n in black so communicative and reasonable, I determined to
make the best of my opportunity, and learn from him all I could with
respect to the papal system, and told him that he would particularly
oblige me by telling me who the Pope of Rome was; and received for
answer, that he was an old man elected by a majority of cardinals to the
papal chair; who, immediately after his election, became omnipotent and
equal to God on earth. On my begging him not to talk such nonsense, and
asking him how a person could be omnipotent who could not always preserve
himself from poison, even when fenced round by nephews, or protected by a
bustling woman, he, after taking a long sip of hollands and water, told
me that I must not expect too much from omnipotence; for example, that as
it would be unreasonable to expect that One above could annihilate the
past--for instance, the Seven Years' War, or the French Revolution--though
any one who believed in Him would acknowledge Him to be omnipotent, so
would it be unreasonable for the faithful to expect that the Pope could
always guard himself from poison. Then, after looking at me for a moment
steadfastly, and taking another sip, he told me that popes had frequently
done impossibilities; for example, Innocent the Tenth had created a
nephew: for, not liking particularly any of his real nephews, he had
created the said Camillo Astalli his nephew; asking me, with a he! he!
"What but omnipotence could make a young man nephew to a person to whom
he was not in the slightest degree related?" On my observing that of
course no one believed that the young fellow was really the pope's
nephew, though the pope might have adopted him as such, the man in black
replied, "that the reality of the nephewship of Camillo Astalli had
hitherto never become a point of faith; let, however, the present pope,
or any other pope, proclaim that it is necessary to believe in the
reality of the nephewship of Camillo Astalli, and see whether the
faithful would not believe in it. Who can doubt that," he added, "seeing
that they believe in the reality of the five propositions of Jansenius?
The Jesuits, wishing to ruin the Jansenists, induced a pope to declare
that such and such damnable opinions, which they called five
propositions, were to be found in a book written by Jansen, though in
reality no such propositions were to be found there; whereupon the
existence of these propositions became forthwith a point of faith to the