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was his astonishment. Could a more unexpected, startling drama be

imagined? That Pope shutting himself up in his palace--a prison, no

doubt, but one whose hundred windows overlooked immensity; that Pope who,

at all hours of the day and night, in every season, could from his window

see his capital, the city which had been stolen from him, and the

restitution of which he never ceased to demand; that Pope who, day by

day, beheld the changes effected in the city--the opening of new streets,

the demolition of ancient districts, the sale of land, and the gradual

erection of new buildings which ended by forming a white girdle around

the old ruddy roofs; that Pope who, in presence of this daily spectacle,

this building frenzy, which he could follow from morn till eve, was

himself finally overcome by the gambling passion, and, secluded in his

closed chamber, began to speculate on the embellishments of his old

capital, seeking wealth in the spurt of work and trade brought about by

that very Italian Government which he reproached with spoliation; and

finally that Pope losing millions in a catastrophe which he ought to have

desired, but had been unable to foresee! No, never had dethroned monarch

yielded to a stranger idea, compromised himself in a more tragical

venture, the result of which fell upon him like divine punishment. And it

was no mere king who had done this, but the delegate of God, the man who,

in the eyes of idolatrous Christendom, was the living manifestation of

the Deity!

Dessert had now been served--a goat's cheese and some fruit--and Narcisse

was just finishing some grapes when, on raising his eyes, he in turn

exclaimed: "Well, you are quite right, my dear Abbe, I myself can see a

pale figure at the window of the Holy Father's room."

Pierre, who scarcely took his eyes from the window, answered slowly:

"Yes, yes, it went away, but has just come back, and stands there white

and motionless."

"Well, after all, what would you have the Pope do?" resumed Narcisse with

his languid air. "He's like everybody else; he looks out of the window

when he wants a little distraction, and certainly there's plenty for him

to look at."

The same idea had occurred to Pierre, and was filling him with emotion.

People talked of the Vatican being closed, and pictured a dark, gloomy

palace, encompassed by high walls, whereas this palace overlooked all

Rome, and the Pope from his window could see the world. Pierre himself

had viewed the panorama from the summit of the Janiculum, the _loggie_ of

Raffaelle, and the dome of St. Peter's, and so he well knew what it was

that Leo XIII was able to behold. In the centre of the vast desert of the

Campagna, bounded by the Sabine and Alban mountains, the seven

illustrious hills appeared to him with their trees and edifices. His eyes

ranged also over all the basilicas, Santa Maria Maggiore, San Giovanni in

Laterano, the cradle of the papacy, San Paolo-fuori-le-Mura, Santa Croce

in Gerusalemme, Sant' Agnese, and the others; they beheld, too, the domes

of the Gesu of Sant' Andrea della Valle, San Carlo and San Giovanni dei

Fiorentini, and indeed all those four hundred churches of Rome which make

the city like a _campo santo_ studded with crosses. And Leo XIII could

moreover see the famous monuments testifying to the pride of successive

centuries--the Castle of Sant' Angelo, that imperial mausoleum which was

transformed into a papal fortress, the distant white line of the tombs of

the Appian Way, the scattered ruins of the baths of Caracalla and the

abode of Septimius Severus; and then, after the innumerable columns,

porticoes, and triumphal arches, there were the palaces and villas of the

sumptuous cardinals of the Renascence, the Palazzo Farnese, the Palazzo

Borghese, the Villa Medici, and others, amidst a swarming of facades and

roofs. But, in particular, just under his window, on the left, the Pope

was able to see the abominations of the unfinished district of the castle

fields. In the afternoon, when he strolled through his gardens, bastioned

by the wall of the fourth Leo like the plateau of a citadel, his view

stretched over the ravaged valley at the foot of Monte Mario, where so

many brick-works were established during the building frenzy. The green

slopes are still ripped up, yellow trenches intersect them in all

directions, and the closed works and factories have become wretched ruins

with lofty, black, and smokeless chimneys. And at any other hour of the

day Leo XIII could not approach his window without beholding the

abandoned houses for which all those brick-fields had worked, those

houses which had died before they even lived, and where there was now

nought but the swarming misery of Rome, rotting there like some

decomposition of olden society.

However, Pierre more particularly thought of Leo XIII, forgetting the

rest of the city to let his thoughts dwell on the Palatine, now bereft of

its crown of palaces and rearing only its black cypresses towards the

blue heavens. Doubtless in his mind he rebuilt the palaces of the

Caesars, whilst before him rose great shadowy forms arrayed in purple,

visions of his real ancestors, those emperors and Supreme Pontiffs who

alone could tell him how one might reign over every nation and be the

absolute master of the world. Then, however, his glances strayed to the

Quirinal, and there he could contemplate the new and neighbouring

royalty. How strange the meeting of those two palaces, the Quirinal and

the Vatican, which rise up and gaze at one another across the Rome of the

middle ages and the Renascence, whose roofs, baked and gilded by the

burning sun, are jumbled in confusion alongside the Tiber. When the Pope

and the King go to their windows they can with a mere opera-glass see

each other quite distinctly. True, they are but specks in the boundless

immensity, and what a gulf there is between them--how many centuries of

history, how many generations that battled and suffered, how much

departed greatness, and how much new seed for the mysterious future!

Still, they can see one another, and they are yet waging the eternal

fight, the fight as to which of them--the pontiff and shepherd of the

soul or the monarch and master of the body--shall possess the people

whose stream rolls beneath them, and in the result remain the absolute

sovereign. And Pierre wondered also what might be the thoughts and dreams

of Leo XIII behind those window-panes where he still fancied he could

distinguish his pale, ghostly figure. On surveying new Rome, the ravaged

olden districts and the new ones laid waste by the blast of disaster, the

Pope must certainly rejoice at the colossal failure of the Italian

Government. His city had been stolen from him; the newcomers had

virtually declared that they would show him how a great capital was

created, and their boast had ended in that catastrophe--a multitude of

hideous and useless buildings which they did not even know how to finish!

He, the Pope, could moreover only be delighted with the terrible worries

into which the usurping _regime_ had fallen, the political crisis, and

the financial crisis, the whole growing national unrest amidst which that

_regime_ seemed likely to sink some day; and yet did not he himself

possess a patriotic soul? was he not a loving son of that Italy whose

genius and ancient ambition coursed in the blood of his veins? Ah! no,

nothing against Italy; rather everything that would enable her to become

once more the mistress of the world. And so, even amidst the joy of hope,

he must have been grieved to see her thus ruined, threatened with

bankruptcy, displaying like a sore that overturned, unfinished Rome which

was a confession of her impotency. But, on the other hand, if the House

of Savoy were to be swept away, would he not be there to take its place,

and at last resume possession of his capital, which, from his window, for

fifteen years past, he had beheld in the grip of masons and demolishers?

And then he would again be the master and reign over the world, enthroned

in the predestined city to which prophecy has ensured eternity and

universal dominion.

But the horizon spread out, and Pierre wondered what Leo XIII beheld

beyond Rome, beyond the Campagna and the Sabine and Alban mountains. What

had he seen for eighteen years past from that window whence he obtained

his only view of the world? What echoes of modern society, its truths and

certainties, had reached his ears? From the heights of the Viminal, where

the railway terminus stands, the prolonged whistling of engines must have

occasionally been carried towards him, suggesting our scientific

civilisation, the nations brought nearer together, free humanity marching

on towards the future. Did he himself ever dream of liberty when, on

turning to the right, he pictured the sea over yonder, past the tombs of

the Appian Way? Had he ever desired to go off, quit Rome and her

traditions, and found the Papacy of the new democracies elsewhere? As he

was said to possess so clear and penetrating a mind he ought to have

understood and trembled at the far-away stir and noise that came from

certain lands of battle, from those United States of America, for

instance, where revolutionary bishops were conquering, winning over the

people. Were they working for him or for themselves? If he could not

follow them, if he remained stubborn within his Vatican, bound on every

side by dogma and tradition, might not rupture some day become

unavoidable? And, indeed, the fear of a blast of schism, coming from

afar, must have filled him with growing anguish. It was assuredly on that

account that he had practised the diplomacy of conciliation, seeking to

unite in his hands all the scattered forces of the Church, overlooking

the audacious proceedings of certain bishops as far as possible, and

himself striving to gain the support of the people by putting himself on

its side against the fallen monarchies. But would he ever go any farther?

Shut up in that Vatican, behind that bronze portal, was he not bound to

the strict formulas of Catholicism, chained to them by the force of

centuries? There obstinacy was fated; it was impossible for him to resign

himself to that which was his real and surpassing power, the purely

spiritual power, the moral authority which brought mankind to his feet,

made thousands of pilgrims kneel and women swoon. Departure from Rome and

the renunciation of the temporal power would not displace the centre of

the Catholic world, but would transform him, the head of the Catholic

Church, into the head of something else. And how anxious must have been

his thoughts if the evening breeze ever brought him a vague presentiment

of that something else, a fear of the new religion which was yet dimly,

confusedly dawning amidst the tramp of the nations on the march, and the

sound of which must have reached him at one and the same time from every

point of the compass.

At this precise moment, however, Pierre felt that the white and

motionless shadow behind those windowpanes was held erect by pride, by

the ever present conviction of victory. If man could not achieve it, a

miracle would intervene. He, the Pope, was absolutely convinced that he

or some successor would recover possession of Rome. Had not the Church

all eternity before it? And, moreover, why should not the victor be

himself? Could not God accomplish the impossible? Why, if it so pleased

God, on the very morrow his city would be restored to him, in spite of

all the objections of human reason, all the apparent logic of facts. Ah!

how he would welcome the return of that prodigal daughter whose equivocal

adventures he had ever watched with tears bedewing his paternal eyes! He

would soon forget the excesses which he had beheld during eighteen years

at all hours and in all seasons. Perhaps he dreamt of what he would do

with those new districts with which the city had been soiled. Should they

be razed, or left as evidence of the insanity of the usurpers? At all

events, Rome would again become the august and lifeless city, disdainful

of such vain matters as material cleanliness and comfort, and shining

forth upon the world like a pure soul encompassed by the traditional

glory of the centuries. And his dream continued, picturing the course

which events would take on the very morrow, no doubt. Anything, even a

republic was preferable to that House of Savoy. Why not a federal

republic, reviving the old political divisions of Italy, restoring Rome

to the Church, and choosing him, the Pope, as the natural protector of

the country thus reorganised? But his eyes travelled beyond Rome and

Italy, and his dream expanded, embracing republican France, Spain which

might become republican again, Austria which would some day be won, and

indeed all the Catholic nations welded into the United States of Europe,

and fraternising in peace under his high presidency as Sovereign Pontiff.

And then would follow the supreme triumph, all the other churches at last

vanishing, and all the dissident communities coming to him as to the one

and only pastor, who would reign in the name of Jesus over the universal

democracy.

However, whilst Pierre was immersed in this dream which he attributed to

Leo XIII, he was all at once interrupted by Narcisse, who exclaimed: "Oh!

my dear Abbe, just look at those statues on the colonnade." The young

fellow had ordered a cup of coffee and was languidly smoking a cigar,

deep once more in the subtle aesthetics which were his only

preoccupation. "They are rosy, are they not?" he continued; "rosy, with a

touch of mauve, as if the blue blood of angels circulated in their stone

veins. It is the sun of Rome which gives them that supra-terrestrial

life; for they live, my friend; I have seen them smile and hold out their

arms to me during certain fine sunsets. Ah! Rome, marvellous, delicious

Rome! One could live here as poor as Job, content with the very

atmosphere, and in everlasting delight at breathing it!"

This time Pierre could not help feeling surprised at Narcisse's language,

for he remembered his incisive voice and clear, precise, financial acumen