BOOK X. [THE POPE.] As to a court of final appeal, the case has now come

before the Pope, Guido having claimed "benefit of clergy." The Supreme Pontiff has made a prolonged study of the evidence adduced on the trials, and of the whole circumstances surrounding the case; now he has to decide the fate of the Count and his accomplices in the murder. And that he may give judgment without bias, in the sight of God and of the world, he nerves himself for the task by recalling the history of his predecessors in the Chair of Peter who have, from the Apostle up to Alexander, the last Pope, dared and suffered. How judged this one, how decided that? did he well or ill? He remembers that no infallibility attaches to such a decision as he must give in the case in which he is called upon to act: judgment must be given in his own behoof; so worked his predecessors. And now appeal is made from man's assize to him acting, speaking in the place of God. He must be just, and dare not let the felon go scot free. It is not possible to reprieve both criminal and Pope. Guido was furnished for his life with all the help a Christian civilisation could bestow: he had intellect, wit, a healthy frame, and all the advantages of family and position. He accepted the law that man is not here to please himself, but God; placed himself under obedience to the Church, which is the embodiment of that principle, and then deliberately clothed himself with the protection of the Church that he might violate the law with impunity. Three-parts consecrate, he sought to do his murder in the Church's pale. Such a man--religious parasite--proves "irreligiousest of all mankind." His low instincts make him believe only in "the vile of life." He is clothed in falsehood, scale on scale. The typical actuating principle of his life was plainly exhibited in his marriage. He was prompted to that by no single motive which should have suggested matrimony. In this he had sunk far below the level of the brute, "whose appetite, if brutish, is a truth." This lust of money led him to lie, rob and murder; to pursue with insatiate malice the parents of his wife by punishing their child, putting day by day and hour by hour,

"The untried torture to the untouched place,"

goading her to death and bringing damnation by rebound to those who loved her. Ruining the three, he enjoyed luck and liberty, person, rights, fame, worth, all intact; while these poor souls must waste away, be blown about as dust. Such cruelty needed only as its complement, as a masterpiece of hell, the craft of this simulated love intrigue,--these false letters, false to body and soul they figure forth--as though the man had cut out some filthy shapes to fasten below the cherubs on a missal-page. But Pompilia's ermine-like soul takes no pollution from all this craft. It arose that in the providence of God were born new attributes to two souls. Priest and wife--both champions of truth--developed new safeguards of their noble natures. Then does the law step in, secludes the wife and gives the oppressor a new probation. It only induces Guido to furbish up his tools for a fresh assault. He has a son. To other men the gift brings thankfulness; Guido saw in the babe but a money-bag. Even in the deepest degradation of his sinful career he has another grace vouchsafed from God. When he fled from the scene of the murders, he took with him the money which he had agreed to pay his confederates. They came near to his hiding-place, intending to kill him for the gold, but were too late: the agents of the law were too quick for them. He had another chance of repentance. So stands Guido; and this master of wickedness has for pupils his "fox-faced, horrible brother-brute the Abate," and his younger brother, neither wolf nor fox, but the hybrid Girolamo, and

"The hag that gave these three abortions birth, Unmotherly mother and unwomanly Woman,"

and lastly the four companions in the murder, who acceded at once to the crime, as though they were set to dig a vineyard. Then the Pope recalls the only answer of the Governor to whom Pompilia appealed--a threat and a shrug of the shoulder. He has a severe word for the Archbishop, as a hireling who turned and fled when the wolf pressed on the panting lamb within his reach. It comforts him to turn to Pompilia, "perfect in whiteness," as he pronounces. It makes him proud in the evening of his life as "gardener of the untoward ground," that he is privileged to gather this "rose for the breast of God."

"Go past me And get thy praise,--and be not far to seek Presently when I follow if I may!"

Nor very much apart from her can be placed Caponsacchi, his "warrior-priest." He finds much amiss in this freak of his. He disapproves the masquerade, the change of garb; but it was grandly done--that athlete's leap amongst the uncaged beasts set upon the martyr-maid in the mid-cirque. Impulsively had he cast every rag to the winds; but he championed God at first blush, and answered ringingly, with his glove on ground, the challenge of the false knight. Where, then, were the Church's men-at-arms, while this man in mask and motley has to do their work? When temptation came he had taken it by the head and hair, had done his battle, and has praise. Yet he must ruminate. "Work, be unhappy, but bear life, my son!" He turns to God, "reaches into the dark," "feels what he cannot see"; renews his confidence in the Divine order of the universe, but not without a pause, a shudder, a breathing space while he collects his thoughts and reviews his grounds of faith. The mind of man is a convex glass, gathering to itself

"The scattered points Picked out of the immensity of sky."

He understands how this earth may have been chosen as the theatre of the plan of redemption; as he in turn represents God here, he can believe that man's life on earth has been devised that he may wring from all his pain the pleasures of eternity. "This life is training and a passage," and even Guido, in the world to come, may run the race and win the prize. It does not stagger him, receiving and trusting the plan of God as he does, that he sees other men rejecting and disbelieving it, any more than it surprises him to find fishers who might dive for pearls dredging for whelks and mud-worms. But, alas for the Christians!--how ill they figure in all this! The Archbishop of Arezzo--how he failed when the test came! The friar, who had forsaken the world, how he shrank from doing his duty, for fear of rebuke! Women of the convent to whom Pompilia was consigned,--their kiss turned bite, and they claimed the wealth of which she died possessed because the trial seemed to prove her of dishonest life: so issue writ, and the convent takes possession by the Fisc's advice. Their fine speeches were all unsaid--their "saint was whore" when money was the prize. All this terrifies the aged Pope--not the wrangling of the Roman soldiers for the garments of the Lord, but the greed in His apostles. But are not mankind real? Is the petty circle in which he moves, after all, the world? The instincts of humanity have helped mankind in every age; they will do so still. If, because Christianity is old, and familiarity with its teachings has bred a confidence which is ill grounded, the Christian heroism of past times can no longer be looked for, yet the heroism of mankind springs up eternally, and will suffice for all its needs. And now he hears the whispers of the times to come. The approaching age (the eighteenth century) will shake this torpor of assurance; discarded doubts will be reintroduced; the earthquakes will try the towers of faith; the old reports will be discredited. Then what multitudes will sink from the plane of Christianity down to the next discoverable base, resting on the lust and pride of life! Some will stand firm. Pompilias will "know the right place by the foot's feel"; Caponsacchis by their mere impulses will be guided aright; the vast majority will fall. But the Vicar of Christ has a duty to perform, whatever may be in store in the womb of the coming age. With Peter's key he holds Peter's sword:

"I smite With my whole strength once more ere end my part,"

he says. Men pluck his sleeve, urge him to spare this barren tree awhile; others point out the privileges of the clergy, the right of the husband over the wife, the offence to the nobility involved in condemning one of their order, the danger to his own reputation for mercy. He brushes away with a sweep of his hand all these busy oppositions to his sense of duty, and signs the order for the execution of Guido and his companions. On the morrow the men shall die--not in the customary place, where die the common sort; but Guido, as a noble, shall be beheaded where the quality may see, and fear, and learn. He has no hope for Guido--

"Except in such a suddenness of fate. I stood at Naples once, a night so dark I could have scarce conjectured there was earth Anywhere, sky or sea, or world at all: But the night's black was burst through by a blaze-- Thunder struck blow on blow, earth groaned and bore, Through her whole length of mountain visible: There lay the city, thick and plain, with spires, And, like a ghost disshrouded, white the sea. So may the truth be flashed out by one blow, And Guido see, one instant, and be saved.

* * * * *

"Carry this forthwith to the Governor!"

NOTES.--Line 1, _Ahasuerus_: Esther vi. 1. l. 11, "_Peter first to Alexander last_": St. Peter to Pope Alexander VIII., who died 1691. l. 25, _Formosus Pope_ (891-6): he was bishop of Porto, and succeeded Stephen. He had formerly, from fear of Pope John, left his bishopric and fled to France. As he did not return when he was recalled, he was anathematised, and deprived of his preferments. He returned to the world, and put on the secular habit. Pope Martin (882-4) absolved him, and restored him to his former dignity; he then came to the popedom by bribery. (See _Platina_.) l. 32, _Stephen VII._ (The Pope, 896-7): "he persecuted the memory of Formosus with so much spite, that he abrogated his decrees and rescinded all he had done; though it was said that it was Formosus that conferred the bishopric of Anagni upon him. Stephen, because Formosus had hindered him before of this desired dignity, exercised his rage even upon his dead body; for Martin the historian says he hated him to that degree that, in a council which he held, he ordered the body of Formosus to be dragged out of the grave, to be stripped of his pontifical habit and put into that of a layman, and then to be buried among secular persons, having first cut off those two fingers of his right hand which are principally used by priests in consecration, and thrown into the Tiber, because, contrary to his oath, as he said, he had returned to Rome and exercised his sacerdotal function, from which Pope John had legally degraded him. This proved a great controversy, and of very ill example; for the succeeding popes made it almost a constant custom either to break or abrogate the acts of their predecessors, which was certainly far different from the practice of any of the good popes whose lives we have written." (Platina's _Lives of the Popes_, Dr. Benham's edition, vol. i., p. 237.) l. 89, "[Greek: ICHTHYS], _which means Fish_": the letters of this word, the Greek for fish, make the initials of the words Jesus, Christ, of God, Son, Saviour. The fish emblem for our Lord is common in the Roman catacombs, and is still used in ecclesiastical art. l. 91, "_The Pope is Fisherman_": because he is the successor of St. Peter the fisherman, and Christ said He would make Peter a fisher of men (Mark i. 17). l. 108, _Theodore II._ (Pope 898) restored the decrees of Formosus, and preferred his friends. l. 122, _Luitprand_: a chronicler of Papal history. l. 128, _Romanus_ (Pope 897-8): as soon as he received the pontificate he disavowed and rescinded all the acts and decrees of Stephen. Platina calls such men "popelings," _Pontificuli_ (ed. 1551). l. 132, _Ravenna_: Pope John IX. removed to Ravenna in consequence of the disturbances in Rome. He called a synod of seventy-four bishops, and condemned all that Stephen had done; he restored the decrees of Formosus, declaring it irregularly done of Stephen to re-ordain those on whom Formosus had conferred holy orders. (See _Platina_.) l. 138, _De Ordinationibus_ == concerning Ordinations. l. 142, _John IX._ (Pope 898-900) reasserted the cause of Formosus, in consequence of which great disturbances arose in Rome. _Sergius III._ (Pope 904-11) "totally abolished all that Formosus had done before; so that priests, who had been by him admitted to holy orders, were forced to take new ordination. Nor was he content with thus dishonouring the dead pope; but he dragged his carcase again out of the grave, beheaded it as if it had been alive, and then threw it into the Tiber, as unworthy the honour of human burial. It is said that some fishermen, finding his body as they were fishing, brought it to St. Peter's church; and while the funeral rites were performing, the images of the saints which stood in the church bowed in veneration of his body, which gave them occasion to believe that Formosus was not justly persecuted with so great ignominy. But whether the fishermen did thus, or no, is a great question; especially it is not likely to have been done in Sergius' lifetime, who was a fierce persecutor of the favourers of Formosus, because he had hindered him before of obtaining the pontificate." (Platina, _Lives of the Popes_.) l. 293, "_The sagacious Swede_": this was Swedenborg, born at Stockholm 1688, died 1772: the mathematical theory of Probability is referred to here. (See _Encyc. Brit._, vol. xix., p. 768.) l. 297, "_dip in Vergil here and there, and prick for such a verse_": just as people open the Bible at random to find a verse to foretell certain events, so scholars used Vergil for this purpose; _sortes Vergilianæ_: Vergilian lots. l. 466, _paravent_: Fr. a screen; _ombrifuge_: a place where one flies for shade. l. 510, _soldier-crab_: the same as _hermit-crab_. Named from their combativeness, or from their possessing themselves of the shells of other animals. l. 836, _Rota_: a tribunal within the Curia, formerly the supreme court of justice and the universal court of appeal. It consists of twelve members called auditors, presided over by a dean. The decisions of the Rota, which form precedents, have been frequently published (_Encyc. Dict._). l. 917, _she-pard_: a female leopard. l. 1097, "_The other rose, the gold_": this is "an ornament made of wrought gold and set with gems, which is blessed by the Pope on the fourth Sunday of Lent, and usually afterwards sent as a mark of special favour to some distinguished individual, church, or civil community" (_Encyc. Brit._, x. 758). l. 1188, "_Lead us into no such temptations, Lord_": "It is lawful to pray God that we be not led into temptation, but not lawful to skulk from those that come to us. _The noblest passage in one of the noblest books of this century_ is where the old Pope glories in the trial--nay, in the partial fall and but imperfect triumph--of the younger hero." (R. L. Stevenson's _Virginibus Puerisque_, p. 43.) l. 1596: Missionaries to China have always had great difficulty in expressing the word God with our idea of the Supreme Being in the Chinese language. l. 1619, _Rosy cross_: Dr. Brewer says this is "not _rosa-crux_ == rose-cross; but _ros crux_, dew cross. Dew was considered by the ancient chemists as the most powerful solvent of gold; and cross in alchemy is the synonym of light, because any figure of a cross contains the three letters L V X (light). 'Lux' is the menstruum of the red dragon (_i.e._ corporeal light), and this sunlight properly digested produces gold, and dew is the digester. Hence the Rosicrucians are those who use dew for digesting lux or light for the purpose of coming at the philosopher's stone." (_Brewer's Dict. of Phrase and Fable_, p. 765.) l. 1620, _The great work_ == the _magnum opus_: "to find the absolute in the infinite, the indefinite, and the finite. Such is the _magnum opus_ of the sages; such is the whole secret of Hermes; such is the stone of the philosophers. It is the great Arcanum." (_Mysteries of Magic_, A. E. Waite, p. 196.) This is the "Azoth" of Paracelsus and the sages. Magnetised electricity is the first matter of the _magnum opus_. l. 1698, "_Know-thyself_": _e coelo descendit_ [Greek: Gnôthi seauton]--"Know thyself came down from heaven" (Juvenal, _Sat._ xi. 24); "_Take the golden mean_," "_Est modus in rebus_": "There is a mean in all things." (Horace, _Sat._ i. 106.) l. 1707, "_When the Third Poet's tread surprised the two_": "the talents of Sophocles were looked upon by Euripides with jealousy, and the great enmity which unhappily prevailed between the two poets gave an opportunity to the comic muse of Aristophanes to ridicule them both on the stage with humour and success" (_Lemprière, Eur._). l. 1760, _schene_ or sheen == brightness or glitter. l. 1762, _tenebrific_: causing or producing darkness. l. 1792, "_Paul,--'tis a legend,--answered Seneca_": Butler, _Lives of the Saints_, under date June 30th, says: "That Seneca, the philosopher, was converted to the faith and held a correspondence with St. Paul, is a groundless fiction." l. 1904, _antimasque_ or _anti-mask_: a ridiculous interlude; _kibe_: a crack or chap in the flesh occasioned by cold. l. 1942, _Loyola_: St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Order of the Jesuits. l. 1986-7, "_Nemini honorem trado_": Isaiah xlii. 8, xlviii. 11--"I will not give mine honour to another," or "my glory" (as A.V.). l. 2004, _Farinacci_: Farinaccius was procurator-general to Pope Paul V., and his work on torture in evidence, "_Praxis et Theorica Criminalis_ (Frankfort, 1622)," is a standard authority. l. 2060, "_the three little taps o' the silver mallet_": when the Pope dies it is the duty of the _camerlingo_ or chamberlain to give three taps with a silver mallet on the Pope's forehead while he calls him; it is a similar ceremony to that used at the death of the kings of Spain; where the royal chamberlain calls the dead sovereign three times, "Señor! Señor! Señor!" l. 2088, _Priam_: the last king of Troy; _Hecuba_: the wife of Priam, by whom he had nineteen children according to Homer; "_Non tali auxilio_": this is from Vergil's _Æneid_, ii., 519--"Non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istis tempus eget." "The crisis requires not such aid nor such defenders as thou art." l. 2111, _The People's Square_: Piazza del Popolo, at the north entrance to Rome. It is reached from the Corso.