Kingdom of God: the Christian communion of all nations united in one
nation only. "And can the Holy Father disavow me?" he continued. "Are not
these his secret ideas, which people are beginning to divine, and does
not my only offence lie in having expressed them perhaps too soon and too
freely? And if I were allowed to see him should I not at once obtain from
him an order to stop these proceedings?"

Monsignor Fornaro no longer spoke, but wagged his head without appearing
offended by the priest's juvenile ardour. On the contrary, he smiled with
increasing amiability, as though highly amused by so much innocence and
imagination. At last he gaily responded, "Oh! speak on, speak on; it
isn't I who will stop you. I'm forbidden to say anything. But the
temporal power, the temporal power."

"Well, what of the temporal power?" asked Pierre.

The prelate had again become silent, raising his amiable face to heaven
and waving his white hands with a pretty gesture. And when he once more
opened his mouth it was to say: "Then there's your new religion--for the
expression occurs twice: the new religion, the new religion--ah, /Dio/!"

Again he became restless, going off into an ecstasy of wonderment, at
sight of which Pierre impatiently exclaimed: "I do not know what your
report will be, Monseigneur, but I declare to you that I have had no
desire to attack dogma. And, candidly now, my whole book shows that I
only sought to write a work of pity and salvation. It is only justice
that some account should be taken of one's intentions."

Monsignor Fornaro had become very calm and paternal again. "Oh!
intentions! intentions!" he said as he rose to dismiss his visitor. "You