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then exhumed, and now glorified in full sunlight. For more than two hours

Pierre went from one hall to another, dazzled by the masterpieces,

bewildered by the accumulation of genius and beauty. It was not only the

celebrated examples of statuary, the Laocoon and the Apollo of the

cabinets of the Belvedere, the Meleager, or even the torso of

Hercules--that astonished him. He was yet more impressed by the

_ensemble_, by the innumerable quantities of Venuses, Bacchuses, and

deified emperors and empresses, by the whole superb growth of beautiful

or August flesh celebrating the immortality of life. Three days

previously he had visited the Museum of the Capitol, where he had admired

the Venus, the Dying Gaul,* the marvellous Centaurs of black marble, and

the extraordinary collection of busts, but here his admiration became

intensified into stupor by the inexhaustible wealth of the galleries.

And, with more curiosity for life than for art, perhaps, he again

lingered before the busts which so powerfully resuscitate the Rome of

history--the Rome which, whilst incapable of realising the ideal beauty

of Greece, was certainly well able to create life. The emperors, the

philosophers, the learned men, the poets are all there, and live such as

they really were, studied and portrayed in all scrupulousness with their

deformities, their blemishes, the slightest peculiarities of their

features. And from this extreme solicitude for truth springs a wonderful

wealth of character and an incomparable vision of the past. Nothing,

indeed, could be loftier: the very men live once more, and retrace the

history of their city, that history which has been so falsified that the

teaching of it has caused generations of school-boys to hold antiquity in

horror. But on seeing the men, how well one understands, how fully one

can sympathise! And indeed the smallest bits of marble, the maimed

statues, the bas-reliefs in fragments, even the isolated limbs--whether

the divine arm of a nymph or the sinewy, shaggy thigh of a satyr--evoke

the splendour of a civilisation full of light, grandeur, and strength.

* Best known in England, through Byron's lines, as the

Dying Gladiator, though that appellation is certainly

erroneous.--Trans.

At last Narcisse brought Pierre back into the Gallery of the Candelabra,

three hundred feet in length and full of fine examples of sculpture.

"Listen, my dear Abbe," said he. "It is scarcely more than four o'clock,

and we will sit down here for a while, as I am told that the Holy Father

sometimes passes this way to go down to the gardens. It would be really

lucky if you could see him, perhaps even speak to him--who can tell? At

all events, it will rest you, for you must be tired out."

Narcisse was known to all the attendants, and his relationship to

Monsignor Gamba gave him the run of almost the entire Vatican, where he

was fond of spending his leisure time. Finding two chairs, they sat down,

and the _attache_ again began to talk of art.

How astonishing had been the destiny of Rome, what a singular, borrowed

royalty had been hers! She seemed like a centre whither the whole world

converged, but where nothing grew from the soil itself, which from the

outset appeared to be stricken with sterility. The arts required to be

acclimatised there; it was necessary to transplant the genius of

neighbouring nations, which, once there, however, flourished

magnificently. Under the emperors, when Rome was the queen of the earth,

the beauty of her monuments and sculpture came to her from Greece. Later,

when Christianity arose in Rome, it there remained impregnated with

paganism; it was on another soil that it produced Gothic art, the

Christian Art _par excellence_. Later still, at the Renascence, it was

certainly at Rome that the age of Julius II and Leo X shone forth; but

the artists of Tuscany and Umbria prepared the evolution, brought it to

Rome that it might thence expand and soar. For the second time, indeed,

art came to Rome from without, and gave her the royalty of the world by

blossoming so triumphantly within her walls. Then occurred the

extraordinary awakening of antiquity, Apollo and Venus resuscitated

worshipped by the popes themselves, who from the time of Nicholas V

dreamt of making papal Rome the equal of the imperial city. After the

precursors, so sincere, tender, and strong in their art--Fra Angelico,

Perugino, Botticelli, and so many others--came the two sovereigns,

Michael Angelo and Raffaelle, the superhuman and the divine. Then the

fall was sudden, years elapsed before the advent of Caravaggio with power

of colour and modelling, all that the science of painting could achieve

when bereft of genius. And afterwards the decline continued until Bernini

was reached--Bernini, the real creator of the Rome of the present popes,

the prodigal child who at twenty could already show a galaxy of colossal

marble wenches, the universal architect who with fearful activity

finished the facade, built the colonnade, decorated the interior of St.

Peter's, and raised fountains, churches, and palaces innumerable. And

that was the end of all, for since then Rome has little by little

withdrawn from life, from the modern world, as though she, who always

lived on what she derived from others, were dying of her inability to

take anything more from them in order to convert it to her own glory.

"Ah! Bernini, that delightful Bernini!" continued Narcisse with his

rapturous air. "He is both powerful and exquisite, his verve always

ready, his ingenuity invariably awake, his fecundity full of grace and

magnificence. As for their Bramante with his masterpiece, that cold,

correct Cancelleria, we'll dub him the Michael Angelo and Raffaelle of

architecture and say no more about it. But Bernini, that exquisite

Bernini, why, there is more delicacy and refinement in his pretended bad

taste than in all the hugeness and perfection of the others! Our own age

ought to recognise itself in his art, at once so varied and so deep, so

triumphant in its mannerisms, so full of a perturbing solicitude for the

artificial and so free from the baseness of reality. Just go to the Villa

Borghese to see the group of Apollo and Daphne which Bernini executed

when he was eighteen,* and in particular see his statue of Santa Teresa

in ecstasy at Santa Maria della Vittoria! Ah! that Santa Teresa! It is

like heaven opening, with the quiver that only a purely divine enjoyment

can set in woman's flesh, the rapture of faith carried to the point of

spasm, the creature losing breath and dying of pleasure in the arms of

the Divinity! I have spent hours and hours before that work without

exhausting the infinite scope of its precious, burning symbolisation."

* There is also at the Villa Borghese Bernini's _Anchises carried

by Aeneas_, which he sculptured when only sixteen. No doubt his

faults were many; but it was his misfortune to belong to a

decadent period.--Trans.

Narcisse's voice died away, and Pierre, no longer astonished at his

covert, unconscious hatred of health, simplicity, and strength, scarcely

listened to him. The young priest himself was again becoming absorbed in

the idea he had formed of pagan Rome resuscitating in Christian Rome and

turning it into Catholic Rome, the new political, sacerdotal, domineering

centre of earthly government. Apart from the primitive age of the

Catacombs, had Rome ever been Christian? The thoughts that had come to

him on the Palatine, in the Appian Way, and in St. Peter's were gathering

confirmation. Genius that morning had brought him fresh proof. No doubt

the paganism which reappeared in the art of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle

was tempered, transformed by the Christian spirit. But did it not still

remain the basis? Had not the former master peered across Olympus when

snatching his great nudities from the terrible heavens of Jehovah? Did

not the ideal figures of Raffaelle reveal the superb, fascinating flesh

of Venus beneath the chaste veil of the Virgin? It seemed so to Pierre,

and some embarrassment mingled with his despondency, for all those

beautiful forms glorifying the ardent passions of life, were in

opposition to his dream of rejuvenated Christianity giving peace to the

world and reviving the simplicity and purity of the early ages.

All at once he was surprised to hear Narcisse, by what transition he

could not tell, speaking to him of the daily life of Leo XIII. "Yes, my

dear Abbe, at eighty-four* the Holy Father shows the activity of a young

man and leads a life of determination and hard work such as neither you

nor I would care for! At six o'clock he is already up, says his mass in

his private chapel, and drinks a little milk for breakfast. Then, from

eight o'clock till noon, there is a ceaseless procession of cardinals and

prelates, all the affairs of the congregations passing under his eyes,

and none could be more numerous or intricate. At noon the public and

collective audiences usually begin. At two he dines. Then comes the

siesta which he has well earned, or else a promenade in the gardens until

six o'clock. The private audiences then sometimes keep him for an hour or

two. He sups at nine and scarcely eats, lives on nothing, in fact, and is

always alone at his little table. What do you think, eh, of the etiquette

which compels him to such loneliness? There you have a man who for

eighteen years has never had a guest at his table, who day by day sits

all alone in his grandeur! And as soon as ten o'clock strikes, after

saying the Rosary with his familiars, he shuts himself up in his room.

But, although he may go to bed, he sleeps very little; he is frequently

troubled by insomnia, and gets up and sends for a secretary to dictate

memoranda or letters to him. When any interesting matter requires his

attention he gives himself up to it heart and soul, never letting it

escape his thoughts. And his life, his health, lies in all this. His mind

is always busy; his will and strength must always be exerting themselves.

You may know that he long cultivated Latin verse with affection; and I

believe that in his days of struggle he had a passion for journalism,

inspired the articles of the newspapers he subsidised, and even dictated

some of them when his most cherished ideas were in question."

* The reader should remember that the period selected for this

narrative is the year 1894. Leo XIII was born in 1810.--Trans.

Silence fell. At every moment Narcisse craned his neck to see if the

little papal _cortege_ were not emerging from the Gallery of the

Tapestries to pass them on its way to the gardens. "You are perhaps

aware," he resumed, "that his Holiness is brought down on a low chair

which is small enough to pass through every doorway. It's quite a

journey, more than a mile, through the _loggie_, the _stanze_ of

Raffaelle, the painting and sculpture galleries, not to mention the

numerous staircases, before he reaches the gardens, where a pair-horse

carriage awaits him. It's quite fine this evening, so he will surely

come. We must have a little patience."

Whilst Narcisse was giving these particulars Pierre again sank into a

reverie and saw the whole extraordinary history pass before him. First

came the worldly, ostentatious popes of the Renascence, those who

resuscitated antiquity with so much passion and dreamt of draping the

Holy See with the purple of empire once more. There was Paul II, the

magnificent Venetian who built the Palazzo di Venezia; Sixtus IV, to whom

one owes the Sixtine Chapel; and Julius II and Leo X, who made Rome a

city of theatrical pomp, prodigious festivities, tournaments, ballets,

hunts, masquerades, and banquets. At that time the papacy had just

rediscovered Olympus amidst the dust of buried ruins, and as though

intoxicated by the torrent of life which arose from the ancient soil, it

founded the museums, thus reviving the superb temples of the pagan age,

and restoring them to the cult of universal admiration. Never had the

Church been in such peril of death, for if the Christ was still honoured

at St. Peter's, Jupiter and all the other gods and goddesses, with their

beauteous, triumphant flesh, were enthroned in the halls of the Vatican.

Then, however, another vision passed before Pierre, one of the modern

popes prior to the Italian occupation--notably Pius IX, who, whilst yet

free, often went into his good city of Rome. His huge red and gold coach

was drawn by six horses, surrounded by Swiss Guards and followed by Noble

Guards; but now and again he would alight in the Corso, and continue his

promenade on foot, and then the mounted men of the escort galloped

forward to give warning and stop the traffic. The carriages drew up, the

gentlemen had to alight and kneel on the pavement, whilst the ladies

simply rose and devoutly inclined their heads, as the Holy Father,

attended by his Court, slowly wended his way to the Piazza del Popolo,

smiling and blessing at every step. And now had come Leo XIII, the

voluntary prisoner, shut up in the Vatican for eighteen years, and he,

behind the high, silent walls, in the unknown sphere where each of his

days flowed by so quietly, had acquired a more exalted majesty, instinct

with sacred and redoubtable mysteriousness.

Ah! that Pope whom you no longer meet or see, that Pope hidden from the

common of mankind like some terrible divinity whom the priests alone dare

to approach! It is in that sumptuous Vatican which his forerunners of the

Renascence built and adorned for giant festivities that he has secluded

himself; it is there he lives, far from the crowd, in prison with the

handsome men and the lovely women of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle, with

the gods and goddesses of marble, with the whole of resplendent Olympus

celebrating around him the religion of life and light. With him the

entire Papacy is there steeped in paganism. What a spectacle when the

slender, weak old man, all soul, so purely white, passes along the

galleries of the Museum of Antiquities on his way to the gardens. Right