PART IV.

X.

IN his anxiety to bring things to a finish, Pierre wished to begin his

campaign on the very next day. But on whom should he first call if he

were to steer clear of blunders in that intricate and conceited

ecclesiastical world? The question greatly perplexed him; however, on

opening his door that morning he luckily perceived Don Vigilio in the

passage, and with a sudden inspiration asked him to step inside. He

realised that this thin little man with the saffron face, who always

trembled with fever and displayed such exaggerated, timorous discretion,

was in reality well informed, mixed up in everything. At one period it

had seemed to Pierre that the secretary purposely avoided him, doubtless

for fear of compromising himself; but recently Don Vigilio had proved

less unsociable, as though he were not far from sharing the impatience

which must be consuming the young Frenchman amidst his long enforced

inactivity. And so, on this occasion, he did not seek to avoid the chat

on which Pierre was bent.

“I must apologise,” said the latter, “for asking you in here when things

are in such disorder. But I have just received some more linen and some

winter clothing from Paris. I came, you know, with just a little valise,

meaning to stay for a fortnight, and yet I’ve now been here for nearly

three months, and am no more advanced than I was on the morning of my

arrival.”

Don Vigilio nodded. “Yes, yes, I know,” said he.

Thereupon Pierre explained to him that Monsignor Nani had informed him,

through the Contessina, that he now ought to act and see everybody for

the defence of his book. But he was much embarrassed, as he did not know

in what order to make his visits so that they might benefit him. For

instance, ought he to call in the first place on Monsignor Fornaro, the

_consultore_ selected to report on his book, and whose name had been

given him?

“Ah!” exclaimed Don Vigilio, quivering; “has Monsignor Nani gone as far

as that--given you the reporter’s name? That’s even more than I

expected.” Then, forgetting his prudence, yielding to his secret interest

in the affair, he resumed: “No, no; don’t begin with Monsignor Fornaro.

Your first visit should be a very humble one to the Prefect of the

Congregation of the Index--his Eminence Cardinal Sanguinetti; for he

would never forgive you for having offered your first homage to another

should he some day hear of it.” And, after a pause, Don Vigilio added, in

a low voice, amidst a faint, feverish shiver: “And he _would_ hear of it;

everything becomes known.”

Again he hesitated, and then, as if yielding to sudden, sympathetic

courage, he took hold of the young Frenchman’s hands. “I swear to you, my

dear Monsieur Froment,” he said, “that I should be very happy to help

you, for you are a man of simple soul, and I really begin to feel worried

for you. But you must not ask me for impossibilities. Ah! if you only

knew--if I could only tell you of all the perils which surround us!

However, I think I can repeat to you that you must in no wise rely on my

patron, his Eminence Cardinal Boccanera. He has expressed absolute

disapproval of your book in my presence on several occasions. Only he is

a saint, a most worthy, honourable man; and, though he won’t defend you,

he won’t attack you--he will remain neutral out of regard for his niece,

whom he loves so dearly, and who protects you. So, when you see him,

don’t plead your cause; it would be of no avail, and might even irritate

him.”

Pierre was not particularly distressed by this news, for at his first

interview with the Cardinal, and on the few subsequent occasions when he

had respectfully visited him, he had fully understood that his Eminence

would never be other than an adversary. “Well,” said he, “I will wait on

him to thank him for his neutrality.”

But at this all Don Vigilio’s terrors returned. “No, no, don’t do that;

he would perhaps realise that I have spoken to you, and then what a

disaster--my position would be compromised. I’ve said nothing, nothing!

See the cardinals to begin with, see all the cardinals. Let it be

understood between us that I’ve said nothing more.” And, on that occasion

at any rate, Don Vigilio would speak no further, but left the room

shuddering and darting fiery, suspicious glances on either side of the

corridor.

Pierre at once went out to call on Cardinal Sanguinetti. It was ten

o’clock, and there was a chance that he might find him at home. This

cardinal resided on the first floor of a little palazzo in a dark, narrow

street near San Luigi dei Francesi.* There was here none of the giant

ruin full of princely and melancholy grandeur amidst which Cardinal

Boccanera so stubbornly remained. The old regulation gala suite of rooms

had been cut down just like the number of servants. There was no

throne-room, no red hat hanging under a _baldacchino_, no arm-chair

turned to the wall pending a visit from the Pope. A couple of apartments

served as ante-rooms, and then came a _salon_ where the Cardinal

received; and there was no luxury, indeed scarcely any comfort; the

furniture was of mahogany, dating from the empire period, and the

hangings and carpets were dusty and faded by long use. Moreover, Pierre

had to wait a long time for admittance, and when a servant, leisurely

putting on his jacket, at last set the door ajar, it was only to say that

his Eminence had been away at Frascati since the previous day.

* This is the French church of Rome, and is under the protection

of the French Government.--Trans.

Pierre then remembered that Cardinal Sanguinetti was one of the suburban

bishops. At his see of Frascati he had a villa where he occasionally

spent a few days whenever a desire for rest or some political motive

impelled him to do so.

“And will his Eminence soon return?” Pierre inquired.

“Ah! we don’t know. His Eminence is poorly, and expressly desired us to

send nobody to worry him.”

When Pierre reached the street again he felt quite bewildered by this

disappointment. At first he wondered whether he had not better call on

Monsignor Fornaro without more ado, but he recollected Don Vigilio’s

advice to see the cardinals first of all, and, an inspiration coming to

him, he resolved that his next visit should be for Cardinal Sarno, whose

acquaintance he had eventually made at Donna Serafina’s Mondays. In spite

of Cardinal Sarno’s voluntary self-effacement, people looked upon him as

one of the most powerful and redoubtable members of the Sacred College,

albeit his nephew Narcisse Habert declared that he knew no man who showed

more obtuseness in matters which did not pertain to his habitual

occupations. At all events, Pierre thought that the Cardinal, although

not a member of the Congregation of the Index, might well give him some

good advice, and possibly bring his great influence to bear on his

colleagues.

The young man straightway betook himself to the Palace of the Propaganda,

where he knew he would find the Cardinal. This palace, which is seen from

the Piazza di Spagna, is a bare, massive corner pile between two streets.

And Pierre, hampered by his faulty Italian, quite lost himself in it,

climbing to floors whence he had to descend again, and finding himself in

a perfect labyrinth of stairs, passages, and halls. At last he luckily

came across the Cardinal’s secretary, an amiable young priest, whom he

had already seen at the Boccanera mansion. “Why, yes,” said the

secretary, “I think that his Eminence will receive you. You did well to

come at this hour, for he is always here of a morning. Kindly follow me,

if you please.”

Then came a fresh journey. Cardinal Sarno, long a Secretary of the

Propaganda, now presided over the commission which controlled the

organisation of worship in those countries of Europe, Africa, America,

and Oceanica where Catholicism had lately gained a footing; and he thus

had a private room of his own with special officers and assistants,

reigning there with the ultra-methodical habits of a functionary who had

grown old in his arm-chair, closely surrounded by nests of drawers, and

knowing nothing of the world save the usual sights of the street below

his window.

The secretary left Pierre on a bench at the end of a dark passage, which

was lighted by gas even in full daylight. And quite a quarter of an hour

went by before he returned with his eager, affable air. “His Eminence is

conferring with some missionaries who are about to leave Rome,” he said;

“but it will soon be over, and he told me to take you to his room, where

you can wait for him.”

As soon as Pierre was alone in the Cardinal’s sanctum he examined it with

curiosity. Fairly spacious, but in no wise luxurious, it had green paper

on its walls, and its furniture was of black wood and green damask. From

two windows overlooking a narrow side street a mournful light reached the

dark wall-paper and faded carpets. There were a couple of pier tables and

a plain black writing-table, which stood near one window, its worn

mole-skin covering littered with all sorts of papers. Pierre drew near to

it for a moment, and glanced at the arm-chair with damaged, sunken seat,

the screen which sheltered it from draughts, and the old inkstand

splotched with ink. And then, in the lifeless and oppressive atmosphere,

the disquieting silence, which only the low rumbles from the street

disturbed, he began to grow impatient.

However, whilst he was softly walking up and down he suddenly espied a

map affixed to one wall, and the sight of it filled him with such

absorbing thoughts that he soon forgot everything else. It was a coloured

map of the world, the different tints indicating whether the territories

belonged to victorious Catholicism or whether Catholicism was still

warring there against unbelief; these last countries being classified as

vicariates or prefectures, according to the general principles of

organisation. And the whole was a graphic presentment of the long efforts

of Catholicism in striving for the universal dominion which it has sought

so unremittingly since its earliest hour. God has given the world to His

Church, but it is needful that she should secure possession of it since

error so stubbornly abides. From this has sprung the eternal battle, the

fight which is carried on, even in our days, to win nations over from

other religions, as it was in the days when the Apostles quitted Judaea

to spread abroad the tidings of the Gospel. During the middle ages the

great task was to organise conquered Europe, and this was too absorbing

an enterprise to allow of any attempt at reconciliation with the

dissident churches of the East. Then the Reformation burst forth, schism

was added to schism, and the Protestant half of Europe had to be

reconquered as well as all the orthodox East.

War-like ardour, however, awoke at the discovery of the New World. Rome

was ambitious of securing that other side of the earth, and missions were

organised for the subjection of races of which nobody had known anything

the day before, but which God had, nevertheless, given to His Church,

like all the others. And by degrees the two great divisions of

Christianity were formed, on one hand the Catholic nations, those where

the faith simply had to be kept up, and which the Secretariate of State

installed at the Vatican guided with sovereign authority, and on the

other the schismatical or pagan nations which were to be brought back to

the fold or converted, and over which the Congregation of the Propaganda

sought to reign. Then this Congregation had been obliged to divide itself

into two branches in order to facilitate its work--the Oriental branch,

which dealt with the dissident sects of the East, and the Latin branch,

whose authority extended over all the other lands of mission: the two

forming a vast organisation--a huge, strong, closely meshed net cast over

the whole world in order that not a single soul might escape.

It was in presence of that map that Pierre for the first time became

clearly conscious of the mechanism which for centuries had been working

to bring about the absorption of humanity. The Propaganda, richly dowered

by the popes, and disposing of a considerable revenue, appeared to him

like a separate force, a papacy within the papacy, and he well understood

that the Prefect of the Congregation should be called the “Red Pope,” for

how limitless were the powers of that man of conquest and domination,

whose hands stretched from one to the other end of the earth. Allowing

that the Cardinal Secretary held Europe, that diminutive portion of the

globe, did not he, the Prefect, hold all the rest--the infinity of space,

the distant countries as yet almost unknown? Besides, statistics showed

that Rome’s uncontested dominion was limited to 200 millions of Apostolic

and Roman Catholics; whereas the schismatics of the East and the

Reformation, if added together, already exceeded that number, and how

small became the minority of the true believers when, besides the

schismatics, one brought into line the 1000 millions of infidels who yet

remained to be converted. The figures struck Pierre with a force which

made him shudder. What! there were 5 million Jews, nearly 200 million

Mahommedans, more than 700 million Brahmanists and Buddhists, without

counting another 100 million pagans of divers creeds, the whole making

1000 millions, and against these the Christians could marshal barely more

than 400 millions, who were divided among themselves, ever in conflict,

one half with Rome and the other half against her?* Was it possible that

in 1800 years Christianity had not proved victorious over even one-third

of mankind, and that Rome, the eternal and all-powerful, only counted a

sixth part of the nations among her subjects? Only one soul saved out of

every six--how fearful was the disproportion! However, the map spoke with

brutal eloquence: the red-tinted empire of Rome was but a speck when

compared with the yellow-hued empire of the other gods--the endless

countries which the Propaganda still had to conquer. And the question

arose: How many centuries must elapse before the promises of the Christ

were realised, before the whole world were gained to Christianity, before

religious society spread over secular society, and there remained but one

kingdom and one belief? And in presence of this question, in presence of

the prodigious labour yet to be accomplished, how great was one’s

astonishment when one thought of Rome’s tranquil serenity, her patient

stubbornness, which has never known doubt or weariness, her bishops and

ministers toiling without cessation in the conviction that she alone will

some day be the mistress of the world!

* Some readers may question certain of the figures given by M.

Zola, but it must be remembered that all such calculations

(even those of the best “authorities”) are largely guesswork.

I myself think that there are more than 5 million Jews, and

more than 200 millions of Mahommedans, but I regard the alleged

number of Brahmanists and Buddhists as exaggerated. On the

other hand, some statistical tables specify 80 millions of

Confucianists, of whom M. Zola makes no separate mention.

However, as regards the number of Christians in the world, the

figures given above are, within a few millions, probably

accurate.--Trans.

Narcisse had told Pierre how carefully the embassies at Rome watched the

doings of the Propaganda, for the missions were often the instruments of

one or another nation, and exercised decisive influence in far-away

lands. And so there was a continual struggle, in which the Congregation

did all it could to favour the missionaries of Italy and her allies. It

had always been jealous of its French rival, “L’Oeuvre de la Propagation

de la Foi,” installed at Lyons, which is as wealthy in money as itself,

and richer in men of energy and courage. However, not content with

levelling tribute on this French association, the Propaganda thwarted it,

sacrificed it on every occasion when it had reason to think it might

achieve a victory. Not once or twice, but over and over again had the

French missionaries, the French orders, been driven from the scenes of

their labours to make way for Italians or Germans. And Pierre, standing

in that mournful, dusty room, which the sunlight never brightened,

pictured the secret hot-bed of political intrigue masked by the

civilising ardour of faith. Again he shuddered as one shudders when

monstrous, terrifying things are brought home to one. And might not the

most sensible be overcome? Might not the bravest be dismayed by the

thought of that universal engine of conquest and domination, which worked

with the stubbornness of eternity, not merely content with the gain of

souls, but ever seeking to ensure its future sovereignty over the whole

of corporeal humanity, and--pending the time when it might rule the

nations itself--disposing of them, handing them over to the charge of

this or that temporary master, in accordance with its good pleasure. And

then, too, what a prodigious dream! Rome smiling and tranquilly awaiting

the day when she will have united Christians, Mahommedans, Brahmanists,

and Buddhists into one sole nation, of whom she will be both the

spiritual and the temporal queen!

However, a sound of coughing made Pierre turn, and he started on

perceiving Cardinal Sarno, whom he had not heard enter. Standing in front

of that map, he felt like one caught in the act of prying into a secret,

and a deep flush overspread his face. The Cardinal, however, after

looking at him fixedly with his dim eyes, went to his writing-table, and

let himself drop into the arm-chair without saying a word. With a gesture

he dispensed Pierre of the duty of kissing his ring.

“I desired to offer my homage to your Eminence,” said the young man. “Is

your Eminence unwell?”

“No, no, it’s nothing but a dreadful cold which I can’t get rid of. And

then, too, I have so many things to attend to just now.”

Pierre looked at the Cardinal as he appeared in the livid light from the

window, puny, lopsided, with the left shoulder higher than the right, and

not a sign of life on his worn and ashen countenance. The young priest

was reminded of one of his uncles, who, after thirty years spent in the

offices of a French public department, displayed the same lifeless

glance, parchment-like skin, and weary hebetation. Was it possible that

this withered old man, so lost in his black cassock with red edging, was

really one of the masters of the world, with the map of Christendom so

deeply stamped on his mind, albeit he had never left Rome, that the

Prefect of the Propaganda did not take a decision without asking his

opinion?

“Sit down, Monsieur l’Abbe,” said the Cardinal. “So you have come to see

me--you have something to ask of me!” And, whilst disposing himself to

listen, he stretched out his thin bony hands to finger the documents

heaped up before him, glancing at each of them like some general, some

strategist, profoundly versed in the science of his profession, who,

although his army is far away, nevertheless directs it to victory from

his private room, never for a moment allowing it to escape his mind.

Pierre was somewhat embarrassed by such a plain enunciation of the

interested object of his visit; still, he decided to go to the point.

“Yes, indeed,” he answered, “it is a liberty I have taken to come and

appeal to your Eminence’s wisdom for advice. Your Eminence is aware that

I am in Rome for the purpose of defending a book of mine, and I should be

grateful if your Eminence would help and guide me.” Then he gave a brief

account of the present position of the affair, and began to plead his

cause; but as he continued speaking he noticed that the Cardinal gave him

very little attention, as though indeed he were thinking of something

else, and failed to understand.

“Ah! yes,” the great man at last muttered, “you have written a book.

There was some question of it at Donna Serafina’s one evening. But a

priest ought not to write; it is a mistake for him to do so. What is the

good of it? And the Congregation of the Index must certainly be in the

right if it is prosecuting your book. At all events, what can I do? I

don’t belong to the Congregation, and I know nothing, nothing about the

matter.”

Pierre, pained at finding him so listless and indifferent, went on trying

to enlighten and move him. But he realised that this man’s mind, so

far-reaching and penetrating in the field in which it had worked for

forty years, closed up as soon as one sought to divert it from its

specialty. It was neither an inquisitive nor a supple mind. All trace of

life faded from the Cardinal’s eyes, and his entire countenance assumed

an expression of mournful imbecility. “I know nothing, nothing,” he

repeated, “and I never recommend anybody.” However, at last he made an

effort: “But Nani is mixed up in this,” said he. “What does Nani advise

you to do?”

“Monsignor Nani has been kind enough to reveal to me that the reporter is

Monsignor Fornaro, and advises me to see him.”

At this Cardinal Sarno seemed surprised and somewhat roused. A little

light returned to his eyes. “Ah! really,” he rejoined, “ah!

really--Well, if Nani has done that he must have some idea. Go and see

Monsignor Fornaro.” Then, after rising and dismissing his visitor, who

was compelled to thank him, bowing deeply, he resumed his seat, and a

moment later the only sound in the lifeless room was that of his bony

fingers turning over the documents before him.

Pierre, in all docility, followed the advice given him, and immediately

betook himself to the Piazza Navona, where, however, he learnt from one

of Monsignor Fornaro’s servants that the prelate had just gone out, and

that to find him at home it was necessary to call in the morning at ten

o’clock. Accordingly it was only on the following day that Pierre was

able to obtain an interview. He had previously made inquiries and knew

what was necessary concerning Monsignor Fornaro. Born at Naples, he had

there begun his studies under the Barnabites, had finished them at the

Seminario Romano, and had subsequently, for many years, been a professor

at the University Gregoriana. Nowadays Consultor to several Congregations

and a Canon of Santa Maria Maggiore, he placed his immediate ambition in

a Canonry at St. Peter’s, and harboured the dream of some day becoming

Secretary of the Consistorial Congregation, a post conducting to the

cardinalate. A theologian of remarkable ability, Monsignor Fornaro

incurred no other reproach than that of occasionally sacrificing to

literature by contributing articles, which he carefully abstained from

signing, to certain religious reviews. He was also said to be very

worldly.

Pierre was received as soon as he had sent in his card, and perhaps he

would have fancied that his visit was expected had not an appearance of

sincere surprise, blended with a little anxiety, marked his reception.

“Monsieur l’Abbe Froment, Monsieur l’Abbe Froment,” repeated the prelate,

looking at the card which he still held. “Kindly step in--I was about to

forbid my door, for I have some urgent work to attend to. But no matter,

sit down.”

Pierre, however, remained standing, quite charmed by the blooming

appearance of this tall, strong, handsome man who, although five and

forty years of age, was quite fresh and rosy, with moist lips, caressing

eyes, and scarcely a grey hair among his curly locks. Nobody more

fascinating and decorative could be found among the whole Roman prelacy.

Careful of his person undoubtedly, and aiming at a simple elegance, he

looked really superb in his black cassock with violet collar. And around

him the spacious room where he received his visitors, gaily lighted as it

was by two large windows facing the Piazza Navona, and furnished with a

taste nowadays seldom met with among the Roman clergy, diffused a

pleasant odour and formed a setting instinct with kindly cheerfulness.

“Pray sit down, Monsieur l’Abbe Froment,” he resumed, “and tell me to

what I am indebted for the honour of your visit.”

He had already recovered his self-possession and assumed a _naif_, purely

obliging air; and Pierre, though the question was only natural, and he

ought to have foreseen it, suddenly felt greatly embarrassed, more

embarrassed indeed than in Cardinal Sarno’s presence. Should he go to the

point at once, confess the delicate motive of his visit? A moment’s

reflection showed him that this would be the best and worthier course.

“Dear me, Monseigneur,” he replied, “I know very well that the step I

have taken in calling on you is not usually taken, but it has been

advised me, and it has seemed to me that among honest folks there can

never be any harm in seeking in all good faith to elucidate the truth.”

“What is it, what is it, then?” asked the prelate with an expression of

perfect candour, and still continuing to smile.

“Well, simply this. I have learnt that the Congregation of the Index has

handed you my book ‘New Rome,’ and appointed you to examine it; and I

have ventured to present myself before you in case you should have any

explanations to ask of me.”

But Monsignor Fornaro seemed unwilling to hear any more. He had carried

both hands to his head and drawn back, albeit still courteous. “No, no,”

said he, “don’t tell me that, don’t continue, you would grieve me

dreadfully. Let us say, if you like, that you have been deceived, for

nothing ought to be known, in fact nothing is known, either by others or

myself. I pray you, do not let us talk of such matters.”

Pierre, however, had fortunately remarked what a decisive effect was

produced when he had occasion to mention the name of the Assessor of the

Holy Office. So it occurred to him to reply: “I most certainly do not

desire to give you the slightest cause for embarrassment, Monseigneur,

and I repeat to you that I would never have ventured to importune you if

Monsignor Nani himself had not acquainted me with your name and address.”

This time the effect was immediate, though Monsignor Fornaro, with that

easy grace which he introduced into all things, made some ceremony about

surrendering. He began by a demurrer, speaking archly with subtle shades

of expression. “What! is Monsignor Nani the tattler! But I shall scold

him, I shall get angry with him! And what does he know? He doesn’t belong

to the Congregation; he may have been led into error. You must tell him

that he has made a mistake, and that I have nothing at all to do with

your affair. That will teach him not to reveal needful secrets which

everybody respects!” Then, in a pleasant way, with winning glance and

flowery lips, he went on: “Come, since Monsignor Nani desires it, I am

willing to chat with you for a moment, my dear Monsieur Froment, but on

condition that you shall know nothing of my report or of what may have

been said or done at the Congregation.”

Pierre in his turn smiled, admiring how easy things became when forms

were respected and appearances saved. And once again he began to explain

his case, the profound astonishment into which the prosecution of his

book had thrown him, and his ignorance of the objections which were taken

to it, and for which he had vainly sought a cause.

“Really, really,” repeated the prelate, quite amazed at so much

innocence. “The Congregation is a tribunal, and can only act when a case

is brought before it. Proceedings have been taken against your book

simply because it has been denounced.”

“Yes, I know, denounced.”

“Of course. Complaint was laid by three French bishops, whose names you

will allow me to keep secret, and it consequently became necessary for

the Congregation to examine the incriminated work.”

Pierre looked at him quite scared. Denounced by three bishops? Why? With

what object? Then he thought of his protector. “But Cardinal Bergerot,”

said he, “wrote me a letter of approval, which I placed at the beginning

of my work as a preface. Ought not a guarantee like that to have been

sufficient for the French episcopacy?”

Monsignor Fornaro wagged his head in a knowing way before making up his

mind to reply: “Ah! yes, no doubt, his Eminence’s letter, a very

beautiful letter. I think, however, that it would have been much better

if he had not written it, both for himself and for you especially.” Then

as the priest, whose surprise was increasing, opened his mouth to urge

him to explain himself, he went on: “No, no, I know nothing, I say

nothing. His Eminence Cardinal Bergerot is a saintly man whom everybody

venerates, and if it were possible for him to sin it would only be

through pure goodness of heart.”

Silence fell. Pierre could divine that an abyss was opening, and dared

not insist. However, he at last resumed with some violence: “But, after

all, why should my book be prosecuted, and the books of others be left

untouched? I have no intention of acting as a denouncer myself, but how

many books there are to which Rome closes her eyes, and which are far

more dangerous than mine can be!”

This time Monsignor Fornaro seemed glad to be able to support Pierre’s

views. “You are right,” said he, “we cannot deal with every bad book, and

it greatly distresses us. But you must remember what an incalculable

number of works we should be compelled to read. And so we have to content

ourselves with condemning the worst _en bloc_.”

Then he complacently entered into explanations. In principle, no printer

ought to send any work to press without having previously submitted the

manuscript to the approval of the bishop of the diocese. Nowadays,

however, with the enormous output of the printing trade, one could

understand how terribly embarrassed the bishops would be if the printers

were suddenly to conform to the Church’s regulation. There was neither

the time nor the money, nor were there the men necessary for such

colossal labour. And so the Congregation of the Index condemned _en

masse_, without examination, all works of certain categories: first,

books which were dangerous for morals, all erotic writings, and all

novels; next the various bibles in the vulgar tongue, for the perusal of

Holy Writ without discretion was not allowable; then the books on magic

and sorcery, and all works on science, history, or philosophy that were

in any way contrary to dogma, as well as the writings of heresiarchs or

mere ecclesiastics discussing religion, which should never be discussed.

All these were wise laws made by different popes, and were set forth in

the preface to the catalogue of forbidden books which the Congregation

published, and without them this catalogue, to have been complete, would

in itself have formed a large library. On turning it over one found that

the works singled out for interdiction were chiefly those of priests, the

task being so vast and difficult that Rome’s concern extended but little

beyond the observance of good order within the Church. And Pierre and his

book came within the limit.

“You will understand,” continued Monsignor Fornaro, “that we have no

desire to advertise a heap of unwholesome writings by honouring them with

special condemnation. Their name is legion in every country, and we

should have neither enough paper nor enough ink to deal with them all. So

we content ourselves with condemning one from time to time, when it bears

a famous name and makes too much noise, or contains disquieting attacks

on the faith. This suffices to remind the world that we exist and defend

ourselves without abandoning aught of our rights or duties.”

“But my book, my book,” exclaimed Pierre, “why these proceedings against

my book?”

“I am explaining that to you as far as it is allowable for me to do, my

dear Monsieur Froment. You are a priest, your book is a success, you have

published a cheap edition of it which sells very readily; and I don’t

speak of its literary merit, which is remarkable, for it contains a

breath of real poetry which transported me, and on which I must really

compliment you. However, under the circumstances which I have enumerated,

how could we close our eyes to such a work as yours, in which the

conclusion arrived at is the annihilation of our holy religion and the

destruction of Rome?”

Pierre remained open-mouthed, suffocating with surprise. “The destruction

of Rome!” he at last exclaimed; “but I desire to see Rome rejuvenated,

eternal, again the queen of the world.” And, once more mastered by his

glowing enthusiasm, he defended himself and confessed his faith:

Catholicism reverting to the principles and practices of the primitive

Church, drawing the blood of regeneration from the fraternal Christianity

of Jesus; the Pope, freed from all terrestrial royalty, governing the

whole of humanity with charity and love, and saving the world from the

frightful social cataclysm that threatens it by leading it to the real

Kingdom of God: the Christian communion of all nations united in one

nation only. “And can the Holy Father disavow me?” he continued. “Are not

these his secret ideas, which people are beginning to divine, and does

not my only offence lie in having expressed them perhaps too soon and too

freely? And if I were allowed to see him should I not at once obtain from

him an order to stop these proceedings?”

Monsignor Fornaro no longer spoke, but wagged his head without appearing

offended by the priest’s juvenile ardour. On the contrary, he smiled with

increasing amiability, as though highly amused by so much innocence and

imagination. At last he gaily responded, “Oh! speak on, speak on; it

isn’t I who will stop you. I’m forbidden to say anything. But the

temporal power, the temporal power.”

“Well, what of the temporal power?” asked Pierre.

The prelate had again become silent, raising his amiable face to heaven

and waving his white hands with a pretty gesture. And when he once more

opened his mouth it was to say: “Then there’s your new religion--for the

expression occurs twice: the new religion, the new religion--ah, _Dio_!”

Again he became restless, going off into an ecstasy of wonderment, at

sight of which Pierre impatiently exclaimed: “I do not know what your

report will be, Monseigneur, but I declare to you that I have had no

desire to attack dogma. And, candidly now, my whole book shows that I

only sought to write a work of pity and salvation. It is only justice

that some account should be taken of one’s intentions.”

Monsignor Fornaro had become very calm and paternal again. “Oh!

intentions! intentions!” he said as he rose to dismiss his visitor. “You

may be sure, my dear Monsieur Froment, that I feel much honoured by your

visit. Naturally I cannot tell you what my report will be; as it is, we

have talked too much about it, and, in fact, I ought to have refused to

listen to your defence. At the same time, you will always find me ready

to be of service to you in anything that does not go against my duty. But

I greatly fear that your book will be condemned.” And then, as Pierre

again started, he added: “Well, yes. It is facts that are judged, you

know, not intentions. So all defence is useless; the book is there, and

we take it such as it is. However much you may try to explain it, you

cannot alter it. And this is why the Congregation never calls the accused

parties before it, and never accepts from them aught but retraction pure

and simple. And, indeed, the wisest course would be for you to withdraw

your book and make your submission. No? You won’t? Ah! how young you are,

my friend!”

He laughed yet more loudly at the gesture of revolt, of indomitable pride

which had just escaped his young friend, as he called him. Then, on

reaching the door, he again threw off some of his reserve, and said in a

low voice, “Come, my dear Abbe, there is something I will do for you. I

will give you some good advice. At bottom, I myself am nothing. I deliver

my report, and it is printed, and the members of the Congregation read

it, but are quite free to pay no attention to it. However, the Secretary

of the Congregation, Father Dangelis, can accomplish everything, even

impossibilities. Go to see him; you will find him at the Dominican

convent behind the Piazza di Spagna. Don’t name me. And for the present

good-bye, my dear fellow, good-bye.”

Pierre once more found himself on the Piazza Navona, quite dazed, no

longer knowing what to believe or hope. A cowardly idea was coming over

him; why should he continue this struggle, in which his adversaries

remained unknown and indiscernible? Why carry obstinacy any further, why

linger any longer in that impassionating but deceptive Rome? He would

flee that very evening, return to Paris, disappear there, and forget his

bitter disillusion in the practice of humble charity. He was traversing

one of those hours of weakness when the long-dreamt-of task suddenly

seems to be an impossibility. However, amidst his great confusion he was

nevertheless walking on, going towards his destination. And when he found

himself in the Corso, then in the Via dei Condotti, and finally in the

Piazza di Spagna, he resolved that he would at any rate see Father

Dangelis. The Dominican convent is there, just below the Trinity de’

Monti.

Ah! those Dominicans! Pierre had never thought of them without a feeling

of respect with which mingled a little fear. What vigorous pillars of the

principle of authority and theocracy they had for centuries proved

themselves to be! To them the Church had been indebted for its greatest

measure of authority; they were the glorious soldiers of its triumph.

Whilst St. Francis won the souls of the humble over to Rome, St. Dominic,

on Rome’s behalf, subjected all the superior souls--those of the

intelligent and powerful. And this he did with passion, amidst a blaze of

faith and determination, making use of all possible means, preachings,

writings, and police and judicial pressure. Though he did not found the

Inquisition, its principles were his, and it was with fire and sword that

his fraternal, loving heart waged war on schism. Living like his monks,

in poverty, chastity, and obedience--the great virtues of those times of

pride and licentiousness--he went from city to city, exhorting the

impious, striving to bring them back to the Church and arraigning them

before the ecclesiastical courts when his preachings did not suffice. He

also laid siege to science, sought to make it his own, dreamt of

defending God with the weapons of reason and human knowledge like a true

forerunner of the angelic St. Thomas, that light of the middle ages, who

joined the Dominican order and set everything in his “Summa Theologiae,”

psychology, logic, policy, and morals. And thus it was that the

Dominicans filled the world, upholding the doctrines of Rome in the most

famous pulpits of every nation, and contending almost everywhere against

the free sprit of the Universities, like the vigilant guardians of dogma

that they were, the unwearying artisans of the fortunes of the popes, the

most powerful amongst all the artistic, scientific, and literary workers

who raised the huge edifice of Catholicism such as it exists to-day.

However, Pierre, who could feel that this edifice was even now tottering,

though it had been built, people fancied, so substantially as to last

through all eternity, asked himself what could be the present use of the

Dominicans, those toilers of another age, whose police system and whose

tribunals had perished beneath universal execration, whose voices were no

longer listened to, whose books were but seldom read, and whose _role_ as

_savants_ and civilisers had come to an end in presence of latter-day

science, the truths of which were rending dogma on all sides. Certainly

the Dominicans still form an influential and prosperous order; but how

far one is from the times when their general reigned in Rome, Master of

the Holy Palace, with convents and schools, and subjects throughout

Europe! Of all their vast inheritance, so far as the Roman curia is

concerned, only a few posts now remain to them, and among others the

Secretaryship of the Congregation of the Index, a former dependency of

the Holy Office where they once despotically ruled.

Pierre was immediately ushered into the presence of Father Dangelis. The

convent parlour was vast, bare, and white, flooded with bright sunshine.

The only furniture was a table and some stools; and a large brass

crucifix hung from the wall. Near the table stood the Father, a very thin

man of about fifty, severely draped in his ample white habit and black

mantle. From his long ascetic face, with thin lips, thin nose, and

pointed, obstinate chin, his grey eyes shone out with a fixity that

embarrassed one. And, moreover, he showed himself very plain and simple

of speech, and frigidly polite in manner.

“Monsieur l’Abbe Froment--the author of ‘New Rome,’ I suppose?” Then

seating himself on one stool and pointing to another, he added: “Pray

acquaint me with the object of your visit, Monsieur l’Abbe.”

Thereupon Pierre had to begin his explanation, his defence, all over

again; and the task soon became the more painful as his words fell from

his lips amidst death-like silence and frigidity. Father Dangelis did not

stir; with his hands crossed upon his knees he kept his sharp,

penetrating eyes fixed upon those of the priest. And when the latter had

at last ceased speaking, he slowly said: “I did not like to interrupt

you, Monsieur l’Abbe, but it was not for me to hear all this. Process

against your book has begun, and no power in the world can stay or impede

its course. I do not therefore realise what it is that you apparently

expect of me.”

In a quivering voice Pierre was bold enough to answer: “I look for some

kindness and justice.”

A pale smile, instinct with proud humility, arose to the Dominican’s

lips. “Be without fear,” he replied, “God has ever deigned to enlighten

me in the discharge of my modest duties. Personally, be it said, I have

no justice to render; I am but an employee whose duty is to classify

matters and draw up documents concerning them. Their Eminences, the

members of the Congregation, will alone pronounce judgment on your book.

And assuredly they will do so with the help of the Holy Spirit. You will

only have to bow to their sentence when it shall have been ratified by

his Holiness.”

Then he broke off the interview by rising, and Pierre was obliged to do

the same. The Dominican’s words were virtually identical with those that

had fallen from Monsignor Fornaro, but they were spoken with cutting

frankness, a sort of tranquil bravery. On all sides Pierre came into

collision with the same anonymous force, the same powerful engine whose

component parts sought to ignore one another. For a long time yet, no

doubt, he would be sent from one to the other, without ever finding the

volitional element which reasoned and acted. And the only thing that he

could do was to bow to it all.

However, before going off, it occurred to him once more to mention the

name of Monsignor Nani, the powerful effect of which he had begun to

realise. “I ask your pardon,” he said, “for having disturbed you to no

purpose, but I simply deferred to the kind advice of Monsignor Nani, who

has condescended to show me some interest.”

The effect of these words was unexpected. Again did Father Dangelis’s

thin face brighten into a smile, but with a twist of the lips, sharp with

ironical contempt. He had become yet paler, and his keen intelligent eyes

were flaming. “Ah! it was Monsignor Nani who sent you!” he said. “Well,

if you think you need a protector, it is useless for you to apply to any

other than himself. He is all-powerful. Go to see him; go to see him!”

And that was the only encouragement Pierre derived from his visit: the

advice to go back to the man who had sent him. At this he felt that he

was losing ground, and he resolved to return home in order to reflect on

things and try to understand them before taking any further steps. The

idea of questioning Don Vigilio at once occurred to him, and that same

evening after supper he luckily met the secretary in the corridor, just

as, candle in hand, he was on his way to bed.

“I have so many things that I should like to say to you,” Pierre said to

him. “Can you kindly come to my rooms for a moment?”

But the other promptly silenced him with a gesture, and then whispered:

“Didn’t you see Abbe Paparelli on the first floor? He was following us,

I’m sure.”

Pierre often saw the train-bearer roaming about the house, and greatly

disliked his stealthy, prying ways. However, he had hitherto attached no

importance to him, and was therefore much surprised by Don Vigilio’s

question. The other, without awaiting his reply, had returned to the end

of the corridor, where for a long while he remained listening. Then he

came back on tip-toe, blew out his candle, and darted into Pierre’s

sitting-room. “There--that’s done,” he murmured directly the door was

shut. “But if it is all the same to you, we won’t stop in this

sitting-room. Let us go into your bed-room. Two walls are better than

one.”

When the lamp had been placed on the table and they found themselves

seated face to face in that bare, faded bed-chamber, Pierre noticed that

the secretary was suffering from a more violent attack of fever than

usual. His thin puny figure was shivering from head to foot, and his

ardent eyes had never before blazed so blackly in his ravaged, yellow

face. “Are you poorly?” asked Pierre. “I don’t want to tire you.”

“Poorly, yes, I am on fire--but I want to talk. I can’t bear it any

longer. One always has to relieve oneself some day or other.”

Was it his complaint that he desired to relieve; or was he anxious to

break his long silence in order that it might not stifle him? This at

first remained uncertain. He immediately asked for an account of the

steps that Pierre had lately taken, and became yet more restless when he

heard how the other had been received by Cardinal Sarno, Monsignor

Fornaro, and Father Dangelis. “Yes, that’s quite it,” he repeated,

“nothing astonishes me nowadays, and yet I feel indignant on your

account. Yes, it doesn’t concern me, but all the same it makes me ill,

for it reminds me of all my own troubles. You must not rely on Cardinal

Sarno, remember, for he is always elsewhere, with his mind far away, and

has never helped anybody. But that Fornaro, that Fornaro!”

“He seemed to me very amiable, even kindly disposed,” replied Pierre;

“and I really think that after our interview, he will considerably soften

his report.”

“He! Why, the gentler he was with you the more grievously he will saddle

you! He will devour you, fatten himself with such easy prey. Ah! you

don’t know him, _dilizioso_ that he is, ever on the watch to rear his own

fortune on the troubles of poor devils whose defeat is bound to please

the powerful. I prefer the other one, Father Dangelis, a terrible man, no

doubt, but frank and brave and of superior mind. I must admit, however,

that he would burn you like a handful of straw if he were the master. And

ah! if I could tell you everything, if I could show you the frightful

under-side of this world of ours, the monstrous, ravenous ambition, the

abominable network of intrigues, venality, cowardice, treachery, and even

crime!”

On seeing Don Vigilio so excited, in such a blaze of spite, Pierre

thought of extracting from him some of the many items of information

which he had hitherto sought in vain. “Well, tell me merely what is the

position of my affair,” he responded. “When I questioned you on my

arrival here you said that nothing had yet reached Cardinal Boccanera.

But all information must now have been collected, and you must know of

it. And, by the way, Monsignor Fornaro told me that three French bishops

had asked that my book should be prosecuted. Three bishops, is it

possible?”

Don Vigilio shrugged his shoulders. “Ah!” said he, “yours is an innocent

soul! I’m surprised that there were _only_ three! Yes, several documents

relating to your affair are in our hands; and, moreover, things have

turned out much as I suspected. The three bishops are first the Bishop of

Tarbes, who evidently carries out the vengeance of the Fathers of

Lourdes; and then the Bishops of Poitiers and Evreux, who are both known

as uncompromising Ultramontanists and passionate adversaries of Cardinal

Bergerot. The Cardinal, you know, is regarded with disfavour at the

Vatican, where his Gallican ideas and broad liberal mind provoke perfect

anger. And don’t seek for anything else. The whole affair lies in that:

an execution which the powerful Fathers of Lourdes demand of his

Holiness, and a desire to reach and strike Cardinal Bergerot through your

book, by means of the letter of approval which he imprudently wrote to

you and which you published by way of preface. For a long time past the

condemnations of the Index have largely been secret knock-down blows

levelled at Churchmen. Denunciation reigns supreme, and the law applied

is that of good pleasure. I could tell you some almost incredible things,

how perfectly innocent books have been selected among a hundred for the

sole object of killing an idea or a man; for the blow is almost always

levelled at some one behind the author, some one higher than he is. And

there is such a hot-bed of intrigue, such a source of abuses in this

institution of the Index, that it is tottering, and even among those who

surround the Pope it is felt that it must soon be freshly regulated if it

is not to fall into complete discredit. I well understand that the Church

should endeavour to retain universal power, and govern by every fit

weapon, but the weapons must be such as one can use without their

injustice leading to revolt, or their antique childishness provoking

merriment!”

Pierre listened with dolorous astonishment in his heart. Since he had

been at Rome and had seen the Fathers of the Grotto saluted and feared

there, holding an authoritative position, thanks to the large alms which

they contributed to the Peter’s Pence, he had felt that they were behind

the proceedings instituted against him, and realised that he would have

to pay for a certain page of his book in which he had called attention to

an iniquitous displacement of fortune at Lourdes, a frightful spectacle

which made one doubt the very existence of the Divinity, a continual

cause of battle and conflict which would disappear in the truly Christian

society of to-morrow. And he could also now understand that his delight

at the loss of the temporal power must have caused a scandal, and

especially that the unfortunate expression “a new religion” had alone

been sufficient to arm _delatores_ against him. But that which amazed and

grieved him was to learn that Cardinal Bergerot’s letter was looked upon

as a crime, and that his (Pierre’s) book was denounced and condemned in

order that adversaries who dared not attack the venerable pastor face to

face might, deal him a cowardly blow from behind. The thought of

afflicting that saintly man, of serving as the implement to strike him in

his ardent charity, cruelly grieved Pierre. And how bitter and

disheartening it was to find the most hideous questions of pride and

money, ambition and appetite, running riot with the most ferocious

egotism, beneath the quarrels of those leaders of the Church who ought

only to have contended together in love for the poor!

And then Pierre’s mind revolted against that supremely odious and idiotic

Index. He now understood how it worked, from the arrival of the

denunciations to the public posting of the titles of the condemned works.

He had just seen the Secretary of the Congregation, Father Dangelis, to

whom the denunciations came, and who then investigated the affair,

collecting all documents and information concerning it with the passion

of a cultivated authoritarian monk, who dreamt of ruling minds and

consciences as in the heroic days of the Inquisition. Then, too, Pierre

had visited one of the consultive prelates, Monsignor Fornaro, who was so

ambitious and affable, and so subtle a theologian that he would have

discovered attacks against the faith in a treatise on algebra, had his

interests required it. Next there were the infrequent meetings of the

cardinals, who at long intervals voted for the interdiction of some

hostile book, deeply regretting that they could not suppress them all;

and finally came the Pope, approving and signing the decrees, which was a

mere formality, for were not all books guilty? But what an extraordinary

wretched Bastille of the past was that aged Index, that senile

institution now sunk into second childhood. One realised that it must

have been a formidable power when books were rare and the Church had

tribunals of blood and fire to enforce her edicts. But books had so

greatly multiplied, the written, printed thoughts of mankind had swollen

into such a deep broad river, that they had swept all opposition away,

and now the Index was swamped and reduced to powerlessness, compelled

more and more to limit its field of action, to confine itself to the

examination of the writings of ecclesiastics, and even in this respect it

was becoming corrupt, fouled by the worst passions and changed into an

instrument of intrigue, hatred, and vengeance. Ah! that confession of

decay, of paralysis which grew more and more complete amidst the scornful

indifference of the nations. To think that Catholicism, the once glorious

agent of civilisation, had come to such a pass that it cast books into

hell-fire by the heap; and what books they were, almost the entire

literature, history, philosophy, and science of the past and the present!

Few works, indeed, are published nowadays that would not fall under the

ban of the Church. If she seems to close her eyes, it is in order to

avoid the impossible task of hunting out and destroying everything. Yet

she stubbornly insists on retaining a semblance of sovereign authority

over human intelligence, just as some very aged queen, dispossessed of

her states and henceforth without judges or executioners, might continue

to deliver vain sentences to which only an infinitesimal minority would

pay heed. But imagine the Church momentarily victorious, miraculously

mastering the modern world, and ask yourself what she, with her tribunals

to condemn and her gendarmes to enforce, would do with human thought.

Imagine a strict application of the Index regulations: no printer able to

put anything whatever to press without the approval of his bishop, and

even then every book laid before the Congregation, the past expunged, the

present throttled, subjected to an intellectual Reign of Terror! Would

not the closing of every library perforce ensue, would not the long

heritage of written thought be cast into prison, would not the future be

barred, would not all progress, all conquest of knowledge, be totally

arrested? Rome herself is nowadays a terrible example of such a

disastrous experiment--Rome with her congealed soil, her dead sap, killed

by centuries of papal government, Rome which has become so barren that

not a man, not a work has sprung from her midst even after five and

twenty years of awakening and liberty! And who would accept such a state

of things, not among people of revolutionary mind, but among those of

religious mind that might possess any culture and breadth of view?

Plainly enough it was all mere childishness and absurdity.

Deep silence reigned, and Pierre, quite upset by his reflections, made a

gesture of despair whilst glancing at Don Vigilio, who sat speechless in

front of him. For a moment longer, amidst the death-like quiescence of

that old sleeping mansion, both continued silent, seated face to face in

the closed chamber which the lamp illumined with a peaceful glow. But at

last Don Vigilio leant forward, his eyes sparkling, and with a feverish

shiver murmured: “It is they, you know, always they, at the bottom of

everything.”

Pierre, who did not understand, felt astonished, indeed somewhat anxious

at such a strange remark coming without any apparent transition. “Who are

_they_?” he asked.

“The Jesuits!”

In this reply the little, withered, yellow priest had set all the

concentrated rage of his exploding passion. Ah! so much the worse if he

had perpetrated a fresh act of folly. The cat was out of the bag at last!

Nevertheless, he cast a final suspicious glance around the walls. And

then he relieved his mind at length, with a flow of words which gushed

forth the more irresistibly since he had so long held them in check. “Ah!

the Jesuits, the Jesuits! You fancy that you know them, but you haven’t

even an idea of their abominable actions and incalculable power. They it

is whom one always comes upon, everywhere, in every circumstance.

Remember _that_ whenever you fail to understand anything, if you wish to

understand it. Whenever grief or trouble comes upon you, whenever you

suffer, whenever you weep, say to yourself at once: ‘It is they; they are

there!’ Why, for all I know, there may be one of them under that bed,

inside that cupboard. Ah! the Jesuits, the Jesuits! They have devoured

me, they are devouring me still, they will leave nothing of me at last,

neither flesh nor bone.”

Then, in a halting voice, he related the story of his life, beginning

with his youth, which had opened so hopefully. He belonged to the petty

provincial nobility, and had been dowered with a fairly large income,

besides a keen, supple intelligence, which looked smilingly towards the

future. Nowadays, he would assuredly have been a prelate, on the road to

high dignities, but he had been foolish enough to speak ill of the

Jesuits and to thwart them in two or three circumstances. And from that

moment, if he were to be believed, they had caused every imaginable

misfortune to rain upon him: his father and mother had died, his banker

had robbed him and fled, good positions had escaped him at the very

moment when he was about to occupy them, the most awful misadventures had

pursued him amidst the duties of his ministry to such a point indeed,

that he had narrowly escaped interdiction. It was only since Cardinal

Boccanera, compassionating his bad luck, had taken him into his house and

attached him to his person, that he had enjoyed a little repose. “Here I

have a refuge, an asylum,” he continued. “They execrate his Eminence, who

has never been on their side, but they haven’t yet dared to attack him or

his servants. Oh! I have no illusions, they will end by catching me

again, all the same. Perhaps they will even hear of our conversation this

evening, and make me pay dearly for it; for I do wrong to speak, I speak

in spite of myself. They have stolen all my happiness, and brought all

possible misfortune on me, everything that was possible, everything--you

hear me!”

Increasing discomfort was taking possession of Pierre, who, seeking to

relieve himself by a jest, exclaimed: “Come, come, at any rate it wasn’t

the Jesuits who gave you the fever.”

“Yes, yes, it was!” Don Vigilio violently declared. “I caught it on the

bank of the Tiber one evening, when I went to weep there in my grief at

having been driven from the little church where I officiated.”

Pierre, hitherto, had never believed in the terrible legend of the

Jesuits. He belonged to a generation which laughed at the idea of

wehr-wolves, and considered the _bourgeois_ fear of the famous black men,

who hid themselves in walls and terrorised families, to be a trifle

ridiculous. To him all such things seemed to be nursery tales,

exaggerated by religious and political passion. And so it was with

amazement that he examined Don Vigilio, suddenly fearing that he might

have to deal with a maniac.

Nevertheless he could not help recalling the extraordinary story of the

Jesuits. If St. Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic are the very soul and

spirit of the middle ages, its masters and teachers, the former a living

expression of all the ardent, charitable faith of the humble, and the

other defending dogma and fixing doctrines for the intelligent and the

powerful, on the other hand Ignatius de Loyola appeared on the threshold

of modern times to save the tottering heritage by accommodating religion

to the new developments of society, thereby ensuring it the empire of the

world which was about to appear.

At the advent of the modern era it seemed as if the Deity were to be

vanquished in the uncompromising struggle with sin, for it was certain

that the old determination to suppress Nature, to kill the man within

man, with his appetites, passions, heart, and blood, could only result in

a disastrous defeat, in which, indeed, the Church found herself on the

very eve of sinking; and it was the Jesuits who came to extricate her

from this peril and reinvigorate her by deciding that it was she who now

ought to go to the world, since the world seemed unwilling to go any

longer to her. All lay in that; you find the Jesuits declaring that one

can enter into arrangements with heaven; they bend and adjust themselves

to the customs, prejudices, and even vices of the times; they smile, all

condescension, cast rigourism aside, and practice the diplomacy of

amiability, ever ready to turn the most awful abominations “to the

greater glory of God.” That is their motto, their battle-cry, and thence

springs the moral principle which many regard as their crime: that all

means are good to attain one’s end, especially when that end is the

furtherance of the Deity’s interests as represented by those of the

Church. And what overwhelming success attends the efforts of the Jesuits!

they swarm and before long cover the earth, on all sides becoming

uncontested masters. They shrive kings, they acquire immense wealth, they

display such victorious power of invasion that, however humbly they may

set foot in any country, they soon wholly possess it: souls, bodies,

power, and fortune alike falling to them. And they are particularly

zealous in founding schools, they show themselves to be incomparable

moulders of the human brain, well understanding that power always belongs

to the morrow, to the generations which are growing up and whose master

one must be if one desire to reign eternally. So great is their power,

based on the necessity of compromise with sin, that, on the morrow of the

Council of Trent, they transform the very spirit of Catholicism,

penetrate it, identify it with themselves and become the indispensable

soldiers of the papacy which lives by them and for them. And from that

moment Rome is theirs, Rome where their general so long commands, whence

so long go forth the directions for the obscure tactics which are blindly

followed by their innumerable army, whose skilful organisation covers the

globe as with an iron network hidden by the velvet of hands expert in

dealing gently with poor suffering humanity. But, after all, the most

prodigious feature is the stupefying vitality of the Jesuits who are

incessantly tracked, condemned, executed, and yet still and ever erect.

As soon as their power asserts itself, their unpopularity begins and

gradually becomes universal. Hoots of execration arise around them,

abominable accusations, scandalous law cases in which they appear as

corruptors and felons. Pascal devotes them to public contempt,

parliaments condemn their books to be burnt, universities denounce their

system of morals and their teaching as poisonous. They foment such

disturbances, such struggles in every kingdom, that organised persecution

sets in, and they are soon driven from everywhere. During more than a

century they become wanderers, expelled, then recalled, passing and

repassing frontiers, leaving a country amidst cries of hatred to return

to it as soon as quiet has been restored. Finally, for supreme disaster,

they are suppressed by one pope, but another re-establishes them, and

since then they have been virtually tolerated everywhere. And in the

diplomatic self-effacement, the shade in which they have the prudence to

sequester themselves, they are none the less triumphant, quietly

confident of their victory like soldiers who have once and for ever

subdued the earth.

Pierre was aware that, judging by mere appearances, the Jesuits were

nowadays dispossessed of all influence in Rome. They no longer officiated

at the Gesu, they no longer directed the Collegio Romano, where they

formerly fashioned so many souls; and with no abode of their own, reduced

to accept foreign hospitality, they had modestly sought a refuge at the

Collegio Germanico, where there is a little chapel. There they taught and

there they still confessed, but without the slightest bustle or display.

Was one to believe, however, that this effacement was but masterly

cunning, a feigned disappearance in order that they might really remain

secret, all-powerful masters, the hidden hand which directs and guides

everything? People certainly said that the proclamation of papal

Infallibility had been their work, a weapon with which they had armed

themselves whilst feigning to bestow it on the papacy, in readiness for

the coming decisive task which their genius foresaw in the approaching

social upheavals. And thus there might perhaps be some truth in what Don

Vigilio, with a shiver of mystery, related about their occult

sovereignty, a seizin, as it were, of the government of the Church, a

royalty ignored but nevertheless complete.

As this idea occurred to Pierre, a dim connection between certain of his

experiences arose in his mind and he all at once inquired: “Is Monsignor

Nani a Jesuit, then?”

These words seemed to revive all Don Vigilio’s anxious passion. He waved

his trembling hand, and replied: “He? Oh, he’s too clever, too skilful by

far to have taken the robe. But he comes from that Collegio Romano where

his generation grew up, and he there imbibed that Jesuit genius which

adapted itself so well to his own. Whilst fully realising the danger of

wearing an unpopular and embarrassing livery, and wishing to be free, he

is none the less a Jesuit in his flesh, in his bones, in his very soul.

He is evidently convinced that the Church can only triumph by utilising

the passions of mankind, and withal he is very fond of the Church, very

pious at bottom, a very good priest, serving God without weakness in

gratitude for the absolute power which God gives to His ministers. And

besides, he is so charming, incapable of any brutal action, full of the

good breeding of his noble Venetian ancestors, and deeply versed in

knowledge of the world, thanks to his experiences at the nunciatures of

Paris, Vienna, and other places, without mentioning that he knows

everything that goes on by reason of the delicate functions which he has

discharged for ten years past as Assessor of the Holy Office. Yes, he is

powerful, all-powerful, and in him you do not have the furtive Jesuit

whose robe glides past amidst suspicion, but the head, the brain, the

leader whom no uniform designates.”

This reply made Pierre grave, for he was quite willing to admit that an

opportunist code of morals, like that of the Jesuits, was inoculable and

now predominated throughout the Church. Indeed, the Jesuits might

disappear, but their doctrine would survive them, since it was the one

weapon of combat, the one system of strategy which might again place the

nations under the dominion of Rome. And in reality the struggle which

continued lay precisely in the attempts to accommodate religion to the

century, and the century to religion. Such being the case, Pierre

realised that such men as Monsignor Nani might acquire vast and even

decisive importance.

“Ah! if you knew, if you knew,” continued Don Vigilio, “he’s everywhere,

he has his hand in everything. For instance, nothing has ever happened

here, among the Boccaneras, but I’ve found him at the bottom of it,

tangling or untangling the threads according to necessities with which he

alone is acquainted.”

Then, in the unquenchable fever for confiding things which was now

consuming him, the secretary related how Monsignor Nani had most

certainly brought on Benedetta’s divorce case. The Jesuits, in spite of

their conciliatory spirit, have always taken up a hostile position with

regard to Italy, either because they do not despair of reconquering Rome,

or because they wait to treat in due season with the ultimate and real

victor, whether King or Pope. And so Nani, who had long been one of Donna

Serafina’s intimates, had helped to precipitate the rupture with Prada as

soon as Benedetta’s mother was dead. Again, it was he who, to prevent any

interference on the part of the patriotic Abbe Pisoni, the young woman’s

confessor and the artisan of her marriage, had urged her to take the same

spiritual director as her aunt, Father Lorenza, a handsome Jesuit with

clear and kindly eyes, whose confessional in the chapel of the Collegio

Germanico was incessantly besieged by penitents. And it seemed certain

that this manoeuvre had brought about everything; what one cleric working

for Italy had done, was to be undone by another working against Italy.

Why was it, however, that Nani, after bringing about the rupture, had

momentarily ceased to show all interest in the affair to the point even

of jeopardising the suit for the dissolution of the marriage? And why was

he now again busying himself with it, setting Donna Serafina in action,

prompting her to buy Monsignor Palma’s support, and bringing his own

influence to bear on the cardinals of the Congregation? There was mystery

in all this, as there was in everything he did, for his schemes were

always complicated and distant in their effects. However, one might

suppose that he now wished to hasten the marriage of Benedetta and Dario,

in order to stop all the abominable rumours which were circulating in the

white world; unless, indeed, this divorce secured by pecuniary payments

and the pressure of notorious influences were an intentional scandal at

first spun out and now hastened, in order to harm Cardinal Boccanera,

whom the Jesuits might desire to brush aside in certain eventualities

which were possibly near at hand.

“To tell the truth, I rather incline to the latter view,” said Don

Vigilio, “the more so indeed as I learnt this evening that the Pope is

not well. With an old man of eighty-four the end may come at any moment,

and so the Pope can never catch cold but what the Sacred College and the

prelacies are all agog, stirred by sudden ambitious rivalries. Now, the

Jesuits have always opposed Cardinal Boccanera’s candidature. They ought

to be on his side, on account of his rank, and his uncompromising

attitude towards Italy, but the idea of giving themselves such a master

disquiets them, for they consider him unseasonably rough and stern, too

violent in his faith, which unbending as it is would prove dangerous in

these diplomatic times through which the Church is passing. And so I

should in no wise be astonished if there were an attempt to discredit him

and render his candidature impossible, by employing the most underhand

and shameful means.”

A little quiver of fear was coming over Pierre. The contagion of the

unknown, of the black intrigues plotted in the dark, was spreading amidst

the silence of the night in the depths of that palace, near that Tiber,

in that Rome so full of legendary tragedies. But all at once the young

man’s mind reverted to himself, to his own affair. “But what is my part

in all this?” he asked: “why does Monsignor Nani seem to take an interest

in me? Why is he mixed up in the proceedings against my book?”

“Oh! one never knows, one never knows exactly!” replied Don Vigilio,

waving his arms. “One thing I can say, that he only knew of the affair

when the denunciations of the three bishops were already in the hands of

Father Dangelis; and I have also learnt that he then tried to stop the

proceedings, which he no doubt thought both useless and impolitic. But

when a matter is once before the Congregation it is almost impossible for

it to be withdrawn, and Monsignor Nani must also have come into collision

with Father Dangelis who, like a faithful Dominican, is the passionate

adversary of the Jesuits. It was then that he caused the Contessina to

write to Monsieur de la Choue, requesting him to tell you to hasten here

in order to defend yourself, and to arrange for your acceptance of

hospitality in this mansion, during your stay.”

This revelation brought Pierre’s emotion to a climax. “You are sure of

that?” he asked.

“Oh! quite sure. I heard Nani speak of you one Monday, and some time ago

I told you that he seemed to know all about you, as if he had made most

minute inquiries. My belief is that he had already read your book, and

was extremely preoccupied about it.”

“Do you think that he shares my ideas, then? Is he sincere, is he

defending himself while striving to defend me?”

“Oh! no, no, not at all. Your ideas, why he certainly hates them, and

your book and yourself as well. You have no idea what contempt for the

weak, what hatred of the poor, and love of authority and domination he

conceals under his caressing amiability. Lourdes he might abandon to you,

though it embodies a marvellous weapon of government; but he will never

forgive you for being on the side of the little ones of the world, and

for pronouncing against the temporal power. If you only heard with what

gentle ferocity he derides Monsieur de la Choue, whom he calls the

weeping willow of Neo-Catholicism!”

Pierre carried his hands to his temples and pressed his head

despairingly. “Then why, why, tell me I beg of you, why has he brought me

here and kept me here in this house at his disposal? Why has he

promenaded me up and down Rome for three long months, throwing me against

obstacles and wearying me, when it was so easy for him to let the Index

condemn my book if it embarrassed him? It’s true, of course, that things

would not have gone quietly, for I was disposed to refuse submission and

openly confess my new faith, even against the decisions of Rome.”

Don Vigilio’s black eyes flared in his yellow face: “Perhaps it was that

which he wished to prevent. He knows you to be very intelligent and

enthusiastic, and I have often heard him say that intelligence and

enthusiasm should not be fought openly.”

Pierre, however, had risen to his feet, and instead of listening, was

striding up and down the room as though carried away by the whirlwind of

his thoughts. “Come, come,” he said at last, “it is necessary that I

should know and understand things if I am to continue the struggle. You

must be kind enough to give me some detailed particulars about each of

the persons mixed up in my affair. Jesuits, Jesuits everywhere? _Mon

Dieu_, it may be so, you are perhaps right! But all the same you must

point out the different shades to me. Now, for instance, what of that

Fornaro?”

“Monsignor Fornaro, oh! he’s whatever you like. Still he also was brought

up at the Collegio Romano, so you may be certain that he is a Jesuit, a

Jesuit by education, position, and ambition. He is longing to become a

cardinal, and if he some day becomes one, he’ll long to be the next pope.

Besides, you know, every one here is a candidate to the papacy as soon as

he enters the seminary.”

“And Cardinal Sanguinetti?”

“A Jesuit, a Jesuit! To speak plainly, he was one, then ceased to be one,

and is now undoubtedly one again. Sanguinetti has flirted with every

influence. It was long thought that he was in favour of conciliation

between the Holy See and Italy; but things drifted into a bad way, and he

violently took part against the usurpers. In the same style he has

frequently fallen out with Leo XIII and then made his peace. To-day at

the Vatican, he keeps on a footing of diplomatic reserve. Briefly he only

has one object, the tiara, and even shows it too plainly, which is a

mistake, for it uses up a candidate. Still, just at present the struggle

seems to be between him and Cardinal Boccanera. And that’s why he has

gone over to the Jesuits again, utilising their hatred of his rival, and

anticipating that they will be forced to support _him_ in order to defeat

the other. But I doubt it, they are too shrewd, they will hesitate to

patronise a candidate who is already so compromised. He, blunder-head,

passionate and proud as he is, doubts nothing, and since you say that he

is now at Frascati, I’m certain that he made all haste to shut himself up

there with some grand strategical object in view, as soon as he heard of

the Pope’s illness.”

“Well, and the Pope himself, Leo XIII?” asked Pierre.

This time Don Vigilio slightly hesitated, his eyes blinking. Then he

said: “Leo XIII? He is a Jesuit, a Jesuit! Oh! I know it is said that he

sides with the Dominicans, and this is in a measure true, for he fancies

that he is animated with their spirit and he has brought St. Thomas into

favour again, and has restored all the ecclesiastical teaching of

doctrine. But there is also the Jesuit, remember, who is one

involuntarily and without knowing it, and of this category the present

Pope will prove the most famous example. Study his acts, investigate his

policy, and you will find that everything in it emanates from the Jesuit

spirit. The fact is that he has unwittingly become impregnated with that

spirit, and that all the influence, directly or indirectly brought to

bear on him comes from a Jesuit centre. Ah! why don’t you believe me? I

repeat that the Jesuits have conquered and absorbed everything, that all

Rome belongs to them from the most insignificant cleric to his Holiness

in person.”

Then he continued, replying to each fresh name that Pierre gave with the

same obstinate, maniacal cry: “Jesuit, Jesuit!” It seemed as if a

Churchman could be nothing else, as if each answer were a confirmation of

the proposition that the clergy must compound with the modern world if it

desired to preserve its Deity. The heroic age of Catholicism was

accomplished, henceforth it could only live by dint of diplomacy and

ruses, concessions and arrangements. “And that Paparelli, he’s a Jesuit

too, a Jesuit!” Don Vigilio went on, instinctively lowering his voice.

“Yes, the humble but terrible Jesuit, the Jesuit in his most abominable

_role_ as a spy and a perverter! I could swear that he has merely been

placed here in order to keep watch on his Eminence! And you should see

with what supple talent and craft he has performed his task, to such a

point indeed that it is now he alone who wills and orders things. He

opens the door to whomsoever he pleases, uses his master like something

belonging to him, weighs on each of his resolutions, and holds him in his

power by dint of his stealthy unremitting efforts. Yes! it’s the lion

conquered by the insect; the infinitesimally small disposing of the

infinitely great; the train-bearer--whose proper part is to sit at his

cardinal’s feet like a faithful hound--in reality reigning over him, and

impelling him in whatsoever direction he chooses. Ah! the Jesuit! the

Jesuit! Mistrust him when you see him gliding by in his shabby old

cassock, with the flabby wrinkled face of a devout old maid. And make

sure that he isn’t behind the doors, or in the cupboards, or under the

beds. Ah! I tell you that they’ll devour you as they’ve devoured me; and

they’ll give you the fever too, perhaps even the plague if you are not

careful!”

Pierre suddenly halted in front of his companion. He was losing all

assurance, both fear and rage were penetrating him. And, after all, why

not? These extraordinary stories must be true. “But in that case give me

some advice,” he exclaimed, “I asked you to come in here this evening

precisely because I no longer know what to do, and need to be set in the

right path--” Then he broke off and again paced to and fro, as if urged

into motion by his exploding passion. “Or rather no, tell me nothing!” he

abruptly resumed. “It’s all over; I prefer to go away. The thought

occurred to me before, but it was in a moment of cowardice and with the

idea of disappearing and of returning to live in peace in my little nook:

whereas now, if I go off, it will be as an avenger, a judge, to cry aloud

to all the world from Paris, to proclaim what I have seen in Rome, what

men have done there with the Christianity of Jesus, the Vatican falling

into dust, the corpse-like odour which comes from it, the idiotic

illusions of those who hope that they will one day see a renascence of

the modern soul arise from a sepulchre where the remnants of dead

centuries rot and slumber. Oh! I will not yield, I will not make my

submission, I will defend my book by a fresh one. And that book, I

promise you, will make some noise in the world, for it will sound the

last agony of a dying religion, which one must make all haste to bury

lest its remains should poison the nations!”

All this was beyond Don Vigilio’s mind. The Italian priest, with narrow

belief and ignorant terror of the new ideas, awoke within him. He clasped

his hands, affrighted. “Be quiet, be quiet! You are blaspheming! And,

besides, you cannot go off like that without again trying to see his

Holiness. He alone is sovereign. And I know that I shall surprise you;

but Father Dangelis has given you in jest the only good advice that can

be given: Go back to see Monsignor Nani, for he alone will open the door

of the Vatican for you.”

Again did Pierre give a start of anger: “What! It was with Monsignor Nani

that I began, from him that I set out; and I am to go back to him? What

game is that? Can I consent to be a shuttlecock sent flying hither and

thither by every battledore? People are having a game with me!”

Then, harassed and distracted, the young man fell on his chair in front

of Don Vigilio, who with his face drawn by his prolonged vigil, and his

hands still and ever faintly trembling, remained for some time silent. At

last he explained that he had another idea. He was slightly acquainted

with the Pope’s confessor, a Franciscan father, a man of great

simplicity, to whom he might recommend Pierre. This Franciscan, despite

his self-effacement, would perhaps prove of service to him. At all events

he might be tried. Then, once more, silence fell, and Pierre, whose

dreamy eyes were turned towards the wall, ended by distinguishing the old

picture which had touched him so deeply on the day of his arrival. In the

pale glow of the lamp it gradually showed forth and lived, like an

incarnation of his own case, his own futile despair before the sternly

closed portal of truth and justice. Ah! that outcast woman, that stubborn

victim of love, weeping amidst her streaming hair, her visage hidden

whilst with pain and grief she sank upon the steps of that palace whose

door was so pitilessly shut--how she resembled him! Draped with a mere

strip of linen, she was shivering, and amidst the overpowering distress

of her abandonment she did not reveal her secret, misfortune, or

transgression, whichever it might be. But he, behind her close-pressed

hands, endowed her with a face akin to his own: she became his sister, as

were all the poor creatures without roof or certainty who weep because

they are naked and alone, and wear out their strength in seeking to force

the wicked thresholds of men. He could never gaze at her without pitying

her, and it stirred him so much that evening to find her ever so unknown,

nameless and visageless, yet steeped in the most bitter tears, that he

suddenly began to question his companion.

“Tell me,” said he, “do you know who painted that old picture? It stirs

me to the soul like a masterpiece.”

Stupefied by this unexpected question, the secretary raised his head and

looked, feeling yet more astonished when he had examined the blackened,

forsaken panel in its sorry frame.

“Where did it come from?” resumed Pierre; “why has it been stowed away in

this room?”

“Oh!” replied Don Vigilio, with a gesture of indifference, “it’s nothing.

There are heaps of valueless old paintings everywhere. That one, no

doubt, has always been here. But I don’t know; I never noticed it

before.”

Whilst speaking he had at last risen to his feet, and this simple action

had brought on such a fit of shivering that he could scarcely take leave,

so violently did his teeth chatter with fever. “No, no, don’t show me

out,” he stammered, “keep the lamp here. And to conclude: the best course

is for you to leave yourself in the hands of Monsignor Nani, for he, at

all events, is a superior man. I told you on your arrival that, whether

you would or not, you would end by doing as he desired. And so what’s the

use of struggling? And mind, not a word of our conversation to-night; it

would mean my death.”

Then he noiselessly opened the doors, glanced distrustfully into the

darkness of the passage, and at last ventured out and disappeared,

regaining his own room with such soft steps that not the faintest

footfall was heard amidst the tomb-like slumber of the old mansion.

On the morrow, Pierre, again mastered by a desire to fight on to the very

end, got Don Vigilio to recommend him to the Pope’s confessor, the

Franciscan friar with whom the secretary was slightly acquainted.

However, this friar proved to be an extremely timid if worthy man,

selected precisely on account of his great modesty, simplicity, and

absolute lack of influence in order that he might not abuse his position

with respect to the Holy Father. And doubtless there was an affectation

of humility on the latter’s part in taking for confessor a member of the

humblest of the regular orders, a friend of the poor, a holy beggar of

the roads. At the same time the friar certainly enjoyed a reputation for

oratory; and hidden by a veil the Pope at times listened to his sermons;

for although as infallible Sovereign Pontiff Leo XIII could not receive

lessons from any priest, it was admitted that as a man he might reap

profit by listening to good discourse. Nevertheless apart from his

natural eloquence, the worthy friar was really a mere washer of souls, a

confessor who listens and absolves without even remembering the

impurities which he removes in the waters of penitence. And Pierre,

finding him really so poor and such a cipher, did not insist on an

intervention which he realised would be futile.

All that day the young priest was haunted by the figure of that ingenuous

lover of poverty, that delicious St. Francis, as Narcisse Habert was wont

to say. Pierre had often wondered how such an apostle, so gentle towards

both animate and inanimate creation, and so full of ardent charity for

the wretched, could have arisen in a country of egotism and enjoyment

like Italy, where the love of beauty alone has remained queen. Doubtless

the times have changed; yet what a strong sap of love must have been

needed in the old days, during the great sufferings of the middle ages,

for such a consoler of the humble to spring from the popular soil and

preach the gift of self to others, the renunciation of wealth, the horror

of brutal force, the equality and obedience which would ensure the peace

of the world. St. Francis trod the roads clad as one of the poorest, a

rope girdling his grey gown and his bare feet shod with sandals, and he

carried with him neither purse nor staff. And he and his brethren spoke

aloud and freely, with sovereign florescence of poetry and boldness of

truth, attacking the rich and the powerful, and daring even to denounce

the priests of evil life, the debauched, simoniacal, and perjured

bishops. A long cry of relief greeted the Franciscans, the people

followed them in crowds--they were the friends, the liberators of all the

humble ones who suffered. And thus, like revolutionaries, they at first

so alarmed Rome, that the popes hesitated to authorise their Order. When

they at last gave way it was assuredly with the hope of using this new

force for their own profit, by conquering the whole vague mass of the

lowly whose covert threats have ever growled through the ages, even in

the most despotic times. And thenceforward in the sons of St. Francis the

Church possessed an ever victorious army--a wandering army which spread

over the roads, in the villages and through the towns, penetrating to the

firesides of artisan and peasant, and gaining possession of all simple

hearts. How great the democratic power of such an Order which had sprung

from the very entrails of the people! And thence its rapid prosperity,

its teeming growth in a few years, friaries arising upon all sides, and

the third Order* so invading the secular population as to impregnate and

absorb it. And that there was here a genuine growth of the soil, a

vigorous vegetation of the plebeian stock was shown by an entire national

art arising from it--the precursors of the Renascence in painting and

even Dante himself, the soul of Italia’s genius.

* The Franciscans, like the Dominicans and others, admit, in

addition to the two Orders of friars and nuns, a third Order

comprising devout persons of either sex who have neither the

vocation nor the opportunity for cloistered life, but live in

the world, privately observing the chief principles of the

fraternity with which they are connected. In central and

southern Europe members of these third Orders are still

numerous.--Trans.

For some days now, in the Rome of the present time, Pierre had been

coming into contact with those great Orders of the past. The Franciscans

and the Dominicans were there face to face in their vast convents of

prosperous aspect. But it seemed as if the humility of the Franciscans

had in the long run deprived them of influence. Perhaps, too, their

_role_ as friends and liberators of the people was ended since the people

now undertook to liberate itself. And so the only real remaining battle

was between the Dominicans and the Jesuits, both of whom still claimed to

mould the world according to their particular views. Warfare between them

was incessant, and Rome--the supreme power at the Vatican--was ever the

prize for which they contended. But, although the Dominicans had St.

Thomas on their side, they must have felt that their old dogmatic science

was crumbling, compelled as they were each day to surrender a little

ground to the Jesuits whose principles accorded better with the spirit of

the century. And, in addition to these, there were the white-robed

Carthusians, those very holy, pure, and silent meditators who fled from

the world into quiet cells and cloisters, those despairing and consoled

ones whose numbers may decrease but whose Order will live for ever, even

as grief and desire for solitude will live. And then there were the

Benedictines whose admirable rules have sanctified labour, passionate

toilers in literature and science, once powerful instruments of

civilisation, enlarging universal knowledge by their immense historical

and critical works. These Pierre loved, and with them would have sought a

refuge two centuries earlier, yet he was astonished to find them building

on the Aventine a huge dwelling, for which Leo XIII has already given

millions, as if the science of to-day and to-morrow were yet a field

where they might garner harvests. But _cui bono_, when the workmen have

changed, and dogmas are there to bar the road--dogmas which totter, no

doubt, but which believers may not fling aside in order to pass onward?

And finally came the swarm of less important Orders, hundreds in number;

there were the Carmelites, the Trappists, the Minims, the Barnabites, the

Lazzarists, the Eudists, the Mission Fathers, the Servites, the Brothers

of the Christian Doctrine; there were the Bernadines, the Augustinians,

the Theatines, the Observants, the Passionists, the Celestines, and the

Capuchins, without counting the corresponding Orders of women or the Poor

Clares, or the innumerable nuns like those of the Visitation and the

Calvary. Each community had its modest or sumptuous dwelling, certain

districts of Rome were entirely composed of convents, and behind the

silent lifeless facades all those people buzzed, intrigued, and waged the

everlasting warfare of rival interests and passions. The social evolution

which produced them had long since ceased, still they obstinately sought

to prolong their life, growing weaker and more useless day by day,

destined to a slow agony until the time shall come when the new

development of society will leave them neither foothold nor breathing

space.

And it was not only with the regulars that Pierre came in contact during

his peregrinations through Rome; indeed, he more particularly had to deal

with the secular clergy, and learnt to know them well. A hierarchical

system which was still vigorously enforced maintained them in various

ranks and classes. Up above, around the Pope, reigned the pontifical

family, the high and noble cardinals and prelates whose conceit was great

in spite of their apparent familiarity. Below them the parish clergy

formed a very worthy middle class of wise and moderate minds; and here

patriot priests were not rare. Moreover, the Italian occupation of a

quarter of a century, by installing in the city a world of functionaries

who saw everything that went on, had, curiously enough, greatly purified

the private life of the Roman priesthood, in which under the popes women,

beyond all question, played a supreme part. And finally one came to the

plebeian clergy whom Pierre studied with curiosity, a collection of

wretched, grimy, half-naked priests who like famished animals prowled

around in search of masses, and drifted into disreputable taverns in the

company of beggars and thieves. However, he was more interested by the

floating population of foreign priests from all parts of Christendom--the

adventurers, the ambitious ones, the believers, the madmen whom Rome

attracted just as a lamp at night time attracts the insects of the gloom.

Among these were men of every nationality, position, and age, all lashed

on by their appetites and scrambling from morn till eve around the

Vatican, in order to snap at the prey which they hoped to secure. He

found them everywhere, and told himself with some shame that he was one

of them, that the unit of his own personality served to increase the

incredible number of cassocks that one encountered in the streets. Ah!

that ebb and flow, that ceaseless tide of black gowns and frocks of every

hue! With their processions of students ever walking abroad, the

seminaries of the different nations would alone have sufficed to drape

and decorate the streets, for there were the French and the English all

in black, the South Americans in black with blue sashes, the North

Americans in black with red sashes, the Poles in black with green sashes,

the Greeks in blue, the Germans in red, the Scots in violet, the Romans

in black or violet or purple, the Bohemians with chocolate sashes, the

Irish with red lappets, the Spaniards with blue cords, to say nothing of

all the others with broidery and bindings and buttons in a hundred

different styles. And in addition there were the confraternities, the

penitents, white, black, blue, and grey, with sleeveless frocks and capes

of different hue, grey, blue, black, or white. And thus even nowadays

Papal Rome at times seemed to resuscitate, and one could realise how

tenaciously and vivaciously she struggled on in order that she might not

disappear in the cosmopolitan Rome of the new era. However, Pierre,

whilst running about from one prelate to another, frequenting priests and

crossing churches, could not accustom himself to the worship, the Roman

piety which astonished him when it did not wound him. One rainy Sunday

morning, on entering Santa Maria Maggiore, he fancied himself in some

waiting-room, a very splendid one, no doubt, but where God seemed to have

no habitation. There was not a bench, not a chair in the nave, across

which people passed, as they might pass through a railway station,

wetting and soiling the precious mosaic pavement with their muddy shoes;

and tired women and children sat round the bases of the columns, even as

in railway stations one sees people sitting and waiting for their trains

during the great crushes of the holiday season. And for this tramping

throng of folks of small degree, who had looked in _en passant_, a priest

was saying a low mass in a side chapel, before which a narrow file of

standing people had gathered, extending across the nave, and recalling

the crowds which wait in front of theatres for the opening of the doors.

At the elevation of the host one and all inclined themselves devoutly,

but almost immediately afterwards the gathering dispersed. And indeed why

linger? The mass was said. Pierre everywhere found the same form of

attendance, peculiar to the countries of the sun; the worshippers were in

a hurry and only favoured the Deity with short familiar visits, unless it

were a question of some gala scene at San Paolo or San Giovanni in

Laterano or some other of the old basilicas. It was only at the Gesu, on

another Sunday morning, that the young priest came upon a high-mass

congregation, which reminded him of the devout throngs of the North. Here

there were benches and women seated, a worldly warmth and cosiness under

the luxurious, gilded, carved, and painted roof, whose tawny splendour is

very fine now that time has toned down the eccentricities of the

decoration. But how many of the churches were empty, among them some of

the most ancient and venerable, San Clemente, Sant’ Agnese, Santa Croce

in Gerusalemme, where during the offices one saw but a few believers of

the neighbourhood. Four hundred churches were a good many for even Rome

to people; and, indeed, some were merely attended on fixed ceremonial

occasions, and a good many merely opened their doors once every year--on

the feast day, that is, of their patron saint. Some also subsisted on the

lucky possession of a fetish, an idol compassionate to human sufferings.

Santa Maria in Ara Coeli possessed the miraculous little Jesus, the

“Bambino,” who healed sick children, and Sant’ Agostino had the “Madonna

del Parto,” who grants a happy delivery to mothers. Then others were

renowned for the holy water of their fonts, the oil of their lamps, the

power of some wooden saint or marble virgin. Others again seemed

forsaken, given up to tourists and the perquisites of beadles, like mere

museums peopled with dead gods: Finally others disturbed one’s faith by

the suggestiveness of their aspects, as, for instance, that Santa Maria

Rotonda, which is located in the Pantheon, a circular hall recalling a

circus, where the Virgin remains the evident tenant of the Olympian

deities.

Pierre took no little interest in the churches of the poor districts, but

did not find there the keen faith and the throngs he had hoped for. One

afternoon, at Santa Maria in Trastevere, he heard the choir in full song,

but the church was quite empty, and the chant had a most lugubrious sound

in such a desert. Then, another day, on entering San Crisogono, he found

it draped, probably in readiness for some festival on the morrow. The

columns were cased with red damask, and between them were hangings and

curtains alternately yellow and blue, white and red; and the young man

fled from such a fearful decoration as gaudy as that of a fair booth. Ah!

how far he was from the cathedrals where in childhood he had believed and

prayed! On all sides he found the same type of church, the antique

basilica accommodated to the taste of eighteenth-century Rome. Though the

style of San Luigi dei Francesi is better, more soberly elegant, the only

thing that touched him even there was the thought of the heroic or

saintly Frenchmen, who sleep in foreign soil beneath the flags. And as he

sought for something Gothic, he ended by going to see Santa Maria sopra

Minerva,* which, he was told, was the only example of the Gothic style in

Rome. Here his stupefaction attained a climax at sight of the clustering

columns cased in stucco imitating marble, the ogives which dared not

soar, the rounded vaults condemned to the heavy majesty of the dome

style. No, no, thought he, the faith whose cooling cinders lingered there

was no longer that whose brazier had invaded and set all Christendom

aglow! However, Monsignor Fornaro whom he chanced to meet as he was

leaving the church, inveighed against the Gothic style as rank heresy.

The first Christian church, said the prelate, had been the basilica,

which had sprung from the temple, and it was blasphemy to assert that the

Gothic cathedral was the real Christian house of prayer, for Gothic

embodied the hateful Anglo-Saxon spirit, the rebellious genius of Luther.

At this a passionate reply rose to Pierre’s lips, but he said nothing for

fear that he might say too much. However, he asked himself whether in all

this there was not a decisive proof that Catholicism was the very

vegetation of Rome, Paganism modified by Christianity. Elsewhere

Christianity has grown up in quite a different spirit, to such a point

that it has risen in rebellion and schismatically turned against the

mother-city. And the breach has ever gone on widening, the dissemblance

has become more and more marked; and amidst the evolution of new

societies, yet a fresh schism appears inevitable and proximate in spite

of all the despairing efforts to maintain union.

* So called because it occupies the site of a temple to

Minerva.--Trans.

While Pierre thus visited the Roman churches, he also continued his

efforts to gain support in the matter of his book, his irritation tending

to such stubbornness, that if in the first instance he failed to obtain

an interview, he went back again and again to secure one, steadfastly

keeping his promise to call in turn upon each cardinal of the

Congregation of the Index. And as a cardinal may belong to several

Congregations, it resulted that he gradually found himself roaming

through those former ministries of the old pontifical government which,

if less numerous than formerly, are still very intricate institutions,

each with its cardinal-prefect, its cardinal-members, its consultative

prelates, and its numerous employees. Pierre repeatedly had to return to

the Cancelleria, where the Congregation of the Index meets, and lost

himself in its world of staircases, corridors, and halls. From the moment

he passed under the porticus he was overcome by the icy shiver which fell

from the old walls, and was quite unable to appreciate the bare, frigid

beauty of the palace, Bramante’s masterpiece though it be, so purely

typical of the Roman Renascence. He also knew the Propaganda where he had

seen Cardinal Sarno; and, sent as he was hither and thither, in his

efforts to gain over influential prelates, chance made him acquainted

with the other Congregations, that of the Bishops and Regulars, that of

the Rites and that of the Council. He even obtained a glimpse of the

Consistorial, the Dataria,* and the sacred Penitentiary. All these formed

part of the administrative mechanism of the Church under its several

aspects--the government of the Catholic world, the enlargement of the

Church’s conquests, the administration of its affairs in conquered

countries, the decision of all questions touching faith, morals, and

individuals, the investigation and punishment of offences, the grant of

dispensations and the sale of favours. One can scarcely imagine what a

fearful number of affairs are each morning submitted to the Vatican,

questions of the greatest gravity, delicacy, and intricacy, the solution

of which gives rise to endless study and research. It is necessary to

reply to the innumerable visitors who flock to Rome from all parts, and

to the letters, the petitions, and the batches of documents which are

submitted and require to be distributed among the various offices. And

Pierre was struck by the deep and discreet silence in which all this

colossal labour was accomplished; not a sound reaching the streets from

the tribunals, parliaments, and factories for the manufacture of saints

and nobles, whose mechanism was so well greased, that in spite of the

rust of centuries and the deep and irremediable wear and tear, the whole

continued working without clank or creak to denote its presence behind

the walls. And did not that silence embody the whole policy of the

Church, which is to remain mute and await developments? Nevertheless what

a prodigious mechanism it was, antiquated no doubt, but still so

powerful! And amidst those Congregations how keenly Pierre felt himself

to be in the grip of the most absolute power ever devised for the

domination of mankind. However much he might notice signs of decay and

coming ruin he was none the less seized, crushed, and carried off by that

huge engine made up of vanity and venality, corruption and ambition,

meanness and greatness. And how far, too, he now was from the Rome that

he had dreamt of, and what anger at times filled him amidst his

weariness, as he persevered in his resolve to defend himself!

* It is from the Dataria that bulls, rescripts, letters of

appointment to benefices, and dispensations of marriage,

are issued, after the affixture of the date and formula

_Datum Romae_, “Given at Rome.”--Trans.

All at once certain things which he had never understood were explained

to him. One day, when he returned to the Propaganda, Cardinal Sarno spoke

to him of Freemasonry with such icy rage that he was abruptly

enlightened. Freemasonry had hitherto made him smile; he had believed in

it no more than he had believed in the Jesuits. Indeed, he had looked

upon the ridiculous stories which were current--the stories of

mysterious, shadowy men who governed the world with secret incalculable

power--as mere childish legends. In particular he had been amazed by the

blind hatred which maddened certain people as soon as Freemasonry was

mentioned. However, a very distinguished and intelligent prelate had

declared to him, with an air of profound conviction, that at least on one

occasion every year each masonic Lodge was presided over by the Devil in

person, incarnate in a visible shape! And now, by Cardinal Sarno’s

remarks, he understood the rivalry, the furious struggle of the Roman

Catholic Church against that other Church, the Church of over the way.*

Although the former counted on her own triumph, she none the less felt

that the other, the Church of Freemasonry, was a competitor, a very

ancient enemy, who indeed claimed to be more ancient than herself, and

whose victory always remained a possibility. And the friction between

them was largely due to the circumstance that they both aimed at

universal sovereignty, and had a similar international organisation, a

similar net thrown over the nations, and in a like way mysteries, dogmas,

and rites. It was deity against deity, faith against faith, conquest

against conquest: and so, like competing tradesmen in the same street,

they were a source of mutual embarrassment, and one of them was bound to

kill the other. But if Roman Catholicism seemed to Pierre to be worn out

and threatened with ruin, he remained quite as sceptical with regard to

the power of Freemasonry. He had made inquiries as to the reality of that

power in Rome, where both Grand Master and Pope were enthroned, one in

front of the other. He was certainly told that the last Roman princes had

thought themselves compelled to become Freemasons in order to render

their own difficult position somewhat easier and facilitate the future of

their sons. But was this true? had they not simply yielded to the force

of the present social evolution? And would not Freemasonry eventually be

submerged by its own triumph--that of the ideas of justice, reason, and

truth, which it had defended through the dark and violent ages of

history? It is a thing which constantly happens; the victory of an idea

kills the sect which has propagated it, and renders the apparatus with

which the members of the sect surrounded themselves, in order to fire

imaginations, both useless and somewhat ridiculous. Carbonarism did not

survive the conquest of the political liberties which it demanded; and on

the day when the Catholic Church crumbles, having accomplished its work

of civilisation, the other Church, the Freemasons’ Church of across the

road, will in a like way disappear, its task of liberation ended.

Nowadays the famous power of the Lodges, hampered by traditions, weakened

by a ceremonial which provokes laughter, and reduced to a simple bond of

brotherly agreement and mutual assistance, would be but a sorry weapon of

conquest for humanity, were it not that the vigorous breath of science

impels the nations onwards and helps to destroy the old religions.

* Some readers may think the above passages an exaggeration, but

such is not the case. The hatred with which the Catholic

priesthood, especially in Italy, Spain, and France, regards

Freemasonry is remarkable. At the moment of writing these lines

I have before me several French clerical newspapers, which

contain the most abusive articles levelled against President

Faure solely because he is a Freemason. One of these prints, a

leading journal of Lyons, tells the French President that he

cannot serve both God and the Devil; and that if he cannot give

up Freemasonry he would do well to cease desecrating the abode

of the Deity by his attendance at divine service.--Trans.

However, all Pierre’s journeyings and applications brought him no

certainty; and, while stubbornly clinging to Rome, intent on fighting to

the very end, like a soldier who will not believe in the possibility of

defeat, he remained as anxious as ever. He had seen all the cardinals

whose influence could be of use to him. He had seen the Cardinal Vicar,

entrusted with the diocese of Rome, who, like the man of letters he was,

had spoken to him of Horace, and, like a somewhat blundering politician,

had questioned him about France, the Republic, the Army, and the Navy

Estimates, without dealing in the slightest degree with the incriminated

book. He had also seen the Grand Penitentiary, that tall old man, with

fleshless, ascetic face, of whom he had previously caught a glimpse at

the Boccanera mansion, and from whom he now only drew a long and severe

sermon on the wickedness of young priests, whom the century had perverted

and who wrote most abominable books. Finally, at the Vatican, he had seen

the Cardinal Secretary, in some wise his Holiness’s Minister of Foreign

Affairs, the great power of the Holy See, whom he had hitherto been

prevented from approaching by terrifying warnings as to the possible

result of an unfavourable reception. However, whilst apologising for

calling at such a late stage, he had found himself in presence of a most

amiable man, whose somewhat rough appearance was softened by diplomatic

affability, and who, after making him sit down, questioned him with an

air of interest, listened to him, and even spoke some words of comfort.

Nevertheless, on again reaching the Piazza of St. Peter’s, Pierre well

understood that his affair had not made the slightest progress, and that

if he ever managed to force the Pope’s door, it would not be by way of

the Secretariate of State. And that evening he returned home quite

exhausted by so many visits, in such distraction at feeling that little

by little he had been wholly caught in that huge mechanism with its

hundred wheels, that he asked himself in terror what he should do on the

morrow now that there remained nothing for him to do--unless, indeed, it

were to go mad.

However, meeting Don Vigilio in a passage of the house, he again wished

to ask him for some good advice. But the secretary, who had a gleam of

terror in his eyes, silenced him, he knew not why, with an anxious

gesture. And then in a whisper, in Pierre’s ear, he said: “Have you seen

Monsignor Nani? No! Well, go to see him, go to see him. I repeat that you

have nothing else to do!”

Pierre yielded. And indeed why should he have resisted? Apart from the

motives of ardent charity which had brought him to Rome to defend his

book, was he not there for a self-educating, experimental purpose? It was

necessary that he should carry his attempts to the very end.

On the morrow, when he reached the colonnade of St. Peter’s, the hour was

so early that he had to wait there awhile. He had never better realised

the enormity of those four curving rows of columns, forming a forest of

gigantic stone trunks among which nobody ever promenades. In fact, the

spot is a grandiose and dreary desert, and one asks oneself the why and

wherefore of such a majestic porticus. Doubtless, however, it was for its

sole majesty, for the mere pomp of decoration, that this colonnade was

reared; and therein, again, one finds the whole Roman spirit. However,

Pierre at last turned into the Via di Sant’ Offizio, and passing the

sacristy of St. Peter’s, found himself before the Palace of the Holy

Office in a solitary silent district, which the footfall of pedestrians

or the rumble of wheels but seldom disturbs. The sun alone lives there,

in sheets of light which spread slowly over the small, white paving. You

divine the vicinity of the Basilica, for there is a smell as of incense,

a cloisteral quiescence as of the slumber of centuries. And at one corner

the Palace of the Holy Office rises up with heavy, disquieting bareness,

only a single row of windows piercing its lofty, yellow front. The wall

which skirts a side street looks yet more suspicious with its row of even

smaller casements, mere peep-holes with glaucous panes. In the bright

sunlight this huge cube of mud-coloured masonry ever seems asleep,

mysterious, and closed like a prison, with scarcely an aperture for

communication with the outer world.

Pierre shivered, but then smiled as at an act of childishness, for he

reflected that the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition, nowadays the

Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, was no longer the institution it

had been, the purveyor of heretics for the stake, the occult tribunal

beyond appeal which had right of life and death over all mankind. True,

it still laboured in secrecy, meeting every Wednesday, and judging and

condemning without a sound issuing from within its walls. But on the

other hand if it still continued to strike at the crime of heresy, if it

smote men as well as their works, it no longer possessed either weapons

or dungeons, steel or fire to do its bidding, but was reduced to a mere

_role_ of protest, unable to inflict aught but disciplinary penalties

even upon the ecclesiastics of its own Church.

When Pierre on entering was ushered into the reception-room of Monsignor

Nani who, as assessor, lived in the palace, he experienced an agreeable

surprise. The apartment faced the south, and was spacious and flooded

with sunshine. And stiff as was the furniture, dark as were the hangings,

an exquisite sweetness pervaded the room, as though a woman had lived in

it and accomplished the prodigy of imparting some of her own grace to all

those stern-looking things. There were no flowers, yet there was a

pleasant smell. A charm expanded and conquered every heart from the very

threshold.

Monsignor Nani at once came forward, with a smile on his rosy face, his

blue eyes keenly glittering, and his fine light hair powdered by age.

With hands outstretched, he exclaimed: “Ah! how kind of you to have come

to see me, my dear son! Come, sit down, let us have a friendly chat.”

Then with an extraordinary display of affection, he began to question

Pierre: “How are you getting on? Tell me all about it, exactly what you

have done.”

Touched in spite of Don Vigilio’s revelations, won over by the sympathy

which he fancied he could detect, Pierre thereupon confessed himself,

relating his visits to Cardinal Sarno, Monsignor Fornaro and Father

Dangelis, his applications to all the influential cardinals, those of the

Index, the Grand Penitentiary, the Cardinal Vicar, and the Cardinal

Secretary; and dwelling on his endless journeys from door to door through

all the Congregations and all the clergy, that huge, active, silent

bee-hive amidst which he had wearied his feet, exhausted his limbs, and

bewildered his poor brain. And at each successive Station of this Calvary

of entreaty, Monsignor Nani, who seemed to listen with an air of rapture,

exclaimed: “But that’s very good, that’s capital! Oh! your affair is

progressing. Yes, yes, it’s progressing marvellously well.”

He was exultant, though he allowed no unseemly irony to appear, while his

pleasant, penetrating eyes fathomed the young priest, to ascertain if he

had been brought to the requisite degree of obedience. Had he been

sufficiently wearied, disillusioned and instructed in the reality of

things, for one to finish with him? Had three months’ sojourn in Rome

sufficed to turn the somewhat mad enthusiast of the first days into an

unimpassioned or at least resigned being?

However, all at once Monsignor Nani remarked: “But, my dear son, you tell

me nothing of his Eminence Cardinal Sanguinetti.”

“The fact is, Monseigneur, that his Eminence is at Frascati, so I have

been unable to see him.”

Thereupon the prelate, as if once more postponing the _denouement_ with

the secret enjoyment of an artistic _diplomate_, began to protest,

raising his little plump hands with the anxious air of a man who

considers everything lost: “Oh! but you must see his Eminence; it is

absolutely necessary! Think of it! The Prefect of the Index! We can only

act after your visit to him, for as you have not seen _him_ it is as if

you had seen nobody. Go, go to Frascati, my dear son.”

And thereupon Pierre could only bow and reply: “I will go, Monseigneur.”

XI.

ALTHOUGH Pierre knew that he would be unable to see Cardinal Sanguinetti

before eleven o’clock, he nevertheless availed himself of an early train,

so that it was barely nine when he alighted at the little station of

Frascati. He had already visited the place during his enforced idleness,

when he had made the classical excursion to the Roman castles which

extend from Frascati to Rocco di Papa, and from Rocco di Papa to Monte

Cavo, and he was now delighted with the prospect of strolling for a

couple of hours along those first slopes of the Alban hills, where,

amidst rushes, olives, and vines, Frascati, like a promontory, overlooks

the immense ruddy sea of the Campagna even as far as Rome, which, six

full leagues away, wears the whitish aspect of a marble isle.

Ah! that charming Frascati, on its greeny knoll at the foot of the wooded

Tusculan heights, with its famous terrace whence one enjoys the finest

view in the world, its old patrician villas with proud and elegant

Renascence facades and magnificent parks, which, planted with cypress,

pine, and ilex, are for ever green! There was a sweetness, a delight, a

fascination about the spot, of which Pierre would have never wearied. And

for more than an hour he had wandered blissfully along roads edged with

ancient, knotty olive-trees, along dingle ways shaded by the spreading

foliage of neighbouring estates, and along perfumed paths, at each turn

of which the Campagna was seen stretching far away, when all at once he

was accosted by a person whom he was both surprised and annoyed to meet.

He had strolled down to some low ground near the railway station, some

old vineyards where a number of new houses had been built of recent

years, and suddenly saw a stylish pair-horse victoria, coming from the

direction of Rome, draw up close by, whilst its occupant called to him:

“What! Monsieur l’Abbe Froment, are you taking a walk here, at this early

hour?”

Thereupon Pierre recognised Count Luigi Prada, who alighted, shook hands

with him and began to walk beside him, whilst the empty carriage went on

in advance. And forthwith the Count explained his tastes: “I seldom take

the train,” he said, “I drive over. It gives my horses an outing. I have

interests over here as you may know, a big building enterprise which is

unfortunately not progressing very well. And so, although the season is

advanced, I’m obliged to come rather more frequently than I care to do.”

As Prada suggested, Pierre was acquainted with the story. The Boccaneras

had been obliged to sell a sumptuous villa which a cardinal of their

family had built at Frascati in accordance with the plans of Giacomo

della Porta, during the latter part of the sixteenth century: a regal

summer-residence it had been, finely wooded, with groves and basins and

cascades, and in particular a famous terrace projecting like a cape above

the Roman Campagna whose expanse stretches from the Sabine mountains to

the Mediterranean sands. Through the division of the property, Benedetta

had inherited from her mother some very extensive vineyards below

Frascati, and these she had brought as dowry to Prada at the very moment

when the building mania was extending from Rome into the provinces. And

thereupon Prada had conceived the idea of erecting on the spot a number

of middle-class villas like those which litter the suburbs of Paris. Few

purchasers, however, had come forward, the financial crash had

supervened, and he was now with difficulty liquidating this unlucky

business, having indemnified his wife at the time of their separation.

“And then,” he continued, addressing Pierre, “one can come and go as one

likes with a carriage, whereas, on taking the train, one is at the mercy

of the time table. This morning, for instance, I have appointments with

contractors, experts, and lawyers, and I have no notion how long they

will keep me. It’s a wonderful country, isn’t it? And we are quite right

to be proud of it in Rome. Although I may have some worries just now, I

can never set foot here without my heart beating with delight.”

A circumstance which he did not mention, was that his _amica_, Lisbeth

Kauffmann, had spent the summer in one of the newly erected villas, where

she had installed her studio and had been visited by all the foreign

colony, which tolerated her irregular position on account of her gay

spirits and artistic talent. Indeed, people had even ended by accepting

the outcome of her connection with Prada, and a fortnight previously she

had returned to Rome, and there given birth to a son--an event which had

again revived all the scandalous tittle-tattle respecting Benedetta’s

divorce suit. And Prada’s attachment to Frascati doubtless sprang from

the recollection of the happy hours he had spent there, and the joyful

pride with which the birth of the boy inspired him.

Pierre, for his part, felt ill at ease in the young Count’s presence, for

he had an instinctive hatred of money-mongers and men of prey.

Nevertheless, he desired to respond to his amiability, and so inquired

after his father, old Orlando, the hero of the Liberation.

“Oh!” replied Prada, “excepting for his legs he’s in wonderfully good

health. He’ll live a hundred years. Poor father! I should so much have

liked to install him in one of these little houses, last summer. But I

could not get him to consent; he’s determined not to leave Rome; he’s

afraid, perhaps, that it might be taken away from him during his

absence.” Then the young Count burst into a laugh, quite merry at the

thought of jeering at the heroic but no longer fashionable age of

independence. And afterwards he said, “My father was speaking of you

again only yesterday, Monsieur l’Abbe. He is astonished that he has not

seen you lately.”

This distressed Pierre, for he had begun to regard Orlando with

respectful affection. Since his first visit, he had twice called on the

old hero, but the latter had refused to broach the subject of Rome so

long as his young friend should not have seen, felt, and understood

everything. There would be time for a talk later on, said he, when they

were both in a position to formulate their conclusions.

“Pray tell Count Orlando,” responded Pierre, “that I have not forgotten

him, and that, if I have deferred a fresh visit, it is because I desire

to satisfy him. However, I certainly will not leave Rome without going to

tell him how deeply his kind greeting has touched me.”