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green. Of the ancient city one could see the sunburnt tower of the

Capitol, the black cypresses of the Palatine, and the ruins of the palace

of Septimius Severus, suggesting the white osseous carcase of some fossil

monster, left there by a flood. In front, was enthroned the modern city

with the long, renovated buildings of the Quirinal, whose yellow walls

stood forth with wondrous crudity amidst the vigorous crests of the

garden trees. And to right and left on the Viminal, beyond the palace,

the new districts appeared like a city of chalk and plaster mottled by

innumerable windows as with a thousand touches of black ink. Then here

and there were the Pincio showing like a stagnant mere, the Villa Medici

uprearing its campanili, the castle of Sant' Angelo brown like rust, the

spire of Santa Maria Maggiore aglow like a burning taper, the three

churches of the Aventine drowsy amidst verdure, the Palazzo Farnese with

its summer-baked tiles showing like old gold, the domes of the Gesu, of

Sant' Andrea della Valle, of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, and yet other

domes and other domes, all in fusion, incandescent in the brazier of the

heavens. And Pierre again felt a heart-pang in presence of that harsh,

stern Rome, so different from the Rome of his dream, the Rome of

rejuvenescence and hope, which he had fancied he had found on his first

morning, but which had now faded away to give place to the immutable city

of pride and domination, stubborn under the sun even unto death.

And there on high, all alone with his thoughts, Pierre suddenly

understood. It was as if a dart of flaming light fell on him in that

free, unbounded expanse where he hovered. Had it come from the ceremony

which he had just beheld, from the frantic cry of servitude still ringing

in his ears? Had it come from the spectacle of that city beneath him,

that city which suggested an embalmed queen still reigning amidst the

dust of her tomb? He knew not; but doubtless both had acted as factors,

and at all events the light which fell upon his mind was complete: he

felt that Catholicism could not exist without the temporal power, that it

must fatally disappear whenever it should no longer be king over this

earth. A first reason of this lay in heredity, in the forces of history,

the long line of the heirs of the Caesars, the popes, the great pontiffs,

in whose veins the blood of Augustus, demanding the empire of the world,

had never ceased to flow. Though they might reside in the Vatican they

had come from the imperial abodes on the Palatine, from the palace of

Septimius Severus, and throughout the centuries their policy had ever

pursued the dream of Roman mastery, of all the nations vanquished,

submissive, and obedient to Rome. If its sovereignty were not universal,

extending alike over bodies and over souls, Catholicism would lose its

_raison d'etre_; for the Church cannot recognise any empire or kingdom

otherwise than politically--the emperors and the kings being purely and

simply so many temporary delegates placed in charge of the nations

pending the time when they shall be called upon to relinquish their

trust. All the nations, all humanity, and the whole world belong to the

Church to whom they have been given by God. And if real and effective

possession is not hers to-day, this is only because she yields to force,

compelled to face accomplished facts, but with the formal reserve that

she is in presence of guilty usurpation, that her possessions are

unjustly withheld from her, and that she awaits the realisation of the

promises of the Christ, who, when the time shall be accomplished, will

for ever restore to her both the earth and mankind. Such is the real

future city which time is to bring: Catholic Rome, sovereign of the world

once more. And Rome the city forms a substantial part of the dream, Rome

whose eternity has been predicted, Rome whose soil has imparted to

Catholicism the inextinguishable thirst of absolute power. And thus the

destiny of the papacy is linked to that of Rome, to such a point indeed

that a pope elsewhere than at Rome would no longer be a Catholic pope.

The thought of all this frightened Pierre; a great shudder passed through

him as he leant on the light iron balustrade, gazing down into the abyss

where the stern mournful city was even now crumbling away under the

fierce sun.

There was, however, evidence of the facts which had dawned on him. If

Pius IX and Leo XIII had resolved to imprison themselves in the Vatican,

it was because necessity bound them to Rome. A pope is not free to leave

the city, to be the head of the Church elsewhere; and in the same way a

pope, however well he may understand the modern world, has not the right

to relinquish the temporal power. This is an inalienable inheritance

which he must defend, and it is moreover a question of life, peremptory,

above discussion. And thus Leo XIII has retained the title of Master of

the temporal dominions of the Church, and this he has done the more

readily since as a cardinal--like all the members of the Sacred College

when elected--he swore that he would maintain those dominions intact.

Italy may hold Rome as her capital for another century or more, but the

coming popes will never cease to protest and claim their kingdom. If ever

an understanding should be arrived at, it must be based on the gift of a

strip of territory. Formerly, when rumours of reconciliation were

current, was it not said that the papacy exacted, as a formal condition,

the possession of at least the Leonine City with the neutralisation of a

road leading to the sea? Nothing is not enough, one cannot start from

nothing to attain to everything, whereas that Civitas Leonina, that bit

of a city, would already be a little royal ground, and it would then only

be necessary to conquer the rest, first Rome, next Italy, then the

neighbouring states, and at last the whole world. Never has the Church

despaired, even when, beaten and despoiled, she seemed to be at the last

gasp. Never will she abdicate, never will she renounce the promises of

the Christ, for she believes in a boundless future and declares herself

to be both indestructible and eternal. Grant her but a pebble on which to

rest her head, and she will hope to possess, first the field in which

that pebble lies, and then the empire in which the field is situated. If

one pope cannot achieve the recovery of the inheritance, another pope,

ten, twenty other popes will continue the work. The centuries do not

count. And this explains why an old man of eighty-four has undertaken

colossal enterprises whose achievement requires several lives, certain as

he is that his successors will take his place, and that the work will

ever and ever be carried forward and completed.

As these thoughts coursed through his mind, Pierre, overlooking that

ancient city of glory and domination, so stubbornly clinging to its

purple, realised that he was an imbecile with his dream of a purely

spiritual pope. The notion seemed to him so different from the reality,

so out of place, that he experienced a sort of shame-fraught despair. The

new pope, consonant to the teachings of the Gospel, such as a purely

spiritual pope reigning over souls alone, would be, was virtually beyond

the ken of a Roman prelate. At thought of that papal court congealed in

ritual, pride, and authority, Pierre suddenly understood what horror and

repugnance such a pastor would inspire. How great must be the

astonishment and contempt of the papal prelates for that singular notion

of the northern mind, a pope without dominions or subjects, military

household or royal honours, a pope who would be, as it were, a spirit,

exercising purely moral authority, dwelling in the depths of God's

temple, and governing the world solely with gestures of benediction and

deeds of kindliness and love! All that was but a misty Gothic invention

for this Latin clergy, these priests of light and magnificence, who were

certainly pious and even superstitious, but who left the Deity well

sheltered within the tabernacle in order to govern in His name, according

to what they considered the interests of Heaven. Thence it arose that

they employed craft and artifice like mere politicians, and lived by dint

of expedients amidst the great battle of human appetites, marching with

the prudent, stealthy steps of diplomatists towards the final terrestrial

victory of the Christ, who, in the person of the Pope, was one day to

reign over all the nations. And how stupefied must a French prelate have

been--a prelate like Monseigneur Bergerot, that apostle of renunciation

and charity--when he lighted amidst that world of the Vatican! How

difficult must it have been for him to understand and focus things, and

afterwards how great his grief at finding himself unable to come to any

agreement with those men without country, without fatherland, those

"internationals," who were ever poring over the maps of both hemispheres,

ever absorbed in schemes which were to bring them empire. Days and days

were necessary, one needed to live in Rome, and he, Pierre himself, had

only seen things clearly after a month's sojourn, whilst labouring under

the violent shock of the royal pomp of St. Peter's, and standing face to

face with the ancient city as it slumbered heavily in the sunlight and

dreamt its dream of eternity.

But on lowering his eyes to the piazza in front of the Basilica he

perceived the multitude, the 40,000 believers streaming over the pavement

like insects. And then he thought that he could hear the cry again

rising: "_Evviva il Papa-Re! evviva il Papa-Re_! Long live the

Pope-King!" Whilst ascending those endless staircases a moment previously

it had seemed to him as if the colossus of stone were quivering with the

frantic shout raised beneath its ceilings. And now that he had climbed

even into cloudland that shout apparently was traversing space. If the

colossal pile beneath him still vibrated with it, was it not as with a

last rise of sap within its ancient walls, a reinvigoration of that

Catholic blood which formerly had demanded that the pile should be a

stupendous one, the veritable king of temples, and which now was striving

to reanimate it with the powerful breath of life, and this at the very

hour when death was beginning to fall upon its over-vast, deserted nave

and aisles? The crowd was still streaming forth, filling the piazza, and

Pierre's heart was wrung by frightful anguish, for that throng with its

shout had just swept his last hope away. On the previous afternoon, after

the reception of the pilgrimage, he had yet been able to deceive himself

by overlooking the necessity for money which bound the Pope to earth in

order that he might see nought but the feeble old man, all spirituality,

resplendent like the symbol of moral authority. But his faith in such a

pastor of the Gospel, free from all considerations of earthly wealth, and

king of none other than a heavenly kingdom, had fled. Not only did the

Peter's Pence impose hard servitude upon Leo XIII but he was also the

prisoner of papal tradition--the eternal King of Rome, riveted to the

soil of Rome, unable either to quit the city or to renounce the temporal

power. The fatal end would be collapse on the spot, the dome of St.

Peter's falling even as the temple of Olympian Jupiter had fallen,

Catholicism strewing the grass with its ruins whilst elsewhere schism

burst forth: a new faith for the new nations. Of this Pierre had a

grandiose and tragical vision: he beheld his dream destroyed, his book

swept away amidst that cry which spread around him as if flying to the

four corners of the Catholic world "_Evviva il Papa-Re! evviva il

Papa-Re!_ Long live the Pope-King!" But even in that hour of the papacy's

passing triumph he already felt that the giant of gold and marble on

which he stood was oscillating, even as totter all old and rotten

societies.

At last he took his way down again, and a fresh shock of emotion came to

him as he reached the roofs, that sunlit expanse of lead and zinc, large

enough for the site of a town. Monsignor Nani was there, in company with

the two French ladies, the mother and the daughter, both looking very

happy and highly amused. No doubt the prelate had good-naturedly offered

to conduct them to the dome. However, as soon as he recognised the young

priest he went towards him: "Well, my dear son," he inquired, "are you

pleased? Have you been impressed, edified?" As he spoke, his searching

eyes dived into Pierre's soul, as if to ascertain the present result of

his experiments. Then, satisfied with what he detected, he began to laugh

softly: "Yes, yes, I see--come, you are a sensible fellow after all. I

begin to think that the unfortunate affair which brought you here will

have a happy ending."

VIII.

WHEN Pierre remained in the morning at the Boccanera mansion he often

spent some hours in the little neglected garden which had formerly ended

with a sort of colonnaded _loggia_, whence two flights of steps descended

to the Tiber. This garden was a delightful, solitary nook, perfumed by

the ripe fruit of the centenarian orange-trees, whose symmetrical lines

were the only indication of the former pathways, now hidden beneath rank

weeds. And Pierre also found there the acrid scent of the large

box-shrubs growing in the old central fountain basin, which had been

filled up with loose earth and rubbish.

On those luminous October mornings, full of such tender and penetrating

charm, the spot was one where all the joy of living might well be

savoured, but Pierre brought thither his northern dreaminess, his concern

for suffering, his steadfast feeling of compassion, which rendered yet

sweeter the caress of the sunlight pervading that atmosphere of love. He

seated himself against the right-hand wall on a fragment of a fallen

column over which a huge laurel cast a deep-black shadow, fresh and

aromatic. In the antique greenish sarcophagus beside him, on which fauns

offered violence to nymphs, the streamlet of water trickling from the

mask incrusted in the wall, set the unchanging music of its crystal note,