unity which has always possessed us. We were very happy on the day when
we unified the rite, by imposing the Roman rite throughout the whole
Catholic world. This is one of our most cherished victories, for it can
do much to uphold our authority. And I hope that our efforts in the East
will end by bringing our dear brethren of the dissident communions back
to us, in the same way as I do not despair of convincing the Anglican
sects, without speaking of the other so-called Protestant sects who will
be compelled to return to the bosom of the only Church, the Catholic,
Apostolic, and Roman Church, when the times predicted by the Christ shall
be accomplished. But a thing which you did not say in your book is that
the Church can relinquish nothing whatever of dogma. On the contrary, you
seem to fancy that an agreement might be effected, concessions made on
either side, and that, my son, is a culpable thought, such language as a
priest cannot use without being guilty of a crime. No, the truth is
absolute, not a stone of the edifice shall be changed. Oh! in matters of
form, we will do whatever may be asked. We are ready to adopt the most
conciliatory courses if it be only a question of turning certain
difficulties and weighing expressions in order to facilitate agreement. .
. . Again, there is the part we have taken in contemporary socialism, and
here too it is necessary that we should be understood. Those whom you
have so well called the disinherited of the world, are certainly the
object of our solicitude. If socialism be simply a desire for justice,
and a constant determination to come to the help of the weak and the
suffering, who can claim to give more thought to the matter and work with
more energy than ourselves? Has not the Church always been the mother of
the afflicted, the helper and benefactress of the poor? We are for all
reasonable progress, we admit all new social forms which will promote
peace and fraternity. . . . Only we can but condemn that socialism which
begins by driving away God as a means of ensuring the happiness of
mankind. Therein lies simple savagery, an abominable relapse into the
primitive state in which there can only be catastrophe, conflagration,
and massacre. And that again is a point on which you have not laid
sufficient stress, for you have not shown in your book that there can be
no progress outside the pale of the Church, that she is really the only
initiatory and guiding power to whom one may surrender oneself without
fear. Indeed, and in this again you have sinned, it seemed to me as if
you set God on one side, as if for you religion lay solely in a certain
bent of the soul, a florescence of love and charity, which sufficed one
to work one's salvation. But that is execrable heresy. God is ever
present, master of souls and bodies; and religion remains the bond, the
law, the very governing power of mankind, apart from which there can only
be barbarism in this world and damnation in the next. And, once again,
forms are of no importance; it is sufficient that dogma should remain.
Thus our adhesion to the French Republic proves that we in no wise mean
to link the fate of religion to that of any form of government, however
august and ancient the latter may be. Dynasties may have done their time,
but God is eternal. Kings may perish, but God lives! And, moreover, there
is nothing anti-Christian in the republican form of government; indeed,
on the contrary, it would seem like an awakening of that Christian
commonwealth to which you have referred in some really charming pages.
The worst is that liberty at once becomes license, and that our desire
for conciliation is often very badly requited. . . . But ah! what a
wicked book you have written, my son,--with the best intentions, I am
willing to believe,--and how your silence shows that you are beginning to
recognise the disastrous consequences of your error."
Pierre still remained silent, overcome, feeling as if his arguments would
fall against some deaf, blind, and impenetrable rock, which it was
useless to assail since nothing could enter it. And only one thing now
preoccupied him; he wondered how it was that a man of such intelligence
and such ambition had not formed a more distinct and exact idea of the
modern world. He could divine that the Pope possessed much information
and carried the map of Christendom with many of the needs, deeds, and
hopes of the nations, in his mind amidst his complicated diplomatic
enterprises; but at the same time what gaps there were in his knowledge!
The truth, no doubt, was that his personal acquaintance with the world
was confined to his brief nunciature at Brussels.*
* That too, was in 1843-44, and the world is now utterly unlike
what it was then!--Trans.
During his occupation of the see of Perugia, which had followed, he had
only mingled with the dawning life of young Italy. And for eighteen years
now he had been shut up in the Vatican, isolated from the rest of mankind
and communicating with the nations solely through his /entourage/, which
was often most unintelligent, most mendacious, and most treacherous.
Moreover, he was an Italian priest, a superstitious and despotic High
Pontiff, bound by tradition, subjected to the influences of race
environment, pecuniary considerations, and political necessities, not to
speak of his great pride, the conviction that he ought to be implicitly
obeyed in all things as the one sole legitimate power upon earth. Therein
lay fatal causes of mental deformity, of errors and gaps in his
extraordinary brain, though the latter certainly possessed many admirable
qualities, quickness of comprehension and patient stubbornness of will
and strength to draw conclusions and act. Of all his powers, however,
that of intuition was certainly the most wonderful, for was it not this
alone which, owing to his voluntary imprisonment, enabled him to divine
the vast evolution of humanity at the present day? He was thus keenly
conscious of the dangers surrounding him, of the rising tide of democracy
and the boundless ocean of science which threatened to submerge the
little islet where the dome of St. Peter's yet triumphed. And the object
of all his policy, of all his labour, was to conquer so that he might
reign. If he desired the unity of the Church it was in order that the
latter might become strong and inexpugnable in the contest which he
foresaw. If he preached conciliation, granting concessions in matters of
form, tolerating audacious actions on the part of American bishops, it
was because he deeply and secretly feared the dislocation of the Church,
some sudden schism which might hasten disaster. And this fear explained
his returning affection for the people, the concern which he displayed
respecting socialism, and the Christian solution which he offered to the
woes of earthly life. As Caesar was stricken low, was not the long
contest for possession of the people over, and would not the people, the
great silent multitude, speak out, and give itself to him, the Pope? He
had begun experiments with France, forsaking the lost cause of the
monarchy and recognising the Republic which he hoped might prove strong
and victorious, for in spite of everything France remained the eldest
daughter of the Church, the only Catholic nation which yet possessed
sufficient strength to restore the temporal power at some propitious
moment. And briefly Leo's desire was to reign. To reign by the support of
France since it seemed impossible to do so by the support of Germany! To
reign by the support of the people, since the people was now becoming the
master, the bestower of thrones! To reign by means even of an Italian
Republic, if only that Republic could wrest Rome from the House of Savoy
and restore her to him, a federal Republic which would make him President
of the United States of Italy pending the time when he should be
President of the United States of Europe! To reign in spite of everybody
and everything, such was his ambition, to reign over the world, even as
Augustus had reigned, Augustus whose devouring blood alone upheld this
expiring old man, yet so stubbornly clinging to power!
"And another crime of yours, my son," resumed Leo XIII, "is that you have
dared to ask for a new religion. That is impious, blasphemous,
sacrilegious. There is but one religion in the world, our Holy Catholic
Apostolic and Roman Religion, apart from which there can be but darkness
and damnation. I quite understand that what you mean to imply is a return
to early Christianity. But the error of so-called Protestantism, so
culpable and so deplorable in its consequences, never had any other
pretext. As soon as one departs from the strict observance of dogma and
absolute respect for tradition one sinks into the most frightful
precipices. . . . Ah! schism, schism, my son, is a crime beyond
forgiveness, an assassination of the true God, a device of the loathsome
Beast of Temptation which Hell sends into the world to work the ruin of
the faithful! If your book contained nothing beyond those words 'a new
religion,' it would be necessary to destroy and burn it like so much
poison fatal in its effects upon the human soul."
He continued at length on this subject, while Pierre recalled what Don
Vigilio had told him of those all-powerful Jesuits who at the Vatican as
elsewhere remained in the background, secretly but none the less
decisively governing the Church. Was it true then that this pope, whose
opportunist tendencies were so freely displayed, was one of them, a mere
docile instrument in their hands, though he fancied himself penetrated
with the doctrines of St. Thomas Aquinas? In any case, like them he
compounded with the century, made approaches to the world, and was
willing to flatter it in order that he might possess it. Never before had
Pierre so cruelly realised that the Church was now so reduced that she
could only live by dint of concessions and diplomacy. And he could at
last distinctly picture that Roman clergy which at first is so difficult
of comprehension to a French priest, that Government of the Church,
represented by the pope, the cardinals, and the prelates, whom the Deity
has appointed to govern and administer His mundane possessions--mankind
and the earth. They begin by setting that very Deity on one side, in the
depths of the tabernacle, and impose whatever dogmas they please as so
many essential truths. That the Deity exists is evident, since they
govern in His name which is sufficient for everything. And being by
virtue of their charge the masters, if they consent to sign covenants,
Concordats, it is only as matters of form; they do not observe them, and
never yield to anything but force, always reserving the principle of
their absolute sovereignty which must some day finally triumph. Pending
that day's arrival, they act as diplomatists, slowly carrying on their
work of conquest as the Deity's functionaries; and religion is but the
public homage which they pay to the Deity, and which they organise with
all the pomp and magnificence that is likely to influence the multitude.
Their only object is to enrapture and conquer mankind in order that the
latter may submit to the rule of the Deity, that is the rule of
themselves, since they are the Deity's visible representatives, expressly
delegated to govern the world. In a word, they straightway descend from
Roman law, they are still but the offspring of the old pagan soul of
Rome, and if they have lasted until now and if they rely on lasting for
ever, until the awaited hour when the empire of the world shall be
restored to them, it is because they are the direct heirs of the
purple-robed Caesars, the uninterrupted and living progeny of the blood
of Augustus.
And thereupon Pierre felt ashamed of his tears. Ah! those poor nerves of
his, that outburst of sentiment and enthusiasm to which he had given way!
His very modesty was appalled, for he felt as if he had exhibited his
soul in utter nakedness. And so uselessly too, in that room where nothing
similar had ever been said before, and in presence of that Pontiff-King
who could not understand him. His plan of the popes reigning by means of
the poor and lowly now horrified him. His idea of the papacy going to the
people, at last rid of its former masters, seemed to him a suggestion
worthy of a wolf, for if the papacy should go to the people it would only
be to prey upon it as the others had done. And really he, Pierre, must
have been mad when he had imagined that a Roman prelate, a cardinal, a
pope, was capable of admitting a return to the Christian commonwealth, a
fresh florescence of primitive Christianity to pacify the aged nations
whom hatred consumed. Such a conception indeed was beyond the
comprehension of men who for centuries had regarded themselves as masters
of the world, so heedless and disdainful of the lowly and the suffering,
that they had at last become altogether incapable of either love or
charity.*
* The reader should bear in mind that these remarks apply to the
Italian cardinals and prelates, whose vanity and egotism are
remarkable.--Trans.
Leo XIII, however, was still holding forth in his full, unwearying voice.
And the young priest heard him saying: "Why did you write that page on
Lourdes which shows such a thoroughly bad spirit? Lourdes, my son, has
rendered great services to religion. To the persons who have come and
told me of the touching miracles which are witnessed at the Grotto almost
daily, I have often expressed my desire to see those miracles confirmed,
proved by the most rigorous scientific tests. And, indeed, according to
what I have read, I do not think that the most evilly disposed minds can
entertain any further doubt on the matter, for the miracles /are/ proved
scientifically in the most irrefutable manner. Science, my son, must be
God's servant. It can do nothing against Him, it is only by His grace
that it arrives at the truth. All the solutions which people nowadays
pretend to discover and which seemingly destroy dogma will some day be
recognised as false, for God's truth will remain victorious when the
times shall be accomplished. That is a very simple certainty, known even
to little children, and it would suffice for the peace and salvation of
mankind, if mankind would content itself with it. And be convinced, my
son, that faith and reason are not incompatible. Have we not got St.
Thomas who foresaw everything, explained everything, regulated
everything? Your faith has been shaken by the onslaught of the spirit of
examination, you have known trouble and anguish which Heaven has been
pleased to spare our priests in this land of ancient belief, this city of
Rome which the blood of so many martyrs has sanctified. However, we have
no fear of the spirit of examination, study St. Thomas, read him
thoroughly and your faith will return, definitive and triumphant, firmer
than ever."
These remarks caused Pierre as much dismay as if fragments of the
celestial vault were raining on his head. O God of truth, miracles--the
miracles of Lourdes!--proved scientifically, faith in the dogmas
compatible with reason, and the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas sufficient
to instil certainty into the minds of this present generation! How could
one answer that, and indeed why answer it at all?
"Yes, yours is a most culpable and dangerous book," concluded Leo XIII;
"its very title 'New Rome' is mendacious and poisonous, and the work is
the more to be condemned as it offers every fascination of style, every
perversion of generous fancy. Briefly it is such a book that a priest, if
he conceived it in an hour of error, can have no other duty than that of
burning it in public with the very hand which traced the pages of error
and scandal."
All at once Pierre rose up erect. He was about to exclaim: "'Tis true, I
had lost my faith, but I thought I had found it again in the compassion
which the woes of the world set in my heart. You were my last hope, the
awaited saviour. But, behold, that again is a dream, you cannot take the
work of Jesus in hand once more and pacify mankind so as to avert the
frightful fratricidal war which is preparing. You cannot leave your
throne and come along the roads with the poor and the humble to carry out
the supreme work of fraternity. Well, it is all over with you, your
Vatican and your St. Peter's. All is falling before the onslaught of the
rising multitude and growing science. You no longer exist, there are only
ruins and remnants left here."
However, he did not speak those words. He simply bowed and said: "Holy
Father, I make my submission and reprobate my book." And as he thus
replied his voice trembled with disgust, and his open hands made a
gesture of surrender as though he were yielding up his soul. The words he
had chosen were precisely those of the required formula: /Auctor
laudabiliter se subjecit et opus reprobavit/. "The author has laudably
made his submission and reprobated his work." No error could have been
confessed, no hope could have accomplished self-destruction with loftier
despair, more sovereign grandeur. But what frightful irony: that book
which he had sworn never to withdraw, and for whose triumph he had fought
so passionately, and which he himself now denied and suppressed, not
because he deemed it guilty, but because he had just realised that it was
as futile, as chimerical as a lover's desire, a poet's dream. Ah! yes,
since he had been mistaken, since he had merely dreamed, since he had
found there neither the Deity nor the priest that he had desired for the
happiness of mankind, why should he obstinately cling to the illusion of
an awakening which was impossible! 'Twere better to fling his book on the
ground like a dead leaf, better to deny it, better to cut it away like a
dead limb that could serve no purpose whatever!
Somewhat surprised by such a prompt victory Leo XIII raised a slight
exclamation of content. "That is well said, my son, that is well said!
You have spoken the only words that can become a priest."
And in his evident satisfaction, he who left nothing to chance, who
carefully prepared each of his audiences, deciding beforehand what words
he would say, what gestures even he would make, unbent somewhat and
displayed real /bonhomie/. Unable to understand, mistaking the real
motives of this rebellious priest's submission, he tasted positive
delight in having so easily reduced him to silence, the more so as report
had stated the young man to be a terrible revolutionary. And thus his
Holiness felt quite proud of such a conversion. "Moreover, my son," he
said, "I did not expect less of one of your distinguished mind. There can
be no loftier enjoyment than that of owning one's error, doing penance,
and submitting."
He had again taken the glass off the little table beside him and was
stirring the last spoonful of syrup before drinking it. And Pierre was
amazed at again finding him as he had found him at the outset, shrunken,
bereft of sovereign majesty, and simply suggestive of some aged
/bourgeois/ drinking his glass of sugared water before getting into bed.
It was as if after growing and radiating, like a planet ascending to the
zenith, he had again sunk to the level of the soil in all human
mediocrity. Again did Pierre find him puny and fragile, with the slender
neck of a little sick bird, and all those marks of senile ugliness which
rendered him so exacting with regard to his portraits, whether they were
oil paintings or photographs, gold medals, or marble busts, for of one
and the other he would say that the artist must not portray "Papa Pecci"
but Leo XIII, the great Pope, of whom he desired to leave such a lofty
image to posterity. And Pierre, after momentarily ceasing to see them,
was again embarrassed by the handkerchief which lay on the Pope's lap,
and the dirty cassock soiled by snuff. His only feelings now were
affectionate pity for such white old age, deep admiration for the
stubborn power of life which had found a refuge in those dark black eyes,
and respectful deference, such as became a worker, for that large brain
which harboured such vast projects and overflowed with such innumerable
ideas and actions.
The audience was over, and the young man bowed low: "I thank your
Holiness for having deigned to give me such a fatherly reception," he
said.
However, Leo XIII detained him for a moment longer, speaking to him of
France and expressing his sincere desire to see her prosperous, calm, and
strong for the greater advantage of the Church. And Pierre, during that
last moment, had a singular vision, a strange haunting fancy. As he gazed
at the Holy Father's ivory brow and thought of his great age and of his
liability to be carried off by the slightest chill, he involuntarily
recalled the scene instinct with a fierce grandeur which is witnessed
each time a pope dies. He recalled Pius IX, Giovanni Mastai, two hours
after death, his face covered by a white linen cloth, while the
pontifical family surrounded him in dismay; and then Cardinal Pecci, the
/Camerlingo/, approaching the bed, drawing aside the veil and dealing
three taps with his silver hammer on the forehead of the deceased,
repeating at each tap the call, "Giovanni! Giovanni! Giovanni!" And as
the corpse made no response, turning, after an interval of a few seconds,
and saying: "The Pope is dead!" And at the same time, yonder in the Via
Giulia Pierre pictured Cardinal Boccanera, the present /Camerlingo/,
awaiting his turn with his silver hammer, and he imagined Leo XIII,
otherwise Gioachino Pecci, dead, like his predecessor, his face covered
by a white linen cloth and his corpse surrounded by his prelates in that
very room. And he saw the /Camerlingo/ approach, draw the veil aside and
tap the ivory forehead, each time repeating the call: "Gioachino!
Gioachino! Gioachino!" Then, as the corpse did not answer, he waited for
a few seconds and turned and said "The Pope is dead!" Did Leo XIII
remember how he had thrice tapped the forehead of Pius IX, and did he
ever feel on the brow an icy dread of the silver hammer with which he had
armed his own /Camerlingo/, the man whom he knew to be his implacable
adversary, Cardinal Boccanera?
"Go in peace, my son," at last said his Holiness by way of parting
benediction. "Your transgression will be forgiven you since you have
confessed and testify your horror for it."
With distressful spirit, accepting humiliation as well-deserved
chastisement for his chimerical fancies, Pierre retired, stepping
backwards according to the customary ceremonial. He made three deep bows
and crossed the threshold without turning, followed by the black eyes of
Leo XIII, which never left him. Still he saw the Pope stretch his arm
towards the table to take up the newspaper which he had been reading
prior to the audience, for Leo retained a great fancy for newspapers, and
was very inquisitive as to news, though in the isolation in which he
lived he frequently made mistakes respecting the relative importance of
articles. And once more the chamber sank into deep quietude, whilst the
two lamps continued to diffuse a soft and steady light.
In the centre of the /anticamera segreta/ Signor Squadra stood waiting
black and motionless. And on noticing that Pierre in his flurry forgot to
take his hat from the pier table, he himself discreetly fetched it and
handed it to the young priest with a silent bow. Then without any
appearance of haste, he walked ahead to conduct the visitor back to the
Sala Clementina. The endless promenade through the interminable
ante-rooms began once more, and there was still not a soul, not a sound,
not a breath. In each empty room stood the one solitary lamp, burning low
amidst a yet deeper silence than before. The wilderness seemed also to
have grown larger as the night advanced, casting its gloom over the few
articles of furniture scattered under the lofty gilded ceilings, the
thrones, the stools, the pier tables, the crucifixes, and the candelabra
which recurred in each succeeding room. And at last the Sala Clementina
which the Swiss Guards had just quitted was reached again, and Signor
Squadra, who hitherto had not turned his head, thereupon drew aside
without word or gesture, and, saluting Pierre with a last bow, allowed
him to pass on. Then he himself disappeared.
And Pierre descended the two flights of the monumental staircase where
the gas jets in their globes of ground glass glimmered like night lights
amidst a wondrously heavy silence now that the footsteps of the sentries
no longer resounded on the landings. And he crossed the Court of St.
Damasus, empty and lifeless in the pale light of the lamps above the
steps, and descended the Scala Pia, that other great stairway as dim,
deserted, and void of life as all the rest, and at last passed beyond the
bronze door which a porter slowly shut behind him. And with what a
rumble, what a fierce roar did the hard metal close upon all that was
within; all the accumulated darkness and silence; the dead, motionless
centuries perpetuated by tradition; the indestructible idols, the dogmas,
bound round for preservation like mummies; every chain which may weigh on
one or hamper one, the whole apparatus of bondage and sovereign
domination, with whose formidable clang all the dark, deserted halls
re-echoed.
Once more the young man found himself alone on the gloomy expanse of the
Piazza of St. Peter's. Not a single belated pedestrian was to be seen.
There was only the lofty, livid, ghost-like obelisk, emerging between its
four candelabra, from the mosaic pavement of red and serpentine porphyry.
The facade of the Basilica also showed vaguely, pale as a vision, whilst
from it on either side like a pair of giant arms stretched the quadruple
colonnade, a thicket of stone, steeped in obscurity. The dome was but a
huge roundness scarcely discernible against the moonless sky; and only
the jets of the fountains, which could at last be detected rising like
slim phantoms ever on the move, lent a voice to the silence, the endless
murmur of a plaint of sorrow coming one knew not whence. Ah! how great
was the melancholy grandeur of that slumber, that famous square, the
Vatican and St. Peter's, thus seen by night when wrapped in silence and
darkness! But suddenly the clock struck ten with so slow and loud a chime
that never, so it seemed, had more solemn and decisive an hour rung out
amidst blacker and more unfathomable gloom. All Pierre's poor weary frame
quivered at the sound as he stood motionless in the centre of the
expanse. What! had he spent barely three-quarters of an hour, chatting up
yonder with that white old man who had just wrenched all his soul away
from him! Yes, it was the final wrench; his last belief had been torn
from his bleeding heart and brain. The supreme experiment had been made,
a world had collapsed within him. And all at once he thought of Monsignor
Nani, and reflected that he alone had been right. He, Pierre, had been
told that in any case he would end by doing what Monsignor Nani might
desire, and he was now stupefied to find that he had done so.