“The Christians have always two ways of explaining a man’s sufferings. If he is innocent, his suffering is a test, and if he is guilty, well! he deserved his fate. There he comes!”
Crescentius, the last Roman, was led forth. His head fell, and thereby Rome became German, or Germany Roman—till 1806! In the afternoon the nomination of the new Pope (for one could not call it an election) took place, and Gerbert of Auvergne was made Pope, with the title of Silvester II.
The Emperor sat in his palace on the Aventine, and did not venture to go out, for the Romans hated him. In the little hermitage on the slope of the hill, where his friend Adalbert of Prague, the missionary martyr recently killed by the Saxons, used to live, the Emperor shut himself up with his teacher, the new Pope, Silvester II.
The latter—a Frenchman—had studied in Cordova, where the Caliph had built a university, where Arabian philosophy, itself derived from Greece and India, was taught. In Rheims Silvester has also studied philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and chemistry. He had been Abbot of Bobbio, Archbishop of Rheims and Ravenna, and, after protesting in many ecclesiastical assemblies against the corruption of the Papacy, had himself become Pope.
The excitement caused by the execution of Crescentius compelled him to seek refuge on the Aventine with his pupil, the Emperor. From the cell of the little convent, near Adalbert’s chapel, he guided the destinies of Europe, while at leisure moments he devoted himself to his favourite sciences. For this reason he was reported to be a wizard.
One night as he sat, sunk in thought, at his table, which was covered with letters, the Emperor entered unannounced. He was a tall young man, dressed in an extraordinary garb, a dalmatica adorned with symbols from the Book of the Apocalypse, the Wild Beast and the Harlot, the Book of Seven Seals, and so on.
“Let me talk,” he said; “I cannot sleep.”
“What has happened, my son?”
“Letters have come—warnings—dreams.”