covert, unconscious hatred of health, simplicity, and strength, scarcely
listened to him. The young priest himself was again becoming absorbed in
the idea he had formed of pagan Rome resuscitating in Christian Rome and
turning it into Catholic Rome, the new political, sacerdotal, domineering
centre of earthly government. Apart from the primitive age of the
Catacombs, had Rome ever been Christian? The thoughts that had come to
him on the Palatine, in the Appian Way, and in St. Peter's were gathering
confirmation. Genius that morning had brought him fresh proof. No doubt
the paganism which reappeared in the art of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle
was tempered, transformed by the Christian spirit. But did it not still
remain the basis? Had not the former master peered across Olympus when
snatching his great nudities from the terrible heavens of Jehovah? Did
not the ideal figures of Raffaelle reveal the superb, fascinating flesh
of Venus beneath the chaste veil of the Virgin? It seemed so to Pierre,
and some embarrassment mingled with his despondency, for all those
beautiful forms glorifying the ardent passions of life, were in
opposition to his dream of rejuvenated Christianity giving peace to the
world and reviving the simplicity and purity of the early ages.
All at once he was surprised to hear Narcisse, by what transition he
could not tell, speaking to him of the daily life of Leo XIII. "Yes, my
dear Abbe, at eighty-four* the Holy Father shows the activity of a young
man and leads a life of determination and hard work such as neither you
nor I would care for! At six o'clock he is already up, says his mass in
his private chapel, and drinks a little milk for breakfast. Then, from
eight o'clock till noon, there is a ceaseless procession of cardinals and
prelates, all the affairs of the congregations passing under his eyes,
and none could be more numerous or intricate. At noon the public and
collective audiences usually begin. At two he dines. Then comes the
siesta which he has well earned, or else a promenade in the gardens until
six o'clock. The private audiences then sometimes keep him for an hour or
two. He sups at nine and scarcely eats, lives on nothing, in fact, and is
always alone at his little table. What do you think, eh, of the etiquette
which compels him to such loneliness? There you have a man who for
eighteen years has never had a guest at his table, who day by day sits
all alone in his grandeur! And as soon as ten o'clock strikes, after
saying the Rosary with his familiars, he shuts himself up in his room.
But, although he may go to bed, he sleeps very little; he is frequently
troubled by insomnia, and gets up and sends for a secretary to dictate
memoranda or letters to him. When any interesting matter requires his
attention he gives himself up to it heart and soul, never letting it
escape his thoughts. And his life, his health, lies in all this. His mind
is always busy; his will and strength must always be exerting themselves.
You may know that he long cultivated Latin verse with affection; and I
believe that in his days of struggle he had a passion for journalism,
inspired the articles of the newspapers he subsidised, and even dictated
some of them when his most cherished ideas were in question."
* The reader should remember that the period selected for this
narrative is the year 1894. Leo XIII was born in 1810.--Trans.
Silence fell. At every moment Narcisse craned his neck to see if the
little papal /cortege/ were not emerging from the Gallery of the
Tapestries to pass them on its way to the gardens. "You are perhaps
aware," he resumed, "that his Holiness is brought down on a low chair
which is small enough to pass through every doorway. It's quite a
journey, more than a mile, through the /loggie/, the /stanze/ of
Raffaelle, the painting and sculpture galleries, not to mention the
numerous staircases, before he reaches the gardens, where a pair-horse
carriage awaits him. It's quite fine this evening, so he will surely
come. We must have a little patience."
Whilst Narcisse was giving these particulars Pierre again sank into a
reverie and saw the whole extraordinary history pass before him. First
came the worldly, ostentatious popes of the Renascence, those who
resuscitated antiquity with so much passion and dreamt of draping the
Holy See with the purple of empire once more. There was Paul II, the
magnificent Venetian who built the Palazzo di Venezia; Sixtus IV, to whom
one owes the Sixtine Chapel; and Julius II and Leo X, who made Rome a
city of theatrical pomp, prodigious festivities, tournaments, ballets,
hunts, masquerades, and banquets. At that time the papacy had just
rediscovered Olympus amidst the dust of buried ruins, and as though
intoxicated by the torrent of life which arose from the ancient soil, it
founded the museums, thus reviving the superb temples of the pagan age,
and restoring them to the cult of universal admiration. Never had the
Church been in such peril of death, for if the Christ was still honoured
at St. Peter's, Jupiter and all the other gods and goddesses, with their
beauteous, triumphant flesh, were enthroned in the halls of the Vatican.
Then, however, another vision passed before Pierre, one of the modern
popes prior to the Italian occupation--notably Pius IX, who, whilst yet
free, often went into his good city of Rome. His huge red and gold coach
was drawn by six horses, surrounded by Swiss Guards and followed by Noble
Guards; but now and again he would alight in the Corso, and continue his
promenade on foot, and then the mounted men of the escort galloped
forward to give warning and stop the traffic. The carriages drew up, the
gentlemen had to alight and kneel on the pavement, whilst the ladies
simply rose and devoutly inclined their heads, as the Holy Father,
attended by his Court, slowly wended his way to the Piazza del Popolo,
smiling and blessing at every step. And now had come Leo XIII, the
voluntary prisoner, shut up in the Vatican for eighteen years, and he,
behind the high, silent walls, in the unknown sphere where each of his
days flowed by so quietly, had acquired a more exalted majesty, instinct
with sacred and redoubtable mysteriousness.
Ah! that Pope whom you no longer meet or see, that Pope hidden from the
common of mankind like some terrible divinity whom the priests alone dare
to approach! It is in that sumptuous Vatican which his forerunners of the
Renascence built and adorned for giant festivities that he has secluded
himself; it is there he lives, far from the crowd, in prison with the
handsome men and the lovely women of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle, with
the gods and goddesses of marble, with the whole of resplendent Olympus
celebrating around him the religion of life and light. With him the
entire Papacy is there steeped in paganism. What a spectacle when the
slender, weak old man, all soul, so purely white, passes along the
galleries of the Museum of Antiquities on his way to the gardens. Right
and left the statues behold him pass with all their bare flesh. There is
Jupiter, there is Apollo, there is Venus the /dominatrix/, there is Pan,
the universal god in whose laugh the joys of earth ring out. Nereids
bathe in transparent water. Bacchantes roll, unveiled, in the warm grass.
Centaurs gallop by carrying lovely girls, faint with rapture, on their
steaming haunches. Ariadne is surprised by Bacchus, Ganymede fondles the
eagle, Adonis fires youth and maiden with his flame. And on and on passes
the weak, white old man, swaying on his low chair, amidst that splendid
triumph, that display and glorification of the flesh, which shouts aloud
the omnipotence of Nature, of everlasting matter! Since they have found
it again, exhumed it, and honoured it, that it is which once more reigns
there imperishable; and in vain have they set vine leaves on the statues,
even as they have swathed the huge figures of Michael Angelo; sex still
flares on all sides, life overflows, its germs course in torrents through
the veins of the world. Near by, in that Vatican library of incomparable
wealth, where all human science lies slumbering, there lurks a yet more
terrible danger--the danger of an explosion which would sweep away
everything, Vatican and St. Peter's also, if one day the books in their
turn were to awake and speak aloud as speak the beauty of Venus and the
manliness of Apollo. But the white, diaphanous old man seems neither to
see nor to hear, and the huge heads of Jupiter, the trunks of Hercules,
the equivocal statues of Antinous continue to watch him as he passes on!
However, Narcisse had become impatient, and, going in search of an
attendant, he learnt from him that his Holiness had already gone down. To
shorten the distance, indeed, the /cortege/ often passes along a kind of
open gallery leading towards the Mint. "Well, let us go down as well,"
said Narcisse to Pierre; "I will try to show you the gardens."
Down below, in the vestibule, a door of which opened on to a broad path,
he spoke to another attendant, a former pontifical soldier whom he
personally knew. The man at once let him pass with Pierre, but was unable
to tell him whether Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo had accompanied his
Holiness that day.
"No matter," resumed Narcisse when he and his companion were alone in the
path; "I don't despair of meeting him--and these, you see, are the famous
gardens of the Vatican."
They are very extensive grounds, and the Pope can go quite two and a half
miles by passing along the paths of the wood, the vineyard, and the
kitchen garden. Occupying the plateau of the Vatican hill, which the
medieval wall of Leo IV still girdles, the gardens are separated from the
neighbouring valleys as by a fortified rampart. The wall formerly
stretched to the castle of Sant' Angelo, thereby forming what was known
as the Leonine City. No inquisitive eyes can peer into the grounds
excepting from the dome of St. Peter's, which casts its huge shadow over
them during the hot summer weather. They are, too, quite a little world,
which each pope has taken pleasure in embellishing. There is a large
parterre with lawns of geometrical patterns, planted with handsome palms
and adorned with lemon and orange trees in pots; there is a less formal,
a shadier garden, where, amidst deep plantations of yoke-elms, you find
Giovanni Vesanzio's fountain, the Aquilone, and Pius IV's old Casino;
then, too, there are the woods with their superb evergreen oaks, their
thickets of plane-trees, acacias, and pines, intersected by broad
avenues, which are delightfully pleasant for leisurely strolls; and
finally, on turning to the left, beyond other clumps of trees, come the
kitchen garden and the vineyard, the last well tended.
Whilst walking through the wood Narcisse told Pierre of the life led by
the Holy Father in these gardens. He strolls in them every second day
when the weather allows. Formerly the popes left the Vatican for the
Quirinal, which is cooler and healthier, as soon as May arrived; and
spent the dog days at Castle Gandolfo on the margins of the Lake of
Albano. But nowadays the only summer residence possessed by his Holiness
is a virtually intact tower of the old rampart of Leo IV. He here spends
the hottest days, and has even erected a sort of pavilion beside it for
the accommodation of his suite. Narcisse, like one at home, went in and
secured permission for Pierre to glance at the one room occupied by the
Pope, a spacious round chamber with semispherical ceiling, on which are
painted the heavens with symbolical figures of the constellations; one of
the latter, the lion, having two stars for eyes--stars which a system of
lighting causes to sparkle during the night. The walls of the tower are
so thick that after blocking up a window, a kind of room, for the
accommodation of a couch, has been contrived in the embrasure. Beside
this couch the only furniture is a large work-table, a dining-table with
flaps, and a large regal arm-chair, a mass of gilding, one of the gifts
of the Pope's episcopal jubilee. And you dream of the days of solitude
and perfect silence, spent in that low donjon hall, where the coolness of
a tomb prevails whilst the heavy suns of August are scorching overpowered
Rome.
An astronomical observatory has been installed in another tower,
surmounted by a little white cupola, which you espy amidst the greenery;
and under the trees there is also a Swiss chalet, where Leo XIII is fond
of resting. He sometimes goes on foot to the kitchen garden, and takes
much interest in the vineyard, visiting it to see if the grapes are
ripening and if the vintage will be a good one. What most astonished
Pierre, however, was to learn that the Holy Father had been very fond of
"sport" before age had weakened him. He was indeed passionately addicted
to bird snaring. Broad-meshed nets were hung on either side of a path on
the fringe of a plantation, and in the middle of the path were placed
cages containing the decoys, whose songs soon attracted all the birds of
the neighbourhood--red-breasts, white-throats, black-caps, nightingales,
fig-peckers of all sorts. And when a numerous company of them was
gathered together Leo XIII, seated out of sight and watching, would
suddenly clap his hands and startle the birds, which flew up and were
caught by the wings in the meshes of the nets. All that then remained to
be done was to take them out of the nets and stifle them by a touch of
the thumb. Roast fig-peckers are delicious.*
* Perhaps so; but what a delightful pastime for the Vicar of the
Divinity!--Trans.
As Pierre came back through the wood he had another surprise. He suddenly
lighted on a "Grotto of Lourdes," a miniature imitation of the original,
built of rocks and blocks of cement. And such was his emotion at the
sight that he could not conceal it. "It's true, then!" said he. "I was
told of it, but I thought that the Holy Father was of loftier mind--free
from all such base superstitions!"
"Oh!" replied Narcisse, "I fancy that the grotto dates from Pius IX, who
evinced especial gratitude to our Lady of Lourdes. At all events, it must
be a gift, and Leo XIII simply keeps it in repair."
For a few moments Pierre remained motionless and silent before that
imitation grotto, that childish plaything. Some zealously devout visitors
had left their visiting cards in the cracks of the cement-work! For his
part, he felt very sad, and followed his companion with bowed head,
lamenting the wretched idiocy of the world. Then, on emerging from the
wood, on again reaching the parterre, he raised his eyes.
Ah! how exquisite in spite of everything was that decline of a lovely
day, and what a victorious charm ascended from the soil in that part of
the gardens. There, in front of that bare, noble, burning parterre, far
more than under the languishing foliage of the wood or among the fruitful
vines, Pierre realised the strength of Nature. Above the grass growing
meagrely over the compartments of geometrical pattern which the pathways
traced there were barely a few low shrubs, dwarf roses, aloes, rare tufts
of withering flowers. Some green bushes still described the escutcheon of
Pius IX in accordance with the strange taste of former times. And amidst
the warm silence one only heard the faint crystalline murmur of the water
trickling from the basin of the central fountain. But all Rome, its
ardent heavens, sovereign grace, and conquering voluptuousness, seemed
with their own soul to animate this vast rectangular patch of decorative
gardening, this mosaic of verdure, which in its semi-abandonment and
scorched decay assumed an aspect of melancholy pride, instinct with the
ever returning quiver of a passion of fire that could not die. Some
antique vases and statues, whitely nude under the setting sun, skirted
the parterres. And above the aroma of eucalyptus and of pine, stronger
even than that of the ripening oranges, there rose the odour of the
large, bitter box-shrubs, so laden with pungent life that it disturbed
one as one passed as if indeed it were the very scent of the fecundity of
that ancient soil saturated with the dust of generations.
"It's very strange that we have not met his Holiness," exclaimed
Narcisse. "Perhaps his carriage took the other path through the wood
while we were in the tower."
Then, reverting to Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo, the /attache/ explained
that the functions of /Copiere/, or papal cup-bearer, which his cousin
should have discharged as one of the four /Camerieri segreti
partecipanti/ had become purely honorary since the dinners offered to
diplomatists or in honour of newly consecrated bishops had been given by
the Cardinal Secretary of State. Monsignor Gamba, whose cowardice and
nullity were legendary, seemed therefore to have no other /role/ than
that of enlivening Leo XIII, whose favour he had won by his incessant
flattery and the anecdotes which he was ever relating about both the
black and the white worlds. Indeed this fat, amiable man, who could even
be obliging when his interests were not in question, was a perfect
newspaper, brimful of tittle-tattle, disdaining no item of gossip
whatever, even if it came from the kitchens. And thus he was quietly
marching towards the cardinalate, certain of obtaining the hat without
other exertion than that of bringing a budget of gossip to beguile the
pleasant hours of the promenade. And Heaven knew that he was always able
to garner an abundant harvest of news in that closed Vatican swarming
with prelates of every kind, in that womanless pontifical family of old
begowned bachelors, all secretly exercised by vast ambitions, covert and
revolting rivalries, and ferocious hatreds, which, it is said, are still
sometimes carried as far as the good old poison of ancient days.
All at once Narcisse stopped. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "I was certain of it.
There's the Holy Father! But we are not in luck. He won't even see us; he
is about to get into his carriage again."
As he spoke a carriage drew up at the verge of the wood, and a little
/cortege/ emerging from a narrow path, went towards it.
Pierre felt as if he had received a great blow in the heart. Motionless
beside his companion, and half hidden by a lofty vase containing a
lemon-tree, it was only from a distance that he was able to see the white
old man, looking so frail and slender in the wavy folds of his white
cassock, and walking so very slowly with short, gliding steps. The young
priest could scarcely distinguish the emaciated face of old diaphanous
ivory, emphasised by a large nose which jutted out above thin lips.
However, the Pontiff's black eyes were glittering with an inquisitive
smile, while his right ear was inclined towards Monsignor Gamba del
Zoppo, who was doubtless finishing some story at once rich and short,
flowery and dignified. And on the left walked a Noble Guard; and two
other prelates followed.
It was but a familiar apparition; Leo XIII was already climbing into the
closed carriage. And Pierre, in the midst of that large, odoriferous,
burning garden, again experienced the singular emotion which had come
upon him in the Gallery of the Candelabra while he was picturing the Pope
on his way between the Apollos and Venuses radiant in their triumphant
nudity. There, however, it was only pagan art which had celebrated the
eternity of life, the superb, almighty powers of Nature. But here he had
beheld the Pontiff steeped in Nature itself, in Nature clad in the most
lovely, most voluptuous, most passionate guise. Ah! that Pope, that old
man strolling with his Divinity of grief, humility, and renunciation
along the paths of those gardens of love, in the languid evenings of the
hot summer days, beneath the caressing scents of pine and eucalyptus,
ripe oranges, and tall, acrid box-shrubs! The whole atmosphere around him
proclaimed the powers of the great god Pan. How pleasant was the thought
of living there, amidst that magnificence of heaven and of earth, of
loving the beauty of woman and of rejoicing in the fruitfulness of all!
And suddenly the decisive truth burst forth that from a land of such joy
and light it was only possible for a temporal religion of conquest and
political domination to rise; not the mystical, pain-fraught religion of
the North--the religion of the soul!
However, Narcisse led the young priest away, telling him other anecdotes
as they went--anecdotes of the occasional /bonhomie/ of Leo XIII, who
would stop to chat with the gardeners, and question them about the health
of the trees and the sale of the oranges. And he also mentioned the
Pope's former passion for a pair of gazelles, sent him from Africa, two
graceful creatures which he had been fond of caressing, and at whose
death he had shed tears. But Pierre no longer listened. When they found
themselves on the Piazza of St. Peter's, he turned round and gazed at the
Vatican once more.
His eyes had fallen on the gate of bronze, and he remembered having
wondered that morning what there might be behind these metal panels
ornamented with big nails. And he did not yet dare to answer the
question, and decide if the new nations thirsting for fraternity and
justice would really find there the religion necessary for the
democracies of to-morrow; for he had not been able to probe things, and
only carried a first impression away with him. But how keen it was, and
how ill it boded for his dreams! A gate of bronze! Yes, a hard,
impregnable gate, so completely shutting the Vatican off from the rest of
the world that nothing new had entered the palace for three hundred
years. Behind that portal the old centuries, as far as the sixteenth,
remained immutable. Time seemed to have stayed its course there for ever;
nothing more stirred; the very costumes of the Swiss Guards, the Noble
Guards, and the prelates themselves were unchanged; and you found
yourself in the world of three hundred years ago, with its etiquette, its
costumes, and its ideas. That the popes in a spirit of haughty protest
should for five and twenty years have voluntarily shut themselves up in
their palace was already regrettable; but this imprisonment of centuries
within the past, within the grooves of tradition, was far more serious
and dangerous. It was all Catholicism which was thus imprisoned, whose
dogmas and sacerdotal organisation were obstinately immobilised. Perhaps,
in spite of its apparent flexibility, Catholicism was really unable to
yield in anything, under peril of being swept away, and therein lay both
its weakness and its strength. And then what a terrible world was there,
how great the pride and ambition, how numerous the hatreds and rivalries!
And how strange the prison, how singular the company assembled behind the
bars--the Crucified by the side of Jupiter Capitolinus, all pagan
antiquity fraternising with the Apostles, all the splendours of the
Renascence surrounding the pastor of the Gospel who reigns in the name of
the humble and the poor!
The sun was sinking, the gentle, luscious sweetness of the Roman evenings
was falling from the limpid heavens, and after that splendid day spent
with Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, the ancients, and the Pope, in the finest
palace of the world, the young priest lingered, distracted, on the Piazza
of St. Peter's.
"Well, you must excuse me, my dear Abbe," concluded Narcisse. "But I will
now confess to you that I suspect my worthy cousin of a fear that he
might compromise himself by meddling in your affair. I shall certainly
see him again, but you will do well not to put too much reliance on him."