‘No, no,’ said the Jesuit, ‘next to nothing. Each in his turn will be the victim of the event he seems to control. It is not the riven tree carried along by the current that directs the stream. It is to human passions and their working we must look, to see the issue out of these troubles. Once men emerge out of the storm-tossed ocean of their excesses, they strain their eyes to catch some haven—some resting-place. Some find it in religion; some in ambition, which is the religion of this world. The crime of France has been that no such goal has ever existed. In their lust to destroy, they have forfeited the power to rebuild. As well endeavour to reanimate the cold corpses beneath the guillotine as revive that glorious monarchy. For men like these there is no hope—no hereafter. Have no trust in them.’
‘But you yourself told me,’ cried the Cardinal, ‘how vain it were to pledge men to the cause of the Church.’
‘And truly did I say so. Men will serve no cause but that which secures them a safe recompense. In France they have that recompense—there is vengeance and there is pillage; but both will be exhausted after a time—there will be satiety for one and starvation for the other, and then woe to those who spirited them on to this pursuit. The convulsion in Ireland, if it should come, need not have this peril; there, there is a race to expel and a heresy to exterminate; in both the prospect of the future is implied. Let us aid this project.’
‘Ah! it is your old project lurs there,’ cried the Cardinal; ‘I see a glimpse of it already; but what a dream is the restoration of that house!’
‘Nor do I mean it should be more; the phantom of a Stuart in the procession is all I ask for. By that dynasty the Church is typified. Instead of encountering the thousand enemies of a faith, we rally to us the adherents of a monarchy. If we build up this throne, he who sits on it is our viceroy; we have made, and can unmake him.’
‘And how can the Cardinal York serve these plans?’
‘I never intended that he should; his gown alone would exempt him, even had he—which he has not—personal qualities for such a cause.’
‘Yet with him the race is extinct.’
‘Of that I am not so certain, and it is precisely the point on which I want to confer with you.’ So saying, the Père drew a packet of papers from the breast of his robe, and placed it on the table. ‘I have there beneath my hand, said he, ‘the copy of a marriage certificate between Charles Edward, Prince of Wales, and Grace Géraldine, of Cappa Glyn, County Kildare, Ireland. It is formally drawn up, dated, signed, and witnessed with due accuracy. The Father Ignatius, in whose hand the document is, is dead; but there are many alive who could recognise his writing. One of the witnesses, too, is believed still to be living in a remote part of Ireland; I have his name and can trace him; but even better than this, the Cardinal York admits the fact, and owns that he retains in his possession a last legacy of the Prince for the child born of this marriage.
‘Your Eminence smiles incredulously; but what will you say when I add that the same child was inscribed in our College under the name of Gerald Fitzgerald; was well known to my predecessor, the present Bishop of Orvieto; quitted the College to acquire the protection of the Prince, from which he most unaccountably strayed or was withdrawn, and ultimately reached France.’