exile in Gaeta by excommunicating all active participants. Despite the danger, Mérode did not hesitate to go and plaster, in broad daylight, at the door of the churches, the bull of excommunication. He was assigned after his ordination as chaplain to the French garrison of Viterbo. In 1850, while his family was urging him to return to Belgium, Pope Pius IX, with a view to attach him permanently to his court, made him "cameriere segreto", an office which entailed the direction of the Roman prisons.