fficially certify. How feverishly he must wait, how impatiently he must
desire the advent of the hour, when with his little silver hammer he
would deal the three symbolic taps on the skull of Leo XIII, while the
latter lay cold and rigid on his bed surrounded by his pontifical Court.
Ah! to strike that wall of the brain, to make sure that nothing more
would answer from within, that nothing beyond night and silence was left
there. And the three calls would ring out: "Gioachino! Gioachino!
Gioachino!" And, the corpse making no answer, the _Camerlingo_ after
waiting for a few seconds would turn and say: "The Pope is dead!"

"Conciliation, however, is the weapon of the times," remarked Pierre,
wishing to bring the Cardinal back to the present, "and it is in order to
make sure of conquering that the Holy Father yields in matters of form."

"He will not conquer, he will be conquered," cried Boccanera. "Never has
the Church been victorious save in stubbornly clinging to its
integrality, the immutable eternity of its divine essence. And it would
for a certainty fall on the day when it should allow a single stone of
its edifice to be touched. Remember the terrible period through which it
passed at the time of the Council of Trent. The Reformation had just
deeply shaken it, laxity of discipline and morals was everywhere
increasing, there was a rising tide of novelties, ideas suggested by the
spirit of evil, unhealthy projects born of the pride of man, running riot
in full license. And at the Council itself many members were disturbed,
poisoned, ready to vote for the wildest changes, a fresh schism added to
all the others. Well, if Catholicism was saved at that critical period,
under the threat of such great danger, it was because the majority,
enlightened by God, maintained the old edifice intact, it was because
with divinely inspired obstinacy it kept itself within the narrow limits
of dogma, it was because it made no concession, none, whether in
substance or in form! Nowadays the situation is certainly not worse than
it was at the time of the Council of Trent. Let us suppose it to be much
the same, and tell me if it is not nobler, braver, and safer for the
Church to show the courage which she showed before and declare aloud what
she is, what she has been, and what she will be. There is no salvation
for her otherwise than in her complete, indisputable sovereignty; and
since she has always conquered by non-surrender, all attempts