CHAPTER II

The Man in Black--The Emperor of Germany--Nepotism--Donna

Olympia--Omnipotence--Camillo Astalli--The Five Propositions.

In the evening I received another visit from the man in black. I had

been taking a stroll in the neighbourhood, and was sitting in the dingle

in rather a listless manner, scarcely knowing how to employ myself; his

coming, therefore, was by no means disagreeable to me. I produced the

hollands and glass from my tent, where Isopel Berners had requested me to

deposit them, and also some lump sugar, then taking the gotch I fetched

water from the spring, and, sitting down, begged the man in black to help

himself; he was not slow in complying with my desire, and prepared for

himself a glass of hollands and water with a lump of sugar in it. After

he had taken two or three sips with evident satisfaction, I, remembering

his chuckling exclamation of "Go to Rome for money," when he last left

the dingle, took the liberty, after a little conversation, of reminding

him of it, whereupon, with a he! he! he! he replied, "Your idea was not

quite so original as I supposed. After leaving you the other night, I

remembered having read of an Emperor of Germany who conceived the idea of

applying to Rome for money, and actually put it into practice.

"Urban the Eighth then occupied the papal chair, of the family of the

Barbarini, nicknamed the Mosche, or Flies, from the circumstance of bees

being their armorial bearing. The Emperor having exhausted all his money

in endeavouring to defend the church against Gustavus Adolphus, the great

King of Sweden, who was bent on its destruction, applied in his necessity

to the Pope for a loan of money. The Pope, however, and his relations,

whose cellars were at that time full of the money of the church, which

they had been plundering for years, refused to lend him a scudo;

whereupon a pasquinade picture was stuck up at Rome, representing the

church lying on a bed, gashed with dreadful wounds, and beset all over

with flies, which were sucking her, whilst the Emperor of Germany was

kneeling before her with a miserable face, requesting a little money

towards carrying on the war against the heretics, to which the poor

church was made to say: 'How can I assist you, O my champion, do you not

see that the flies have sucked me to the very bones?' Which story," said

he, "shows that the idea of going to Rome for money was not quite so

original as I imagined the other night, though utterly preposterous.

"This affair," said he, "occurred in what were called the days of

nepotism. Certain popes, who wished to make themselves in some degree

independent of the cardinals, surrounded themselves with their nephews

and the rest of their family, who sucked the church and Christendom as

much as they could, none doing so more effectually than the relations of

Urban the Eighth, at whose death, according to the book called the

'Nipotismo di Roma,' there were in the Barbarini family two hundred and

twenty-seven governments, abbeys and high dignities; and so much hard

cash in their possession, that threescore and ten mules were scarcely

sufficient to convey the plunder of one of them to Palestrina." He

added, however, that it was probable that Christendom fared better whilst

the popes were thus independent, as it was less sucked, whereas before

and after that period it was sucked by hundreds instead of tens, by the

cardinals and all their relations, instead of by the pope and his nephews

only.

Then, after drinking rather copiously of his hollands, he said that it

was certainly no bad idea of the popes to surround themselves with

nephews, on whom they bestowed great church dignities, as by so doing

they were tolerably safe from poison, whereas a pope, if abandoned to the

cardinals, might at any time be made away with by them, provided they

thought that he lived too long, or that he seemed disposed to do anything

which they disliked; adding, that Ganganelli would never have been

poisoned provided he had had nephews about him to take care of his life,

and to see that nothing unholy was put into his food, or a bustling

stirring brother's wife like Donna Olympia. He then with a he! he! he!

asked me if I had ever read the book called the "Nipotismo di Roma"; and

on my replying in the negative, he told me that it was a very curious and

entertaining book, which he occasionally looked at in an idle hour, and

proceeded to relate to me anecdotes out of the "Nipotismo di Roma," about

the successor of Urban, Innocent the Tenth, and Donna Olympia, showing

how fond he was of her, and how she cooked his food, and kept the

cardinals away from it, and how she and her creatures plundered

Christendom, with the sanction of the Pope, until Christendom, becoming

enraged, insisted that he should put her away, which he did for a time,

putting a nephew--one Camillo Astalli--in her place, in which, however,

he did not continue long; for the Pope, conceiving a pique against him,

banished him from his sight, and recalled Donna Olympia, who took care of

his food, and plundered Christendom until Pope Innocent died.

I said that I only wondered that between pope and cardinals the whole

system of Rome had not long fallen to the ground, and was told, in reply,

that its not having fallen was the strongest proof of its vital power,

and the absolute necessity for the existence of the system. That the

system, notwithstanding its occasional disorders, went on. Popes and

cardinals might prey upon its bowels, and sell its interests, but the

system survived. The cutting off of this or that member was not able to

cause Rome any vital loss; for, as soon as she lost a member, the loss

was supplied by her own inherent vitality; though her popes had been

poisoned by cardinals, and her cardinals by popes; and though priests

occasionally poisoned popes, cardinals, and each other, after all that

had been, and might be, she had still, and would ever have, her priests,

cardinals, and pope.

Finding the man in black so communicative and reasonable, I determined to

make the best of my opportunity, and learn from him all I could with

respect to the papal system, and told him that he would particularly

oblige me by telling me who the Pope of Rome was; and received for

answer, that he was an old man elected by a majority of cardinals to the

papal chair; who, immediately after his election, became omnipotent and

equal to God on earth. On my begging him not to talk such nonsense, and

asking him how a person could be omnipotent who could not always preserve

himself from poison, even when fenced round by nephews, or protected by a

bustling woman, he, after taking a long sip of hollands and water, told

me that I must not expect too much from omnipotence; for example, that as

it would be unreasonable to expect that One above could annihilate the

past--for instance, the Seven Years' War, or the French Revolution--though

any one who believed in Him would acknowledge Him to be omnipotent, so

would it be unreasonable for the faithful to expect that the Pope could

always guard himself from poison. Then, after looking at me for a moment

stedfastly, and taking another sip, he told me that popes had frequently

done impossibilities; for example, Innocent the Tenth had created a

nephew; for, not liking particularly any of his real nephews, he had

created the said Camillo Astalli his nephew; asking me, with a he! he!

"What but omnipotence could make a young man nephew to a person to whom

he was not in the slightest degree related?" On my observing that of

course no one believed that the young fellow was really the Pope's

nephew, though the Pope might have adopted him as such, the man in black

replied, "that the reality of the nephewship of Camillo Astalli had

hitherto never become a point of faith; let, however, the present pope,

or any other pope, proclaim that it is necessary to believe in the

reality of the nephewship of Camillo Astalli, and see whether the

faithful would not believe in it. Who can doubt that," he added, "seeing

that they believe in the reality of the five propositions of Jansenius?

The Jesuits, wishing to ruin the Jansenists, induced a pope to declare

that such and such damnable opinions, which they called five

propositions, were to be found in a book written by Jansen, though, in

reality, no such propositions were to be found there; whereupon the

existence of these propositions became forthwith a point of faith to the

faithful. Do you then think," he demanded, "that there is one of the

faithful who would not swallow, if called upon, the nephewship of Camillo

Astalli as easily as the five propositions of Jansenius?" "Surely,

then," said I, "the faithful must be a pretty pack of simpletons!"

Whereupon the man in black exclaimed, "What! a Protestant, and an

infringer of the rights of faith! Here's a fellow, who would feel

himself insulted if any one were to ask him how he could believe in the

miraculous conception, calling people simpletons who swallow the five

propositions of Jansenius, and are disposed, if called upon, to swallow

the reality of the nephewship of Camillo Astalli."

I was about to speak, when I was interrupted by the arrival of Belle.

After unharnessing her donkey, and adjusting her person a little, she

came and sat down by us. In the meantime I had helped my companion to

some more hollands and water, and had plunged with him into yet deeper

discourse.