Hadrian the Seventh

minute, “The dogs, the dirty abject obscene dogs.” He spat suddenly; and carried the letters to the safe in the bedroom where He locked them up. He prohibited Himself from taking further note of them. He was conscious that this course was quite wrong. But there it was. He had a busy afternoon before Him; and He diligently read in His breviary to prepare for Himself a convenient frame of mind. Pursuing His policy of emphasizing the difference between the Church and the World, He had summoned the generals of religious orders. To each of these He wished to say some words of admonition, words which would remain in the memory, and be passed from mind to mind, from mystic to thyrsos-bearer, from general to postulant. He rather enjoyed the sticking of labels on people and things now, because He could do it to some purpose. On the other hand, He had a feeling that He only was touching surfaces. Still, here and there the surface might be soft and capable of receiving impression: or here and there might be a crevice or a gap which He could fill with a cartridge. Somehow, anyhow, His words and acts must be made to penetrate to the roots of things, to influence fundamentals.

At fifteen o’clock He mounted the small throne. One by one the generals passed into the Presence: heard apostolic words; and passed out again⁠—Servites, Premonstratensians, Augustinians, Cistercians, Carthusians, Oblates, Marists, Passionists, Carmelites, Dominicans. To the General of Trinitarians, He commended Africa; and ordained that twenty friars should preach as of old in the marketplaces of England, Canada, and Australasia, for African missions. To the General of the Order of Charity, He would not say anything at present concerning the condemned Forty Propositions: but He would say Love your enemies the Jesuits, and “turn not away thine eye from the needy and give none occasion to curse thee.” To the General of Benedictines, He gave command to keep his monks in their monasteries, and to prohibit them from appearing in the correspondence-columns of newspapers, either under their religious names or their renounced secular styles. He reminded the Minister-General of Capuchins of the second minister-general, the apostate Ochino, who had preferred worldly things and had preached polygamy; and also of the fact that playing fast and loose with worldly things continued to produce apostate Capuchins. To the Minister-General of Franciscans, He commended Asia; and ordained that fifty friars should preach as of old in the marketplaces of England, Canada, and Australasia, for Asiatic missions. Then He showed the grey scapular and cord which He was wearing next to His skin; and asked that the brotherhood should name Him to Blessed Brother Francis as a little brother who was not gay but sad, not lively but weary, and who had but little love. Hadrian, as Brother Serafino of the Third Order, kissed the Minister-General’s naked feet, and begged a blessing. Returning to the throne, the Supreme Pontiff imparted apostolic benediction. And Brother Peter Baptist went out into the noisy antechambers with his clean bright face all-glorious, and light in his serene blue eyes. The Prepositor-general of Jesuits entered with ostentation of the knowledge that, if Hadrian the Seventh was the English White Pope, he himself was the English Black Pope. He had that benevolently truculent manner which women deem adorable. As he made his obeisance, Hadrian noted a little lacquered snuffbox in his hand and a frightful bandanna oozing from the pocket of his cassock. His Holiness instantly carried war into the camp, by reminding Father St. Albans of the bulls of Urban VIII and Innocent X which prohibit snuff-taking on pain of excommunication.

“No doubt those bulls are obsolete: but Your Reverency will have the goodness to abstain from practising the filthy habit in Our Presence.”

The sallow General pocketed his snuffbox; and produced the stony mild smile which is used upon eccentricity. The Pope remarked that the Company of Jesus appeared to be in a verisimilar position to the Wesleyans, in that they had departed a very long way from the will and spirit of their founder. He used His slowly biting monotone, because He wished to save this General the trouble of misunderstanding Him. He said that, with the word “Borgia” and the word “Nero,” the word “Jesuit” perhaps was the eponym for all that was vilest in the world. That was very undesirable. Not that the good opinion of the world was desirable. Far from that. But Christians ought not to enjoy anything, not even an evil reputation, under false pretences. He wished to do something to rectify the erroneous opinion which the world had formed about the Company of Jesus, to straighten-out the tangle, correcting and directing; and, as men were wont to judge more by actions than by words, He did not propose to beat the air with vain expostulations, explanations, expositions of virtue, and so forth. It had been done a thousand times before. Historic calumnies had been refuted from pulpits and in pamphlets with unanswerable logic: but still the man-in-the-street said “Jesuit” when he meant “a foxy wolf.” The Pontiff was not going to try to persuade the world away from its nonsense. He wished the Company of Jesus to give the world a proximate occasion of persuading itself. Therefore, He proposed to the General, in private, a return to the observance of the good old rule and a cultivation of the saintly spirit of St. Iñigo Lopez de Recalde. He wished the Jesuits to reconsider their position, as it were: to surcease from the⁠—not always mortally sinful⁠—not always tangibly illegal⁠—but perhaps⁠—generally shady transactions⁠—

The General interrupted. He was prepared to bully.

Hadrian froze him with a glance of blazing supremacy. “Make no mistake,” the Pope said: “We are not intending Ourself to punish your Company, nor to degrade your Companions who so diligently degrade themselves, nor to confer fictitious and unmerited importance upon you by decrees of dissolution or suppression. We do not forget the badness of the