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reigned after the Council of Trent with faith absolute, belief

re-established in its full integrity, the Church saved by pride and the

stubborn upholding of every dogma? Or was it a pope of the decline, such

as Benedict XIV, the man of vast intelligence, the learned theologian

who, as his hands were tied, and he could not dispose of the kingdoms of

the world, spent a worthy life in regulating the affairs of heaven?

In this wise, in Pierre's mind there spread out the whole history of the

popes, the most prodigious of all histories, showing fortune in every

guise, the lowest, the most wretched, as well as the loftiest and most

dazzling; whilst an obstinate determination to live enabled the papacy to

survive everything--conflagrations, massacres, and the downfall of many

nations, for always did it remain militant and erect in the persons of

its popes, that most extraordinary of all lines of absolute, conquering,

and domineering sovereigns, every one of them--even the puny and

humble--masters of the world, every one of them glorious with the

imperishable glory of heaven when they were thus evoked in that ancient

Vatican, where their spirits assuredly awoke at night and prowled about

the endless galleries and spreading halls in that tomb-like silence whose

quiver came no doubt from the light touch of their gliding steps over the

marble slabs.

However, Pierre was now thinking that he indeed knew which of the great

popes Leo XIII most desired to resemble. It was first Gregory the Great,

the conqueror and organiser of the early days of Catholic power. He had

come of ancient Roman stock, and in his heart there was a little of the

blood of the emperors. He administered Rome after it had been saved from

the Goths, cultivated the ecclesiastical domains, and divided earthly

wealth into thirds, one for the poor, one for the clergy, and one for the

Church. Then too he was the first to establish the Propaganda, sending

his priests forth to civilise and pacify the nations, and carrying his

conquests so far as to win Great Britain over to the divine law of

Christ. And the second pope whom Leo XIII took as model was one who had

arisen after a long lapse of centuries, Sixtus V, the pope financier and

politician, the vine-dresser's son, who, when he had donned the tiara,

revealed one of the most extensive and supple minds of a period fertile

in great diplomatists. He heaped up treasure and displayed stern avarice,

in order that he might ever have in his coffers all the money needful for

war or for peace. He spent years and years in negotiations with kings,

never despairing of his own triumph; and never did he display open

hostility for his times, but took them as they were and then sought to

modify them in accordance with the interests of the Holy See, showing

himself conciliatory in all things and with every one, already dreaming

of an European balance of power which he hoped to control. And withal a

very saintly pope, a fervent mystic, yet a pope of the most absolute and

domineering mind blended with a politician ready for whatever courses

might most conduce to the rule of God's Church on earth.

And, after all, Pierre amidst his rising enthusiasm, which despite his

efforts at calmness was sweeping away all prudence and doubt, Pierre

asked himself why he need question the past. Was not Leo XIII the pope

whom he had depicted in his book, the great pontiff, who was desired and

expected? No doubt the portrait which he had sketched was not accurate in

every detail, but surely its main lines must be correct if mankind were

to retain a hope of salvation. Whole pages of that book of his arose

before him, and he again beheld the Leo XIII that he had portrayed, the

wise and conciliatory politician, labouring for the unity of the Church

and so anxious to make it strong and invincible against the day of the

inevitable great struggle. He again beheld him freed from the cares of

the temporal power, elevated, radiant with moral splendour, the only

authority left erect above the nations; he beheld him realising what

mortal danger would be incurred if the solution of the social question

were left to the enemies of Christianity, and therefore resolving to

intervene in contemporary quarrels for the defence of the poor and the

lowly, even as Jesus had intervened once before. And he again beheld him

putting himself on the side of the democracies, accepting the Republic in

France, leaving the dethroned kings in exile, and verifying the

prediction which promised the empire of the world to Rome once more when

the papacy should have unified belief and have placed itself at the head

of the people. The times indeed were near accomplishment, Caesar was

struck down, the Pope alone remained, and would not the people, the great

silent multitude, for whom the two powers had so long contended, give

itself to its Father now that it knew him to be both just and charitable,

with heart aglow and hand outstretched to welcome all the penniless

toilers and beggars of the roads! Given the catastrophe which threatened

our rotten modern societies, the frightful misery which ravaged every

city, there was surely no other solution possible: Leo XIII, the

predestined, necessary redeemer, the pastor sent to save the flock from

coming disaster by re-establishing the true Christian community, the

forgotten golden age of primitive Christianity. The reign of justice

would at last begin, all men would be reconciled, there would be but one

nation living in peace and obeying the equalising law of work, under the

high patronage of the Pope, sole bond of charity and love on earth!

And at this thought Pierre was upbuoyed by fiery enthusiasm. At last he

was about to see the Holy Father, empty his heart and open his soul to

him! He had so long and so passionately looked for the advent of that

moment! To secure it he had fought with all his courage through ever

recurring obstacles, and the length and difficulty of the struggle and

the success now at last achieved, increased his feverishness, his desire

for final victory. Yes, yes, he would conquer, he would confound his

enemies. As he had said to Monsignor Fornaro, could the Pope disavow him?

Had he not expressed the Holy Father's secret ideas? Perhaps he might

have done so somewhat prematurely, but was not that a fault to be

forgiven? And then too, he remembered his declaration to Monsignor Nani,

that he himself would never withdraw and suppress his book, for he

neither regretted nor disowned anything that was in it. At this very

moment he again questioned himself, and felt that all his valour and

determination to defend his book, all his desire to work the triumph of

his belief, remained intact. Yet his mental perturbation was becoming

great, he had to seek for ideas, wondering how he should enter the Pope's

presence, what he should say, what precise terms he should employ.

Something heavy and mysterious which he could hardly account for seemed

to weigh him down. At bottom he was weary, already exhausted, only held

up by his dream, his compassion for human misery. However, he would enter

in all haste, he would fall upon his knees and speak as he best could,

letting his heart flow forth. And assuredly the Holy Father would smile

on him, and dismiss him with a promise that he would not sign the

condemnation of a work in which he had found the expression of his own

most cherished thoughts.

Then, again, such an acute sensation as of fainting came over Pierre that

he went up to the window to press his burning brow against the cold

glass. His ears were buzzing, his legs staggering, whilst his brain

throbbed violently. And he was striving to forget his thoughts by gazing

upon the black immensity of Rome, longing to be steeped in night himself,

total, healing night, the night in which one sleeps on for ever, knowing

neither pain nor wretchedness, when all at once he became conscious that

somebody was standing behind him; and thereupon, with a start, he turned

round.

And there, indeed, stood Signor Squadra in his black livery. Again he

made one of his customary bows to invite the visitor to follow him, and

again he walked on in front, crossing the little throne-room, and slowly

opening the farther door. Then he drew aside, allowed Pierre to enter,

and noiselessly closed the door behind him.

Pierre was in his Holiness's bed-room. He had feared one of those

overwhelming attacks of emotion which madden or paralyse one. He had been

told of women reaching the Pope's presence in a fainting condition,

staggering as if intoxicated, while others came with a rush, as though

upheld and borne along by invisible pinions. And suddenly the anguish of

his own spell of waiting, his intense feverishness, ceased in a sort of

astonishment, a reaction which rendered him very calm and so restored his

clearness of vision, that he could see everything. As he entered he

distinctly realised the decisive importance of such an audience, he, a

mere petty priest in presence of the Supreme Pontiff, the Head of the

Church. All his religious and moral life would depend on it; and possibly

it was this sudden thought that thus chilled him on the threshold of the

redoubtable sanctuary, which he had approached with such quivering steps,

and which he would not have thought to enter otherwise than with

distracted heart and loss of senses, unable to do more than stammer the

simple prayers of childhood.

Later on, when he sought to classify his recollections he remembered that

his eyes had first lighted on Leo XIII, not, however, to the exclusion of

his surroundings, but in conjunction with them, that spacious room hung

with yellow damask whose alcove, adorned with fluted marble columns, was

so deep that the bed was quite hidden away in it, as well as other

articles of furniture, a couch, a wardrobe, and some trunks, those famous

trunks in which the treasure of the Peter's Pence was said to be securely

locked. A sort of Louis XIV writing-desk with ornaments of engraved brass

stood face to face with a large gilded and painted Louis XV pier table on

which a lamp was burning beside a lofty crucifix. The room was virtually

bare, only three arm-chairs and four or five other chairs, upholstered in

light silk, being disposed here and there over the well-worn carpet. And

on one of the arm-chairs sat Leo XIII, near a small table on which

another lamp with a shade had been placed. Three newspapers, moreover,

lay there, two of them French and one Italian, and the last was half

unfolded as if the Pope had momentarily turned from it to stir a glass of

syrup, standing beside him, with a long silver-gilt spoon.

In the same way as Pierre saw the Pope's room, he saw his costume, his

cassock of white cloth with white buttons, his white skull-cap, his white

cape and his white sash fringed with gold and broidered at either end

with golden keys. His stockings were white, his slippers were of red

velvet, and these again were broidered with golden keys. What surprised

the young priest, however, was his Holiness's face and figure, which now

seemed so shrunken that he scarcely recognised them. This was his fourth

meeting with the Pope. He had seen him walking in the Vatican gardens,

enthroned in the Hall of Beatifications, and pontifying at St. Peter's,

and now he beheld him on that arm-chair, in privacy, and looking so

slight and fragile that he could not restrain a feeling of affectionate

anxiety. Leo's neck was particularly remarkable, slender beyond belief,

suggesting the neck of some little, aged, white bird. And his face, of

the pallor of alabaster, was characteristically transparent, to such a

degree, indeed, that one could see the lamplight through his large

commanding nose, as if the blood had entirely withdrawn from that organ.

A mouth of great length, with white bloodless lips, streaked the lower

part of the papal countenance, and the eyes alone had remained young and

handsome. Superb eyes they were, brilliant like black diamonds, endowed

with sufficient penetration and strength to lay souls open and force them

to confess the truth aloud. Some scanty white curls emerged from under

the white skull-cap, thus whitely crowning the thin white face, whose

ugliness was softened by all this whiteness, this spiritual whiteness in

which Leo XIII's flesh seemed as it were but pure lily-white florescence.

At the first glance, however, Pierre noticed that if Signor Squadra had

kept him waiting, it had not been in order to compel the Holy Father to

don a clean cassock, for the one he was wearing was badly soiled by

snuff. A number of brown stains had trickled down the front of the

garment beside the buttons, and just like any good _bourgeois_, his

Holiness had a handkerchief on his knees to wipe himself. Apart from all

this he seemed in good health, having recovered from his recent

indisposition as easily as he usually recovered from such passing

illnesses, sober, prudent old man that he was, quite free from organic

disease, and simply declining by reason of progressive natural

exhaustion.

Immediately on entering Pierre had felt that the Pope's sparkling eyes,

those two black diamonds, were fixed upon him. The silence was profound,

and the lamps burned with motionless, pallid flames. He had to approach,

and after making the three genuflections prescribed by etiquette, he

stooped over one of the Pope's feet resting on a cushion in order to kiss

the red velvet slipper. And on the Pope's side there was not a word, not

a gesture, not a movement. When the young man drew himself up again he

found the two black diamonds, those two eyes which were all brightness

and intelligence, still riveted on him.

But at last Leo XIII, who had been unwilling to spare the young priest

the humble duty of kissing his foot and who now left him standing, began

to speak, whilst still examining him, probing, as it were, his very soul.

"My son," he said, "you greatly desired to see me, and I consented to

afford you that satisfaction."

He spoke in French, somewhat uncertain French, pronounced after the

Italian fashion, and so slowly did he articulate each sentence that one