remarked the Signor Antonio Querini, who was deeply interested in all
disputes between Church and State.

"But not before he had received strenuous training," responded the
grave, clear voice of the friar. "For five years he hath held office as
Auditor of the Apostolical Chamber, the style of which is written thus,
_'Universal Executor of censures and sentences recorded both in Rome and
abroad'_--a duty which he may be said to have discharged more faithfully
than any of his predecessors, as one cannot recall in any previous fifty
years as many thunderbolts and monitions as were launched during those
five years of his office!"

Some romance could but attach to the unswerving judicial attitude of a
friar who had friends in high favor at the Court of Rome--who had known
a Bellarmino and a Navarro, and yet pursued, unchanging, the calm tenor
of his critical way. It was rumored that Sixtus V had been known to
leave his coach to converse with him, and would have given him, at his
mere request, a cardinal's hat; that Urban VII, as cardinal and pope,
had been his devoted friend; that Cardinal Borromeo--the saintly San
Carlo--had wished to attach him to his cathedral; and many were the
instances reported when marks of special appreciation had been granted
him from Rome, in lieu of denunciations which those jealous of his rapid
advance had sought to bring upon him. Even the late Pope Clement had
expressed admiration for his learning, while it was, nevertheless, well
known that Fra Paolo's counsels to the Senate, in certain troubles
arising out of Clement's attitude at Ferrara, had brought him the
refusal of the bishoprics of Candia and Caorle; but, whatever the
occasion, he was invariably discreet and fearless.

However pungent the tone, the words of this man could no more be
attributed to personal bitterness than they might be influenced by
personal interest; and although the opinion which they indicated was a
surprise to some of the company, instinctively they felt the situation
to be graver than they had feared, and the evening's talk drifted as
wholly into the current of Church and State as if this ridotto were a
commission appointed by the Ten to prepare resolutions upon the
situation. And the list of grievances now reviewed, which had occupied
the Senate during the closing years of Clement's reign, was, in truth,
long. Vast differences of opinion concerning the Turks and the piratical
tribes who infested the shores of It