my Catholicism. In Italy, your own home, you are overthrown already; how long will it be before intelligent France shapes her course to the wind? What will become of the Papacy, disestablished, disendowed, exiled, torn by schism and beaten by a rival who sits in its seat and flourishes in its place? Therefore beware! You leave the kingdom this night because you have provoked Beatrice Pisa-Vitri. Submit to her, and she may pardon you. But if you provoke me too, I will see that she does not pardon you, and that you never come back.’
The cardinal resumed his seat amid a chilling silence, followed by a low murmur of disapprobation, as the gravity of the situation forced itself upon the minds of his hearers. The pontiff alone remained unruffled and absorbed in deep thought. Presently he rose, and, holding up his hand for silence among the murmurers, said gently,—
‘Be not disturbed, brethren, by the over-zeal of his Eminence our nuncio to England, but rather lay to heart those discreet words of Gamaliel, ‘If this counsel or this work be of men, it will be overthrown; but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it, lest haply ye be found godfighters.’ We may accept it as certain, that if in the future the Catholic Church is to bear rule at all, it must be a rule by love.’
‘Are we to understand, then,’ inquired the French prelate, ‘that this startling heresy—so it seems to us—commends itself to the approval of your Holiness?’
‘It is too great a question to decide off-hand, Monseigneur de Rheims,’ replied the Pope; ‘it will be necessary to convoke an Æcumenical Council. We have now to meet the exigencies of the day, and there are but three hours for our preparations. I salute you, brethren; the audience is at an end.’
No more questions were asked, but the assembly, quite taken aback by the turn of affairs, regarded the pontiff in
