"I am as happy as possible now," I said to several of those good friends who were with me in prison, and who asked me every time they saw me how I got on with the papal theologian. "I am only afraid that, feeling how firm I am, Padre Theiner may discontinue his visits, and tell the cardinals and the pope that every attempt to bring me back to the Roman church is useless."
He had in fact, at his second visit, shown me a letter of the Cardinal-Vicar, in which he appointed him, by the pope's desire, to come to me under the guise of a visitor, to hold conferences with me, and to discover some way of recovering me to the faith.
At the end of each visit, however, I had always requested him to report faithfully everything I had said to him; adding that every day I felt more and more firm and fixed in my purpose; and that if it should please God that I should be released from prison, I should, with the aid of His Holy Spirit, continue my mission with all the more vigour, from perceiving by His having conferred on me the grace of being allowed to suffer six months' incarceration for His name's sake, that it could not be otherwise than acceptable in His sight.
At the same time, I bade him, and the pope and cardinals likewise, to remember, that the persecution to which I had been subjected could not be approved or justified even by Roman Catholics themselves; and that if it had no other effect, it would at least have the most desirable one of ultimately working the abolition of the Roman Inquisition, never more to be restored.
Padre Theiner and I were, on this third visit, in the full fervour of our controversial arguments, when the captain of the castle came to inform me that two chasseurs de Vincennes were arrived to take me to the French Council of War, to give evidence in the trial of Signor Cernuschi, Deputy of the people, under the Republic.
How I, separated as I was, and had been for six months, from the rest of the world, by a decree emanating from the Inquisition, could be summoned by a foreign authority to appear before a military tribunal, was what I could not comprehend; and my theologian was still more astonished at it than I was. The captain added that he had the permission of the Cardinal-Vicar. "Let us go, in the name of the Lord," was my thought.
Padre Theiner accompanied me to the carriage, I got in, and two soldiers, armed with carbines, took their places by me, one on each side. The tribunal was held at the Ecclesiastical Academy in the Piazza Minerva, the great institution of the Dominicans, who were, as I have already stated, the founders of the Inquisition; and I have often reflected since upon the retributive justice of Providence, in appointing that very place for the sitting of the tribunal which was to break down the power of that villanous establishment, by setting one of its victims free, to disclose its iniquities to the world.
The Capitaine Rapporteur was alone; he put a few questions to me concerning Cernuschi; and said certain things to me, which I forbear to mention; as well as some other things of little import to any one but myself; for fear of causing trouble to parties still remaining in Rome, and consequently subjected to the treacheries and basenesses of a government at this present moment one of the most tyrannical, and at the same time the most degraded, in Europe. I was then remanded to the castle.
The next day, the 19th of January, Dr. Theiner again called upon me, and we recommenced our discussions with more animation than ever. Our subject was the bishopric of St. Peter at Rome, and the privilege of succession bequeathed by him to the pope; he intent on demonstrating, I on confuting it. Our arguments lasted till nearly dark, and no doubt would have lasted longer still, as we were neither of us inclined to cut the matter short, had they not been suddenly interrupted by the entrance of the gaoler, with the information that the two chasseurs were come again to take me to the Military Commission.
I held out my hand to my disputant. "Farewell!" said I to him, "farewell, Padre Theiner; offer my respects to the Cardinal-Vicar, and thank him from me for your visits; I assure you they have given me real pleasure. I hope we may both of us derive profit from them, and be confirmed by them, more and more, in the word of God."