Faustina, is gone these many years, and others of the older and graver
sort have learned the great secret from the lips of death.

But there have been other and greater deaths, beside which the mortality
of a whole society of noblemen sinks into insignificance. An empire is
dead and another has arisen in the din of a vast war, begotten in
bloodshed, brought forth in strife, baptized with fire. The France we
knew is gone, and the French Republic writes "Liberty, Fraternity,
Equality" in great red letters above the gate of its habitation, which
within is yet hung with mourning. Out of the nest of kings and princes
and princelings, and of all manner of rulers great and small, rises the
solitary eagle of the new German Empire and hangs on black wings between
sky and earth, not striking again, but always ready, a vision of armed
peace, a terror, a problem--perhaps a warning.

Old Rome is dead, too, never to be old Rome again. The last breath has
been breathed, the aged eyes are closed for ever, corruption has done
its work, and the grand skeleton lies bleaching upon seven hills, half
covered with the piecemeal stucco of a modern architectural body. The
result is satisfactory to those who have brought it about, if not to the
rest of the world. The sepulchre of old Rome is the new capital of
united Italy.

The three chief actors are dead also--the man of heart, the man of
action and the man of wit, the good, the brave and, the cunning, the
Pope, the King and the Cardinal--Pius the Ninth, Victor Emmanuel the
Second, Giacomo Antonelli. Rome saw them all dead.

In a poor chamber of the Vatican, upon a simple bed, beside which burned
two waxen torches in the cold morning light, lay the body of the man