Chapter XX: The Holy Father Ordains

Despite adverse omens, I omitted no precaution to improve my chances. I learned that the Bull against Luther was being cast in final shape by Cardinal Accolti after a contest with Cardinal Pucci, both jealous of their own skill as Latinists. The document might go to Leo at any moment for final action. I therefore at once despatched a messenger to the Pope’s hunting lodge, La Magliana (six miles up the Tiber) requesting an immediate audience. As a token of loyalty I sent also a manuscript of the Third Philippic of Demosthenes, which I had purchased at Genoa, and which contained at least five paragraphs lacking in the best copy in the Vatican. I was rewarded by a speedy reply that “His Holiness would graciously see me to-morrow at noon in the interval between the morning and afternoon hunting.”

In dealing with Leo, I at least understood my man. Any high moral appeal would be valueless, not because he was in any sense immoral or evil loving, but because he was essentially a temporal politician, despite a large admixture of the tastes of an æsthete. To make this clever, urbane, pleasure-loving son of Lorenzo the Magnificent comprehend the soul-searchings of Luther was a task beyond angels. Yet I believed Leo had his approachable side. “Let us then enjoy this Papacy, seeing that God has given it to us” had been his alleged remark when told of his election: and if only I could convince the very secular and ambitious prince that banning Luther was pouring oil on a truly great political flame, he might still be turned aside to conciliation. This seemed my only chance.

In the morning I let Andrea dress me with the informal elegance befitting an informal interview.

“And my own livery to-day, Eccellenza?” he asked.

“None at all,” I answered, and then even as his face lengthened and protests began, I cast a glance about to be sure my other valets were absent. “Andrea,” I continued, a hand on his shoulder, “you will have other work. Either your master returns to you to-night the happiest man in Italy, or he will return wholly defeated. Yet not defeated only: every Dominican will be crying, ‘To San Angelo with him.’ Nay, they may think it a case for Orlando the Moor.[9] For it is no light thing which I risk this day. You will have ready fast horses, a few trusty varlets, travel money, passports, everything needful for a swift journey, so that I may leave Rome most suddenly before the Monsignori can form too many schemes against me. You understand?”

“_Si, si_, Eccellenza!”

He bowed so low I could see his nose sticking betwixt his legs. I knew I needed to say nothing more to him. Leaving him therefore to care for all I had suggested, I took my way out to La Magliana.

It was a pleasant ride on the Via Campana, some six miles along the right bank of the Tiber. I found that I was not alone in seeking an audience with His Holiness. To my surprise I fell in with no less a personage than the Archbishop of Bari, the original cause of all my adventures. I eyed him awkwardly for a moment, but he veiled his biretta affably, and drew his palfrey beside mine whilst our men cantered behind.

“Believe me, illustrious conte,” he declared, “I have long since realized who was responsible for that little adventure three years ago--and--Santa Maria!--the prebend the Pope gave me then has more than paid for the shock to my feelings. Inasmuch as I understand you are no longer friendly with Forli, _certamente_ you are again my very good friend.”

So we chatted amiably and I was pleased indeed to learn that the game had been very abundant of late, for bad hunting meant that the Pope would be in most atrocious humor. “Indeed,” Bari assured me, “only ‘two cross-bows’ this season can bring in a cartload of game--stags and deer, as well as pheasants and hares. His Holiness will be delighted to grant us all kinds of favors, the more so as he will be glad of our company as a foil to the sombre fellow who went out to him earlier in the day.”

“Whom do you mean?”

“Why, Sylvestro Priario the Censor, to be sure. He carries the final draught of the Bull against Luther the Heretic.”

“But the Pope can only consent to that in the full consistory.”

“Of course. The formal consent then, but the informal consent, authorizing the notaries to have the document engrossed for the regular sealing and publishing--that can be given to-day; probably this noon before we depart. Ah! well--it was high time an end was made to the pestilent fellow. I presume you heard quite a little of him in Germany.”

I fear my answer was evasive, and my whole conversation from this point stupid and wandering. I was letting my thoughts stray far indeed from that venerable river road in the green Italian country. I was thinking how that noon Leo de’ Medici, in the intervals betwixt the hunting, was like to take that action which might affect the lives, thoughts, souls of generations yet unborn; might set cities flaming, armies marching; might array king against king, and nation against nation. And all the while up in the far dome of the sky the larks were singing, and the laughing, barefoot peasant maids went by, driving on their sheep and tossing their bright cloaks to catch the eyes of our ogling serving-men.

* * * * *

I allowed Bari to go first to the audience, and he soon came out smiling, informing me that His Holiness was in excellent humor, having run down a notably tall stag that morning. “He gave me the abbey for my cousin almost before the words got out of my mouth!” he reported. And so after brief interval, the scraping and bowing gentleman-usher conducted me in, and I was again before the Pope of Christendom.

The room was a gracefully decorated, airy apartment, as became a hunting lodge. Perfumed air from the gardens blew in at the large open windows. The frescoes on the wall were by Giulio Romano,--nymphs and sea-gods on azure waves, the postures a little free, but not really scandalous. A polite buzz was proceeding from a little group of monsignori and secular noblemen who were standing around, all in suitable hunting costume. Two or three handsome pages were moving to and fro around a small, linen-covered table. In a high armchair, his plate before him, eating heartily, sat Leo de’ Medici. The years had added to his corpulency and the heaviness of his features. He wore a gray Flemish jacket and high leather huntsmen’s boots; a Spanish sombrero and a boar spear lay on the taboret beside him. As he looked up, I fell on both knees dutifully, and the usher’s announcement sounded.

“His Excellency the Conte di Palaestro.”

I was considering whether to approach and kiss the Pope’s hunting boots, when His Holiness himself thrust back the armchair in rising. A broad smile overspread his face. “Welcome, Gualtiero!” I heard his deep voice saying, and he did me the singular honor of extending his ring to be kissed, instead of advancing a foot.

As I rose from my salute, he seized my hands warmly, and looked about the room with all the rapture of a lad greeting a long lost boon companion.

“So long! So very long! And at last you are back. How I have missed you. How often I have execrated Forli and Rocca for involving you in that affair. I had thought of summoning you back to Rome earlier, but I knew that you would come of yourself. I was very sure of it. What a fortunate day! A great stag this morning, and now Gualtiero di Palaestro to join in the hunt this afternoon. Surely I say a lucky day!”

“If I may wax poetical,” I replied, in my best Latin, releasing my hands and with another deep reverence, “the honor and fair fortune is entirely my own. Do I not see again Sol, the illuminer of the Earth, the terrestrial Apollo who sheds clear beams on mortal souls groping in their darkness, or if my metaphor be not too forced, do I not now reverence ‘Leo,’ who is no less the king of the kings of the world, than the four-footed ‘Leo’ is the king of beasts? I cry your Holiness’s judgment upon my figures of speech.”

“Excellent, Gualtiero, excellent,” cried the Pope, sinking back into the chair which the pages promptly thrust again beside the table. “Your three years in that barbarous North have not ruined your excellent Latinity. After all”--this between large mouthfuls of his favorite peacock sausages--“your Germans are not so desperate. Your Magister Johann Eck, now in Rome, can speak very fair Latin--though a somewhat greasy, unkempt creature himself. But why talk of Germany, Gualtiero, why of Germany? _Peste!_ What with the troubles I’ve been in touching the election of the Emperor (heaven grant he play me fair as to my getting Ferrara!) and this heretic friar, I get no sleep nights. I grow thin, Gualtiero; yes, thin, though my chamberlains will not have it so, and pretend my garments show I am stouter. But away with such trifles now. You have come on a noble hunting day. I’m sure Cardinal Cornaro will lend you one of his horses for the afternoon, if your steed isn’t suitable. And now while I eat you shall tell me how you have managed to pass three years away from Rome.”

Thus bidden, I narrated to the Pope what I truthfully could of my doings in the North without trenching upon the topic of Luther, or the affair of Ilsa, and making much of the problems connected with my Regenstein vassals. I was hopeful the matter of the Bulls against the heretic would not be laid before Leo ere evening, and as a favored guest at the hunt I promised myself a thousand opportunities of opening the ticklish subject during the afternoon, when of a sudden I was interrupted.

Into the gay, informal company, like a shadow, intruded the black gown of a sombre figure I knew overwell--Sylvestro Priario the Censor. In his hand was a paper packet. With a gesture to an usher he moved to the table and stood silent, like a gloomy pillar, until he caught the Pope’s eye; then proffered a silent genuflection and held out the document. Leo motioned for me to cease, and received the paper, beckoning simultaneously for writing materials.

“A moment, only a moment, Gualtiero. Then you may continue your fascinating adventures. You see how business pursues me even hither. I am obliged to authenticate briefs and the like even on hunt days. Was ever a pontiff so persecuted? Santa Maria--those saintly old Popes who fed the Colosseum panthers were better off! Well--give me the pen. Do I sign here?”

I felt the blood rush into my face. I knew my heart was beating wildly. I had at least expected a chance to present my problem fairly, and without too great prejudice. But the crisis was none of my making. I must do what I could. I took a step nearer the table. My eye met the dark eye of Priario, and instinctively we exchanged hostile glances.

“Your Holiness,” I said, “may I do a very bold and uncourtly thing? May I requite the marked graciousness you have just displayed to me by asking a most impertinent question,--may I know the nature of this paper presented by Monsignore Priario?”

The Pope looked up, surprised. One or two courtiers glanced at me curiously. I had indeed done something beyond all precedent.

“Why, indeed, Gualtiero, you strange fellow,” rejoined His Holiness; “this is the new Bull _Exsurge Domine_ against that firebrand Luther. I must sign it that it may be presented in full Consistory in a few days for ratification. Good heavens, man--why do you look at me thus strangely? Have you taken poison?”

I fell on my knees before the Pope’s chair. I did my best to control my voice.

“Hear me, your Holiness. What I ask is surprising and beyond all precedent, yet for the Pope’s own sake do I ask it. For many reasons I beg your Holiness not to assent to this Bull until I have been heard to the contrary. It was for this very boon that I begged for an audience.”

A kind of jar, of mental shock, seemed passing around the chamber. The Pope looked at me in such amazement it was manifest he did not understand all that I had said. Only the hollow hard tones of Priario broke the momentary silence.

“His Holiness can hardly delay the notaries longer. The bull has been drafted with the uttermost care, and delayed too much already. The Conte di Palaestro certainly cannot claim the right to intervene in a matter strictly of theology.”

The voice of the Censor broke the spell upon me. I rose. With _him_ I could bandy words.

“Well said, Monsignore,” I retorted, leaving Leo to recover his poise; “I intervene not in theology, but this is a matter of most mundane politics. Sorely disloyal were I to His Holiness, forgetful of all the favors showered by the Popes on the House of Palaestro, if I held my peace, when rash theologians prepare such temporal woe for the Holy See.”

“Rash theologians?” interposed Priario. “Does the Conte call them ‘rash’ and deny the case one of theology when this Luther is clearly convicted of forty-one damnable theological errors, and of seducing his countrymen to beliefs worthy of Moslem infidels?”

“I argue not for his opinions, pious Sir,” said I, standing haughtily, “though I have heard learned doctors commend them. I speak to His Holiness on other matters. Were Luther’s errors tenfold, still would I ask this hearing.”

“Blessed San Paolo!” ejaculated the pontiff, still gazing on me, bewildered; “are you returned just to set my court by the ears? You and the Censor eye each other like wolves.”

“I have nothing against Monsignori,” I responded respectfully, “but much against your Holiness’s ill-informed and precipitate councillors.”

“Precipitate?” cried the Pope. “Have we not deliberated informally and in Consistory until I am weary and ill? Your German Eck, and all the Italians--all with their jangling counsels? Do you think the drying up of my German revenues is so delightful that I would draw out the matter longer? Ask a new lordship for Palaestro; a chamberlainship at court; anything in reason. But no more of this accursed friar!”

“Your Holiness,” I let a little steel ring in my voice, “when the French were in the land, and Charles VIII thundered on to Rome, my Italian grandfather held our castle fast for St. Peter. My German father died at Ravenna fighting the Pope’s battle. My sword has ever been at your Holiness’s summons. Therefore I have a right to speak to the Pope in this high matter, despite the frowns of Monsignore Priario.”

Leo laid down his pen. “Proceed,” he commanded.

He twirled his thumbs and moved uneasily. Clearly he was not pleased at me, but I persisted.

“Your Holiness: you will graciously recall that through no volition of my own I was forced to return to my paternal estates in Germany. In Germany I was suffered to witness the very birth-pangs of this controversy that now vexes the Holy See. I beheld the doings of Tetzel, and if ever a robber clutched for money, he was that robber.” Next, briefly as I might, I told how Luther was drawn into the great debate, and how he had acted from the purest of motives, concluding, “then the storm spread. Luther is human. He has met attack with attack. Confronted with anathemas where he had expected comfort, what wonder he has denounced many things--even the Pope’s prerogative--when your Holiness, ignorant of the true situation, has been unable to silence the braying tongues of angry busybodies.”

“A word,” interposed the darkly frowning Priario; “let me ask the Conte this: even conceding, what is impossible, that Tetzel were indeed a most indiscreet, nay objectionable, man, if this friar were truly a devout son of the Church, would he not rather ‘cover the nakedness of his Mother’--as commends the Scripture, and endure in silence, than blazon abroad this great scandal to the undermining of faith and the confounding of the pious laity?”

“If your question needs an answer, Monsignore,” I rejoined with acidity, “you can know best whether St. Peter Damiani, Pope Gregory VII otherwise called Hildebrand, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux endured in silence the evils they saw rending the Church? Do Christians so ill then to venerate these saints?”

The Pope had been following me keenly. The thrust of my answer was not lost to him. His face lighted as Priario winced, and his tone was more friendly.

“A good arrow, Gualtiero. You always were clever in argument, although to hear _you_ wage war for this fellow makes me misdoubt my ears! But you said you had no theological reasons for me, but only worldly ones--how is that?”

“Your Holiness is good to correct me. I am not here to excuse Martin Luther. I am here to say this,--I have been in Germany now many months. I have met men and women of all ranks and conditions,--princes, nobles, burghers, peasants, as well as clergy and monks. Your Holiness has been ill-served by your agents and newsmongers. A spirit of hostility against the Holy See exists in Germany that I fear the Pope’s intimates have been too selfish courtiers to report to him truly.”

“Good God!” ejaculated Leo, flushing, “do you tell me I am so hated! Wherein have I oppressed the Germans, pray? I surely sent the ‘Golden Rose’ to the Elector of Saxony. Ungrateful fellow not to surrender Luther in return for it!”

“Your Holiness is not hated personally. I have heard you called ‘a lamb in the midst of wolves.’ But the hatred against the Holy See, against the system of Papal Revenues, the disposition of Church offices in Germany by the Pope’s intimates, against many other things connected with Rome, is blown up very fierce. I have heard many Germans assert it were time to cast off allegiance to Rome altogether and set up a national church for themselves.”

The Pope’s thick lips twitched, Priario’s face grew black as thunder, and he broke out with: “Santa Maria! That is schism, blasphemy, and heresy all in one. Do we live again in the days of Arius and Donatus?”

“These are not pleasant words, your Holiness, not the words of a servant craving your high favor,” I drove on desperately, “but the words of a servant who speaks sober truth. The whole land of Germany is ready to rise against the Church and the Holy See even as a hundred years ago Bohemia rose, only the blaze will be twenty-fold hotter, even as Germany is greater than Bohemia.”

“You exaggerate, Gualtiero,” replied Leo, trying strenuously, it seemed, to recover his easy poise, and appear calm. “I’m sure you exaggerate. It is true Miltitz and Caïetanus have written somewhat of a misguided feeling in this heretic’s favor, but nothing like to this. You are bewitched, Gualtiero. You always were a fellow of enthusiasms and fancies. A few days in the Trastevere with the pleasant donnas there will cool your brain and make you think better of yourself--”

I fear I cut the Pope short with an impatient gesture.

“I am aware, your Holiness,” I declared, “how little my past life gives weight to my present mission. Yet this one thing I entreat. Postpone signing this paper. Give me formal audience to-night. Hear me with that calm wise judgment which makes Leo de’ Medici honored and respected as wise, no less than holy, throughout the world. You will then see that I talk no folly when I urge, ‘delay, do not enkindle all Germany, which is ready to rise in behalf of this friar.’”

“Do you talk indeed seriously, Gualtiero,” said the Pope, looking at me shrewdly.

“By the soul of my father and mother I do.”

“I do not like it,” repeated Leo, “I do not like it. The fellow has had every consideration. I remember what Caïetanus wrote to Rome: ‘I will argue no more with that beast. Those eyes of his are too deep-set in his head, and his looks have too much meaning in them.’ He is clearly a heretic. If I spare him now, all Rome will laugh at me.”

“A less serious calamity, your Holiness,” I ventured, “than to anathematize him, and have the anathema end in empty thunder, amid a great German schism.”

Leo again knotted his fingers painfully. He was manifestly in sore doubt.

“Priario,” quoth he, after a pause, “what do you reply?”

The legalist’s slow jaws opened sententiously. “Holy Father, the Conte has argued of things impossible. Germany will not espouse the cause of this desperate friar. If Germany did, her fate would become a by-word and hissing through Christendom. As Vicar of Christ and responsible to God for the feeding of His sheep, your duty is plain. Let me cast it in a syllogism. _Prima_, the Church plainly teaches heretics must burn. _Secunda_, Luther is manifestly a heretic. _Conclusio_, Luther must burn! No other answer is possible.”

“Well, Gualtiero,” asked the Pope nervously, “what have you to say?”

“That Luther is not a heretic until the Pope formally declares him such, and there are many reasons why this should not be done.”

“Ah, if I had not to decide! If I had not to decide!” Leo’s hesitancy was painful to behold. The apartment was very still. Priario and I stood silent. Then all unwarned a clear, sweet blast from a huntsmen’s bugle pealed in at the casement. Long and silvery it rang,--the summons for the grooms to prepare the horses for the afternoon chase. As at an omen the Pope seized the pen. Even as the notes died I saw him signing the packet. He cast it from him with a sigh of relief.

“The hunt is waiting. I can dally no longer. Your arguments are impossible. _Fiat justitia!_ Let the heretic burn.”

Priario’s eyes shot flames of triumph, as he caught up the paper.

“ROME HAS SPOKEN!” he proclaimed so that all could hear him.

“Rome has spoken,” I answered him, a little hoarsely, “but mark you, Monsignore, Germany will speak to-morrow.”

* * * * *

That evening, just at sundown, I turned on my horse as my company rode up the Janiculum. By the church of San Pietro in Montorio we halted for a moment. Below me in the evening light I saw spread far the Holy and Eternal City, the domes and towers of the churches, the great mass of the Vatican, the tawny pile of the Colosseum, the innumerable palaces, the monuments of eld; behind all, the Latin hills and the deepening blue and gold of the Italian sky. My heart was stirred. I knew I was leaving Rome and Italy forever.

Unhappy Leo, generous prince, munificent art patron, lover of poetry, kindly master! How as secular king or Emperor would not thy name be praised!

And thou, O Italia! Italia! thou with thy hot bright beauty, beauty of sky and mountain and river, beauty of artist, of sculptor, of poet, thou land set to lead the world up to the God-like, thou to whom God hast given every grace, every talent! Over thee Christ must have wept as over Jerusalem, having promised to cherish thee “even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings,--and thou wouldest not.”

For thou, O! Italia, hast cast thy birthright away. Thou hast burned Savonarola, thou hast endured the infamies of the Borgia, thou hast humbled thy body to France and Spain, thy soul to the worldlings who know not Christ. Therefore thy crown passes to the North, and men perhaps shall come from far, to wander through thy storied cities, to gaze on thy eloquent pictures, and to return, journeying away from the pageant of thy fading past to their lands of the potent present....

“Ride on, Andrea,” I commanded; “We are going back to the Regenstein.”

FOOTNOTES:

[9] The Pope’s executioner.