An approaching bustling, a vehement calling and screaming, disturbed
the two old men. It was Lorenzo who was called, and he quickly glided
through the bushes to look after the cause of this disturbance. But soon
he returned with a melancholy face and depressed mien.
“Brother Clement,” said he, “it is already all over with our enjoyment,
which has been so great for me that I forgot to remind you that the pope
cannot neglect the hour in which he gives audience. That hour has now
come, and your anteroom is already filled with princes and prelates.”
“And yet you speak of the great happiness of being pope,” said
Ganganelli, rising with a sigh from the grassy bank. “I am not allowed
an hour for recreation, and yet people think--but no,” said Ganganelli,
interrupting himself and laughing, “we should not be ungrateful, and it
would be ungrateful for me now to complain. If I have not had an hour
for recreation, well, I have had half an hour, and even that is much!”
And, beckoning to brother Lorenzo to follow him, the pope crept through
the bushes that separated the place from the more frequented part of the
garden.
As he then walked up the grand alley, his face and his whole form
assumed a very different appearance. The mild friendliness had vanished
from his features, pride and dignity were now expressed by them, and
his tall, erect form had in it something noble and imposing; it was no
longer the stooping form of age, but only that of a somewhat elderly
hero. The brother Clement had been transformed into the prince of the
Church, who was about to receive his vassals.
They now saw a tall, manly form hastening down the alley directly toward
the pope.
“Who is it?” asked Ganganelli, half turning toward Lorenzo, who was
following him.
“It is Juan Angelo Braschi, the former treasurer, to whom you yesterday
sent the cardinal’s hat.”
“Ah, the beautiful Braschi,” sadly murmured Ganganelli. “The beloved of
the favorite of my nephew, of the Cardinal Rezzonico. Ah, how bad the
world is!”
In fact, he whom Ganganelli called the “beautiful” Braschi, well
deserved that epithet. No nobler or more plastic beauty was to be
seen; no face that more reminded one of the divine beauty of ancient
sculpture, no form that could be called a better counterfeit of the
Belvedere Apollo. And it was this beauty which liberal Nature had
imparted to him as its noblest gift, which helped Juan Angelo Braschi,
the son of a poor nobleman of Cesara, to his good fortune, his highest
offices and dignities. Not for his merits, but solely for his beauty,
did the women bestow upon him their love; and as among these women there
were some who exercised an important influence upon powerful cardinals,
Braschi had quickly mounted from step to step, crowding aside those who
had nothing but their merits and services to speak for them.
With a free and noble demeanor, Braschi now approached the pope, who
remained standing at some distance awaiting him, with a calm and proud
self-possession. Braschi dropped upon one knee, and pressing the hem of
the pope’s garment in his lips, said:
“Pardon me, most holy father, that I have ventured to seek you here.
But my lively gratitude would not be longer restrained. It impelled me
toward you with the wings of the wind. I must be the first to fall at
your feet to stammer out to you my inexpressible thanks.”
Proudly nodding his head the pope motioned him to rise.
“It is well,” said he, “and you have lent your gratitude an abundance of
words. It is true you were only treasurer, and I have permitted you
to take a great step in making you a cardinal. But remember, my lord
cardinal, that I have promoted you only because I wished to take from
you the office of treasurer, as I need a man for that post whose honesty
no one could call in question!”
Thus speaking he passed on with a ceremonious salutation, leaving
the new cardinal rooted to the earth with terror, his beautiful brow
distorted with rage.
“He shall expiate that,” muttered Braschi, gnashing his teeth, as the
pope slowly pursued his way. “By the Eternal, the proud Franciscan shall
expiate that! Ah, the day will come when he will fully remember these
words!”
Meantime, Ganganelli wandered calmly on, followed by his faithful
Lorenzo, with a smile of joy at this dismissal and humiliation of the
proud and handsome Cardinal Braschi.
The pope suddenly stopped, and turning to Lorenzo said:
“What a strange thought has passed through my head! I have made this
miserable coxcomb Braschi a cardinal because he was not honest enough
for a treasurer, but in doing so I have paved the way for him to the
papal throne! Would it not be strange, Lorenzo, if I have thus myself
provided my successor? His dishonesty and intriguing disposition has
made him a cardinal. Why can it not also make him a pope? The world is
indeed so strange!”(*)
(*) Juan Angelo Braschi, whom Pope Clement XIV. made a
cardinal, was in fact Ganganelli’s successor, and took
possession of the papal chair as Pius VI. He was chosen
after a very stormy conclave and indeed the different
parties voted for him on the ground that he belonged to no
party, and because they thought he was so very much occupied
with his own beauty that he would think of nothing else,
and, while occupied with the care of his face, would leave
the cares of state to others.
“What dreams those are,” murmured Lorenzo, shrugging his shoulders; “the
idea that a Braschi could be the successor of the noble Ganganelli!”
Many cardinals and princes of the Church, many noblemen and foreign
ambassadors, were assembled in the pope’s audience-room, and as
Ganganelli entered, they all received him with joyful acclamations,
and humbly fell upon their knees before the head of the church, the
vicegerent of God, who, with solemn majesty, bestowed upon them his
blessing, and then condescendingly conversed with them. That was a
ceremony to which the pope was obliged to subject himself once a week,
and which he reckoned as not one of the least of the troubles attendant
upon his exalted position. Hence he was well pleased when this hour
was over, and he at length was relieved of the presence of all these
eulogistic and flattering gentlemen.
Only Cardinal Bernis had remained behind, and to him Ganganelli, giving
him his hand, and drawing a deep breath, said:
“What a mass of false and hypocritical phrases we have again been
obliged to swallow! These cardinals have the impudence to speak to me of
their love and veneration; they do not hesitate so to lie with the same
lips which to-day have already pronounced blessings and pious words of
edification! But let us forget these hypocrites. Business is over, and
it is kind of you to come and chat with me for one little hour. You know
I love you very much, my good friend Bernis, although you do pay homage
to the heathen divinities, and, as a real renegade, have constituted
yourself a priest of the muses.”
“Ah, you speak of my youthful sins,” said the cardinal, smiling. “They
are long since past, and sleep with my youthful happiness.”
“That must be a wide bed which enables them all to find place side by
side,” responded Ganganelli, laughing, and holding up his forefinger
threateningly to the cardinal.
“But what is that you are drawing from your breast-pocket with such an
important air?”
“A letter from the Marquise de Pompadour, holy father,” seriously
replied the cardinal--“a letter in which I am commanded to communicate
to you, the father of Christendom, the acquiescence of France in your
proposed abolition of the order of the Jesuits. Here is a private letter
addressed to me by the marquise, and here the official letter signed by
King Louis, which is destined for your holiness.”
The pope took the papers, and while he was reading them his face turned
deadly pale, and a dark cloud gathered upon his brow.
“France also acquiesces,” said he, when he had finished the reading.
“How is it, then--were you not yourself against the abolition of the
order, and were you not in accordance with the Spanish ambassador, your
friend of many years?”
“This friendship of many years is to-day destroyed by a fish, and drives
us a helpless wreck upon the wildly-rolling waves,” said the cardinal,
shrugging his shoulders.
Ganganelli paid no attention to him. Serious and thoughtful, he walked
up and down the room, while his heavenward-directed eye seemed to
address a great and all-important question to the Being there above,
which received no answer.
“I clearly see how it will be,” finally murmured the pope, as if talking
to himself. “I shall complete the work I have begun--it is God Himself
who has opened the way for it, but this way will at the same time lead
me to my grave.”
“What dark thoughts are these?” said Bernis, approaching him. “This
bold and high-hearted resolution will not bring you death, but fame and
immortality.”
“It will at least lead me to immortality,” said the pope, with a faint
smile. “The dead are all immortal. But think not so little of me as to
suppose I would now timidly shrink from doing that which I have once
recognized as right and necessary. Only there are necessities of a very
painful and dreadful kind. Such a necessity is war. And is it not a war
that I commence, and does it not involve the destruction of all those
thousands who call themselves the followers of Loyola, and belong to the
Society of Jesus? Ah, believe me, this Society of Jesus is a hydra, and
we shall never succeed in entirely extirpating it. I may now separate my
own head from my body; but a day will come when the head of this hydra
will have grown again, and when it will rise from the dead with renewed
vitality, while I shall be mouldering in my grave. Say not, therefore,
that I know not how to destroy them, and if you do say it, at least add
that I lacked not the will, but that I gave for it my own life.”
Thus speaking, the pope slightly nodded an adieu to the cardinal, and
withdrew into his study, the door of which he carefully closed after
him.
There was he long heard to walk the room with measured steps. Then all
was still. No one ventured to disturb him. Hours passed. Lorenzo, with
a fearful presentiment, knelt before the door. He laid his ear to the
keyhole and tried to listen. All was still within, nothing stirred.
At length he ventured to call the pope’s name--at first low and
tremulously, then louder and more anxiously, and as no answer was
received, he at last ventured to open the door.
At his writing-table sat the pope; his face deadly pale, with staring
eyes and great drops of perspiration on his forehead. Immovable sat he
there, his right hand, which held a pen, resting on a parchment lying
upon the table before him.
Like an image of wax, so stiff, so motionless was he, that Lorenzo,
shuddering, made the sign of the cross upon his brow. Then, noiselessly
advancing, he timidly and anxiously touched the pope’s shoulder.
Ganganelli shuddered, and a slight trembling pervaded his members; he
then drew a long breath, and, casting a dull glance at his faithful
friend, said:
“Lorenzo, let my coffin be ordered, and pray for my soul. I have just
now signed my own death-sentence. See, there it lies. I have signed
the decree abolishing the order of the Jesuits! I must therefore
die, Lorenzo. It is all over and past with our shady place and our
recreations. My murderers are already prowling around me, for I tell you
I have myself signed my death-sentence!”