‘Yes, your Eminence, the Priest Carroll from Ireland has brought me several, and much information besides of events in England.’
‘It is of France I want to hear,’ broke in the Cardinal impatiently. ‘It is of the man in the throes of death I would learn tidings, not of him lingering in the long stages of a chronic malady. Did this priest pass through Paris?’
‘He did, your Eminence; he was two days there. The fever of blood still rages. ‘Twas but Monday week, thirty-two nobles of La Vendée were guillotined, and, worse still, eight priests, old and venerable men, curés of the several parishes. They met their death as became true sons of the holy Church, declaring with their last breath that the sacrifice would bring a blessing on the faith.’
‘So it will—they are right—truth must triumph at last, Massoni,’ said the Cardinal hurriedly; ‘but we are passing through a fiery ordeal; sparks of the same fire have been seen among ourselves too. Grave fears exist that all is not well at Viterbo.’
‘The flame must be trodden out quickly and completely, your Eminence; deal with traitors with speed, and you can treat true men with justice. The Abbé Guescard, whose book on private judgments you have seen, was buried this morning.’
‘I had not heard that he was ill.’
‘It was a sudden seizure, your Eminence, but the convulsions resisted all treatment, and death closed his sufferings about midnight. The doctrines of Diderot and Jean Jacques form but sorry homilies. They who preach them go to a heavy reckoning hereafter.’
‘And meet with sudden deaths besides,’ said the Cardinal, with a glance in which there was fully as much jollity as gloom.
The Jesuit Father’s pale face remained calm and passionless as before, nor did a syllable escape from him in reply. At length the Cardinal said, ‘All accounts agree in one thing, the pestilence is spreading, At Aranguez, in Spain, a secret society has been discovered in correspondence with Des-moulins. At Leipsic a record for future proscription throughout Germany has been found, exactly fashioned after the true Paris model; and even in sluggish England the mutter-ings of discontent are heard, but with them we have less sympathy—or rather we might say, God speed the hand that would pull down the heretic Church!’ ‘Carroll tells me that Ireland is ripe, though for what, it is yet hard to pronounce. The cry of “Liberty” in France has awakened her to the memory of all her hatred to England. Men of great ability and daring are eagerly feeding the flame; the difficulty will be to direct its ravages when once it breaks out. If the principles of France sway them, the torrent that will overwhelm the heretic will also sweep away the faith.’
‘Much will depend upon the men who direct the movement.’