THE MAN IN BLACK--THE EMPEROR OF GERMANY--NEPOTISM--DONNA
OLYMPIA--OMNIPOTENCE--CAMILLO ASTALLI--THE FIVE PROPOSITIONS
In the evening I received another visit from the man in black. I had
been taking a stroll in the neighbourhood, and was sitting in the dingle
in rather a listless manner, scarcely knowing how to employ myself; his
coming, therefore, was by no means disagreeable to me. I produced the
hollands and glass from my tent, where Isopel Berners had requested me to
deposit them, and also some lump sugar, then taking the gotch {5a} I
fetched water from the spring, and, sitting down, begged the man in black
to help himself; he was not slow in complying with my desire, and
prepared for himself a glass of hollands and water with a lump of sugar
in it. After he had taken two or three sips with evident satisfaction,
I, remembering his chuckling exclamation of 'Go to Rome for money,' when
he last left the dingle, took the liberty, after a little conversation,
of reminding him of it, whereupon, with a he! he! he! he replied, 'Your
idea was not quite so original as I supposed. After leaving you the
other night I remembered having read of an Emperor of Germany who
conceived the idea of applying to Rome for money, and actually put it
into practice.
'Urban the Eighth then occupied the papal chair, of the family of the
Barbarini, {5b} nicknamed the Mosche, or Flies, from the circumstance of
bees being their armorial bearing. The Emperor having exhausted all his
money in endeavouring to defend the church against Gustavus Adolphus, the
great King of Sweden, who was bent on its destruction, applied in his
necessity to the Pope for a loan of money. The Pope, however, and his
relations, whose cellars were at that time full of the money of the
church, which they had been plundering for years, refused to lend him a
scudo; whereupon a pasquinade picture was stuck up at Rome, representing
the church lying on a bed, gashed with dreadful wounds, and beset all
over with flies, which were sucking her, whilst the Emperor of Germany
was kneeling before her with a miserable face requesting a little money
towards carrying on the war against the heretics, to which the poor
church was made to say: "How can I assist you, O my champion, do you not
see that the flies have sucked me to the very bones?" Which story,' said
he, 'shows that the idea of going to Rome for money was not quite so
original as I imagined the other night, though utterly preposterous.
'This affair,' said he, 'occurred in what were called the days of
nepotism. Certain Popes, who wished to make themselves in some degree
independent of the cardinals, surrounded themselves with their nephews,
and the rest of their family, who sucked the church and Christendom as
much as they could, none doing so more effectually than the relations of
Urban the Eighth, at whose death, according to the book called the
"Nipotismo di Roma," {6a} there were in the Barbarini family two hundred
and twenty-seven governments, abbeys, and high dignities; and so much
hard cash in their possession that threescore and ten mules were scarcely
sufficient to convey the plunder of one of them to Palestrina.' He
added, however, that it was probable that Christendom fared better whilst
the Popes were thus independent, as it was less sucked, whereas before
and after that period, it was sucked by hundreds instead of tens, by the
cardinals and all their relations, instead of by the Pope and his nephews
only.
Then, after drinking rather copiously of his hollands, he said that it
was certainly no bad idea of the Popes to surround themselves with
nephews, on whom they bestowed great church dignities, as by so doing
they were tolerably safe from poison, whereas a Pope, if abandoned to the
cardinals, might at any time be made away with by them, provided they
thought that he lived too long, or that he seemed disposed to do anything
which they disliked; adding that Ganganelli {6b} would never have been
poisoned provided he had had nephews about him to take care of his life,
and to see that nothing unholy was put into his food, or a bustling,
stirring brother's wife like Donna Olympia. He then, with a he! he! he!
asked me if I had ever read the book called the 'Nipotismo di Roma,' and
on my replying in the negative, he told me that it was a very curious and
entertaining book, which he occasionally looked at in an idle hour, and
proceeded to relate to me anecdotes out of the 'Nipotismo di Roma,' about
the successor of Urban, Innocent the Tenth, and Donna Olympia, showing
how fond he was of her, and how she cooked his food, and kept the
cardinals away from it, and how she and her creatures plundered
Christendom, with the sanction of the Pope, until Christendom, becoming
enraged, insisted that he should put her away, which he did for a time,
putting a nephew--one Camillo Astalli--in her place, in which, however,
he did not continue long; for the Pope, conceiving a pique against him,
banished him from his sight, and recalled Donna Olympia, who took care of
his food, and plundered Christendom until Pope Innocent died.
I said that I only wondered that between Pope and cardinals the whole
system of Rome had not long fallen to the ground, and was told in reply
that its not having fallen was the strongest proof of its vital power,
and the absolute necessity for the existence of the system. That the
system, notwithstanding its occasional disorders, went on. Popes and
cardinals might prey upon its bowels, and sell its interests, but the
system survived. The cutting off of this or that member was not able to
cause Rome any vital loss; for, as soon as she lost a member, the loss
was supplied by her own inherent vitality; though her Popes had been
poisoned by cardinals, and her cardinals by Popes, and though priests
occasionally poisoned Popes, cardinals and each other, after all that had
been and might be, she had still, and would ever have, her priests,
cardinals, and pope.
Finding the man in black so communicative and reasonable, I determined to
make the best of my opportunity, and learn from him all I could with
respect to the papal system, and told him that he would particularly
oblige me by telling me who the Pope of Rome was, and received for answer
that he was an old man elected by a majority of cardinals to the papal
chair; who, immediately after his election, became omnipotent and equal
to God on earth. On my begging him not to talk such nonsense, and asking
him how a person could be omnipotent who could not always preserve
himself from poison, even when fenced round by nephews, or protected by a
bustling woman, he, after taking a long sip of hollands and water, told
me that I must not expect too much from omnipotence. For example, that
as it would be unreasonable to expect that One above could annihilate the
past--for instance, the Seven Years' War, or the French
Revolution--though anyone who believed in Him would acknowledge Him to be
omnipotent, so would it be unreasonable for the faithful to expect that
the Pope could always guard himself from poison. Then, after looking at
me for a moment stedfastly and taking another sip, he told me that Popes
had frequently done impossibilities. For example, Innocent the Tenth had
created a nephew; for, not liking particularly any of his real nephews,
he had created the said Camillo Astalli his nephew; asking me, with a he!
he! 'What but omnipotence could make a young man nephew to a person to
whom he was not in the slightest degree related?' On my observing that
of course no one believed that the young fellow was really the Pope's
nephew, though the Pope might have adopted him as such, the man in black
replied, 'that the reality of the nephewship of Camillo Astalli had
hitherto never become a point of faith; let, however, the present Pope,
or any other Pope, proclaim that it is necessary to believe in the
reality of the nephewship of Camillo Astalli, and see whether the
faithful would not believe in it. Who can doubt that,' he added, 'seeing
that they believe in the reality of the five propositions of Jansenius?
The Jesuits, wishing to ruin the Jansenists, induced a Pope to declare
that such and such damnable opinions, which they called five
propositions, were to be found in a book written by Jansen, though in
reality no such propositions were to be found there; whereupon the
existence of these propositions became forthwith a point of faith to the
faithful. Do you then think,' he demanded, 'that there is one of the
faithful who would not swallow, if called upon, the nephewship of Camillo
Astalli as easily as the five propositions of Jansenius?' 'Surely,
then,' said I, 'the faithful must be a pretty pack of simpletons!'
Whereupon the man in black exclaimed, 'What! a Protestant, and an
infringer of the rights of faith! Here's a fellow who would feel himself
insulted if anyone were to ask him how he could believe in the miraculous
conception, calling people simpletons who swallow the five propositions
of Jansenius, and are disposed, if called upon, to swallow the reality of
the nephewship of Camillo Astalli.'
I was about to speak when I was interrupted by the arrival of Belle.
After unharnessing her donkey and adjusting her person a little, she came
and sat down by us. In the meantime I had helped my companion to some
more hollands and water, and had plunged with him into yet deeper
discourse.