's hot genius and John di Vico's frigid
villany, your Holiness may live to envy, if not the quiet, at least the
revenue, of the Professor's chair."

"How, Cardinal!" said the Pope, hastily, and with an angry flush on his
pale brow. The Cardinal quietly proceeded.

"By these letters it seems that Montreal has written to all the
commanders of free lances throughout Italy, offering the highest pay
of a soldier to every man who will join his standard, combined with the
richest plunder of a brigand. He meditates great schemes then!--I know
the man!"

"Well,--and our course?"

"Is plain," said the Cardinal, loftily, and with an eye that flashed
with a soldier's fire. "Not a moment is to be lost! Thy son should at
once take the field. Up with the Banner of the Church!"

"But are we strong enough? our numbers are few. Zeal slackens! the piety
of the Baldwins is no more!"

"Your Holiness knows well," said the Cardinal, "that for the multitude
of men there are two watchwords of war--Liberty and Religion. If
Religion begins to fail, we must employ the profaner word. 'Up with the
Banner of the Church--and down with the tyrants!' We will proclaim equal
laws and free government; (In correcting the pages of this work, in the
year 1847...strange coincidences between the present policy of the Roman
Church and that by which in the 14th century it recovered both spiritual
and temporal power cannot fail to suggest themselves.) and, God willing,
our camp shall prosper better with those promises than the tents of
Montreal with the more vulgar shout of 'Pay and Rapine.'"

"Giles d'Albornoz," said the Pope, emphatically; and, warmed by the
spirit of the Cardinal, he dropped the wonted etiquette of phrase, "I
trust implicitly to you. Now the right hand of the Church--hereafter,
perhaps, its head. Too well I feel that the lot has fallen on a lowly
place. My successor must requite my deficiencies."

No changing hue, no brightening glance, betrayed to the searching eye of
the Pope whatever emotion these words had called up in the breast of the
ambitious Cardinal. He bowed his proud head humbly as he answered, "Pray
Heaven that Innocent VI. may long live to guide the Church to glory.
For Giles d'Albornoz, less priest than soldier, the din of the camp,
the breath of the war-steed, suggest the only aspirations which he
ever dares indulge. But has your Holiness imparted to your servant all
that--"

"Nay," interrupted Innocent, "I have yet i