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early ages--accomplishing His various miracles.

"You see," repeated the Trappist, "all those things are shown there; and

remember that none of the paintings was specially prepared: they are

absolutely authentic."

At a question from Pierre, whose astonishment was increasing, he admitted

that the catacombs had been mere cemeteries at the outset, when no

religious ceremonies had been celebrated in them. It was only later, in

the fourth century, when the martyrs were honoured, that the crypts were

utilised for worship. And in the same way they only became places of

refuge during the persecutions, when the Christians had to conceal the

entrances to them. Previously they had remained freely and legally open.

This was indeed their true history: cemeteries four centuries old

becoming places of asylum, ravaged at times during the persecutions;

afterwards held in veneration till the eighth century; then despoiled of

their holy relics, and subsequently blocked up and forgotten, so that

they remained buried during more than seven hundred years, people

thinking of them so little that at the time of the first searches in the

fifteenth century they were considered an extraordinary discovery--an

intricate historical problem--one, moreover, which only our own age has

solved.

"Please stoop, mesdames," resumed the Trappist. "In this compartment here

is a skeleton which has not been touched. It has been lying here for

sixteen or seventeen hundred years, and will show you how the bodies were

laid out. Savants say that it is the skeleton of a female, probably a

young girl. It was still quite perfect last spring; but the skull, as you

can see, is now split open. An American broke it with his walking stick

to make sure that it was genuine."

The ladies leaned forward, and the flickering light illumined their pale

faces, expressive of mingled fright and compassion. Especially noticeable

was the pitiful, pain-fraught look which appeared on the countenance of

the daughter, so full of life with her red lips and large black eyes.

Then all relapsed into gloom, and the little candles were borne aloft and

went their way through the heavy darkness of the galleries. The visit

lasted another hour, for the Trappist did not spare a detail, fond as he

was of certain nooks and corners, and as zealous as if he desired to work

the redemption of his visitors.

While Pierre followed the others, a complete evolution took place within

him. As he looked about him, and formed a more and more complete idea of

his surroundings, his first stupefaction at finding the reality so

different from the embellished accounts of story-tellers and poets, his

disillusion at being plunged into such rudely excavated mole-burrows,

gave way to fraternal emotion. It was not that he thought of the fifteen

hundred martyrs whose sacred bones had rested there. But how humble,

resigned, yet full of hope had been those who had chosen such a place of

sepulchre! Those low, darksome galleries were but temporary

sleeping-places for the Christians. If they did not burn the bodies of

their dead, as the Pagans did, it was because, like the Jews, they

believed in the resurrection of the body; and it was that lovely idea of

sleep, of tranquil rest after a just life, whilst awaiting the celestial

reward, which imparted such intense peacefulness, such infinite charm, to

the black, subterranean city. Everything there spoke of calm and silent

night; everything there slumbered in rapturous quiescence, patient until

the far-off awakening. What could be more touching than those terra-cotta

tiles, those marble slabs, which bore not even a name--nothing but the

words _In Pace_--at peace. Ah! to be at peace--life's work at last

accomplished; to sleep in peace, to hope in peace for the advent of

heaven! And the peacefulness seemed the more delightful as it was enjoyed

in such deep humility. Doubtless the diggers worked chance-wise and

clumsily; the craftsmen no longer knew how to engrave a name or carve a

palm or a dove. Art had vanished; but all the feebleness and ignorance

were instinct with the youth of a new humanity. Poor and lowly and meek

ones swarmed there, reposing beneath the soil, whilst up above the sun

continued its everlasting task. You found there charity and fraternity

and death; husband and wife often lying together with their offspring at

their feet; the great mass of the unknown submerging the personage, the

bishop, or the martyr; the most touching equality--that springing from

modesty--prevailing amidst all that dust, with compartments ever similar

and slabs destitute of ornament, so that rows and rows of the sleepers

mingled without distinctive sign. The inscriptions seldom ventured on a

word of praise, and then how prudent, how delicate it was: the men were

very worthy, very pious: the women very gentle, very beautiful, very

chaste. A perfume of infancy arose, unlimited human affection spread:

this was death as understood by the primitive Christians--death which hid

itself to await the resurrection, and dreamt no more of the empire of the

world!

And all at once before Pierre's eyes arose a vision of the sumptuous

tombs of the Appian Way, displaying the domineering pride of a whole

civilisation in the sunlight--tombs of vast dimensions, with a profusion

of marbles, grandiloquent inscriptions, and masterpieces of

sculptured-work. Ah! what an extraordinary contrast between that pompous

avenue of death, conducting, like a highway of triumph, to the regal

Eternal City, when compared with the subterranean necropolis of the

Christians, that city of hidden death, so gentle, so beautiful, and so

chaste! Here only quiet slumber, desired and accepted night, resignation

and patience were to be found. Millions of human beings had here laid

themselves to rest in all humility, had slept for centuries, and would

still be sleeping here, lulled by the silence and the gloom, if the

living had not intruded on their desire to remain in oblivion so long as

the trumpets of the Judgment Day did not awaken them. Death had then

spoken of Life: nowhere had there been more intimate and touching life

than in these buried cities of the unknown, lowly dead. And a mighty

breath had formerly come from them--the breath of a new humanity destined

to renew the world. With the advent of meekness, contempt for the flesh,

terror and hatred of nature, relinquishment of terrestrial joys, and a

passion for death, which delivers and opens the portals of Paradise,

another world had begun. And the blood of Augustus, so proud of purpling

in the sunlight, so fired by the passion for sovereign dominion, seemed

for a moment to disappear, as if, indeed, the new world had sucked it up

in the depths of its gloomy sepulchres.

However, the Trappist insisted on showing the ladies the steps of

Diocletian, and began to tell them the legend. "Yes," said he, "it was a

miracle. One day, under that emperor, some soldiers were pursuing several

Christians, who took refuge in these catacombs; and when the soldiers

followed them inside the steps suddenly gave way, and all the persecutors

were hurled to the bottom. The steps remain broken to this day. Come and

see them; they are close by."

But the ladies were quite overcome, so affected by their prolonged

sojourn in the gloom and by the tales of death which the Trappist had

poured into their ears that they insisted on going up again. Moreover,

the candles were coming to an end. They were all dazzled when they found

themselves once more in the sunlight, outside the little hut where

articles of piety and souvenirs were sold. The girl bought a paper

weight, a piece of marble on which was engraved the fish symbolical of

"Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour of Mankind."

On the afternoon of that same day Pierre decided to visit St. Peter's. He

had as yet only driven across the superb piazza with its obelisk and twin

fountains, encircled by Bernini's colonnades, those four rows of columns

and pilasters which form a girdle of monumental majesty. At the far end

rises the basilica, its facade making it look smaller and heavier than it

really is, but its sovereign dome nevertheless filling the heavens.

Pebbled, deserted inclines stretched out, and steps followed steps, worn

and white, under the burning sun; but at last Pierre reached the door and

went in. It was three o'clock. Broad sheets of light streamed in through

the high square windows, and some ceremony--the vesper service, no

doubt--was beginning in the Capella Clementina on the left. Pierre,

however, heard nothing; he was simply struck by the immensity of the

edifice, as with raised eyes he slowly walked along. At the entrance came

the giant basins for holy water with their boy-angels as chubby as

Cupids; then the nave, vaulted and decorated with sunken coffers; then

the four cyclopean buttress-piers upholding the dome, and then again the

transepts and apsis, each as large as one of our churches. And the proud

pomp, the dazzling, crushing splendour of everything, also astonished

him: he marvelled at the cupola, looking like a planet, resplendent with

the gold and bright colours of its mosaic-work, at the sumptuous

_baldacchino_ of bronze, crowning the high altar raised above the very

tomb of St. Peter, and whence descend the double steps of the Confession,

illumined by seven and eighty lamps, which are always kept burning. And

finally he was lost in astonishment at the extraordinary profusion of

marble, both white and coloured. Oh! those polychromatic marbles,

Bernini's luxurious passion! The splendid pavement reflecting the entire

edifice, the facings of the pilasters with their medallions of popes, the

tiara and the keys borne aloft by chubby angels, the walls covered with

emblems, particularly the dove of Innocent X, the niches with their

colossal statues uncouth in taste, the _loggie_ and their balconies, the

balustrade and double steps of the Confession, the rich altars and yet

richer tombs--all, nave, aisles, transepts, and apsis, were in marble,

resplendent with the wealth of marble; not a nook small as the palm of

one's hand appearing but it showed the insolent opulence of marble. And

the basilica triumphed, beyond discussion, recognised and admired by

every one as the largest and most splendid church in the whole world--the

personification of hugeness and magnificence combined.

Pierre still wandered on, gazing, overcome, as yet not distinguishing

details. He paused for a moment before the bronze statue of St. Peter,

seated in a stiff, hierarchical attitude on a marble pedestal. A few of

the faithful were there kissing the large toe of the Saint's right foot.

Some of them carefully wiped it before applying their lips; others, with

no thought of cleanliness, kissed it, pressed their foreheads to it, and

then kissed it again. Next, Pierre turned into the transept on the left,

where stand the confessionals. Priests are ever stationed there, ready to

confess penitents in every language. Others wait, holding long staves,

with which they lightly tap the heads of kneeling sinners, who thereby

obtain thirty days' indulgence. However, there were few people present,

and inside the small wooden boxes the priests occupied their leisure time

in reading and writing, as if they were at home. Then Pierre again found

himself before the Confession, and gazed with interest at the eighty

lamps, scintillating like stars. The high altar, at which the Pope alone

can officiate, seemed wrapped in the haughty melancholy of solitude under

its gigantic, flowery _baldacchino_, the casting and gilding of which

cost two and twenty thousand pounds. But suddenly Pierre remembered the

ceremony in the Capella Clementina, and felt astonished, for he could

hear nothing of it. As he drew near a faint breath, like the far-away

piping of a flute, was wafted to him. Then the volume of sound slowly

increased, but it was only on reaching the chapel that he recognised an

organ peal. The sunlight here filtered through red curtains drawn before

the windows, and thus the chapel glowed like a furnace whilst resounding

with the grave music. But in that huge pile all became so slight, so

weak, that at sixty paces neither voice nor organ could be distinguished.

On entering the basilica Pierre had fancied that it was quite empty and

lifeless. There were, however, some people there, but so few and far

between that their presence was not noticed. A few tourists wandered

about wearily, guide-book in hand. In the grand nave a painter with his

easel was taking a view, as in a public gallery. Then a French seminary

went by, conducted by a prelate who named and explained the tombs. But in

all that space these fifty or a hundred people looked merely like a few

black ants who had lost themselves and were vainly seeking their way. And

Pierre pictured himself in some gigantic gala hall or tremendous

vestibule in an immeasurable palace of reception. The broad sheets of

sunlight streaming through the lofty square windows of plain white glass

illumined the church with blending radiance. There was not a single stool

or chair: nothing but the superb, bare pavement, such as you might find

in a museum, shining mirror-like under the dancing shower of sunrays. Nor

was there a single corner for solitary reflection, a nook of gloom and

mystery, where one might kneel and pray. In lieu thereof the sumptuous,

sovereign dazzlement of broad daylight prevailed upon every side. And, on

thus suddenly finding himself in this deserted opera-house, all aglow

with flaring gold and purple, Pierre could but remember the quivering

gloom of the Gothic cathedrals of France, where dim crowds sob and

supplicate amidst a forest of pillars. In presence of all this ceremonial

majesty--this huge, empty pomp, which was all Body--he recalled with a

pang the emaciate architecture and statuary of the middle ages, which

were all Soul. He vainly sought for some poor, kneeling woman, some

creature swayed by faith or suffering, yielding in a modest half-light to

thoughts of the unknown, and with closed lips holding communion with the