Handsome red leather shoe with leather sole attributed to Pope Pius IX, measuring 11.25″ long, featuring discolored yellow-gold bands trimming the edges with matching ornate embroidery on top of the foot. The shoe retains its faded red ribbon shoelace with one of the tassels remaining intact. In very good to fine condition, with expected wear. Accompanied by a letter in French from “Abbot V. Dumas” on Archconfraternity Our Lady of Victory, Paris, letterhead, November 9, 1866, addressed to “Madam the Superior, of nuns faithful companions of Jesus, Rue de la Sante 67, Paris,” in part (translated): "I made to you the 24th of last month. I was hoping every day, to make it come true, to see your sister [nun] Touriere coming and hand over to her the precious object. I come to a decision to have to resort to the post office for the most precious gift offered. Your sister Touriere will ask me to pray for the Pope…and for your good and pious students. I kept the best memory of that afternoon on the 24th. The next bulletin of our annals relates this wonderful recovery for which I had a word with you and I beg some 40 prayers for Pius IX and for the Church. You will join us, it goes without saying. Please accept, Madam the Mother Superior, all my respects.” Affixed to this letter is a miniature envelope with a thin ‘window’ revealing a cloth swatch identified as a piece of the pope’s cassock. Also includes a white fabric swatch inside an envelope labeled in Italian, “Piece of some towels used during the last days of His Holiness Pope Pius IX.”
