hat do you think, eh, of the etiquette
which compels him to such loneliness? There you have a man who for
eighteen years has never had a guest at his table, who day by day sits
all alone in his grandeur! And as soon as ten o'clock strikes, after
saying the Rosary with his familiars, he shuts himself up in his room.
But, although he may go to bed, he sleeps very little; he is frequently
troubled by insomnia, and gets up and sends for a secretary to dictate
memoranda or letters to him. When any interesting matter requires his
attention he gives himself up to it heart and soul, never letting it
escape his thoughts. And his life, his health, lies in all this. His mind
is always busy; his will and strength must always be exerting themselves.
You may know that he long cultivated Latin verse with affection; and I
believe that in his days of struggle he had a passion for journalism,
inspired the articles of the newspapers he subsidised, and even dictated
some of them when his most cherished ideas were in question."

* The reader should remember that the period selected for this
narrative is the year 1894. Leo XIII was born in 1810.--Trans.

Silence fell. At every moment Narcisse craned his neck to see if the
little papal _cortege_ were not emerging from the Gallery of the
Tapestries to pass them on its way to the gardens. "You are perhaps
aware," he resumed, "that his Holiness is brought down on a low chair
which is small enough to pass through every doorway. It's quite a
journey, more than a mile, through the _loggie_, the _stanze_ of
Raffaelle, the painting and sculpture galleries, not to mention the
numerous staircases, before he reaches the gardens, where a pair-horse
carriage awaits him. It's quite fine this evening, so he will surely
come. We must have a little patience."

Whilst Narcisse was giving these particulars Pierre again sank into a
reverie and saw the whole extraordinary history pass before him. First
came the worldly, ostentatious popes of the Renascence, those who
resuscitated antiquity with so much passion and dreamt of draping the
Holy See with the purple of empire once more. There was Paul II, the
magnificent Venetian who built the Palazzo di Venezia; Sixtus IV, to whom
one owes the Sixtine Chapel; and Julius II and Leo X, who made Rome a
city of theatrical pomp, prodigious festivities, tournaments, ballets,
hunts, masquerades, and banquets. At that time the papacy had just
rediscovered Olympus amid