r apply for anything. But my
cousin, Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo, is very obliging, and he lives in
intimacy with the Pope, his duties requiring his constant attendance on
him. So, if necessary, I will take you to see him, and he will no doubt
find a means of procuring you an interview, though his extreme prudence
keeps him perpetually afraid of compromising himself. However, it's
understood, you may rely on me in every respect."

"Ah! my dear sir," exclaimed Pierre, relieved and happy, "I heartily
accept your offer. You don't know what balm your words have brought me;
for ever since my arrival everybody has been discouraging me, and you are
the first to restore my strength by looking at things in the true French
way."

Then, lowering his voice, he told the _attache_ of his interview with
Cardinal Boccanera, of his conviction that the latter would not help him,
of the unfavourable information which had been given by Cardinal
Sanguinetti, and of the rivalry which he had divined between the two
prelates. Narcisse listened, smiling, and in his turn began to gossip
confidentially. The rivalry which Pierre had mentioned, the premature
contest for the tiara which Sanguinetti and Boccanera were waging,
impelled to it by a furious desire to become the next Pope, had for a
long time been revolutionising the black world. There was incredible
intricacy in the depths of the affair; none could exactly tell who was
pulling the strings, conducting the vast intrigue. As regards
generalities it was simply known that Boccanera represented
absolutism--the Church freed from all compromises with modern society,
and waiting in immobility for the Deity to triumph over Satan, for Rome
to be restored to the Holy Father, and for repentant Italy to perform
penance for its sacrilege; whereas Sanguinetti, extremely politic and
supple, was reported to harbour bold and novel ideas: permission to vote
to be granted to all true Catholics,* a majority to be gained by this
means in the Legislature; then, as a fatal corollary, the downfall of the
House of Savoy, and the proclamation of a kind of republican federation
of all the former petty States of Italy under the august protectorate of
the Pope. On the whole, the struggle was between these two antagonistic
elements--the first bent on upholding the Church by a rigorous
maintenance of the old traditions, and the other predicting the fall of
the Church if it did not follow the bent of the coming century. B