must not be too much distressed on that account. This long delay is
assuredly a grace of Providence in order that you may instruct yourself
and come to understand certain things which you French priests do not,
unfortunately, realise when you arrive in Rome. And perhaps it will
prevent you from making certain mistakes. Come, calm yourself, and
remember that the course of events is in the hands of God, who, in His
sovereign wisdom, fixes the hour for all things."

Thereupon Nani offered Pierre his plump, supple, shapely hand, a hand
soft like a woman's but with the grasp of a vice. And afterwards he
climbed into his carriage, which was waiting for him.

It so happened that the letter which Pierre had received from Viscount
Philibert de la Choue was a long cry of spite and despair in connection
with the great international pilgrimage of the Peter's Pence Fund. The
Viscount wrote from his bed, to which he was confined by a very severe
attack of gout, and his grief at being unable to come to Rome was the
greater as the President of the Committee, who would naturally present
the pilgrims to the Pope, happened to be Baron de Fouras, one of his most
bitter adversaries of the old conservative, Catholic party. M. de la
Choue felt certain that the Baron would profit by his opportunity to win
the Pope over to the theory of free corporations; whereas he, the
Viscount, believed that the salvation of Catholicism and the world could
only be worked by a system in which the corporations should be closed and
obligatory. And so he urged Pierre to exert himself with such cardinals
as were favourable, to secure an audience with the Holy Father whatever
the obstacles, and to remain in Rome until he should have secured the
Pontiff's approbation, which alone could decide the victory. The letter
further mentioned that the pilgrimage would be made up of a number of
groups headed by bishops and other ecclesiastical dignitaries, and would