It was late at night, and all quiet and still in the Eternal City, as
the Père Massoni sat in his little study intent upon a large map which
occupied the whole table before him. Strange blotches of colour marked
in various places, patches of blue and deep red, with outlines the most
irregular appeared here and there, leaving very little of the surface
without some tint. It was a map of Ireland, on which the successive
confiscations were marked, and the various changes of proprietorship
indicated by different colours; a curious document, carefully drawn up,
and which had cost the labour of some years. Massoni studied it with
such deep intensity that he had not noticed the entrance of a servant,
who now stood waiting to deliver a letter which he held in his hand.
At last he perceived the man, and, hastily snatching the note, read to
himself the following few lines--
‘She will come to-morrow at noon. Give orders to admit her at once to
him; but do not yourself be there.’
This was signed ‘D’ and carefully folded and sealed.
‘That will do; you need not wait, said the Père, and again he was alone.
For several minutes he continued to ponder over the scenes before him,
and then, throwing them on the table, exclaimed aloud, ‘And this is the
boasted science of medicine! Here is the most learned physician of all
Rome--the trusted of Popes and Cardinals--confessing that there are
phases of human malady to which, while his art gives no clue--a certain
mysterious agency--a something compounded of imposture and fanaticism,
can read and decipher. What an ignoble avowal is this, and what a
sarcasm upon all intellect and its labours! And what will be said of
me,’ cried he, in a louder voice, ‘if it be known that I have lent my
credence to such a doctrine; that I, the head and leader of a great
association, should stoop to take counsel from those who, if they be not
cheats and impostors, must needs be worse! And, if worse, what then?’
muttered he, as he drew his hand across his brow as though to clear
away some difficult and distressing thought. ‘Ay, what then? Are there
really diabolic agencies at work in those ministrations? Are these
miraculous revelations that we hear of ascribable to evil influences?
What if it were not trick and legerdemain? What if Satan had really
seized upon these passers of base money to mingle his own coinage with
theirs? If every imposture be his work, why should he not act through
those who have contrived it? Oh, if we could but know what are the
truthful suggestions of inspirations, and what the crafty devices of an
erring brain! If, for instance, I could now see how far the great
cause to which my life is devoted should be served or thwarted by the
enterprise.’
He walked the room for nigh an hour in deep and silent meditation.
‘I will see her myself,’ cried he at length. ‘All her stage tricks and
cunning will avail her little with _me_; and if she really have high
powers, why should they not be turned to our use? When Satan piled evil
upon evil to show his strength, St. Francis made of the mass an altar?
Well, now, Giacomo, what is it?’ asked he suddenly, as his servant
entered.
‘He has fallen asleep at last, reverend father,’ answered he, ‘and
is breathing softly as a child. He cannot fail to be better for this
repose, for it is now five days and nights since he has closed an eye.’
‘Never since the night of the reception at Cardinal Abbezi’s.’
‘That was a fatal experiment, I much fear,’ muttered Giacomo.
‘It may have been so. Who knows--who ever did or could know with
certainty the one true path out of difficulty?’
‘When he came back on that night,’ continued Giacomo, ‘he would not
suffer me to undress him, but threw himself down on the bed as he was,
saying, “Leave me to myself; I would be alone.”
‘I offered to take off his sword and the golden collar of his order, but
he bade me angrily to desist, and said--
‘“These are all that remind me of what I am, and you would rob me of
them.’”
‘True enough; the pageantry was a brief dream! And what said he next?’
‘He talked wildly about his cruel fortunes, and the false friends who
had misguided him in his youth, saying--
‘“These things never came of blind chance; the destinies of princes are
written in letters of gold, and not traced in the sands of the sea. They
who betrayed my father have misled _me_.”’
‘How like his house,’ exclaimed the Père; ‘arrogant in the very hour of
their destitution!’
‘He then went on to rave about the Scottish wars, speaking of places
and people I had never before heard of. After lamenting the duplicity
of Spain, and declaring that French treachery had been their ruin, “and
now,” cried he, “the game is to be played over again, as though it
were in the day of general demolition men would struggle to restore a
worn-out dynasty.”’
‘Did he speak thus?’ cried Massoni eagerly.
‘Yes, he said the words over and over, adding, “I am but the ‘figurino,’
to be laid aside when the procession is over,” and he wept bitterly.’
‘The Stuarts could always find comfort in tears; they could draw upon
their own sympathies unfailingly. What said he of _me_?’ asked he, with
sudden eagerness.
Giacomo was silent, and folding his arms within his robe of serge, cast
his eyes downward.
‘Speak out, and frankly--what said he?’ repeated the Père.
‘That you were ambitious--one whose heart yearned after worldly
elevation and power.’
‘Power--yes!’ muttered the Père.
‘That once engaged in a cause, your energies would be wholly with it, so
long as you directed and guided it; that he had known men of your
stamp in France during the Revolution, and that the strength of their
convictions was more often a source of weakness than of power.’
‘It was from Gabriel Riquetti that he stole the remark. It was even thus
Mirabeau spoke of our order.’
‘You must be right, reverend father, for he continued to talk much of
this same Riquetti, saying that he alone, of all Europe, could have
restored the Stuarts to England. “Had we one such man as that,” said he,
“I now had been lying in Holy rood Palace.”’
‘He was mistaken there,’ muttered Massoni half aloud. ‘The men who are
without faith raise no lasting edifices. How strange,’ added he aloud,
‘that the Prince should have spoken in this wise. When I have been with
him he was ever wandering, uncertain, incoherent.’
‘And into this state he gradually lapsed, singing snatches of peasant
songs to himself, and mingling Scottish rhymes with Alfieri’s verses;
sometimes fancying himself in all the wild conflict of a street-fight in
Paris, and then thinking that he was strolling along a river’s bank with
some one that he loved.’
‘Has he then loved?’ asked Massoni in a low, distinct voice.
‘From chance words that have escaped him in his wanderings I have
gathered as much, though who she was and whence, or what her station in
life, I cannot guess.’
‘She will tell us this,’ muttered the Père to himself; and then turning
to Giacomo said, ‘To-morrow, at noon, that woman they call the Egyptian
Princess is to be here; she is to come in secret to see him. The Prince
of Piombino has arranged it all, and says that her marvellous gift is
never in fault, all hearts being open to her as a printed page, and
men’s inmost thoughts as legible as their features.’
‘Is it an evil possession?’ asked Giacomo tremblingly.
‘Who can dare to say so? Let us wait and watch. Take care that the small
door that opens from the garden upon the Pincian be left ajar, as she
will come by that way; and let there be none to observe or note her
coming. You will yourself meet her at the gate, and conduct her to his
chamber--where leave her.’
‘If Rome should hear that we have accepted such aid----’
A gesture of haughty contempt from the Père interrupted the speech, and
Massoni said--
‘Are not they with troubled consciences frequent visitors at our
shrines? Might not this woman come, as thousands have come, to have
a doubt removed; a case of conscience satisfied; a heresy arrested?
Besides, she is a Pagan,’ added he suddenly; ‘may she not be one eager
to seek the truth?’ The cold derision of his look, as he spoke, awed the
simple servitor, who, meekly bending his head, retired.