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he had seen and learnt since his arrival in Rome, the disillusions, the

rebuffs which he had experienced, all the many points of difference

between existing reality and imagination, whereby his dream of a return

to primitive Christianity was already half shattered. And in particular

he remembered the hour which he had spent on the dome of St. Peter's,

when, in presence of the old city of glory so stubbornly clinging to its

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

spiritual pope. He had that day fled from the furious shouts of the

pilgrims acclaiming the Pope-King. He had only accepted the necessity for

money, that last form of servitude still binding the Pope to earth. But

all had crumbled afterwards, when he had beheld the real Rome, the

ancient city of pride and domination where the papacy can never be

complete without the temporal power. Too many bonds, dogma, tradition,

environment, the very soil itself rendered the Church for ever immutable.

It was only in appearances that she could make concessions, and a time

would even arrive when her concessions would cease, in presence of the

impossibility of going any further without committing suicide. If his,

Pierre's, dream of a New Rome were ever to be realised, it would only be

faraway from ancient Rome. Only in some distant region could the new

Christianity arise, for Catholicism was bound to die on the spot when the

last of the popes, riveted to that land of ruins, should disappear

beneath the falling dome of St. Peter's, which would fall as surely as

the temple of Jupiter had fallen! And, as for that pope of the present

day, though he might have no kingdom, though age might have made him weak

and fragile, though his bloodless pallor might be that of some ancient

idol of wax, he none the less flared with the red passion for universal

sovereignty, he was none the less the stubborn scion of his ancestry, the

Pontifex Maximus, the Caesar Imperator in whose veins flowed the blood of

Augustus, master of the world.

"You must be fully aware," resumed Leo XIII, "of the ardent desire for

unity which has always possessed us. We were very happy on the day when

we unified the rite, by imposing the Roman rite throughout the whole

Catholic world. This is one of our most cherished victories, for it can

do much to uphold our authority. And I hope that our efforts in the East

will end by bringing our dear brethren of the dissident communions back

to us, in the same way as I do not despair of convincing the Anglican

sects, without speaking of the other so-called Protestant sects who will

be compelled to return to the bosom of the only Church, the Catholic,

Apostolic, and Roman Church, when the times predicted by the Christ shall

be accomplished. But a thing which you did not say in your book is that

the Church can relinquish nothing whatever of dogma. On the contrary, you

seem to fancy that an agreement might be effected, concessions made on

either side, and that, my son, is a culpable thought, such language as a

priest cannot use without being guilty of a crime. No, the truth is

absolute, not a stone of the edifice shall be changed. Oh! in matters of

form, we will do whatever may be asked. We are ready to adopt the most

conciliatory courses if it be only a question of turning certain

difficulties and weighing expressions in order to facilitate agreement..

.. Again, there is the part we have taken in contemporary socialism, and

here too it is necessary that we should be understood. Those whom you

have so well called the disinherited of the world, are certainly the

object of our solicitude. If socialism be simply a desire for justice,

and a constant determination to come to the help of the weak and the

suffering, who can claim to give more thought to the matter and work with

more energy than ourselves? Has not the Church always been the mother of

the afflicted, the helper and benefactress of the poor? We are for all

reasonable progress, we admit all new social forms which will promote

peace and fraternity.... Only we can but condemn that socialism which

begins by driving away God as a means of ensuring the happiness of

mankind. Therein lies simple savagery, an abominable relapse into the

primitive state in which there can only be catastrophe, conflagration,

and massacre. And that again is a point on which you have not laid

sufficient stress, for you have not shown in your book that there can be

no progress outside the pale of the Church, that she is really the only

initiatory and guiding power to whom one may surrender oneself without

fear. Indeed, and in this again you have sinned, it seemed to me as if

you set God on one side, as if for you religion lay solely in a certain

bent of the soul, a florescence of love and charity, which sufficed one

to work one's salvation. But that is execrable heresy. God is ever

present, master of souls and bodies; and religion remains the bond, the

law, the very governing power of mankind, apart from which there can only

be barbarism in this world and damnation in the next. And, once again,

forms are of no importance; it is sufficient that dogma should remain.

Thus our adhesion to the French Republic proves that we in no wise mean

to link the fate of religion to that of any form of government, however

august and ancient the latter may be. Dynasties may have done their time,

but God is eternal. Kings may perish, but God lives! And, moreover, there

is nothing anti-Christian in the republican form of government; indeed,

on the contrary, it would seem like an awakening of that Christian

commonwealth to which you have referred in some really charming pages.

The worst is that liberty at once becomes license, and that our desire

for conciliation is often very badly requited.... But ah! what a

wicked book you have written, my son,--with the best intentions, I am

willing to believe,--and how your silence shows that you are beginning to

recognise the disastrous consequences of your error."

Pierre still remained silent, overcome, feeling as if his arguments would

fall against some deaf, blind, and impenetrable rock, which it was

useless to assail since nothing could enter it. And only one thing now

preoccupied him; he wondered how it was that a man of such intelligence

and such ambition had not formed a more distinct and exact idea of the

modern world. He could divine that the Pope possessed much information

and carried the map of Christendom with many of the needs, deeds, and

hopes of the nations, in his mind amidst his complicated diplomatic

enterprises; but at the same time what gaps there were in his knowledge!

The truth, no doubt, was that his personal acquaintance with the world

was confined to his brief nunciature at Brussels.*

* That too, was in 1843-44, and the world is now utterly unlike

what it was then!--Trans.

During his occupation of the see of Perugia, which had followed, he had

only mingled with the dawning life of young Italy. And for eighteen years

now he had been shut up in the Vatican, isolated from the rest of mankind

and communicating with the nations solely through his _entourage_, which

was often most unintelligent, most mendacious, and most treacherous.

Moreover, he was an Italian priest, a superstitious and despotic High

Pontiff, bound by tradition, subjected to the influences of race

environment, pecuniary considerations, and political necessities, not to

speak of his great pride, the conviction that he ought to be implicitly

obeyed in all things as the one sole legitimate power upon earth. Therein

lay fatal causes of mental deformity, of errors and gaps in his

extraordinary brain, though the latter certainly possessed many admirable

qualities, quickness of comprehension and patient stubbornness of will

and strength to draw conclusions and act. Of all his powers, however,

that of intuition was certainly the most wonderful, for was it not this

alone which, owing to his voluntary imprisonment, enabled him to divine

the vast evolution of humanity at the present day? He was thus keenly

conscious of the dangers surrounding him, of the rising tide of democracy

and the boundless ocean of science which threatened to submerge the

little islet where the dome of St. Peter's yet triumphed. And the object

of all his policy, of all his labour, was to conquer so that he might

reign. If he desired the unity of the Church it was in order that the

latter might become strong and inexpugnable in the contest which he

foresaw. If he preached conciliation, granting concessions in matters of

form, tolerating audacious actions on the part of American bishops, it

was because he deeply and secretly feared the dislocation of the Church,

some sudden schism which might hasten disaster. And this fear explained

his returning affection for the people, the concern which he displayed

respecting socialism, and the Christian solution which he offered to the

woes of earthly life. As Caesar was stricken low, was not the long

contest for possession of the people over, and would not the people, the

great silent multitude, speak out, and give itself to him, the Pope? He

had begun experiments with France, forsaking the lost cause of the

monarchy and recognising the Republic which he hoped might prove strong

and victorious, for in spite of everything France remained the eldest

daughter of the Church, the only Catholic nation which yet possessed

sufficient strength to restore the temporal power at some propitious

moment. And briefly Leo's desire was to reign. To reign by the support of

France since it seemed impossible to do so by the support of Germany! To

reign by the support of the people, since the people was now becoming the

master, the bestower of thrones! To reign by means even of an Italian

Republic, if only that Republic could wrest Rome from the House of Savoy

and restore her to him, a federal Republic which would make him President

of the United States of Italy pending the time when he should be

President of the United States of Europe! To reign in spite of everybody

and everything, such was his ambition, to reign over the world, even as

Augustus had reigned, Augustus whose devouring blood alone upheld this

expiring old man, yet so stubbornly clinging to power!

"And another crime of yours, my son," resumed Leo XIII, "is that you have

dared to ask for a new religion. That is impious, blasphemous,

sacrilegious. There is but one religion in the world, our Holy Catholic

Apostolic and Roman Religion, apart from which there can be but darkness

and damnation. I quite understand that what you mean to imply is a return

to early Christianity. But the error of so-called Protestantism, so

culpable and so deplorable in its consequences, never had any other

pretext. As soon as one departs from the strict observance of dogma and

absolute respect for tradition one sinks into the most frightful

precipices.... Ah! schism, schism, my son, is a crime beyond

forgiveness, an assassination of the true God, a device of the loathsome

Beast of Temptation which Hell sends into the world to work the ruin of

the faithful! If your book contained nothing beyond those words 'a new

religion,' it would be necessary to destroy and burn it like so much

poison fatal in its effects upon the human soul."

He continued at length on this subject, while Pierre recalled what Don

Vigilio had told him of those all-powerful Jesuits who at the Vatican as

elsewhere remained in the background, secretly but none the less

decisively governing the Church. Was it true then that this pope, whose

opportunist tendencies were so freely displayed, was one of them, a mere

docile instrument in their hands, though he fancied himself penetrated

with the doctrines of St. Thomas Aquinas? In any case, like them he

compounded with the century, made approaches to the world, and was

willing to flatter it in order that he might possess it. Never before had

Pierre so cruelly realised that the Church was now so reduced that she

could only live by dint of concessions and diplomacy. And he could at

last distinctly picture that Roman clergy which at first is so difficult

of comprehension to a French priest, that Government of the Church,

represented by the pope, the cardinals, and the prelates, whom the Deity

has appointed to govern and administer His mundane possessions--mankind

and the earth. They begin by setting that very Deity on one side, in the

depths of the tabernacle, and impose whatever dogmas they please as so

many essential truths. That the Deity exists is evident, since they

govern in His name which is sufficient for everything. And being by

virtue of their charge the masters, if they consent to sign covenants,

Concordats, it is only as matters of form; they do not observe them, and

never yield to anything but force, always reserving the principle of

their absolute sovereignty which must some day finally triumph. Pending

that day's arrival, they act as diplomatists, slowly carrying on their

work of conquest as the Deity's functionaries; and religion is but the

public homage which they pay to the Deity, and which they organise with

all the pomp and magnificence that is likely to influence the multitude.

Their only object is to enrapture and conquer mankind in order that the

latter may submit to the rule of the Deity, that is the rule of

themselves, since they are the Deity's visible representatives, expressly

delegated to govern the world. In a word, they straightway descend from

Roman law, they are still but the offspring of the old pagan soul of

Rome, and if they have lasted until now and if they rely on lasting for

ever, until the awaited hour when the empire of the world shall be

restored to them, it is because they are the direct heirs of the

purple-robed Caesars, the uninterrupted and living progeny of the blood

of Augustus.

And thereupon Pierre felt ashamed of his tears. Ah! those poor nerves of

his, that outburst of sentiment and enthusiasm to which he had given way!

His very modesty was appalled, for he felt as if he had exhibited his

soul in utter nakedness. And so uselessly too, in that room where nothing