epublic of the Consuls.
Don Gil was not a man to live long in the pleasant little Provencal
court; like a good archbishop of Toledo, he wore the coat-of-mail
underneath his tunic, and as there were no Moors to fight he wished to
strike at heretics instead. He went to Italy as the champion of the
Church; all the adventurers of Europe and the bandits of the country
formed his army. He killed and burnt in the country, entered and
sacked the towns, all in the name of the Sovereign Pontiff, so that
before long the exile of Avignon was again able to return and occupy
his throne in Rome. The Spanish cardinal after all these campaigns,
which gave half Italy to the Papacy, was as rich as any king, and he
founded the celebrated Spanish college in Bologna. The Pope, well
aware of his robberies and rapacity, asked him to give some sort of
accounts. The proud Don Gil presented him with a cart laden with keys
and bolts.

"These," said he proudly, "belong to the towns and castles I have
gained for the Papacy. These are my accounts."

The irresistible glamour that a powerful warrior throws over a man
physically feeble was strongly felt by Gabriel, and it was augmented
by the thought that so much bravery and haughtiness had been joined
in a servant of the Church. Why could not men like this arise now, in
these impious times, to give fresh strength to Catholicism?

In his strolls through the Cathedral Gabriel greatly admired the
screen before the high altar, a wonderful work of Villalpando, with
its foliage of old gold, and its black bars with silvery spots like
tin. These spots made the beggars and guides in the church declare
that all the screen was made of silver, but that the canons had had
it painted black so that it might not be plundered by Napoleon's
soldiers.

Behind it shone the majestic decorations of the high altar, splendid
with soft old gilding, and a whole host of figures under carved
canopies representing various scenes from the Passion. Behind the
altar and the screen the gilding seemed to spring spontaneously from
the white walls, marking with brilliant lights the divisions between
the stalls. Beneath highly-decorated pointed arches were the tombs of
the most ancient kings of Castille, and that of the Cardinal Mendoza.

Under the arches of the triforium an orchestra of Gothic angels with
stiff dalmatics and folded wings sang lauds, playing lutes and flutes,
and in the central parts of the pillars the statues of ho