taking his companion by the arm and forcing him to look into a
transversal allee through the copse, "there he is, the doctor who holds
the remedy for that malady of the soul as for all the others. Do not show
yourself. They will have forgotten our presence. But, look, look! ....Ah,
what a meeting!"

The personage who appeared suddenly in that melancholy, deserted garden,
and in a manner almost supernatural, so much did his presence form a
living commentary to the discourse of the impassioned nobleman, was no
other than the Holy Father himself, on the point of entering his carriage
for his usual drive. Dorsenne, who only knew Leo XIII from his portraits,
saw an old man, bent, bowed, whose white cassock gleamed beneath the red
mantle, and who leaned on one side upon a prelate of his court, on the
other upon one of his officers. In drawing back, as Montfanon had
advised, in order not to bring a reprimand upon the keepers, he could
study at his leisure the delicate face of the Sovereign Pontiff, who
paused at a bed of roses to converse familiarly with a kneeling gardener.
He saw the infinitely indulgent smile of that spirituelle mouth. He saw
the light of those eyes which seemed to justify by their brightness the
'lumen in coelo' applied to the successor of Pie IX by a celebrated
prophecy. He saw the venerable hand, that white, transparent hand, which
was raised to give the solemn benediction with so much majesty, turn
toward a fine yellow rose, and the fingers bend the flower without
plucking it, as if not to harm the frail creation of God. The old Pope
for a second inhaled its perfume and then resumed his walk toward the
carriage, vaguely to be seen between the trunks of the green oaks. The
black horses set off at a trot, and Dorsenne, turning again toward
Montfanon, perceived large tears upon the lashes of the former zouave,
who, forgetting the rest of their conversation, said, with a sigh: "And
that is the only pleasure allowed him, who is, however, the successor of
the first apostle, to inhale his flowers and drive in a carriage as
rapidly as his horses can go! They have procured four paltry kilometers
of road at the foot of the terrace where we were half an hour since. And
he goes on, he goes on, thus deluding himself with regard to the vast
space which is forbidden him. I have seen many tragical sights in my
life. I have been to the war, and I have spent one entire night wounded
on a battlefield covered with snow, am