Cardinal Felix Bonpre sat alone in the largest and loneliest room of the large and lonely suite of rooms allotted to him in the Palazzo Sovrani,—alone at a massive writing table near the window, his head resting on one hand, and his whole figure expressive of the most profound dejection. In front of him an ancient silver crucifix gleamed in the flicker of the small wood fire which had been kindled in the wide cavernous chimney—and a black-bound copy of the Gospels lay open as if but lately consulted. The faded splendour of certain gold embroidered hangings on the walls added to the solemn and melancholy aspect of the apartment, and the figure of the venerable prelate seen in such darkening gloom and solitude, was the crowning completion of an expressive and pathetic picture of patient desolation. So might a martyr of the Inquisition have looked while the flames were getting ready to burn him for the love of the gentle Saviour; and something of the temper of such a possible predecessor was in the physically frail old man, who just now was concentrating all the energies of his mind on the consideration of a difficult question which is often asked by many hearts in secret, but is seldom voiced to the public ear;—"Christ or the Church? Which must I follow to be an honest man?"
Never had the good Cardinal been in such a strange predicament. Living away from the great centres of thought and action, he had followed a gentle and placid course of existence, almost unruffled, save by the outside murmurs of a growing public discontent which had reached him through the medium of current literature, and had given him cause to think uneasily of possible disaster for the religious world in the near future,—but he had never gone so far as to imagine that the Head of the Church would, while being perfectly conscious of existing threatening evils, deliberately turn his back to appeals for help,—shut his ears to the cry of the "lost sheep of the House of Israel", and even endeavour, with an impotence of indignation which was as pitiable as useless, to shake a rod of Twelfth-century menace over the advancement of the Twentieth!
"For the onward movement of Humanity is God's work," said the Cardinal, "And what are we—what is even the Church—when it does not move side by side in perfect and pure harmony with the order of Divine Law?"
And he was bitterly troubled in spirit. He had spent the whole morning at the Vatican, and the manner of his reception there had been so curiously divided between flattery and reproach that he had not known what to make of it. The Pope had been tetchy and querulous,—precisely in such a humour as one naturally expects so aged a man to be when contradicted on any matter, whether trivial or important. For with such advanced years the faculties are often as brittle as the bones, and the failing powers of the brain are often brought to bear with more concentration on inconsiderable trifles than on the large and important affairs of life. He had questioned the Cardinal closely concerning the miraculous cure performed at Rouen, and had become excessively angry when the honest prelate earnestly disclaimed all knowledge of it. He had then confronted him with Claude Cazeau, the secretary of the Archbishop of Rouen, and Cazeau had given a clear and concise account of the whole matter, stating that the child, Fabien Doucet, had been known in Rouen since his babyhood as a helpless cripple, and that after Cardinal Bonpre had prayed over him and laid hands on him, he had been miraculously cured, and was now to be seen running about the city as strong and straight as any other healthy child. And Bonpre listened patiently;—and to all that was said, merely reiterated that if the child WERE so cured, then it was by the special intervention of God, as he personally had done no more than pray for his restoration. But to his infinite amazement and distress he saw plainly that the Holy Father did not believe him. He saw that he was suspected of playing a trick,—a trick, which if he had admitted, would have been condoned, but which if he denied, would cause him to be looked upon with distrust by all the Vatican party. He saw that even the man Cazeau suspected him. And then,—when the public confession of the Abbe Vergniaud came under discussion,—the Pope had gathered together all the visible remains of physical force his attenuated frame could muster, and had hurled himself impotently against the wall of opposing fact with such frail fury as almost to suggest the celebrated simile of "a reed shaken with the wind". In vain had the Cardinal pleaded for Vergniaud's pardon; in vain had he urged that after all, the sinner had branded himself as such in the sight of all men; what further need to add the ban of the Church's excommunication against one who was known to be within touch of death? Would not Christ have said, "Go, and sin no more"? But this simple quotation from the Gospels seemed to enrage the representative of St. Peter more violently than before, and when Bonpre left the Holy Presence he knew well enough that he was, for no fault of his own, under the displeasure of the Vatican. How had it all come about? Nothing could have been simpler than his life and actions since he left his own Cathedral-town,—he had prayed for a sick child,—he had sympathised with a sorry sinner,—that was all. And such deeds as these were commanded by Christ. Yet—the Head of the Church for these same things viewed him with wrath and suspicion! Wearily he sat, turning over everything in his mind, and longing, with a weakness which he fully admitted to his own conscience, to leave Rome at once and return to his own home, there to die among his roses at peace. But he saw it would never do to leave Rome just yet. He was bound fast hand and foot. He was "suspect"! In his querulous fit the Pope had ordered Claude Cazeau to return to Rouen without delay, and there gather further evidence respecting the Cardinal's stay at the Hotel Poitiers, and if possible, to bring the little Fabien Doucet and his mother back to Rome with him. Pending the arrival of fresh proof, Bonpre, though he had received no actual command, knew he was expected to remain where he was. Weary and sick at heart, the venerable prelate sighed as he reviewed all the entangling perplexities, which had, so unconsciously to himself, become woven like a web about his innocent and harmless personality, and so absorbed was he in thought that he did not hear the door of his room open, and so was sot aware that his foundling Manuel had stood for some time silently watching him. Such love and compassion as were expressed in the boy's deep blue eyes could not however radiate long through any space without some sympathetic response,—and moved by instinctive emotion, Cardinal Felix looked up, and seeing his young companion smiled,—albeit the smile was a somewhat sad one.
"Where have you been, my child?" he asked gently, "I have missed you for some hours."
Manuel advanced a little, and stood between the pale afternoon light reflected through the window, and the warmer glow of the wood fire.
"I have been to the strangest place in all the world!" he answered,
"The strangest,—and surely one of the most wicked!"
The Cardinal raised himself in his chair, and bent an anxious wondering look upon the young speaker.
"One of the most wicked!" he echoed, "What place are you talking of?"
"St. Peter's!" answered Manuel, with a thrill of passion in his voice as he uttered the name, "St. Peter's,—the huge Theatre misnamed a Church! Oh, dear friend!—do not look at me thus! Surely you must feel that what I say is true? Surely you know that there is nothing of the loving God in that vast Cruelty of a place, where wealth and ostentation vie with intolerant officialism, bigotry and superstition!—where even the marble columns have been stolen from the temples of a sincerer Paganism, and still bear the names of Isis and Jupiter wrought in the truthful stone;—where theft, rapine and murder have helped to build the miscalled Christian fane! You cannot in your heart of hearts feel it to be the abode of Christ; your soul, bared to the sight of God, repudiates it as a Lie! Yes!"—For, startled and carried away by the boy's fervour, Cardinal Felix had risen, and now stood upright, making a feeble gesture with his hands, as though seeking to keep back the crushing weight of some too overwhelming conviction,—"Yes—you would silence me!—but you cannot!—I read your heart! You love God . . . and I—I love Him too! You would serve Him!—and I—I would obey Him! Ah, do not struggle with yourself, dear and noble friend! If you were thrice crowned a martyr and saint you could not see otherwise than clearly—you could not but accept Truth when Truth is manifested to you,—you could not swear falsely before God! Would the Christ not say now as He said so many centuries ago—'My House is called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves!' Is it not truly a den of thieves? What has the Man of Sorrows to do with all the evil splendour of St. Peter's?—its bronzes, its marbles, its colossal statues of dead gods, its glittering altars, its miserable dreary immensity, its flaring gilding and insolent vulgarity of cost! Oh, what a loneliness is that of Christ in this world! What a second Agony in Gethsemane!"