"And if I refused to exercise this mission of mercy?"
The Baron bowed gravely. "Your Holiness will not refuse," he said.
"But if I do--what then?"
"Then ... your Holiness.... I was about to say something."
"I am listening."
"The man we speak of is the bitterest enemy of the Church. Whatever his
hypocrisies, he is at once an atheist and a freemason, sworn to allow no
private interests or feelings, no bonds of patriotism or blood, to turn
him aside from his purpose, which is to overthrow Society and the
Church."
"Well?"
"He is also a bitter personal enemy of the Holy Father, and knows no
object so dear as that of tearing him from his place and shaking the
throne of St. Peter."
"Well, sir?"
"The police and the army of the Government are the only forces by which
the Holy Father can be protected, and without them the bad elements
which lurk in every community would break out, the Holy Father would be
driven from Rome, and his priests assaulted in the streets."
"But what will happen if I refuse to outrage the sanctity of an immortal
soul in spite of all this danger?"
"Your Holiness asks me what will happen if you refuse to obtain the
denunciation of a man whom your Holiness knows to be conspiring against
public order?"
"I do."
"What will happen will be ... your Holiness, I am speaking...."
"Go on."
"That, if the crime is committed and the King is killed, I, the Minister
of his Majesty, will be in a position to say--and to call upon this
friar to witness--that the Pope knew of it beforehand, and under the
most noble sentiments about the sanctity of an immortal soul gave a
supreme encouragement of regicide."
"And then, sir?"
"The world draws no nice distinctions, your Holiness, and the Vatican is
now at war with nearly all the powers and peoples of Europe. In the
presence of a monstrous crime against the most innocent and the most
highly placed, the world would say that what the Pope did not prevent
the Pope desired, what the Pope desired the Pope designed, and that the
Vicar of the Prince of Peace attempted to rebuild his temporal power by
means of the plots of conspirators and the daggers of assassins."
The sandals of the Capuchin were scraping the floor again, and once more
the Pope put up his hand.