Hadrian the Seventh

gone mad in butchery. The information, which He had obtained from the French Cardinals, was not of a rather useful nature. Elements of emotional sentiment and archaic conventionalism rendered their opinions well nigh worthless. They were tolutiloquent in expressing horror at the impiety of mob-rule which had deprived them of the right to military salutes ordained by the Concordat. They made the blood boil by their heartrending descriptions of holocausts of priests and nuns⁠—earnest heroic enthusiasts absolutely incapable of doing anything really practical in the way of eradicating that demoniality of which they became the victims. Nothing would please Their Eminencies better than to hasten to their distracted native-land, to offer up themselves as martyrs to the devils of their dioceses. They were no cowards⁠—if desire to rush on death be bravery:⁠—but they were picturesque, and dithyrambic⁠—mainly picturesque, with their long hair and their rabats edged with white beads. That would not do as an essential. Out of the mellay of matter laid before Him, the Pontiff extracted certain points. France, qua France, no longer was Christian. The Devil was in power. Christians who were able to cross frontiers, did so. Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, received them. England, America, Japan, blockaded Toulon, Brest, Cherbourg. Their liners tapped the coasts; and carried thousands into freedom. Poverty afflicted the emigrants: those left behind were butchers, or subject to butchery. Dom Jaime de Bourbon having perished, the Pope sent for the Duke of Orleans;⁠—and dismissed him with austere disgust. He subsequently withered away. His Holiness gave audience to a score of the French nobility; and spent some days picking the brains of emigrants fortuitously collected. Then, He again convened the French cardinals, and declared the pontifical will. They all were deposed from their episcopal sees, and nominated Apostolic Missionaries. Their charge was the cure, first of the bodies, second of the souls, of Frenchmen everywhere. The Cardinal-Missionary of Paris would go to London with the Cardinal-Archbishop of Pimlico, having powers to draw one million sterling from the pontifical treasure in the Bank of England: which sum, in halves, was to be the nucleus of two funds, an English and a German, for French Christians in their need. Each cardinal-missionary also received a breve authorizing him, and persons delegated by him, to collect money in every Christian country for the said funds. It was not to be a clerical charity. The Lord Mayor of London and the German Emperor were willing to administer it, each independently. Further Their Eminencies were to use their own discretion about adventuring themselves in the diabolical dominion. If they best could serve God there, then in God’s Name, and with God’s Vicegerent’s benediction, let them go: but they most straitly were bidden to keep one only object before them, viz. the service of God through the relief and comfort of His servants. Nothing was to prevent them in that.

The world began to concentrate the corner of its eye on Hadrian. Holland and Belgium fell into the arms of anarchical France. The vigorous bold brilliant young Sultan Ismail, having failed to win Morocco to his Pan-Islamic scheme, was intriguing for an alliance with the other great Muhammedan power, England. His Majesty’s murdered predecessor, by the aid of Germany, had formed an army of a million and a half, full of fanatical valour and the wonderful natural adaptability of the Turk, the rawest recruit of which had a greater fighting-value than was possessed by the conscripts of any other nation. This force was available for active service at fifteen minutes’ notice. The Turkish alliance was worth anyone’s while; and was coveted. Germany had trained the Ottoman squadrons: but was not to profit thereby. Teutonic stolidity had been outwitted by the wily Oriental. Islam could only and only would mate with Islam⁠—as might have been foreseen. The rest of the continent of Europe ringed frontiers under arms. Each nation feared the other; and all feared France and Russia.

Hadrian watched the diplomatic processes with interest. He knew that England was quite capable of taking care of Herself, with or without the Mussulman. He grasped the theory that Muhammedanism, arising six hundred years after Christ, justified the Wisdom of God in Judaism, proving that the Oriental mind could bear nothing more perfect; and He conceived a sort of sympathy with Islam. His conversations with ambassadors became known in courts, (the King of Prussia’s legate wrote amazing things to the German Emperor:) from courts, descriptions of opinions, tastes, habits, descended until they were discussed in clubs and miscellaneous congeries. Hadrian’s custom of walking about unattended, looking-at the excavations in the Forum, visiting the sick in hospitals, sensuously delighting Himself with the glories of sunset seen from the Pincian Hill, were the themes of common conversation. And when, one evening, He got-in a left hander (from the shoulder) on a socialist, who spat at Him in Borgo Nuovo; and then, (on the filthy beast’s bursting into tears and collapsing with the effects of the blow upon semi-starvation), pressing upon him His pectoral cross and chain, His gold spectacles, and all the coins left in His pocket after a couple of hours in Rome⁠—then the English race began to find the Pope observable; and English newspapers started columns called “Rome Day by Day.” How the special correspondents spread themselves! She of the Pall Mall Gazette got the usual exclusive information of the Borgo Nuovo affair; and split nine infinitives in describing the myopic Pontiff narrowing His eyes to slits, groping His way along the colonnades with His fainting assailant; His passionate denunciation of the farce of organized charity, which had let a man become so degraded; His agitation until Cardinal Carvale came running with His spare pair of spectacles; His strangely pathetic thankfulness for the gift of sight which they afforded; His anguish at the defilement of His garment; and His tender invitation to the starving socialist to be His guest in Vatican. All this suited the English temper to a T⁠—being English. But there was