certainly pious and even superstitious, but who left the Deity well
sheltered within the tabernacle in order to govern in His name, according
to what they considered the interests of Heaven. Thence it arose that
they employed craft and artifice like mere politicians, and lived by dint
of expedients amidst the great battle of human appetites, marching with
the prudent, stealthy steps of diplomatists towards the final terrestrial
victory of the Christ, who, in the person of the Pope, was one day to
reign over all the nations. And how stupefied must a French prelate have
been--a prelate like Monseigneur Bergerot, that apostle of renunciation
and charity--when he lighted amidst that world of the Vatican! How
difficult must it have been for him to understand and focus things, and
afterwards how great his grief at finding himself unable to come to any
agreement with those men without country, without fatherland, those
"internationals," who were ever poring over the maps of both hemispheres,
ever absorbed in schemes which were to bring them empire. Days and days
were necessary, one needed to live in Rome, and he, Pierre himself, had
only seen things clearly after a month's sojourn, whilst labouring under
the violent shock of the royal pomp of St. Peter's, and standing face to
face with the ancient city as it slumbered heavily in the sunlight and
dreamt its dream of eternity.

But on lowering his eyes to the piazza in front of the Basilica he
perceived the multitude, the 40,000 believers streaming over the pavement
like insects. And then he thought that he could hear the cry again
rising: "/Evviva il Papa-Re! evviva il Papa-Re/! Long live the
Pope-King!" Whilst ascending those endless staircases a moment previously
it had seemed to him as if the colossus of stone were quivering with the
frantic shout raised beneath its ceilings. And now that he had climbed
even into cloudland that shout apparently was traversing space. If the
colossal pile beneath him still vibrated with it, was it not as with a