III
It was with joy that Francis and his companions left Rome. As soon as they had received the tonsure, and prayed together at the shrine of the Apostles, they set out northward by the Porta Salaria, taking nothing for the journey, neither staff, nor scrip, nor shoes, nor any money; but trusting all things to God, whose children they were. At first they passed little farms and inns, and in the distance saw a few flocks and shepherds moving slowly over the plains; but in a little while the houses became rare, and the only sounds were from the larks in the skies. They had drawn their cowls over their heads to protect them from the fierce sun, and the dust rising from their feet covered them with a fine grey powder. But in the gaiety of their hearts they felt none of these things, but were quickened with the joy of their triumph, quickened also with the sense that they were returning homeward, to the hills of Assisi and the sweet air of their fields. Their eyes followed the larks into the skies, and they felt that their own souls sang like that above the earth.
"Praised be thou, O Lord, for our brothers the larks," said Francis; "at dawn they sing to thee, and at noon and at eve; their blithe singing gladdens the heart of man."
Yet in that vast silence the voices of the larks seemed thin and small. There was no motion in the air except the trembling of the heat, and the straight road they followed stretched far away into the distance.
"Where shall we sleep to-night?" said Giovanni.
"Where God wills," answered Francis. "Our brother the body is a cell, and the soul is a monk inhabiting it."
Their faces were thick with dust, and the sweat from their brows traced runnels in it; their lips were parched, and their eyes ached from the dazzling light. On all sides lay the great plains, and no trees rose out of them.
"I thirst," said Angelo.
"Perhaps we shall pass a little stream," answered Francis. "Be not cast down. At evening we shall look back on all that we have suffered for our Lady Poverty, and we shall be glad. It will rejoice us that we have been tried, and have not been found unworthy."
Yet the sun had not declined much from the zenith, and it was long until the evening. Their feet dragged wearily.
"God hath forsaken us," said Giovanni.
"Cast that thought from thee, my brother," said Francis. "Though we perish here in this desert place, God hath not forsaken us. Shall we faint at a little suffering, we who were proud at dawn? Surely we should suffer a little for his sake, who suffered so much for ours."
But they had grown feverish with the heat; they gasped and sobbed, swaying like drunken men, muttering as if in a delirium; and a great fear covered Francis, as he watched them.
"My God," he prayed silently, yet moving his parched lips, "if I have done anything accounted worthy in thy sight, grant that I may suffer for these. Let us not perish utterly."
They sank down one by one beside the dusty road, and the fierce heat streamed down on them: one or two muttered, but most of them lay still.
"My God, why hast thou deserted me?" prayed Francis in a broken voice.
And Egidio, lying delirious upon the ground, looked at him with glazed, unrecognising eyes, and muttered to him:
"Francis, son of Pietro Bernardone, because of thy doubt thou art contemptible, and in no wise worthy of the mercy of God."
And Francis covered his face with his hands, and lay beside his companions.
"If it be thy will, my Lord; if it be thy will."
He felt water sprinkled on his face, and a little wine poured between his lips.
"Who are you who travel in this wise, through the fierce heat, without food or drink, and half naked? If I had not seen you, and come to your aid, you would have perished by the wayside."
The bottle was thrust between his lips again, and he swallowed a good draught; as he swum back into consciousness, he heard the voice of Egidio:
"We are penitents from Assisi, who have been to Rome that the Pope might approve our rule, and we were returning homeward when the fierce heat struck us down."
"From Rome," said the deep mellow voice. "Then you have been travelling on foot through the hot noon. It is wonderful that you got so far. But for my wine you would have lain there till the end of time. Art thou stronger?"
The last words were to Francis, who had opened his eyes.
"Yea. Thanks to thee," answered Francis. "God will reward thee, my brother."
"Doubtless," answered the other. "But who is to pay me for my wine? You be twelve fools, without a wise man among you."
Francis looking about him saw that most of his companions were sitting up eating bread, and looking at him stupidly. All were sick and weary. The stranger who had helped them was a tall young man driving a hooded wine-cart. He had a plump, handsome face, magnificent limbs, and a general air of well-being.
"None of us can pay thee," answered Francis, "nay, not even for thy wine, which was the least part of thy kindness. Shall we pay thee for our lives with our lives? We have given them to God."
"I want no payment," said the young man, ashamed. "See, I shall leave you this other small flask of wine. It hath grown cooler; the sun is sinking, and an hour will bring you to Orte. Yea, indeed I see that you are saintly livers, yet I have called you fools."
"It is right that you should call us fools, my brother," answered Francis. "We are sinful men, who follow the way which God hath shown us, and have no wisdom in worldly things. We are fools for Christ's sake. Yea, we are the fools of God, and by our folly seek to draw men toward him. But thy kindliness and mercy shown to us, my brother, is a good deed, which like a seed thrown in the ground shall flourish and bear fruit. Yea, though thou seest it not. And when thou goest before God at the last, he will take two apples out of his robe, an apple of gold and an apple of silver, and he will speak to thee, saying: 'Lo, here is thy payment for that thou hast succoured my children on earth; these be the fruit of the seed which thou then plantedst.'"
But the young man blushed shamefully.
"Suffer me now to go," he said. "Thou hast made me ashamed. Yet if thou shouldst pray for me, pray also for my beloved, who is called Vanna."
He climbed into his cart, and continued on the way they had come, the bells tinkling upon his mule. And after a little time, when they were rested, they went their own way, with great weariness of body and in silence because they were still dazed and giddy. But coming to Orte, they entered into an ancient ruined tomb, where they determined to abide for that night, and some peasants gave them enough food. Then sitting in the starlight, they praised God for his mercy.
"Surely," said Francis, "he who succoured us was an angel sent from God, for how else could we have been rescued from death?"
And they marvelled that they had not known him for an angel, and with great joy they praised God.
"They were twelve fools," said the young man to Vanna; "but for me they would have perished by the roadside."
"God was good to them," she answered simply; and again he was ashamed.
To LAURENCE BINYON
V
AT SAN CASCIANO
V
AT SAN CASCIANO
Taking a pen from the table, he mended it to his own fashion, and wrote:
"Thomas Cromwell to his most excellent friend, Master William Bates, greeting. I am removed to the farmhouse of La Strada at San Casciano for a short time, having left Florence on account of the great heat and an indisposition of my stomach, caused by a surfeit of raw ham and figs: for it is the custom of this people, when the figs ripen, to make an excursion to their villas, or the farms of their tenants, and having brought with them a number of small hams, smoked and excellently well flavoured, which they cut into thin slices, they sit in the shade of a fig-tree, and make a great feasting. Messer Frescobaldi carried me to such a feast at one of his neighbouring villas, and I, whether from the novelty of the dish, which savours deliciously, and is exciting to the palate, or from a natural intemperance of appetite, having eaten immoderately of figs and ham, and having drunk a vast quantity of wine, was seized on my return to Florence with violent pains and cramps in the stomach, accompanied by much retching and colic. Messer Frescobaldi, having sent for his physician to come to me, I was blooded eight ounces, and am now somewhat recovered, though in much need of rest, and the coolness of the country air.
"But since I am charged with the execution of your business rather than with the recreation of mine own health, let me say that the matter of the Lucca merchants is settled, on the terms mentioned in the enclosed treaty, and such produce as you require will be sent as occasion offers, whether by France or Antwerp, depending upon the state of the rival nations; but in so far as is possible the goods will be shipped at Genoa by the Fuggers, and carried thence to Antwerp, to be reladed at your own charge, and carried to your brother at Boston, or on a ship of the Fuggers' trading with England, in which case they will be delivered to yourself at the sign of the Blue Anchor, in Chepeside. The late ordinances directing that all shrouds shall be made of woollen, and forbidding the export of raw wool out of England, and the question of the staple, have caused much ill-feeling against English merchants, both at Antwerp and Florence; wherefore I think it would be wise to commission the Fuggers to buy for you, and to colour your goods with their name, more especially in the Baltic trade. The same offices will, at your request, be undertaken by Messer Frescobaldi here and throughout Italy, both with the cloth merchants of Florence and the glass workers and silk merchants of Venice; but, in matters connected with your trade with the latter town, Messer Frescobaldi demands that you place a sum of money in his bank, sufficient to cover the charges of the import and the export duty, or, that such moneys as he may advance on your behalf for the payment of these imposts be charged against you at one and a half per cent. above the current rate, so that in the one case he hath the use of your money, and in the other a large interest upon his own. You will easily see by the treaty that I have relinquished to him rather the shadow than the substance of what he desired; but I do feel it my duty to beseech you that in every wise you show him such convenience and fair dealing as you may, without hurt to your own prosperity, since by your acting in this fashion he will be the less likely to repudiate the contract as a cheat devised for his beguiling.
"Returning to mine own affairs. I am the guest of one Niccolo Machiavelli, an honest and courteous man, with much wit, and knowledge of the ancients. He was sometime in the service of the late Republic, but was after suspected, and removed from his office by the Medici faction. Having been racked on a false charge of treason, he retired hither, and by a frugal expenditure hath somewhat mended his fortune, so that he is embarrassed neither by the cares of wealth, nor the vexations of poverty. At first, however, since a republican and popular government considers all the citizens to be its servants, as much through their own duty as from any hope of a fair remuneration, he, having been able to save little of his pay, was in great straits, so that he was forced to rise ere it was light, and spread nets for thrushes and quails, superintend his idle workmen, and busy himself with a thousand trifling cares: wherefore I think it more profitable to serve a tyrant than a free people. He hath now acquired by his own efforts that leisure which his public service and former poverty denied him, so that he can pass his day in pleasant discourse, studying the diverse manners and habits of men, or reading in his library, in which he doth greatly delight. The library itself, in which I am now writing, is a long, airy room, having a pleasant aspect toward the south-west; but it overlooks the courtyard, and one is continually disturbed through the day by the foolish cackle of hens and other farmyard racket. He told me that he chose the room on his first coming hither, whereat his wife made a great clamour complaining that he had taken for his own uses the one serviceable room in the house, which is indeed the truth. She is well looking and I would willingly see more of her; but she is a notable woman, and, as is usual with her sex, occupied all day long by a thousand nothings, whereat I think he is marvellously contented, esteeming himself fortunate in that she differs from the majority of wives, who continually invade the privacy of men, and use our apartments as their own. Set against the walls are great chests of carven and painted wood, which contain his manuscripts and printed books, the Latin poets as well as the historians and orators, besides those Italian authors who have gained an eternity of fame, more especially Dante Alighieri and Petrarch. Here, among this choice store of what the world hath accounted noble in thought or action, we sit far into the night with a flagon of wine between us, and such entertainment as our own wits provide, relishing in our conversation both the sal nigrum of Momus, and the sal candidum which Mercurius gave.
"At first, seeing the ingenious and subtle mind of my friend, I was at a loss to account for his apparent failure in assuring his own fortune; but, knowing him better, I see that his judgment, never at fault in dealing with things afar off, may be perplexed and misled when it comes to bear upon present affairs; being so great in himself he doth sometimes forget of what poor account in Europe are his countrymen to-day. He is at present making a series of discourses upon politics, which he reads in the gardens of Cosimo Rucellai, where the meetings of the Academy are held. It was at one of these meetings, after the company had dispersed, that I first had speech of him; in which traverses, though the chief subject of his discourse is Livy's history of the Roman Republic, he draweth his examples from many sources, and showeth how mankind hath always been prone to the same faults, and in like circumstances will always act in a like manner without regard for the lessons and warnings of the past.
"In the intervals of preparing these discourses against their occasions, and of refining those which he hath read, he giveth much time and labour to the polishing of a little treatise or manual for princes; a work full of seasonable matter, which I have read with much profit and agreement, for he reasons not, as the schoolmen use, from some abstract theory of the universe, with which all events must be forced into harmony, but gathering together the facts of common experience, he derives from the perfect understanding of them the principles of his philosophy; wherefore I say that he hath invented a new science, and added a tenth muse to the choir of Apollo. And to show you the satiric nature of the man, I must tell you, that having dedicated his treatise of The Prince to Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici, in the hope of some advancement and reward, and being disappointed of this hope, in the dedication of his Discourses to Zanobi Buondelmonte and Cosimo Rucellai he says, 'Though I have been mistaken on many occasion, yet certainly I have made no error in offering my Discourses to you. For in this I think to have shown some gratitude for benefits received, and to have abandoned the path habitually trodden by those who make a trade of writing, and whose custom it is to dedicate their works to some prince, to whom, in the blindness of their ambition or of their avarice, and in the pouring out of their empty flatteries, they attribute all the virtues, instead of making him blush for his vices. To avoid falling into that vulgar fault I have made choice, not indeed of a prince, but of those who merit to be princes.... Moreover, historians give greater praise to Hieron, a plain citizen of Syracuse, than to Perseus, King of Macedonia, for Hieron lacked none of the qualities of kingliness, except the name, while Perseus had no other than the kingdom.' So doth he think to repay them for their neglect.
"This satiric quality doth characterise all his writing, whether he be dealing with the sacred or the profane; indeed he doth make no difference between the books of Moses and the books of Livy, but treats both in the same way, as the record of past events; and though God forbid that I should seem to doubt the truth of Scripture, yet it is my opinion that the writings of Moses are not to be apprehended by the plain man, being full of mystery and divinity, which only a clerk can expound. Thus, in one place, after enumerating the great law-givers of old; Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus, and the like, he adds: 'And though perhaps I ought not to name Moses, he being merely an instrument for carrying out the divine commands, he is still to be admired for those qualities which made him worthy to converse with God; but if we consider Cyrus and the others who have acquired or founded kingdoms, they will all be seen to be admirable, and if their actions and the particular institutions of which they were the authors be studied, they will be found not to differ from those of Moses, though he was instructed by so great a teacher.'
"This is either too simple, or too subtile, for men of godly and pious dispositions. Indeed, I think that by indulging his delight in irony he hath made himself distrusted; for the depravity of human nature is such, that, where two interpretations can be put upon words, mankind will ordinarily choose the sense which is evil instead of that which is good. Witness the following, on ecclesiastical princedoms: 'All the difficulties of ecclesiastical princedoms precede their acquisition: for they are acquired by merit or good fortune, but are maintained without either, being upheld by the venerable ordinances of religion, which are all of such a nature and efficacy that they secure the authority of their princes in whatever way they may act or live. These princes alone have territories which they do not defend, and subjects whom they do not govern; yet, though undefended, their territories are not taken from them, nor are their subjects concerned at not being governed or led to think of throwing off their allegiance; nor is it in their power to do so. Accordingly these princedoms alone are secure and happy. But inasmuch as they are sustained by agencies of a higher nature than the mind of man can reach, I forbear to speak of them; for, since they are set up and supported by God himself, he would be a rash and presumptuous man who should venture to discuss them.' It hath a double edge, and though some may be found to declare the intention innocent, since the book is addressed to a relative of the Pope, I would rather infer from that the greater daring of the author. But lest you yourself, who are curious in such matters, should doubt whether the intention be malicious or innocent, I shall explain further his opinions, both in the matter of Moses, and in the matter of ecclesiastical princedoms. For in two discourses at the Rucellai gardens, at which I was present, he returned to these subjects, and said: 'In fact no legislator has ever given his people a new body of laws, without alleging the intervention of the divinity; for otherwise they would not have been accepted. It is certain that there exist many benefits of which a wise and prudent man foresees the consequences, but nevertheless of which the evidence is not sufficiently striking to convince all minds. To resolve that difficulty the wise man hath recourse to the gods.... The Florentines believe themselves to be neither ignorant nor rude, and, nevertheless, Fra Girolamo Savonarola made them believe that he had conversations with God. I do not pretend to decide if he were right or wrong, for one should not speak without respect of so extraordinary a man. I only say, that a great multitude of people believed him, without having seen anything supernatural which could justify their belief; but his whole life, his knowledge, and the subject of his discourses, should have been enough to make them give credence to his words. One must never be astonished at having failed to-day, where others once succeeded; for mankind, as I have said in my preface, are born, live, and die, according to the same laws.'
"And if you, Master Bates, would ask me how it is possible that such matters should be so spoken of, openly, in this country, which licence would not be permitted elsewhere, I shall offer in reply his own words on ecclesiastical princedoms. For he says: 'Certainly, if religion had been able to maintain itself as a Christian republic, such as its divine founder had established, the States which professed it would have been happier than they are now. But how is she fallen! and the most striking proof of her decadence is to see that the peoples bordering on the Church of Rome, that capital of our religion, are precisely the least religious. If one examines the primitive spirit of her institutions, and when he sees how far her practice hath departed from them, he might easily believe that we are approaching a time of ruin or of retribution. And, since some assert that the happiness of Italy depends on the Church of Rome, I should bring against that Church several reasons which offer themselves to my mind, among which there are two extremely grave, and which I think, cannot be denied. First, the evil examples of the court of Rome have extinguished in this country all devotion and all religion, which fact carries in its train innumerable inconveniences and disorders; and as, wherever religion reigns one must believe the existence of good, so wherever it hath disappeared one must suppose the presence of evil. We owe it then, we other Italians, to the Church and to the priests that we are without religion or morals, but we owe them one other obligation, which is the source of our ruin; it is that the Church has always stirred up, and stirs up incessantly, the division of this unhappy country.'
"My mind doth see you, sitting, perchance, in your garden, by the dial, as is your wont after the business of the day is over, and mocking me, that I have found a new prophet. But, indeed, it doth seem so to me, and I am content to sit in his company gleaning the ripe ears of his wisdom. And if I have out-wearied your patience with my praise of him, whose every word hath the force of a deed, let me remind you of a summer day in the garden of your old house at Boston, how we plucked the apricocks from the espaliers, while you read to me the discourses of Sir Thomas More upon Augustine's De Civitate Dei, when, if I did not gape, it was but from politeness and my great respect for yourself. For this man doth stand among his countrymen like a giant in a city of pigmies, overlooking their petty disputations, and reading the future from the mirror of the past. He doth foresee the ruin of the Church, the birth of Empires, the dawn of a new greatness for the world, the emancipation of the peoples from the ecclesiastical tyranny of to-day. He standeth like one prophetic upon Pisgah. He doth see that the world must be freed from this pestilence of monks. He says: 'Our religion, having shown us the truth and the only way of salvation, hath lessened in our eyes the worth of worldly honours.... The ancient religions offered divine honours only to those illustrious with worldly glory, such as famous captains, and leaders of the Republic; our religion, on the contrary, only sanctifies the humble, and men given to contemplation rather than to an active life; she hath placed the summum bonum in humility, in the contempt for worldly things, and even in abjection; while the pagans made it consist in greatness of soul, in bodily strength, and in all that might help to make men brave and robust. And if our religion asks us to have strength, it is rather the strength to suffer evils than to do great things. It seems that this new morality has made mankind weaker, and given the world over as a prey to the wicked.'
"All these sayings have sunk deep into my mind, as you may well perceive by the length of this letter. He hath taught me that, since the conditions of life are always the same, a man who hath strength and wit may rise to the same eminence in these days as the heroes of old time did in the past.
"I have sent to my lord the Cardinal a present of furs, which I pray you see conveyed to him with my humble duty. The cloak of furs is for yourself, and the necklace of amber beads for your good lady. Your advice I follow in my way of life; but, my good Will, sometimes I do regret the old times, when you and I were younger, and fond of wenches; or, perchance, when they were fonder of us. Three things I look forward to seeing next Spring: the fresh face of an English country maid, a Royal pageant on the Thames, and a bank of primroses with the rain on them."
Folding the paper neatly, he addressed it; and taking a sardonyx gem from his finger sealed up the edges with four seals. Then returning the ring to his finger, he considered his small, white, fat hands, pursing up his lips, with a curious air of meditative self-satisfaction. Lifting up his eyes again, after this pleasant relaxation of the mind, he found Machiavelli, who had entered softly so as not to disturb him if he were writing, looking at him with a gently ironic smile; and he started, somewhat annoyed that even for a moment he should have been taken off his guard.
"If you are occupied, Messer, I shall not disturb you. Do not move. I hope that you have asked for whatever you may have desired. Marietta tells me that you have been busy with your correspondence."
"I have also read a little," answered Cromwell.
"Ah, I see! the De Monarchia. I marvel always, Messer, that in spite of the overwhelming evidence of human depravity, men are to be found in every age who base their conceptions of the ideal state upon the hypothesis that mankind is naturally good."
"It is at least certain that each individual considers himself good," Cromwell said.
A light smile was the only reply. Machiavelli wore a long Florentine cloak reaching down to the ankles; loosening it a little he flung the ends back over the arms of his chair, and stretched his legs. His clothes were of the finest Florentine cloth, well-made, but a little worn--black and dark green in colour; he wore a collar of fine linen fitting close about the neck; his cloak was of brown home-spun. Every detail showed a scrupulous care for his appearance, but also a frugality of means. Cromwell, equally sober in his black and tawny, allowed himself little vanities; a gold chain with pendant jewels, and the white lawn collar neatly goffered, as also were the wrist-bands.
"Do you think this treatise a foolish book?" asked Cromwell bluntly.
"Dante was great in everything," answered Machiavelli. "He could not write foolish things; but he could be mistaken in his reasons, and as to the capacity of human nature. His ideal Emperor, his ideal Pope, would be gods, not men. His notion of the Church stripped of its temporal possessions is a chimera. As religion exists to-day, asserting its precedence over the State, or even its opposition to the State, it splits society in two, and divides it against itself. The religion of the pagans was merged in patriotism, and before a greater stability in social affairs is possible, mankind must either return to that ideal, or religion be considered as a matter for every individual to practise as he thinks best."
He spoke with little or no inflection of the voice, resting his chin on one hand. As he sat always with his head slightly bent, when he looked at his companion, with bright eyes under compressed brows, his face had an expression of stealthy alertness.
"Yes," said Cromwell; "if we turn away from Italy, and consider the other nations, we find that in every country the Church has an organisation, powerful and rich, which the State has to bribe; but since the Church has this organisation, acting directly on the mass of the people, and willing to support the State, in exchange for certain privileges and immunities, our princes find it convenient to govern by its help; and since the greater part of government consists of temporary expedients, statesmen will not be led easily to forego this convenience."
"That little book was written when Boniface VIII. sat in the chair of Peter. It is simply a protest against the ambition and arrogant pretensions of the popes. Innocent III. and Gregory VII. could launch their thunders against kings more or less successfully; but the anger of Boniface went out like a flame fallen in water; his selfish lust for power led to his complete downfall, and the victory of Philip. But Philip's victory caused a revulsion of feeling in the Pope's favour, so that Dante, though he hath thrust Boniface into Hell, yet calleth him Christ's Vicar, and doth compare his sufferings to Christ's Passion. Even Philip did not attack him openly, but used covert weapons, Sciarra and all the Colonnesi being his secret allies, and carrying with them the gonfalon of the Church; in what he did openly, Philip used traditional means, as summoning a council, and accusing the Pope of heresy. Still, I say to you that henceforth the great States will war continuously against the Church."
"And how should they attack her? Upon what side is the Church to be assailed?"
"Through the monks. 'The fat bellies of the monks' are become a proverb in Europe. Every people itch with the vermin. They have made the practice of poverty the most lucrative of trades. Their greed, their lewdness, and their obscenity, are the matter of every ballad, and the butt of every wit. And yet they are one of the chief supports of the Church, ever replenishing her treasuries with the offerings of the poor, and the fruit of their traffic in pardon and indulgences."
"I have observed," said Cromwell, "that, though kings have often despoiled the monasteries, such depredations have not increased their popularity; for, though the people do not defend the property of the monks when it is attacked, after a time the weight of their opinion is on the side of the Church, and they accuse the officers of the State of rapacity and harshness, and the King himself of greed."
"The people are too often ground between the upper and nether mill-stones of Church and State," said Machiavelli; "to them both tyrannies are equally hateful. And, also, Messer, the plundering of the monasteries hath nearly always been an act of kingly greed, to furnish the material for war and forge the instruments of a harsher tyranny. But let the King make his people his accomplices...."
He finished the sentence with a smile.
"Yes," said the other slowly; "yes."
He considered his soft, white hands, and pondered the matter as if it were an ordinary question of daily business. His fleshy face with a bright colour about the cheek-bones, the small, pointed nose, the watchful eyes, revealed nothing; but the mere quietness with which he considered the question was, in a sense, a revelation. Lifting his eyes again he spoke quietly.
"I see here," he said, turning the pages of the De Monarchia, "that Dante attributes the great power of the Roman Empire to the direct action of the divine providence. The Empire to him is a thing divinely ordained, and Augustus is the divine monarch."
"One must either attribute all things or nothing to providence," said Machiavelli. "It was the opinion of Plutarch that the Romans confessed their obligations to Fortune by consecrating a great number of temples and statues to that goddess. It was to the courage of her soldiers that Rome owed the Empire, and it was to the wisdom and conduct of her administrators and law-givers that she owed its preservation. If fortune or God rule the world, then man hath no remedy against the evils of his time, and his prudence avails him nothing. I am in part inclined to this opinion, since every day we see things happen contrary to all human expectation; yet, at the same time, man is in some measure free. What I say, then, is this: that fortune is mistress of little more than half of our actions, and man himself is master of all the rest. In all things we may observe the action of certain laws, to which man is subject, but within the limits of which he hath a certain freedom. So, as a sailor, knowing the changes of the tide and wind; how it bloweth from the shore at evening, and from the sea at dawn; and knowing also the mysterious currents in the sea, and the hidden shallows, and the free channels, and the stars by which he is to steer, may bring his venture into port, where one ignorant of these things would suffer shipwreck, the wise man judging of times and opportunities will use caution or courage, as best may serve the occasion. He will prosper most whose mode of acting is adapted to the change of times; but no man is found so prudent as to know how to adapt himself to all changes, both because he is naturally inclined to follow one course, and because having prospered in it hitherto he cannot be persuaded to change. Moreover, fortune is a blind and irresistible force, while the divine providence of Dante is mild and beneficent; and though we have instances of fortune we have none of providence; and to assert that fortune directed the growth of the Roman Empire is to say a childish thing, for fortune creates nothing, it rather destroys; but it is man, adapting himself to fortune, who is the creator. Though we may say that fortune doth in a large measure control the works of man, we cannot say that the divine providence hath inspired or maintained in power, by its singular favour, any people. But every people succeeds or fails according to its wisdom in dealing with events as they occur, and in guarding against all probabilities of mischance."
While he was speaking, his son, Piero, came into the room with some wine for them, which he put upon the table. He was not unlike his father, with a small, close-cropped head and slightly aquiline nose, but the face had the softer outline and delicacy of youth; something in the clean-cut features, the thoughtful brows, and firm lips, reminded Cromwell of a little head of Augustus upon a gem which he had seen at Rome, but even more, of a small head of Caligula, that debased and weaker image of Augustus. Machiavelli smiled, took his son's hand, and talked to him in that spirit of grave banter which is customary with men when they talk to children, and the boy answered him readily enough, with responsive smiles, and laughingly, but yet a little embarrassed by the presence of their guest. Presently his hand was released, and he slipped silently out of the room.
"It is sad when one thinks of the great empires of the past fallen into decay, and all their work perished, so that nothing of them can be said to remain except a shadowy legend and a name."
"Yes, it is sad; but it hath always been so," answered Machiavelli. "Everything is subject to change and death. Do you know these lines of Dante, since you study him?
"'Atene e Lacedemone, che fenno
Le antiche leggi, e furon sì civili,
Fecero al viver bene un picciol cenno
Verso di te, che fai tanto sottili
Provvedimenti, che a mezzo novembre
Non giunge quel che tu d'ottobre fili.'
"They are nothing but a song in our ears. And yet we may comfort ourselves. For I believe that the world has always been the same and has always contained an equal mass of good and evil, but I believe also that this good and evil passes from one country to another, as we may see by the records of these kingdoms of antiquity, which, as their manners changed, passed from one to the other, but the world itself remained the same. There is only this difference, that whereas first the seat of the world's greatness was at Assyria, whence it passed to the Medes, thence into Persia, until finally it came to Rome and Italy, and though no other Empire has followed which has proved lasting, yet now the greatness of the world is diffused through many nations, in which men live in orderly and civil fashion. Everything is subject to change and the vicissitudes of fortune; but passing from change to change all things return more or less to their former state."
"I remember the lines. Tell me, Messer: Dante calleth Virgil his master; do you think the poetry of Dante similar and equal to Virgil?"
Machiavelli moved a little in his chair.
"There is a Virgil by your hand, Messer," he said. "Open it. Look at the print and paper; it was printed at Venice. So I like to read that splendid verse. And yet Dante scarcely seems a poet to be read in print. I should like to possess his works written in a fine, neat, clerkly script, upon vellum, with little illuminations in the margin, angels in vermilion and ultramarine upon a golden ground; initial letters with quaint floral devices woven about them, heraldic monsters, the Gryphon with his car, Beatrice walking by the stream in the earthly Paradise. He chose Virgil as his master because, to him, Virgil was the sole Roman to whom the prophecy of Christ's coming had been revealed by the divine will; because Virgil himself had pictured the state of man after death; and, finally, because Virgil had been the singer of that Empire which Dante so greatly reverenced. The poetry of Dante has nothing of classical proportion; its unity is simply the unity of a philosophical system; its progress is like a pageant. But it is full of a sudden wilful beauty, a delight in natural things, moments of birdlike music when he speaks of birds, as in the lines:
"'Nell'ora che comincie i tristi lai
La rondinella presso alla mattina,
Forse a memoria de' suoi primi guai.'
and when he describes the flight of cranes, or of the lark:
"'Quale allodetta, che in aere si spazia
Prima cantando, e poi tace contenta
Dell' ultima dolcezza, che la sazia.'
It is like that delicate work of the illuminators, full of a kind of homeliness, a clear and luminous beauty; but it is not the same thing as Virgil's lines:
"'.... et bibit ingens
Arcus: et e pastu decedens agmine magno
Corvorum increpuit densis exercitus alis.'
I do not think that Dante is a lesser poet; but he hath not, and never can have, the same universal appeal. He is terrible, full of swiftness, and energy, and hatred; devouring his subject like a flame. No poet hath lines so horrible, so inhuman as:
"'due dì li chiamai poi che fur morti:
Poscia, più che il dolor, potè il digiuno.
Quand' ebbe detto ciò, con gli occhi torti
Riprese il teschio misero coi denti,
Che furo all' osso, come d'un can, forti.'
It is an exultation of hatred, a luxury in disgust, a joy in brutal vengeance which cannot be paralleled. Turn from it to these lines out of the Paradiso:
"'O dolce Amor, che di riso t' ammanti,
Quanto parevi ardente in quei flailli,
Ch' aveano spirto sol di pensier santi.'
and you have some notion of his wide range from tumult into calm. Will you not drink a little wine?"
"This wine is excellent," said Cromwell. "As a rule I find the Italian wine a little harsh; but this is suave and of a delicate flavour. You are a great lover of poetry, Messer. I see that your volumes of Tibullus and Ovid are much worn."
"I carry them out with me when I go fowling, and read them beside the snares."
"I have little time for such pleasures, alas!" said Cromwell. "Yet I, too, have great need of the poets, sometimes. I have read the Commedia closely. Tell me, Messer, since you have spoken of Dante's political principles as enunciated in the De Monarchia, did not they suffer a change in the Commedia?"
"Man's ideals are broken as he hath greater experience of life. Dante, like all enthusiasts, fashioned to his own mind a picture of the ideal state, upon the hypothesis, as I have said before, that all men are naturally good. But if you consider his poem you will find that it is nothing but a record of crimes and their punishment, while even the crystal air of heaven is disturbed by denunciations of evil. His notion that the civil power is of God, and that the Church should be subject to it, is expressed later with even a more vehement conviction in the Paradiso, by Justinian, the supreme legist. In the De Monarchia he says: 'Si romanum imperium de jure non fuit, peccatum Adae in Christo non fuit punitum'; and in the Commedia for having withstood the Empire, Brutus with Cassius still howls in Hell, and 'Piangene ancor la trista Cleopatra.' But, after his years of exile and wandering, he seems to have surrendered his faith in a kingdom, which should be of this world, and sought for justice and the triumph of the good beyond the grave, as so many others have, likewise; for in the next world we shall all be justified. Dante's poem is not like the Æneid, an epic: it is an Apocalypse. The companion of his voyage is less the gentle Virgil, the maiden of the maiden city, than some later St John, continuing his fulminations from Patmos, judging all nations and condemning them. It is only in rare moments that he can speak a tender language as he does of the Florence of an earlier day, standing in peace, sober, chaste, with no houses void of a family; with her nobles in leather jerkins, and their ladies at the cradle, or the distaff, telling their handmaidens the tales of Troy, and Rome, and Fiesole. Such is the manner of poets: to praise times past in preference to the present, and usually without reason. A little later, you will hear Peter condemning his successors, who imitate him in that calling which he followed before he followed the call of Christ, rather than in his later life:
"'Non fu nostra intenzion, ch'a destra mano
Dei nostri successor parte sedesse,
Parte dall' altra del popol cristiano:
Nè che le chiavi, che mi fur concesse
Divenisser segnacolo in vessillo,
Che contra i battezzati combattessi:
Nè ch' io fossi figura di sigillo
Ai privilegi venduti e mendaci.'
Everything in the poem is a condemnation of this world. A sense of complete isolation has overcome the writer. He stands alone, neither Guelf nor Ghibelline, but a party to himself: the first Italian."
He paused, drank a little wine, and smiled tolerantly.
"I, too, began life in attaching myself to a party; and when my party was expulsed I became a Florentine, and now, having considered all the cities of Italy, I am an Italian. But the great mass of my countrymen are still as Dante saw them, split up into numerous factions, weak by divisions, a ready prey to any comer."
Cromwell stroked his chin meditatively and, discreet, said nothing.
"When our dreams have faded, Messer," continued the other, "we can only sit aloof, watching the comedy of life with at best a tolerant contempt, but more often hiding, under a mask of cynicism and sarcasm, the maimed heart that is in us."
The other was a little embarrassed, after a moment he spoke quickly.
"It seems, to my mind, Messer, that Dante's poem hath no progress, no dramatic progress; beyond the pedestrian interest of the scenes described there is no motion."
"Thought can be dramatic as well as action," replied the other; "but I am inclined to agree with you. Consider the poem as a whole system of thought starting from 'the master of those who know' and ending in the beatific vision; consider it, next, as a denunciation of all the lusts and depravity of the world, typified, and made incarnate in historical characters: Francesca, voyaging for ever through the dusky air, on a wind that seems to symbolise her own passion; Ugolino, turning his strong teeth upon that wretched skull: consider, finally, the little illuminations which have made me compare the poem to a missal or a book of hours; the terse phrase, the very simplicity of which bites like an acid, so keen it is. Then, I think, you will see how various was his mind. His poem is like a great life; his words like actions, sometimes terrible and inhuman, sometimes like a mother's tenderness with her child."
Cromwell suddenly broke into a smile.
"Yes, yes, as you say, Messer, it is a whole system of thought. Nay, even more, it is the whole structure of a past age. But how simple! How childish! The people of that time seem to me like a few men gathered together at night round an open fire; at hand is a cheerful warmth, and light, but a few paces away is the darkness full of terrors, and on the borders of darkness are monstrous shadows. They sit crouched about the fire, telling idle tales to beguile their fears, thinking that beyond that little glow of radiance is nothing, whereas, at no great distance from them is such another company round another fire. We have explored the darkness, and now the dawn is beginning."
"Magnus nascitur ordo," said Machiavelli, smiling. "How many ages have said the same thing?"
"But it is here. The new order is born. I am no scholar, Messer, but I have heard Dean Colet and Erasmus. The recovery of the Greeks hath let knowledge like a light into many dark places; the whole political fabric is dissolving, and flowing away into the limbo of dead conceptions. The secular power, which Dante wished, and which you wish, to see established, is here."
"Yes, it is here," answered Machiavelli; "but what is it going to do? Mankind is constantly labouring at an unknown task; and, in seeking to be free, doth often but rivet its own fetters more securely."
"What do you mean?"
"Take as an example the conflict between the senate and people of Rome. Marius having been made the champion of liberty is followed by Sulla the master of reaction; the fight is long, bitter, and when finally the people triumph they find themselves under the absolute rule of one man. Now this results from the fact that men worship the name of freedom, rather than the thing itself; those who fight in the cause of liberty are fighting for their own establishment in power and, being established, they seek to protect themselves, and fortify their position as the central authority; and, having been raised up by the popular voice, they are stronger than the power which they have supplanted; thus it happens that the people warring against their government in the cause of liberty do but increase the power which they have aimed to destroy. The present struggle is to rid the State of the interference of the Church: to found greater States. The popes have destroyed Italy by playing off faction against faction, and city against city, in the hope that by this method they might become supreme over all; but having introduced disorder into every town, and destroyed all civic morality, they have also lessened their own power; for these states and cities were the Church's bulwarks against the invader. Now, whatever may be the issue of present affairs, the Pope must become subject either to the Emperor or to the King of France. This is the nemesis of their policy. The liberty of the State will be achieved, at least in a great measure; but the State being stronger will be more absolute, more tyrannous. The solvent of the new learning, as you call it, will be smiled upon by kings, so long as it doth help them to rid themselves of the Pope; but it will be repressed the moment that it shows any desire to alter or limit the power of the States."
"Yes," answered Cromwell; "but if they once let in the flood, it will be too late to think of building a dam."
"When I was a young man I remember to have heard Politian," said Machiavelli. "But I think that the enthusiasm which began with Petrarch, and continued into my younger days, has died down. It is true that our studies are better organised: we have the academies; but learning in Italy at the present day is rather a polite accomplishment than a serious business. It hath not penetrated the mass of people. To them, the two bases of the social order are still the Pope and the Emperor, as in Dante's day; and they condemn the new learning as tending to overthrow these bases, and so destroy the whole fabric of society. The monks point to Erasmus as the cause of the present troubles in Germany."
"Erasmus doth seem to me to be the one wise man," answered Cromwell. "He steereth a middle course, condemning the fanatics on both sides. It is his wish to avoid any tumult, and merely to further the growth of light and reason; for he is persuaded the whole evil of the time comes from ignorance. Colet, such another man, was persecuted with accusations of heresy, so that he thought well to withdraw himself from the public eye. But neither of these men desired to overthrow the Papacy or to promote a schism; for they thought, if I remember aright, that such methods, with their incidental violence, would only prejudice the cause they had at heart; their aim was to act upon the Church from within, to reform its abuses, to root out this pestilent brood of monks, and to promote a healthy growth of lay opinion. To Erasmus the German schismatics are no whit less ignorant or less intolerant than his old enemies the monks, and equally entangled in the webs of vain theological sophistries. He believes that the great influences are secret, and of slow growth, gradually penetrating all things; and he seeketh to form a party of intellectual men, who shall work within reasonable limits, acting as a new leaven to leaven the whole lump."
"I have little faith in such an influence, except as a preparation for the combat," said Machiavelli. "What I praise in Erasmus is that clearness of judgment, which insists that the Bible should be read as any other book, that each man should go direct to the source, and fill his own vessel; for by that means they will recognise the chicanery, which isolates texts and phrases, and distorts their sense. But not by any gentle methods will the regeneration of Europe come to pass. There is a stir, a commotion of minds, abroad, which is testing the pretensions of the Church, and rejecting them one by one. The sands are shifting beneath the foundations of a structure we thought builded upon a rock; and though as yet the fabric stands, it showeth great rents. So: the Pope and Emperor remain to the majority the bases of the social order, as I have said, and soon it will be perceived by all men that the humanists, in playing with questions of grammar, have trenched upon matters of faith: a crime not serious in itself, but exceedingly grave when after reflection we learn that it compromises temporalities. Men have not yet clearly seen this danger, though a few, perhaps, have suspected it. And, when the reaction against humanism sets in, upon what arm will the humanists rely to defend them?
"They will by that time have created not only a large following, but a temper among the people. I myself, Messer, have great hopes of our young King of England, who hath grown under the influence of men similar to Erasmus. He hath a royal nature, a dominant will, a power not only of making his people's aspirations his own, but that supreme gift in a ruler which can make what is to his own private advantage seem a matter tending to further the public good. Though as yet he be not fully tried, this much I will venture to prophesy of him, that no hindrances in the path he chooses will prevent him, and that no man in his realm of England who fails him once will fail him again."
"You are either very fortunate, or very unfortunate, to have such a prince," said Machiavelli, with a smile. "But humanism is of recent growth in your country. It must be followed by reform. And, if your King hath that quality of true kingliness, which maketh the aspirations of his people his own, would he withstand reaction?"
"I cannot conceive that one of his nurture and character should be found on any side but that of reform."
A light, incredulous smile played upon the other's face.
"It might be politic," he suggested.
But Cromwell protruded his under-lip obstinately.
"I cannot conceive the possibility," he said.
Machiavelli shrugged his shoulders, leaned back in his chair, and looked at his guest over joined finger-tips.
"He hath written against Luther, but rather for the reasons of Erasmus than for those of the monks," said Cromwell slowly. "It is even conceivable that if he once take up the business of reforming the Church in England, he may be forced into a more extreme position; I mean into a denial of the Pope's authority, and a position similar to that of the followers of Luther. In that case, I admit, the war will be between two extreme parties; but it would be difficult to say which he would support, or how far he would be compelled to go. Certain it is to me that he will ally himself with whatever party is likely to serve his own ends, and will not forsake them until they have gained him what he requires. Then, indeed, he may cast aside the tool, which he hath blunted by use, and choose one keener; yet, in reality, he would be but sacrificing the show for the substance; and his vicegerent will always be the man who discerns his will and executes it. Thus, his policy will be consistent, though his ministers change; for at times perhaps, since the people always blame those who surround a prince as the abusers of his confidence, he may find it necessary for him to discard, or even to sacrifice one, whose sole fault is in the thoroughness with which he carries out the royal will, for often in history we read of the sacrifice of a minister in order to lull popular feeling. Witness the example, which you yourself give, in your treatise of The Prince; where you show how Messer Remiro d'Orco, Cesare Borgia having set him over Romagna, by the sternness of his measures soon cleansed it of evil-doers and reduced it to order, for which his master, fearful lest the harshness of his lieutenant should be attributed to himself, rewarded him with axe and block, exposing the severed head in the market-place of Cesena. Thus, though he had himself commanded the severities which his lieutenant practised, he escaped the odium consequent to them, and was hailed by the people as their deliverer."
They sat for a little time, silent, in the gathering dusk.
"Still," said Cromwell thoughtfully, "there must be ways of avoiding the ingratitude of a master: either by the minister imputing to the King openly, and upon every possible occasion, all actions, whether of good or evil; or else by his fortifying himself with powerful friendships, and seeking in every way to gain the voice of popular favour, so that becoming greater than his master he may withstand him."
Machiavelli shifted a little in his chair, and the darkness hid an ironic smile.
To ALBERT HOUTIN
VI
THE PARADISE OF THE DISILLUSIONED
VI
THE PARADISE OF THE DISILLUSIONED
"The final Vale!"
He spoke, and lay silent. The dim figures in the crowded room seemed to slip away from him, his mind ceased to grasp at earthly realities, a thick darkness enveloping it and them; but the frail, wasted body still clung insatiably to life, and answered the phrases of the litany with long quavering sobs. At last it, too, resigned its hold on life. He seemed to see again, for one brief moment, the kneeling cardinals; and then to join some great current of being which swept him away beyond the consciousness of time and space. Gradually another consciousness dawned on him. Upon the golden brown clouds, which seemed to limit his vision, there was projected suddenly a huge grotesque figure; the shadow of a being more or less similar to man.
"Is it a devil come to torment me?" he wondered incredulously.
As the shadow advanced it became smaller; he noticed that it seemed to have talons.
"It is a devil."
But even as he spoke the shadow melted about him, and out of the golden mist came a strange-looking man, with a large, ungainly head, gray hair in rather long straight wisps, and lively intelligent eyes of a clear blue. The figure was absurd, gnome-like, with a pear-shaped stomach. The finger-nails were very long. The stranger bowed, smiling, as he approached, and spoke in a pleasant voice.
"Monsieur, je suis charmé de vous voir. Etes-vous, par hazard, de notre petite planète terre?"
"I am Gioacchino Pecci," he answered.
A livelier interest was apparent on the other's face; the smile became ironical.
"It is curious," he said after a pause. "It is curious that we should have reached the same paradise. On earth, Your Holiness, I was Ernest Renan."
"But is this paradise?" said Leo uneasily. "Je n'ai jamais cru----"
"It is the paradise of the incredulous," answered Renan. "There are many paradises: that state of being which on earth was called hell is the paradise of those given over to animal passions. The paradise of the ascetics is an eternal Shrove Tuesday, with the eternal prospect of an eternal Ash Wednesday; the case of Tantalus reversed and made pleasurable. All good Buddhists have attained Nirvana. The righteous Mahometan is distracted by the charms of innumerable houris. We Epicureans enjoy that moment which is eternity; and every man is justified in his own eyes."
"It is charming," said Leo.
"It is more," said Renan; "it is rational. How puerile is the mortal conception of paradise! Man has imagined a place where virtue is rewarded and vice punished. He believes in it with a passionate conviction, because he is not quite sure. He forgets that virtue must be disinterested, or it ceases to be virtue. If man is capable of a free and unhampered choice between vice and virtue, if the distinction between them be clear and precise, and the reward or punishment entailed by the choice definite and finally revealed, mankind, then, is obviously divided into two parts: the astute and the infatuate. One feels immediately that both the reward and the punishment are excessive; or else that vice and virtue have ceased to exist. However, in mortal things there is always an element of doubt, and perhaps the chief glory of man is born from it. Our choice is not entirely free, the distinction is not absolutely clear, the reward is purely hypothetical."
"Ah, M. Renan," said Leo, "why are you here? You were always a believer at heart; one might almost say a scholastic. You invented a system of doubt, as others might a system of faith; even your doubts were affirmations. Science with you was only a synonym for God, and round it you constructed an hierarchy of saints and martyrs, a church suffering, militant, triumphant. Lucian----"
"He is here," said Renan.
"Lucian," continued Leo, "imagined the soul of Plato inhabiting a paradise constructed after the model of his own Republic. I imagine you projected into that strange future which you announced in your Dialogues Philosophiques."
"Doubt must be systematic," answered Renan; "but there is no need for system in religion. The essence of a creed is in its assertions, not in its arguments. Its arguments are nearly always a series of after-thoughts, of apologies; its reason is always à priori; the very fact that an argument should be considered necessary is blasphemous and heretical. You exaggerate my scholasticism; but there was always in me the nature of a priest, and I could not put away from me my education, as I could put off my ecclesiastical dress. I imported the unction of a priest into the region of philosophic doubt, and by that means invented a substitute for faith. Science, in limiting the field of its researches, has increased the mystery which lies beyond. I became, as it were, the priest of an unknown God; and the first article of my creed was, that perhaps he did not exist at all. 'Sois béni pour ton mystère,' I cried in my Magnificat; 'béni pour t'être caché, béni pour avoir reservé la pleine liberté de nos cœurs.' The Dialogues Philosophiques were written at a time when the whole thought of France was depressed and reactionary. They were a play of intelligence upon contemporary ideas. Progress does not tend to establish a scientific aristocracy at the head of its affairs; science is progressive because it has saturated the commercial classes with its ideals; it has increased production, and economised in by-products. This alliance between democracy and the scientific spirit is the unique characteristic of our age. I think, myself, that society is tending to adopt the Chinese model. Kingship, the State, the present conventions of society, may continue to exist in atrophied and rudimentary forms; but I imagine the whole earth in a few thousand years regulated by examinations and trade-unions, with an effete mandarinate surviving amid the débris of the ancient order, like the solitary column of Phocas in the Roman Forum, or the teeth in an embryonic whale."
"In this paradise," said Leo with an elusive smile, "you have, doubtless, infinite leisure for the discussion of these academic questions."
"Naturally," answered Renan; "and we have a little Academy modelled on the Académie Française. I hope, Monsieur, to have the honour of welcoming you among us, and of replying to your discours de réception; it is an amiable duty which my colleagues have delegated to me. Sometimes; it is what remains of my mortal vanity, Monsieur; I imagine that I have some talent in these things."
Leo had intended to be ironical; but his own vanity was now flattered. One ambition is always left to those who occupy a throne; it is to be considered equal with the great.
"Your response, Monsieur, will be my apotheosis," he replied. "But, tell me, are you become a socialist? Your prophecy of the reformation of the earth on the Chinese model seems to point that way."
Renan smiled.
"No," he said; "the Chinese are not a socialistic nation. They have not the notion of the State which is peculiar to socialism. But they are a nation governed by trades-unions and examining boards; and through the same institutions we may arrive at the same stagnation. Our progress at present seems to follow that direction, because the aim of our materialistic civilisation is to make everything cheap, food, education, state-offices; and its final effect will be to make men cheap, then we shall have large, flat, arid masses of humanity, to whom few luxuries will be possible, and the forms of our civilisation will become stereotyped. As it was with Babylon, Assyria, and Egypt, as it is with China, so it will be with us. Evolution is the progress from homogeneity to heterogeneity; but the process is not indefinite.
"After a race or a nation has produced a great number of diverse personalities, it becomes decadent and tends to produce a single type: the process of evolution is arrested, and the race may either lie dormant for centuries if like the Chinese it has been prolific and exists in sufficient numbers; or, if sparse and scattered like the Phœnicians, they may be completely annihilated by their more vigorous neighbours. Socialism is neither a remedy nor a disease, but it may be a symptom. No society has been free from socialistic groups. Jerusalem had its ebionim; there was the eclectic philosophy of Rome under Nero, the Flavians, and the Antonines; primitive Christianity was communistic, and Neo-Christianity under Joachim of Flora and St Francis was an imitation of it. The Jacobins had communistic notions. The poor, the humble, the oppressed have always been liable to the dreams of millenarism; and the difference between the Maccabean aspiration, which was, according to Daniel, to establish the kingdom of God upon earth, and the aspiration of Robespierre, who wished 'to found upon earth the empire of wisdom, of justice, and of virtue,' is merely the difference of time and place. A beautiful, but intangible vision; a divine inspiration! Like all divine inspirations, alas! it is by its nature impracticable. Imagine a sudden uprising of the proletariate, a vast social movement, an European revolution. Slowly, after its momentary chaos, a new cohesion would take effect. The abstract virtues, from which the movement had had its derivation, would become personified in our most popular legislators; the new constitution would include, beside the disadvantages of an untried mechanism, many errors latent in the old patterns which it would necessarily follow; and we should discover, after a series of futile and extravagant adventures, that the laws which govern society are essentially natural laws, the slow growth of tacit acceptance, and not merely the dusty records of a popular legislating assembly. Mankind does not learn the lesson easily. One revolution engenders another, and eventually the habit becomes ingrained. The history of mine own country, from 1789 through the nineteenth century, a history of revolution, of the conflict between ideals and realities, is a signal and a reminder to the nations."
"You treat Christianity and Jacobinism as cognate ideas," said Leo, after a pause. "There is surely this distinction between them, that one was almost entirely religious, and the other almost entirely political."
"Ah," said Renan, with a deprecating smile, "all religions are political, just as all politics are religious. Christianity with its notion of mankind as a brotherhood, and the Papacy with its notions of a spiritual empire, a suzerainty, over all peoples, have destroyed the ancient conception of the unity of Church and State. The religion of the Greeks was embodied in their laws; and the politics of the Jews, in their religion. The ideal conception of religion as something quite distinct from the State has proved unworkable, if not disastrous. All the churches have had to smite their mystics with the thunders of excommunication, to extinguish the inward light, to restrain the free play of thought. Even the most primitive form of Christianity, the Messianic notion, was purely political. If we are to talk on social questions we cannot separate religion from politics. The distinction between them is artificial; they are merely the opposite poles of a single idea."
"Ah, well!" said Leo, shrugging his shoulders; "the progress of humanity is a chimæra if it ends merely in stagnation. These bleak, arid masses of mankind living without pleasures in their Chinese frugality, what future have they before them?"
"An awakening," said Renan prophetically; "the Kings of Uruk reigning over a decadent civilisation, Sardanapalus foreseeing the stagnation of his people did not dream of a future which they had helped to create. The process of evolution acts in tides; there is a continuous ebb and flow; the seed lies hidden in the ground until the wizardry of Spring calls it forth, and rain and sunlight nourishing it into new life, it ripens for the harvest. Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen. In the ruined palaces of Nineveh the beasts of the desert bring forth their young, and the green lizards creep out from the crevices to sun themselves upon a fragment of some boastful inscription; but the music which echoed in its painted halls, the dancing and the choirs, the great processions of its Kings, its wisdom and folly, its vain desires and failures, its tears and laughter, these have their being still, they move mysteriously in us, a breath would quicken them into life again, we can rebuild them in moments that seem to have all the profundity of time."
"Poet!" said Leo, with a smile creasing about his lean jaws. "The world does not become socialist, it becomes Chinese; our civilisation tends to a variety of forms, becomes uniform, and then again becomes diverse in endless recurrence. Continue, Monsieur, but let us keep within the bounds of our own age. Socialism is a definite political force; and even if it do not triumph completely it must create certain new conditions. I, myself, have condemned socialism in one of my encyclicals. I have denied the sacred right of insurrection. Human institutions, which we may think have survived their usefulness, are in reality only waiting for their transformation, their character is moulded from outside. We may sometimes fail to understand their mission, or to grasp the reasons which impel them to follow certain paths, because these reasons are pale reflections of some unappreciated causes. The world seems to progress, within the limits of natural laws, by a series of unforeseen developments. The future is latent in us; but the force which impels it is hidden."
"Yes," answered Renan; "some internal conscience directs all progress, and is the force which impels humanity on its way. This conscience has a secret action long before it finds a voice. Its influence at first is something subterranean and obscure; its bias is necessarily against the official creeds, but it moves against them slowly, informing them with the new spirit. I like to find this conscience acting through the poorer and humbler classes of the people, the folk who are of the soil, whose faith is something native and spontaneous, whose life and happiness depends upon the sun and rain. It is significant that all the gods were originally agricultural gods, that the history of every nation begins in Eden. To the artisan, the dweller in towns, whose whole life consists in turning out from a machine certain articles of a stereotyped pattern, the universe is simply a piece of mechanism; he is himself merely a machine, or part of a machine, performing a certain number of invariable motions to produce a definite and invariable result. He lacks inspiration, he has no vivid knowledge of the great element of chance which moves, like one of those primitive elemental gods, behind all human affairs, at times compassionate and friendly to man, at times bursting out into a sudden fury of wanton destruction. He demands a fixed wage, fixed hours of work, fixed prices for the commodities which he consumes, the certainty of a pension in his old age. In a world of fluctuations and vicissitudes he demands absolute security. He is confident that he is going to do great things, that he has already worked wonders. With the aid of science and art, which he starves, he is going to make the earth pleasant and beautiful. He is quite confident that in a few generations he will be born in an incubator, and die, without pain, of sheer satiety. For him a fantastic assembly of politicians, removable at his own will, represents Providence and the divine wisdom. Is he less absurd than the savages who employ rain-makers and witch doctors? I do not think so. Clearly he is not a person from whom we can expect any but the most crude and mechanical readings of life; his vague, restless, childish discontent, that hunger for barren and tawdry pleasures which is characteristic of half-educated minds, that lack of intercourse with the great elemental forces of Nature, can issue in nothing but his own mental, moral, and physical damnation.
"For any new readings of life, for any renaissance of art and religion, we must look to the simple folk, who are still close to the breasts of Earth: the folk who of old imagined Apollo as a herd in the service of Admetus; who found Demeter sitting by the well, and comforted her; who, after the vintage had been gathered in, took down the grotesque masks, which they had hung upon the vines to scare the birds and foxes from the grapes, and acted in them, singing the hymns of Dionysos to the music of pipes and flutes. Poetry, religion, love, the three things which quicken life to new effort, are never far from the soil. The great conventional middle-classes, even those heretics from Philistia, the followers of Comte and Marx, the mediocre intelligences whose political principles are communist, and whose religious principles are positivist, these have little influence on the future. Socialism differs from all previous Utopian dreams simply because it lacks their vital energy; it is material and mechanical where the older ideas were spiritual and natural; it is lacking in a sense of morality, in a sense of beauty, in a sense of truth. You will not find the conscience of humanity in any of these creeds."
"It seems," said Leo, "that we do not know where we are going."
"You have said that human institutions are only waiting for their transformation," Renan replied. "An institution represents a need. It has been formed by the spontaneous action of the community; but the moment it has been thus constituted it becomes fixed, and ceases to represent the living, developing forces which deposited it. Christianity at first was perfectly fluid; the teaching of Paul was unsystematic, local, momentary; but Christianity became a religion, not of inspiration but of authority, it crystallised into an hierarchy and perished. In the same way the idyll of St Francis and his companions crystallised into an order, and perished. They exist among us as monuments, these institutions; but the same forces which crystallised them are now dissolving them; the moment they cut themselves off from the stream of life they perished. I do not think that the future will differ essentially from the past. Socialism is simply the cry of the poor against the rich. Dives is well-clad and fares sumptuously every day; no other crime is alleged against him, but these are sufficient to ensure his damnation. Perhaps the maker of the parable saw some peculiar virtue in poverty and suffering, which filled the heart with a spiritual grace, and uplifted it with moral fortitude. Perhaps he saw the wealth of Dives as poverty, as a lack of spiritual experience.
"Socialism, however, does not share this view; on the contrary, it asserts that wealth is the sole condition of spiritual grace and moral fortitude, and it is therefore bent on sharing with Dives the good things of this world. Consequently socialism has against it the two most deeply-rooted of human instincts, the instinct of acquisition and the family instinct; because it denies the right of possession and the right of bequest. How deeply-rooted the notion of property is we can see exemplified in France, where the abolition of the right of primogeniture has not had the effect which was expected of it, even the peasants in certain departments having held out against it. But if the power of bequest were entirely abolished, would people marry? The object for a legalised relation is gone, and the production of our kind becomes subject to the hazard of personal choice. It is possible that the State would have to intervene and make maternity an honourable profession under its own control, and that Plato's ideal of the State as a foster-mother would be realised. This notion has, I confess, a singular attraction for me. The substitution of a stock derived from careful selection of parents for our present inferior stock; the careful breeding of an aristocratic caste, appeals to the imagination, as it shows the State actually realising what has always been its ideal.
"I could wish, Monsieur, that the socialists would form themselves into monastic communities, practising the virtues of obedience and, if not poverty, the community of goods. Yes; they should found a little Abbey of Theleme, and take their whole rule from Rabelais. They would not practise celibacy, but eugenics; and the education of their children would be the same as that devised for Gargantua by Ponocrates. So they would increase and multiply, and the whole earth would be filled with the glory of their names. I fear that, unfortunately, the first verse of what was written above the gate of Theleme would debar many from entering. But grant that this Utopia is possible; it is surely no less possible than the monastic ideal! And granted that a great aristocratic caste would arise, a dedicated folk, surrounded by the decadent populations of helots and hetairai, and that they would be able to gather into their own hands the supreme control of things? what would be the result? They would crystallise into an hierarchy, and perish. They would rule as the priests ruled Egypt, and as the priests ruled mediæval Europe. They would resuscitate the double tyranny of the Church and State in one body. The whole progress of the last four hundred years has been toward individual liberty in thought and word. That ideal would be lost."
"I do not see the necessity of such ideals," said Leo. "I object to socialism because it would mean the absolute tyranny of the State, the despotism of a narrow and intolerant bureaucracy, tempered, as at present in Russia, by a more or less indiscriminate system of assassination. I have not the same objection to the tyranny of one man. A philosopher on the throne, Monsieur, your charming Marcus Aurelius for instance, may rule with wisdom and moderation; but an oligarchy of philosophers, like the Thirty at Athens: hell is naked before them and destruction hath no covering! Such experiments, as you say, infect the people with a lust for revolution. History, the only guide for political prophets, shows us that sudden disturbance of the social order breeds a whole series, whether such a disturbance occur among the ancient Greeks, or the Romans, or the French. The diverse natures of the peoples, the different conditions of the age in which they lived, and of their political methods do not alter the central fact. Humanity in the lump is a beast more terrible than any in Revelations."
"Ah, no!" cried Renan, with a sudden vivacity. "There is the chief glory of the human race. They will sacrifice themselves for an impossible ideal. None of us can contemplate that great tragedy of the French Revolution without feeling cleansed by it. The enthusiasm of the people has a kind of terrible grandeur. In such moments of divine delirium all men assume heroic proportions. We may pity it for its fanaticism; we may pity it for being so easily duped; but it is impossible to deny its magnificent devotion to an ideal."
Leo was unmoved.
"You consider it a great moral movement, Monsieur?"
"Moral because all petty egoisms were obliterated," answered Renan. "Men seemed for a moment to become the incarnations of ideas. Oh, on both sides. Charlotte Corday, Danton, Madame Roland, Robespierre, Desmoulins, Larochejacquelin; each individuality seems to have had its definite mission, each seems to have been equally necessary, equally an instrument of justice."
"You have said, Monsieur," continued Leo, after a pause, "that the socialists would revive in one form the twin tyrannies of Church and State, and destroy the ideal of individual liberty. You have also said that the ancient conception of Church and State was a unity. Would the kind of socialism which you sketch resemble the Greek State?"
"No ancient State, not even Athens, extended to its citizens the liberty which we enjoy," answered Renan. "The State intervened in the private affairs of the citizens; and Athens is notorious for having pursued the philosophers with accusations of impiety. The noble conservative families and the priesthood combined to stifle the new liberal thought. The State, however, was democratic; the people ruled, decided by their votes the policy of the State, and served on juries, or as judges. Socialism condemns democracy: it aspires to govern not by the will of the people, but according to its own interpretation of what it calls scientific principles; and it seems that in its application of these principles, it would be more bigoted and intolerant than the democratic State in Greece ever was."
"Nothing then is permanent, which crystallises into an hierarchy, or is limited by an institution," said Leo. "It seems to me that your gospel is purely destructive. The whole progress of modern science is marked by the ruins of ancient altars; you have freed mankind from all moral obligations in denying that he is a responsible agent, and in showing that he is merely a creature of inherited instincts; you have shown him that his life is no more than a ripple on the water, a sudden stir of wind in the leaves, a momentary light in the darkness; you have denied the God that his heart fashioned as a solace to his grief, a lamp to guide him; you have taught him to seek for the perishable glories of the earth. How will you make him a moral being again?"
Renan smiled.
"Our civilisation is not very deep, Monsieur," he said. "There is always a large inert mass of humanity untouched by the movement of thought. From them we may expect a new religion, a new morality. We have denied and disproved, as you say, so many things, that at last we shall come to the sole reality. We have rendered man's personality vague and mysterious, until it seems scarcely to exist except as a point of development; we must seek deeper for his reality. And in any case, Monsieur, you overrate the value of reason. In my charming walk through life I had sufficient experience to learn that man is not entirely a creature of reason. There are few people without a conscience. The fault of this age is not so much that it is scientific, as that it is mechanical and removed from the contemplation of Nature."
"I have sometimes thought," said Leo, "that the principal hope for religion lies in the fact that the lower classes do not think."
"It is true," said Renan; "religion is some hidden consciousness working toward unknown ends. Mankind is not entirely reasonable; it has a conscience. We can no more say that this conscience is an artificial product of society, than we can say that reason is an artificial product also. The curiosity which is so amusing a feature of the intelligence of cats and monkeys is an earlier stage of the scientific curiosity; and, on the other hand, animals have shown gratitude to their masters, and thus the rudiments of virtue. Man, in recognising his conscience, has developed the abstract virtues of justice, of pity, of unselfishness; it does not affect the main question that his choice between virtue and vice should not be entirely free, nor that the distinction between them should not be always clear. We do not reproach science because it has not yet shown us what course our sun and its train of planets are taking in their journey toward a star in Hercules, nor because it has been unable, by its study of the rapidity and direction of other solar systems, to give to them an approximate fixity in connection with ourselves, to draw what would really be a map of the heavens.
"Oh, Monsieur, man is a naturally moral being, just as he is a naturally curious and scientific being. To him both curiosity and morality are natural needs, and because they are needs they are truths. It is impossible to consider a world which does not act according to a law of virtue, just as it is impossible to consider a world which does not act in accordance with the law of gravitation, or, better still, as an example, a species which has not developed in accordance with the law of evolution; and just as the scientist finds behind all the fleeting appearances and phenomena of the world a basis in matter, so, behind all the phenomena and fleeting appearances of virtue we find a basis in God, And just as an individual is governed by his conscience in regulating his actions, so humanity as a whole regulates its actions by an appeal to some abstract idea of right. Such dramatic crises as the Revolution, and the establishment of the Roman Empire, seem equally the result of a certain slow consciousness working toward perfection; or take the growth of Christianity, which began obscurely and with a literally subterranean movement, is it not an instance of this blind working toward the light. One cannot outrage the collective conscience of mankind with impunity. A sudden outburst of popular resentment like the Revolution, which had been incubating for at least a century, cannot be considered as a mere caprice; can, indeed, only be considered as a revelation of justice. Such outbursts have a purely negative effect upon human progress; progress is the development of a new spirit, not the destruction of an old constitution."
"You offer no constructive policy, beyond the creation of a new spirit. Socialism, at least, pretends to one."
"Socialism is a reactionary force," answered Renan; "and all reactions are bound to be more constructive than a progressive force. Their natural tendency, as I have already said, is to crystallise in a definite form. The spirit of progress is, on the contrary, an intangible if all-pervading thing. It develops spontaneously in a thousand ways, and as it pushes towards the unknown it is impossible for us to predict with any certainty what forms it may assume. Being purely experience, and not a creed, it is liable to be extensively modified or even completely changed by some unforeseen development in any of its parts; a discovery in any branch of science may react upon all, as the progress of palæontology reacted upon history. That is the reason progress seems always to be a purely destructive force. It is only after it has escaped, through imperceptible degrees, into a more or less clearly defined new phase, that we can gauge its value as a constructive force in the last."
"I see with you, Monsieur, the value of democracy and individual liberty," said Leo. "Oh, I am reasonable. The character of a pope is to be found less in the official acts of his reign, than in the temper which he fosters in the Church. The nature of his office compels him to claim the privileges and exemptions which his predecessors claimed. He resigns nothing; but he allows some of his claims to remain in abeyance, refusing to deprive his successors of a power, which, either for reasons of expediency, or through personal dislike, he declines to exercise himself. I came to the chair of Peter under disadvantageous circumstances. The Papal States had been lost, and in exchange the doctrine of a vague empire over spiritual things had been proclaimed. Infallibility was no new thing; but the enunciation of it as an article of faith crystallised a power which would have been of more value, if it had been left indeterminate. I won back much that Pius had lost. I made no use of the instruments which he had forged; I discouraged, rather than condemned, the liberal movements within the Church; my policy was one of insinuation, and, by skilfully leaving certain positions undefended, I gained that they should not be assailed. Alas, Monsieur! you smile at this panegyric of myself; but I have left no one behind who would consider it an honourable office to praise me. The encyclical on biblical studies, and the biblical commission, were perhaps my two mistakes. The glorification of scholasticism was perhaps a mistake; but I rather think it diverted the attention of my flock. However these things may appear in the eyes of the world, my reign was wise, temperate, and resulted in a great increase of power. I recognised democracy and republican principles. I attempted to win the people. I was defeated by the extremists on mine own side."
"An epitaph, Monsieur, not only on yourself, but on your office."
"Perhaps," answered Leo. "We do not know. The dead know so little of what is taking place on Earth."
"On the contrary," said Renan, "voyagers from the Earth are constantly arriving, and we are kept well advised."
"I can imagine a moderately successful issue to my policy if my successor should be a man of tact. Even if institutions be only the monuments of an idea, men must build them; and, in spite of your argument, I think a period of authority, at least of a more correct balance between authority and liberty, is setting in. I have still hoped for the papacy. Comtism, some one said, was Catholicism with Christianity left out. The qualifying clause is perhaps unnecessary. Comtism, socialism, internationalism, are all 'Catholic' ideas. To the Church the name of a nation is merely a geographical expression, it knows no frontiers, no distinctions of race or language, it has no preference for any form of government, being superior to all. The Latin language is for it, a universal tongue, which no sane person could consider inferior to Volapuk or Esperanto. The Church, properly constituted, might draw into itself a great deal of this floating idealism. We might approximate our ideals. You would say, Monsieur, that we were all equally reactionary."
"All synthetic ideas are," said Renan. "Anarchism is in its essence more truly progressive than socialism, because it is for the individual. Socialism implies either that all men are made after the same pattern, that in certain circumstances they will act in a certain manner, or that external influences, education, and environment, will turn out a uniform model. It is an error. If education were all-important, the Church would not have lost ground consistently in Catholic Europe, where the Jesuits have had practically the whole of education in their hands for two centuries. If such a machine as the society has failed, though it was backed by the State, and spoke with a quasi-spiritual authority, one cannot imagine a State department succeeding. Liberty is the condition of development, and education develops, it does not create."
"It is important, however, to control the means of development," answered Leo. "Of course our education would be modern."
"Monsieur, you spoke of an encyclical on biblical studies."
Renan's voice was seductive; Leo made a gesture of impatience.
"It was a mistake," he said quickly. "At certain moments the heads of any organisation are liable to be driven into a false position by their extreme supporters. My policy was to let things take their course; to assimilate what we could of the new spirit, and let the rest die without noise. My condemnation of Americanism was unobtrusive, and I did not condemn the French Liberal priests who were busy with biblical exegesis, because I saw that attacks on dogma do not interest the mass of people; nine Catholics out of ten do not know what they believe in: and if your methods of criticism, Monsieur Renan, had not been advertised by so many fanatics, you would have been read almost entirely for the sake of your style. There is a little man in France now, a little man with the smile and features of Voltaire, whose criticism has rendered the work of all those tedious Germans, and your own, quite obsolete. Our good Ultramontanes wished to persecute him into popularity, and to advertise him by excommunication. They told me he was a heretic. Of course he was. All the Fathers of the Church were heretics. St Paul was a heretic. So was St Augustine. So was St Francis. So were Lamennais, Lacordaire, and Newman. But it is a pity that the world should know it. St Paul's heterodoxy laid the foundations of the Church. St Augustine's heterodoxy, that the sacred writings were not to be taken literally, built it up. St Francis's heterodoxy staved off the Reformation for three centuries. Lamennais and Lacordaire in France, Newman in England, infused new life into our veins. Let us point to the names of our sons and not to their works."
A subtle enjoyment illuminated Renan's face.
"Monsieur, you were always an enigma to me."
"It is simple," said Leo; "the impregnable rock upon which we build is simply the impregnable ignorance of the majority. Do you think that science can alter or influence the emotions of the plain man? It does not touch him. He prefers to accept blindly a creed which he does not understand in order that he may devote himself to the business and pleasures of life. He has no time to pause, to question, to criticise, to select. He aims at euthanasia. His doubts, such as he has, are almost entirely subconscious; and for the sake of his own peace of mind he will attempt to stifle them if they lift their heads. The number of men who can look on life, the whole of life, with a tranquil mind is extremely small; and even these have their moments of failure, weakness, and spiritual lassitude, moments in which life seems a hideous nightmare, in which the individual, grown morbidly conscious of his own being, sees it as no more than an infinitesimal point in the great waste of time and space, the great darkness of eternity, wherein all the worlds at present existing are no more than a shower of sparks.
"Man, that creature of incredible vanity and innumerable petty egoisms, refuses to consider for very long the melancholy spectacle of a world hastening merely towards its death, and carrying with it his whole store of spiritual experience, of poems and philosophies, theologics and sciences, which his forefathers have created, and his descendants shall renew. Therefore, when I considered the future of religion as an indispensable condition of life, and when I imagined further a kind of alliance between the proletariate and mine own Church, I based my calculations principally upon the feet that the great majority of men do not think; indeed, that they refuse to think.
"Creeds may pass away, but the individuality of man changes, if at all, only by imperceptible degrees. Ages of faith and ages of scepticism recur, and give place to each other, with almost the same regularity as the ebb and flow of a tide. The age of Pericles was sceptical, the age of Cæsar was sceptical, the ages of Leo X. and Louis XV. were sceptical; but from age to age the peasant has sate by the fire after his day's work, dreaming the same dreams, and hearing nothing of the world's doubt. He is much the same kind of pagan as he always was. He has seized upon, in a way we cannot understand, the primitive, elementary conditions, which subsist in all religions. You were right, Monsieur, in tracing religion to him. He is its source. Perhaps he has never accepted Christianity; but Christianity has accepted him. Laborious, innocent, stupid, scarcely more human than the cattle, who are literally his foster-brothers, he looks out upon his little world with patient eyes, wondering; and he brings us the fruits of the earth and the bread of life."
"I have said with Voltaire," murmured Renan, "that if a God did not exist we should have to invent one."
Once again a deep, ironic smile creased about Leo's jaws.
"You were perhaps right, Monsieur," he said; "but we should prefer not to tax your ingenuity. The gods invented by science are always afar off; or they sleep, perchance; or they are concerned with their own affairs; in any case they do not hear us when we call to them. I consider our Church capable of a larger growth if it will only remain silent on the question of dogma, which should be left like seed to grow and quicken in the earth. Time will obtain for any dogma a certain measure of tacit acceptance, because truth to the majority is merely something which has been said over and over again. Besides the psychological basis of my calculations, the fact that the majority do not think, there is the political basis. This has entered into a new phase. In the Middle Ages the Church was allied with the State against the people. Its dogmas were enforced by the secular arm. Innocent III. was a kind of suzerain over the princes of Europe. But even here, already, the Church knew upon occasion to ally herself with the people, and threaten a king through his own subjects, by releasing a nation from its allegiance, and troubling its internal peace by an interdict.
"Since my predecessor, the Church has definitely adopted this policy; but with a more subtile and insinuating method. Infallibility relates not only to matters of dogma, but to matters of State, quoad mores as well as quoad fidem. You will remember, Monsieur, that Antonelli addressed a despatch to the Nuncio at Paris, in which he says: 'The Church has never intended, nor now intends, to exercise any direct and absolute power over the political rights of the State. Having received from God the lofty mission of guiding men, whether individually or as congregated in society, to a supernatural end, she has by that very fact the authority and the duty to judge concerning the morality and justice of all acts, internal and external, in relation to their conformity with the natural and divine law. And as no action, whether it be ordained by a supreme power, or be freely elicited by an individual, can be exempt from this character of morality and justice, it so happens that the judgment of the Church, though falling directly on the moral of the acts, indirectly reaches over everything with which that morality is conjoined. But this is not the same thing as to interfere directly in political affairs.' That direct interference we must avoid."
Renan seemed to hesitate before he spoke.
"It may be," he answered, "as you say, that mankind does not progress, but merely revolves. Sometimes I have thought so. But nothing is repeated in precisely the same way. Neither an individual, nor a society, is what it imagines itself to be, in its action upon the world. The Church, as it is considered by its adherents, is something totally different from the Church as it seems to its directors. Every individual, and every age, examines the gospels in a different light and from a different standpoint, just as they examine the movement of the planets, the structure of the earth, the conception of kingship, of the State, even of that most immediate object the body. The life of St Francis seems to spring quite naturally out of the mediæval world, with its crude cosmogony, its notion of the universe as a huge mechanical toy in the hands of God. To such people the story of Joshua commanding the sun was not childish; miracles quite as wonderful were part of their daily lives; and the world for them acted not according to fixed immutable laws, but by the direct interposition of a Providence susceptible to the prayers of man. To us it is different. We cannot imagine a St Francis appearing in the modern world. The Church, Your Holiness, cannot control the new movement, which will either transform or destroy it; but in what will you suffer it to be transformed?
"The evil of infallibility is that it cannot retract, or confess to error. The Pope has been endowed with this fatal gift of infallibility, a personal charisma, and through it he has become an incarnation of the Divine Wisdom, even as the Dalai Lama becomes an incarnation of the Buddha. To the historian, the heretical Pope Honorius, condemned equally by Councils, and by his successors, is sufficient to disprove your claims. But the Church can triumph over facts of history. What it cannot triumph over is the spirit of the age. You have a large body of adherents, who describe themselves as Catholic without knowing what the term implies. You have a smaller, body, whose principal business in life seems to lie in reconciling, by innumerable sophistries and subterfuges, your dogmas with the modern world. The smallest body of all is made up of those of your adherents, who accept you as the sole fount of truth. But in each of these three sections there is not a solitary individual who accepts your teaching without colouring it with his own ideas. Each will explain a dogma from the point of view of his own prejudices, and only accepts it with a kind of mental reservation. Of course it always has been so. Your peril lies in the rapid exchange of ideas which characterises modern life, the ease of communication, and the lack of any effective machinery for preventing their diffusion. The moment any crisis arises you cease to act as a solid body; and the action of your leaders has far less influence upon public opinion than the action of your laity excusing, or justifying, or explaining, the multitudinous diversities which exist among you. If this lay action be not public, it is the more insidious. I have noticed that when any important pronouncement is published from the chair of Peter, your lay apologists make no sign. There is an ominous silence. All are disenchanted. All are suspect. They seem to turn away, silent and troubled, from what they imagined to be the ultimate authority, and seek for their justification at the tribunal of their private conscience."
"Oh!" interrupted Leo brusquely, "I for one do not regret that these gentlemen should be made uncomfortable. A lay theologian has no adequate reason for existing. It is altogether undesirable that laymen, mere amateurs, should concern themselves with these things."
"Eh bien!" said Renan. "It is entirely owing to the laity that a certain type of converts accrues to your ranks. Liberal Catholicism, though you and I know what a vain, chimerical, and ridiculous thing it is, is, as it were, the first step. Take Newman's theory of 'development' as an example. Newman is the prophet dearest to the heart of laymen; because, in a sense, his works are popular. The Anglican may read him as a classic, and, while enchanted with the magic of that exquisite prose, lays himself open to the attacks of a peculiarly subtile and insidious mind. A certain temper is created in him. He becomes receptive of Catholic ideas, and one watches him progressing more or less unconsciously toward Rome, blind to his master's casuistry by reason of the ineffable charm. He is like one implected with a morbid craving for some narcotic drug, gradually increasing the dose as its effect lessens. Liberal Catholics are the lures for such. Your Holiness had good reason for saying that the Church had been founded by successive heresies. The first step to a conversion is always a misunderstanding."
"It is perfectly true," said Leo; "but Liberal Catholicism is finished. Only Newman's hat protects him from censure. The doctrine of development ceased to have any value after the definition of infallibility. It was valuable as leading up to the definition, but afterwards it became an excuse for the introduction of novelties. Its sole value now is as a proselytising medium. But, Monsieur, why do we continue? The Church is dissolving; even Christianity itself seems to be dissolving, to take on a fluid, personal form. That singular body, the Society of Friends, alone seems to be untouched by the solvent of criticism. It has nothing upon which the solvent may act, no dogmas, no sacraments, no depository of tradition, no hierarchical organisation. It recognises only the inward spirit, that informing and subtile essence which alone seems capable of interpreting the righteousness of God, a religion of silence, and of sudden illumination, a religion of patient hope, of resignation, of a tacit understanding."
"Ah," said Renan, smiling, "a religion without forms, without enthusiasms, is scarcely one to satisfy all men. It is fascinating to consider the future of Christianity. After Catholicism no other form will satisfy the Latins, and if criticism destroys Protestantism with its infallible Bible, as it is destroying Catholicism with its infallible Pope, these sophisticated nations will scarcely replace one object of worship by another. You have said that a religion needs an uncritical people, a people who do not think; so for any further development we must turn toward a less complete civilisation, to a virgin soil. Perhaps we find this in Russia. I can imagine that dreamy and unsophisticated people, who have kept unpolluted through the ages the temperament of wonder, reforming and developing the Greek Church. When their Revolution comes, whether it be gradual and humane, or a violent upheaval of disastrous passion, the Church will be metamorphosed; the stock only will remain, and new boughs will be grafted upon it. I can imagine a great growth because the field has lain fallow for so long, and the modern spirit will scarcely touch it, not only because the new Christianity will be more flexible in itself, but also because the people will have inherited our results without having endured our conflicts."
The clouds in front of them suddenly trembled and parted; the figure of a man appeared.
"Mocenni!" exclaimed Leo.
He rose and went toward the newcomer.
"Who is Pope?" he enquired.
And the Cardinal Mocenni answered him in ill-humour.
"Sarto."
For a moment Leo stood, as if doubtful, without speaking.
"Sarto," he said at last incredulously. "Sarto!"
"Well, Monsieur," said Renan, "shall we not continue our discussion on the future of the Church?"
But Leo had taken Mocenni's arm, and the pair walked slowly away.
"Sarto! Sarto!" Renan heard Leo say again, as the clouds gathered about them; and Renan smiled.
"It is clear," he said, "that Sarto is not Leo."
THE END.