refuge two centuries earlier, yet he was astonished to find them building
on the Aventine a huge dwelling, for which Leo XIII has already given
millions, as if the science of to-day and to-morrow were yet a field
where they might garner harvests. But /cui bono/, when the workmen have
changed, and dogmas are there to bar the road--dogmas which totter, no
doubt, but which believers may not fling aside in order to pass onward?
And finally came the swarm of less important Orders, hundreds in number;
there were the Carmelites, the Trappists, the Minims, the Barnabites, the
Lazzarists, the Eudists, the Mission Fathers, the Servites, the Brothers
of the Christian Doctrine; there were the Bernadines, the Augustinians,
the Theatines, the Observants, the Passionists, the Celestines, and the
Capuchins, without counting the corresponding Orders of women or the Poor
Clares, or the innumerable nuns like those of the Visitation and the
Calvary. Each community had its modest or sumptuous dwelling, certain
districts of Rome were entirely composed of convents, and behind the
silent lifeless facades all those people buzzed, intrigued, and waged the
everlasting warfare of rival interests and passions. The social evolution
which produced them had long since ceased, still they obstinately sought
to prolong their life, growing weaker and more useless day by day,
destined to a slow agony until the time shall come when the new
development of society will leave them neither foothold nor breathing
space.

And it was not only with the regulars that Pierre came in contact during
his peregrinations through Rome; indeed, he more particularly had to deal
with the secular clergy, and learnt to know them well. A hierarchical
system which was still vigorously enforced maintained them in various
ranks and classes. Up above, around the Pope, reigned the pontifical
family, the high and noble cardinals and prelates whose conceit was great
in spite of their apparent familiarity. Below them the parish clergy