s greatest source of expense was his carriage, the
heavy pair-horse coach, which ceremonial usage compelled him to retain,
for a cardinal cannot go on foot through the streets of Rome. However,
his coachman, an old family servant, spared him the necessity of keeping
a groom by insisting on taking entire charge of the carriage and the two
black horses, which, like himself, had grown old in the service of the
Boccaneras. There were two footmen, father and son, the latter born in
the house. And the cook's wife assisted in the kitchen. However, yet
greater reductions had been made in the ante-rooms, where the staff, once
so brilliant and numerous, was now simply composed of two petty priests,
Don Vigilio, who was at once secretary, auditore, and majordomo, and Abbe
Paparelli, who acted as train-bearer, chaplain, and chief usher. There,
where a crowd of salaried people of all ranks had once moved to and fro,
filling the vast halls with bustle and colour, one now only beheld two
little black cassocks gliding noiselessly along, two unobtrusive shadows
flitting about amidst the deep gloom of the lifeless rooms.

* 1,200 pounds.

** 880 pounds.

And Pierre now fully understood the haughty unconcern of the Cardinal,
who suffered time to complete its work of destruction in that ancestral
mansion, to which he was powerless to restore the glorious life of former
times! Built for that shining life, for the sovereign display of a
sixteenth-century prince, it was now deserted and empty, crumbling about
the head of its last master, who had no servants left him to fill it, and
would not have known how to pay for the materials which repairs would
have necessitated. And so, since the modern world was hostile, since
religion was no longer sovereign, since men had changed, and one was
drifting into the unknown, amidst the hatred and indifference of new
generations, why not allow the old world to collapse in the stubborn,
motionless pride born of its ancient glory? Heroes alone died standing,
without relinquishing aught of their past, preserving the same faith
until their final gasp, beholding, with pain-fraught bravery and infinite
sadness, the slow last agony of their divinity. And the Cardinal's tall
figure, his pale, proud face, so full of sovereign despair and courage,
expressed that stubborn determination to perish beneath the ruins of the
old social edifice rather than change a single one of its stones.

Pierre was roused by a r